These days, much has been said about bringing love, awareness and compassion into leadership in the workplace. I like to think it works the other way, too: many of the leadership skills we hone at work are also effective in personal relationships.

Whether you think about it this way or not, you are leading in your personal relationships all the time. When, as parents, you create the rules of the house and enforce them; when as an older sibling you teach a younger one a new skill; when in relationships you bring your vulnerability and or in romantic partnership you initiate sex — these are all, albeit usually unconscious, forms of leadership.

Why, if we are already doing it all the time anyway, is it important and useful to think about leadership in the context of relationship? Because bringing conscious leadership roles into your relationships can be a creative and fantastic way to increase intimacy, reduce unnecessary drama and conflict, and help you take things less personally. This, in turn will reduce the type of sensitivity that keeps you ensnared and increase the type of sensitivity that will serve your loving. How?

Traditional “Leadership” in Love

Let’s say you begin to realize that you are the one in a romantic partnership who mostly initiates sex; you are in the role of initiator. And it’s starting to bother you: You want more balance. Normal and healthy advice would suggest that you talk with your partner about this. Witnessing the issue and bringing up the conversation in and of itself is a form of leadership. You would be taking a stand for the sexual life of the relationship, even though it may make waves.

And, unless you are with a very evolved person who takes in what you say, digests it, and starts initiating, this conversation will likely make waves. Even if you bring it up gently, your partner may feel attacked and try to prove that he or she initiates, too. “Remember that time in Jamaica?” Then you can both avoid the issue by going back and forth about who’s right. Or, your partner may like it that way and say, “I’m sorry, I am just not an initiator –tough!” And leave you alone in your desire for change and feeling powerless in having to make peace with it. Or, your partner may feel “caught” in his or her avoidance behavior and fall into a big pile of shame, leaving you feeling burdened and regretful about having brought the whole thing up.

Hopefully, all this conflict will ultimately lead to the outcome you desire. But what if it doesn’t? And what if you could circumvent some of the potential antagonism with a leadership strategy?

Roles and The CSO Example

We all play many roles, but most of the time we don’t define them clearly. We flow from parent to friend to partner without really experiencing the different parameters of each one. Many roles are in a default setting — we slip into them on autopilot. Have you ever witnessed a grown person regress instantaneously upon seeing their parents? That’s an example of a default role taking over.

When we make roles conscious, we can access our personal power to play our best self through them. Going back to our current example, what if you and your partner, instead of hashing out and through the sexual dynamics in the relationship, decided together to formalize your tendency to initiate into a leadership role, and you both agreed to nominate you as the Chief Sexual Officer* (CSO) of your partnership, in which you are “in charge” of the sex? You may be thinking a) this sounds titillating albeit a bit crazy, and b) why would I do this if that very behavior is what’s frustrating me in the first place?

Taking ownership of default roles by formalizing them with your partner is one way to free you from the power struggles that always entice lovers out of loving. You are not trying to change the nature of things. You are simply accepting what is natural and working with it. More importantly, good leaders know that delegating is an essential part of effective leadership. So in your agreed upon role as CSO, during a spell or event when you know you will not be up to the task, you can delegate the initiating for a time.

Delegate sex? You may be thinking, “That is so uninspired, so unromantic!” I say, to the contrary, it is a time to be creative in your leadership. What about wrapping your beloved in your arms and sensuously whispering: “Hon, I know how hot you are going to look all dressed up on Saturday night. But with meetings all day leading up to the gala, I don’t know if I’m gonna be up to ravishing you properly afterwards. You might have to seduce me if you’re in the mood.”

This is only one somewhat spicy example in a sea of relationship opportunities to formalize leadership. I am definitely the the Chief Kitchen Officer (CKO) of my relationship. My honey doesn’t have the time or yen for food preparation, but I make sure he has the time to do the dishes after (and knows where to put them). Fighting about money? Appoint one partner as the CFO of the relationship. When one partner is in charge of overall care and decision making about finances, it doesn’t mean that the other partner doesn’t know what’s happening financially or doesn’t have a say in how the money is spent. Like a good CFO in a company, the partner in that role must share relevant information, listen to the needs of the partnership and negotiate decisions about how to allocate funds based on shared values.

When you clarify your roles in relationship and bring consciousness to the leadership in them, something sacred happens. All the energy dedicated to jockeying for power and position gets contained in conscious roles, and frees you up to really focus on loving and on things you love to do together. In addition, you must contend with the victim inside, instead of simply being flattened by it or letting the relationship be ruled by it. If you nominate your partner to be the Chief of something, you can’t act like a child when he or she takes a stand. You have put them in that role — now you get to negotiate like an equal. It demands that you not only step into your own authority, as in “authorship” of your life, but you also have a heightened and renewed sense of purpose and direction as a co-leader of a team.

Finally, all relationships can benefit from participants taking what happens in them less personally, and leadership roles are useful in this regard. Every efficient leader must come to that moment when he or she realizes that they will not always be liked or supported in making a choice they know is the right one to make for the team. As the CSO, it is within your right to delegate. And when you do, if your partner doesn’t like to initiate, he or she will simply have to figure it out and step up if they are in the mood.

This kind of structuring takes some effort and agreement as a team. But if it intrigues you, you can access the Leadership in Relationship Series for more articles and tips. And be sure to contact me with questions and on ways I can assist you in leading in your love relationships!

*Playful titles recommended but not required

for information on classes for couples to learn co-leadership skills, click here

The post Role, Role, Role in the Hay appeared first on Blair Glaser.

I’m sick of it.

Some even find all this “Lean In” talk exhausting.

But in this fourth post in the Leadership in Relationship Series, I am going to turn it all on its head by discussing Leaning In as a leadership skill not of career development, but of intimacy, through the story of (pseudonym alert!) Amber and her boyfriend. And in keeping with the trajectory of the series, I will highlight the moments of active leadership between them as the story progresses.

Amber is a high minded entrepreneur. She has big ideas and the connections and expertise to put them into place. She loves her job.

She also has an amazing boyfriend. He thinks the world of her and how she is trying to impact the world with her vision. They moved in together into an apartment with an office space for her.

Pretty soon after that, Amber reported having a negative reaction every time he would walk in the door after work. She felt as though he would come barraging into the space, expecting something from her. She was still in work mode, and this wasn’t working for her. They talked it through and established new ways for them to make the coming home transition easier for them both: he would say “Hi,” but give her 15 minutes before seeking attention. Leadership actions: Defining the problem as a systems issue, creating a new structure for better functionality.

It worked . . . for a few weeks. Even though she loved this man deeply, Amber still cringed upon his return. It seemed crazy. What was going on here? There was still a deeper question for this couple emerging. Perhaps, we explored, it was how he was approaching her. Lo and behold, she felt as though he wanted the type of comfort that made her feel maternal, a role which she found unsexy and cumbersome. She wanted none of it. They talked it through.

He stood his ground, and in an astounding display of stereotypical gender role reversal, stated that he simply wanted to reconnect, cuddle and be close after a hard day’s work. Leadership actions: Clarifying roles and needs, and negotiating them.

Amber knew his requests were not unreasonable. After first looking at the systems in place and then the roles, we concluded that the issue was hers.

This was where she got stuck. We looked to her psychological history and found a few enlightening connections, but none proved transformational. She stayed cool and distant long enough so that he threatened to leave in search of a more reciprocal relationship. He was understandably sick of feeling rejected and having his needs neglected. Leadership action (for him): moving in a different direction.

At this point there was only one thing for Amber to do if she wanted to keep him in her life, which she really, really did:

Lean in.

Lean into the discomfort of comforting him.

Lean in to the discomfort of connecting even though she didn’t feel like it.

Now for those of you who don’t want to do anything when you don’t feel like it because you think it’s inauthentic, I would direct you, as I did Amber, to the authenticity in wanting to take care of the relationship. Amber understood that in going against her immediate feelings, she was serving the call of the heart and being authentic to her values. And ultimately, keeping him in the game.

At first, when she opened herself to connecting with him on workday evenings, she would have a major tantrum inside, but she reminded herself of life without him, and breathed through it. He was very responsive to her affection. And quickly, magically, it became easier, and then natural to connect with him at the day’s end. Predictably, he appeared less needy to her, because his needs were being met. She had mastered “Leaning In” to intimacy.

If the actions of leaning in, identifying relationship problems as solvable systems issues, clarifying roles and negotiating in a healthy way in order to make your relationship great are interesting and appealing, or you would like to learn how to co-lead in love, check out my BRAND NEW Lovers and Leaders Course for couples .

By addressing relationship issues in terms of vision, roles and systems, and by having a partner who is interested and able to negotiate, couples can learn to co-create a working dynamic, and get closer in the process of doing it.

What aspect of your relationship could you simply lean into?

Note: The next article on Avoiding Fights and Fighting Fair will be broadcast to subscribers only.

The post A Different Kind of Leaning In appeared first on Blair Glaser.

I. Although it was a special Valentine’s Day dinner, in a very pricey restaurant, we could hear the conversation of the couple next to us all too well. They weren’t loud. We were quiet.

Silent.

You know how that sometimes is. You just can’t get it up to play the “romantic dinner” scene. There’s too much pressure to feel connected, for the food to be amazing, for it to be perfect.

The famously overused question “What’s the matter?” never worked in that relationship, so I dared not ask it. It was always followed by the all too common answer, “Nothing.”

So we sat. Then, amazingly, he spoke up.

“What could we do that would make this dinner REALLY memorable?

His inquiry perked things up and jolted us out of the stalemate.

“Let’s ask the waitress,” I playfully suggested, as she was imminently approaching.

“Can I get you something to drink?”

“Um, what would you suggest for a couple that’s out of things to talk about, overworked and mildly irritated for no apparent reason?”

The three of us played well together. And when she left, the two of us began plotting to take over all romantic holidays and make them extinct. It was a meal to remember for many reasons.

Lead by inquiry. The guy asked the right question, with the right tone, at the perfect time. You can lead your relationship from one place to another through inquiry. It’s an art. Learn it, and you’ve got a good chance of relationship success.

II. Adam, after years of being the stay at home partner, got so involved in a volunteer school board project that they ended up hiring him, paying for skills he didn’t previously know he had. He was alive and on fire.

Although Charlie, Adam’s partner of 10 years, supported Adam, he was also jealous. The enthusiasm that Adam displayed reminded him of how unhappy he was at his well-paying job. Adam noticed Charlie was being distant and dismissive. He couldn’t understand his beloved partner’s lack of engagement. After a couple of fights, Charlie realized he didn’t want to take his dissatisfaction out on Adam. He wanted to search for more meaningful work. He found an amazing job that lit him up, too.

Lead by Example: By following his heart and diving into work, Adam paved the way for Charlie’s expansion. Leading by Example is a less verbal type of leadership, good for those who are “talking averse”. It is a type of leadership that happens naturally, but it can also be an effective strategy when you keep saying you want to change something as a couple (e.g. eating healthier).

III.“He’s so crabby all the time! We just sit there like lumps, watching the TV.”

“What would you like to be doing?” I asked.

Amy listed a number of things. Most of them were very active.

“So do them,” I suggested.

“But,” Amy pleaded, “then we wouldn’t be together!”

She was in a quandary. “Invite him along.”

So Amy signed up for a hiking group. Ed liked hiking. But he wanted to watch the games the first times she went. The third time, however, he surprised her by saying yes. She was thrilled.

Lead by Moving in a Different Direction Amy engaged in another powerful form of leadership in relationship, by changing gears. Like leading by example, moving in a different direction and changing things up can be facilitated with no discussion!

IV. Jason was listening to Molly. She was distraught about an interaction she had with her sister. She went round and round, playing it over, seeking relief. He knew that he was not allowed to “fix it,” but that’s all he wanted to do. Listening to his beloved wife in a seemingly illogical tailspin made him feel helpless and was frankly a little maddening.

He wanted to do something to ease her pain. And then he remembered: “She just wants to be understood.” He woke up and saw Molly. He recognized what had upset her.

“Sounds like you really felt ignored. That stings.”

“Yes!” She said. “I felt really ignored. And I hate that!” Jason, Molly’s husband of 10 years, actually knew that about her. Now that Molly felt understood, something lifted. She stopped cycling the story. They felt close.

Lead by listening and Reflecting back. Listening is a great relationship skill, but the leadership part of listening comes in the reflecting back. This reflection is not an analysis. It is simply a mirror; your understanding of what is being said  – explicitly or not.

Do you resonate? How do you lead in relationship? This is the third post in the Leadership in Relationship Series. Not all posts will be broadcast on social media, so if you liked this one, sign up to get the muse-letter delivered directly to you.

The post 4 Ways to Lead in Relationship appeared first on Blair Glaser.

Follow your heart.

Everyone says it. It’s an inspiring, freeing idea; rife with opening and possibility.

I’m here to tell you, it’s not always the best part of you to follow.

I Had My Heart Set

I often like to say I finally became an adult, in a cultural fashion, when I decided to purchase a home.

I grew up living in rental apartments in New York City. I knew nothing about houses, or homeownership. After looking at just five houses, I fell in love with one.

This quaint house had two wooded acres. A big deck. A pool. Big windows and lots of light. Stairs!

The price was right.

My heart saw pictures of my happy life here: The dog running around, safe from cars; intimate gatherings with dear friends, the mud room filled with a variety of boots.  It could smell different seasons. It said. “Let’s go!”

But I had hired an angel of an inspector who saw beyond my fantasies into a situation I had not yet learned to spot: A predatory real-estate agent and a moldy house with lots of holes, literally.

She pulled me aside, looked me squarely in the eye and said:

“You do not have to buy this house.”

If I didn’t, the other couple, who supposedly also put a bid on it, would. And I would miss out.

After explaining a few structural terms and options to me, and then graciously suggesting I purchase a book called “Not One Dollar More”, the inspector concluded by saying,

“There will be others.”

My heart balked. ”Noooo!!!! This is the one!!!!”

I didn’t want to listen to her. My heart had spoken.

Leading in Creating Partnership

When entering a relationship of any sort, be it romantic, business, or friendship, listening to your heart is paramount.

But the heart itself is not always a trustworthy leader. It simply is. It likes what it likes. It loves things that are good for it, it loves things that are bad for it. It’s up to us to discriminate, to steer the ship that rides on heart’s waves.

Otherwise, it can lead you into consequences that you may want to avoid.

Consequences you may have even lived through once or twice already.

Consequences like giving your heart to those who ignore, disrespect or abuse you; doing too many things you love at once and suffering burnout; following a whim and going into debt, or keeping an ineffective employee on board.

Bringing leadership into creating relationship has many aspects, one of which requires that you carry your heart’s passion alongside other parts of you. Parts of you that reflect, assess, protect and contain. It means that you ask yourself important questions and listen for the answers. Questions such as:

What do I want out of a business or romantic partnership? How do I want to feel in this relationship?  What is the purpose(s)? What are my non-negotiatbles?

Then you wait, gather information through action and experience, and form your answers — which inform your actions.

The heart is not good at waiting, or leaving.

Your heart may want to stay connected to another, or something like a house, no matter the circumstances.

Regarding the house — luckily for me, past experiences of regret allowed me to summon the strength to listen to this one persistent and party-pooping voice:  There is Too Much Time and Money Involved to not listen to the inspector.

I later learned about what a mess it protected me from stepping into. So I lost a little money. I now knew that I wanted to have the same feelings about a house, but with better circumstances to fit the rest of my life. That took another 13 months and visits to more than 80 houses.

For myself and for many people, the simple leadership shift of softening the heart’s grip and moving on seems impossible, especially when it comes to relationships.

“Fools rush in where wise men fear to tread”. You become a real wise man by treading around like a fool, and then learning from it.  Don’t abandon your heart by letting it lead all the time.

Are you in a relationship but feel stuck? The next post will be about leading in relationship through creating a shared vision.

The post When The Heart is a Fickle Leader appeared first on Blair Glaser.

Today the events of the Boston Marathon have finally caught up with me.

I’ve been avoiding it.

Well, not completely. I did manage to take this shot of the near completed Freedom Tower on my weekly trip to NYC from upstate New York, a city that I love, a city that I work in and where I grew up.

Every week I see this tower and I think three things in succession:

1) I miss the Twin Towers.

2) There are people who lost people in those towers that miss them every day.

2) Wow, we really are moving on.

Every time I see that tower I think of what was there, what we went through, and that it is over.

When things are devastated, it is a time of shock, chaos and grief.

Breaking.

And then, the Phoenix rises. Without fail.

Resurrection.

Looking forward to seeing what rises up in Boston.

Click here to read more about why it often takes a tragedy to remind us of humanity.

The post From NY to Boston, With Love appeared first on Blair Glaser.

I decided to kick off the Leadership in Relationship blog series by having some fun with a well-known topic to most of us in relationship: fighting.

If you’re in a partnership, romantic or business, at some point in time you are going to disagree. Conflict is unavoidable. And some people, maybe even you, make a habit of it. In fact, you would be surprised at how many people seem to enjoy chronic antagonism.

Fighting in a loop de loop is a treacherous sport.

5 Easy Steps to Have the Same Fight Over and Over

1. Pay close attention to the content: Who said what, when, where, why and how they said it must be of utmost importance. Listen carefully to the words your sparring partner is using and leverage their misrepresentations to defend yourself and fight back with more words. Scour the details and gather evidence from them for proof of your point. If you want to keep arguing about the same thing, content is your ticket. You must believe that what you are really arguing about is based solely on what is being said in order to stay in the game.

2. Dig your heels in, to win! Make winning the fight — whatever that means — and getting your way, or getting your point of view to be the agreed upon narrative your number one priority. Stay in the ring. Embrace the power struggle. Place blame when necessary. If you are feelling really threatened, use name calling as last resort. DO NOT go for a walk, take five, or even a breath. Don’t let the bone out of your mouth until you are the last one standing with it. Repeat as necessary.

3. Give in to reactivity and oversensitivity. If you’re questioning whether or not that little, potentially sarcastic comment your partner made at dinner was a dig, don’t. Not only should you refrain from doubting your experience, you should harp on it. You can either go over it inside your head again and again, building steam so that you can explode later, or you can give the reins to your emotional reactions right there and then. Allow them full expression (although pretending you’re trying to restrain yourself can be a nice added touch), even if you are in a mall, a movie or at dinner with colleagues or in-laws.

4. Refer to history. Link back to other fights and trespasses that happened weeks, months or even years ago — especially ones you’ve harbored resentment for but never before brought up. Keep trying to resolve those hurts from the past. After all, this might finally be the fight in which they get resolved!

5. Eschew Personal (or Any Type of) Reflection: You know those pesky questions that healthy and mature people ask themselves? Questions like, What are we getting out of arguing like this? Is there a better way to communicate to get my needs met? Is there a way to be on the same team about this issue? FORGET THEM. Or any type of reflective pause. They have the potential to interrupt the fight cycle and land you in a less aggressive, more aligned stance. Then what would you do?

Special bonus tip strictly for romantic couples:

6. Avoid Having Sex. When you have the same fight over and over, you are channeling your natural impulses for aggression and play into separation and misery. Having sex would utilize that aggression and entanglement to create intimacy and ecstasy. Who needs that?! Plus, not having sex will land you the ability to fight about SEX, so keep going!

Not that this post was not written from personal experience or anything, ahem, but now that I’ve shared my ways, how do you stay in the same fight over and over? Share in the comments below. Reminder:

This is the first of a seven-post series on Leadership in Relationship. The next several posts will more seriously document four main ways to lead in relationship. Not all posts will be broadcast on social media, so if you want to get them all, be sure to sign up for the muse-letter in the box below!

The post How to Have the Same Fight Over and Over appeared first on Blair Glaser.

Some of those dreams will be escapist — you recognize them because they include fantasies like giving your academy award speech or doing nothing on a deserted island. Without your children. Forever.

And others will be a realistic expression of your talent and desire. Private practice. Speaking. Writing. Starting a craft or other small business of your own.
These possibilities always come with a side order of lies, to shut you down and keep you put.

Lie 1: You think you need more time.

You may never be more ready than you are now.

What you need is courage.

Lie 2: You think you need to be “more together.”

All sorts of people with all sorts of issues run businesses, therapy practices and more.

What you need are other people. To reflect your talent and potential. To help you through the discomfort of growth.

Lie 3: You think you need more training.

More training is good for new tools, keeping up with the times, and CEU’s. But the real learning takes place in action.

What you need is faith in yourself.

If you’ve told yourself these lies, you’re in a good position to start building your private practice, or even another business that’s been in your heart.

Skip the side of lies. They make you feel all greasy and weighed down in the end.

Share your truth.

For the good of all.

You can find a professional, a mastermind group or a solid partnership to help you.

The Get More Clients workshop and subsequent Get More Clients Practice groups for healing professionals and solo-preneurs are one way to slay the demons of can’t and won’t in the service of your freedom and dreams.

There are affordable online and in person options. But whether you blossom or lie, grow or perish, Love Yourself, no matter what.

The post Skip the Side of Lies: Blossom Instead appeared first on Blair Glaser.

A couple I work with love to go out to dinner together, but rarely do they enjoy dinner as much they used to. This is because each has a habit of picking fights before special mealtimes. Only recently did they discover that this pattern was in part related to hunger and blood sugar issues, and that when they are hungry, their irritation feels more pronounced, causing a feeling of needing to express. But alas, expressing irritation while hungry rarely serves to discharge but rather to inflame the negative emotions. Countless, well-planned, well-intentioned date nights have been tainted as a result.

A female exec is making room in her busy schedule for Her. She signed up for a soul stirring, inspiring painting class that she loves, but every time she needs to get ready for it, her smartphone, as if on cue, notifies her of an “urgent” message. The beginning of each art class is marked by her late entry, accompanied by her remorse for having interrupted others and for betraying herself by missing out on some of her treasured and rare creative time.

A recent divorcee has fallen in love with an amazing man who has been twice divorced and who is just getting “back out there.” They are both excited by the power of their connection. When she brings up the issue of marriage two months into the relationship, that “lovin’ feeling” fizzles away and is drastically replaced with distance and silence.

Do any of these situations strike a chord with you? They all could have gone differently if the participants had learned to cultivate the Power of “Not Now.” The Power of “Not Now” is being able to hold a boundary that allows you to protect your values and honor your priorities by delaying impulses that are destructive and misleading. It is the understanding that your inner impulses and feelings are not always the best forces to follow in creating your life. You may feel a frenzied and immediate need to get something off your chest, or the urgent pull of an incoming e-mail, but if you are also in touch with your priorities, the other people around you, and what the next moment in life presents, the Power of “Not Now” can save you from a slew of unwanted consequences.

The Power of “Not Now” is the key to effective leadership in our daily and social interactions, a tool that can help us avoid unnecessary suffering. How do we practice self-containment and cultivate the Power of “Not Now” in a culture that is hyper-focused on “Right Now!”?

It all comes down to an alignment of values, priorities and choice. What do you, as a human being, value? Making money, building strong relationships, personal growth, being a good spouse and parent? Make a list. The next step, based on your values, is to establish your priorities in any given situation. In the case of the exec mentioned above, even though she valued having a healthy work/life balance, she was not able to prioritize herself over her work. She is also in conflict with her value of respecting others; otherwise, her late entrances would not cause her such guilt. She needs to get her priorities in line with her values and use the Power of “Not Now” when her phone tries to dissuade her from moving towards her playtime.

Once you get clear on your values and priorities, using the Power of “Not Now” becomes simple, even though at first it may feel quite difficult for you, and potentially, for the ones you love. I, for example, did not appreciate it when my partner used the Power of “Not Now” when I wanted to talk about some feelings after a night out with friends. He just wanted to get a good night’s sleep, and check in with me in the morning.

Initially, I was stumped. I felt shut down, shut out, stuck with negativity, and jealous of his ability to fall asleep. “Just like a guy,” I thought. While he drifted, I wrestled with my disappointment and anxiety, until suddenly I realized that he had, with his clear boundary, prevented me from picking a late night fight with him. When I awoke, he was smiling sweetly at me. My feelings had transformed. We laughed about how he had left me alone to face myself and how much I didn’t like it. I felt grateful that instead of recovering from a night of fighting, we enjoyed a lovely day.

Accessing the Power of “Not Now” can seem impossible when you are emotionally triggered. Our emotional reactions to people and places can be very alarming and insistent. They will try to convince us that they need to be expressed and dealt with ASAP if we want to be authentic. Despite our best intentions to be honest, a heightened, emotionally reactive communiqué is often fraught with hostility that punishes yourself or the other person and puts them on the defensive. What you truly need is to discharge emotion, that is, find a way to release it on your own, and communicate something more like facts. Discharging on your own or with someone with whom it is safe to do so is an invaluable practice. Sitting with a feeling and allowing the charge to dissipate, even as it convinces us we will die as we face it, can help you gather the information you need from the feelings in order to effectively lead.

This is where your tried and trusted tools come in, and what Stephen Covey referred to when he talked about “Sharpening the Saw.” Taking a walk, kick boxing, closing the door, meditation — whatever it is you do when you feel the surge will help you soften and slow down enough to know what it is you need to do or say. Letting people around you know you are triggered but are not ready to talk can be a great way to allow yourself to Be without withdrawing or feeling fake, and if you are in a public place, you can always excuse yourself, go to the restroom and breathe, and imagine the charge draining out of you into the ground. The discipline you use may not relieve you of the pressure immediately, but energy follows thought, and your efforts do make an impact.

Finally, when you want to act rashly but suspect you might need to use the Power of “Not Now”, ask these questions:

What are my priorities in this moment?
What is my intention for responding now or speaking up with emotional charge?
How might I hurt or inconvenience if I respond right now, and is it important to do so?
What is next? How do I want to feel, and how will I react in that event that more chaos ensues?

If you have spent a lifetime in avoidance of making waves and bottling up your truth, then you may need to disregard the information in this column for a little while, in favor of taking risks, speaking up and making some waves. It takes time, practice and many “mistakes” to truly learn the difference between a genuine call to immediate action and those calls that appear urgent or register as such on a feeling level but are the seeds of self-sabotage in disguise. Sometimes a good fight, or being late, or creating a mess, is exactly the right medicine . . . it just helps to feel a sense of choice in the matter, and to nip those sabotaging energies in the bud.

Authorize yourself to use the Power of “Not Now” to lead the life you envision, with lighter, smoother and more loving interactions!

The post The Power of “Not Now”: Leadership and Self-containment appeared first on Blair Glaser.

I asked her, “Is there something you would do on a regular basis that would be a definitive break — something that brings you back to yourself, that could help you transition out of work mode?”

And she said, “Well I was thinking of practicing my solfège.”

And I responded, “Soul Fetch! That’s brilliant! Tell me more. What exactly does a Soul Fetch entail?”

She laughed. She is a great singer and musician. She corrected me.

“Solfège.” That’s the French word for a specific practice of site reading music.

But I liked Soul Fetch oh so much better. And for this lovely woman, they are one and the same. Practicing solfège connects her to her creativity, her artistry, her self — a retrieval of soul. And I have co-opted Soul Fetch as the PERFECT term for the art and discipline of transitioning yourself from work mode to life mode and back again. I cannot express enough its importance to a life well-lived.

So many people have difficulty managing that moment when they walk in the door, home from work at the end of the day. They are met instantly with kids’ demands and partner expectations without having a chance to collect themselves or return to their own center. The lack of time invested in replenishing the well can lead to an inner drought, a build up of irritation.

Now many of you reading may not have the type of job that you have to come home from. But even if you work at home in your PJ’s in a job you love, being in any one mode for an extended period of time — be it work, parent or even play — creates a one-dimensional effect. A Soul Fetch, described more fully below, is a way to transition out of the role you play during the day and get back to the essential you, returning to yourself some of the energy you have been putting out there.

The Soul Fetch can be a good thing to do BEFORE starting your day or leaving home for work. But in my experience, a Soul Fetch is more essential AFTER.

If possible, let your Soul Fetch be 3-15+ minutes of doing something (or nothing!) that centers you in joy, relaxation or creativity, or all three, like my client’s solfège. In this day and very new age there is not one of you that doesn’t already know about the restorative powers of meditation, yoga, taking a bath or listening to music. Here are a few examples of things busy peeps may already do, that can become a soul fetch with the right intention.

Wash Your Face: The simple act of washing your face, allowing the work mask to slide off. Following it by actually looking in the mirror into your own, wondrous eyes, and connect with who’s there.

Get Cooking: If it is not a chore for you, cooking can be so creative. Nourishing the body also nourishes the soul.

Connect with a Pet: Allow time spent with those beloved critters to bring you into the wordless, mysterious realm of animal being.

What’s YOUR favorite Soul Fetch? Feel free to enter it in the comments below!

And remember — it’s not the activity as much as it is the recognition that you are doing it to return to yourself. Sometimes the Soul Fetch is the simple act of reminding yourself that you Love Yourself — No Matter What.

The post Soul Fetch: The Art of Transitioning between Work and Life appeared first on Blair Glaser.

Have you ever in life or business, been moving along swiftly and steadily towards a specific goal, where everything is going according to plan, and then –BAM — you get a phone call or receive some bad news and you feel like it’s all gone to pot, it’s hopeless? Maybe your computer system or laptop crashes, or the budget is unexpectedly sliced in half in the middle of your project. Or things are just taking way longer than expected to come to fruition, as in my recent struggle to get this blog post up. A common story: My recent move to a traditional blog was conceived a year ago. The web designers quoted a two to three week turn around for the changes I desired. I expected 6 weeks. It took five months. Needless to say, I had a wild romp with frustration.

How do you recover from the inevitable setbacks life throws your way, especially when you have a team of workers or a family behind you? Sometimes, resiliency — that feeling of bouncing back into the game, can be hard to access, even with the most seasoned leaders and all the best advice. Especially in the face of feelings of despair, or the sense that some dream is forever lost and/or you are no longer on your path. It not only takes patience to achieve your goals, it takes patience to make peace with the process of achieving them.

It seems to be especially hard for us Americans to understand that life is always a process. The notion that one day you are going to finish growing and be complete –beyond all this annoying life stuff– is terribly persistent despite the many personal examples each of us has that it is not so. How to make peace with process? Here are some actions and thought paradigms that might help you stay connected to and at peace with your process of evolution no matter what’s happening in your world. And while you use them, remember that even understanding or making use of these tools is in itself is a PROCESS.

Everything in life and nature comes in cycles, right? Seasons, fertility, TV show reruns — but when we are pursuing a goal, we often think it should go in a straight line. Reframe your thinking about moving forward. We don’t grow in a straight line, we grow in little circles of forward motion, looping back to catch up with the old self so that our experience is not disjointed and separate.

Pity PARTY!

Get out those little shiny cone hats with the rubber band strings and invite your close friends over for some cake. Celebrate–or pout about– your failure. According to the ancient spiritual text, the Tao Te Ching, nothing is what it seems, and failure can be viewed as a spiritual success. Have everybody brainstorm about the hidden gifts they see for you in the apparently negative situation.

What is working

Habitually the thing that isn’t going our way, or we perceive to be failing at absorbs most of our attention. But if you look carefully, there are so many things that are working in your life. In the midst of chaos, take a break. Find a few things that you are really proud of. Then return to your regularly scheduled issue fixation.

Shut Down

Sometimes, fighting the desire to return to the womb makes it worse. Close the office door, or the blinds, pull up the blankets, turn the lights low, and give yourself fifteen minutes or a whole day to grieve the way you wanted it to go or be. Shut out the world while you let go and allow resilience to resurface.

Reach Out

If you can let others that you trust comfort you, it can be an incredible thing in times of stress, for the caregivers and receivers alike. Recovery time decreases by threefold. Mentors are gifts from the Universe. So are good friends and partners. Cuddling is good for the soul.

If you know anyone who has suffered a setback recently, pass it on! And remember, Love Yourself no matter what.

The post Hang In There: Making Peace with Process appeared first on Blair Glaser.