Tag Archives: Faith

2020 Is NOT What I expected!

It’s August and there are only a few signs of ‘normal’.

Like: My golf game. I am still not breaking 90 very often usually hitting closer to 100. My golf seems pretty much just like it has been now for few years!

I am regularly, as usual, getting out on my road bike and on the trails. Not often with others but I still love it!

I am still NOT a huge fan of marketing and it’s still a big part of my world!

Now For a Few of The Changes

I am home in Montana more than I have ever been since moving here in 2008! Plus, we have out first ever garden!!!

Haven, my home on the Island in BC, property and programs closed in March and still now only offer online programs. Sadly, even if a program was running, I can’t cross the border, so there is a significant loss there for me. I do love though that people are still connecting and Haven is finally getting itself firmly online!!

We haven’t traveled out of our state or been on a plane since February. My Alaska status is likely to be lost in 2020 – no extra miles for me!

I invented GROOT-ing and my marketing mind-set has shifted.

Still Life is different so many levels

I wear a mask whenever I walk along our Whitefish streets or go into a store.

I rarely socialize with people unless it is on Zoom/Teams or HouseParty. (or six apart!).

I don’t offer or get many hugs (other than with CrsiMarie!) and my hands are a bit dry from all the singing happy birthday and the new handwashing rituals! (I did wash them before but not for two verses of happy birthday!)

I imagine your life might be a bit different as well.

In general, I feel incrediably fortunate during these times. I have been able to create work and maintain an income. I have stayed healthy and been able to get the things I needed. I haven’t lost anyone directly in my world to Covid and I haven’t been in situations where I have felt threatened or at risk either related to health or because of social injustice.

So I am grateful.

Having said that I am also very aware of the many, many layers of stressors that so many are facing right now.

It’s not just a world pandemic. It’s economic. It’s grief. It’s injustice. It’s politics. It’s diffenences. And so much uncertainty!

I am grateful for the all of the years and training I have done in the area of breath and energy work, dealing with trauma, working in family systems and in corporate cultures navigating conflict and creating better dialogue. Thirty plus years of study and implication have helped me deal 2020 for sure!

I am also grateful for my own life experiences of living with cancer (s), diving deeply into old patterns around trauma and dysfuntion and finding my sanity, humor, purpose and faith in humanity through walking that path.

Finding Purpose: Being In Service – Using The Best of ME!

I am enjoying helping people find presence, faith and joy even in this wild and crazy year of 2020.

This year has generated many new ways of making that offer. Lighthouse Coaching came into being when I realized my equus work wasn’t going to be happening for a while and I wanted to keep working with people. I have loved the coaching. Being a lighthouse really does fit for me.

I enjoy the corporate work we do. We had so many opportunities to work with large organizations, smaller companies, even Chambers and associates – all wanting support in dealing with the uncertainty and change. We actaully have now created a new Unpack Stress program based on the feedback and needs we found will continue to surface going forward.

I also love working with couples. We got to do our online Beauty of Conflcit for Couples with Haven. Plus we’ve been doing more work with couples together.

I enjoy being a sounding board and trusted advisor – i.e. Executive or Leadership Coach. Helping leaders navigate being in a large system and also authentic and true to themselves – is something I am passionate about! People really do matter as much if not more so than results – especially during a world Pandemic.

Still, I just haven’t loved marketing and that actually holds be back from being in service. Because I am a damn good coach and really can help people through these crazy times. So, I have been getting my own coaching and recently decided to rename marketing after my favorite character – GROOT.

The idea of GROOT-ing is so much more enjoyable to me than marketing. GROOT was/is all about finding the joy in life and service!

If you don’t know GROOT well I recommend you watch Guardians of The Galaxy. There are two parts and two GROOTS – both awesome! (Maybe I will devote a blog to GROOT – but for now – watch the movie(s) or atleast this clip! Link here

Let Me Help You!

Are you struggling? Want support? Reach out. Try some coaching. Listen to our podcast, The Beauty of Conflict. Or catch me on ‘The New Morning Show’ – our FBLIve randomly offered now around 10AM three or four times a week.

Leap of Faith

My word for the year is a phrase, “Leap of Faith”.  I was going to simply stick with the plan, one word for the year.  At first I thought Leap – however, that did not quite fit.  Faith wasn’t quite right either.  Then I saw this picture that I bought earlier in 2012 while taking Sooke to the vet.  I love it.  There’s the elder duck leading the way out of the nest up in a tree and then the little ones, look out and then finally, leap.  Their wings seem so small and incapable of flight.  Yet, there they go!

It's time to fly!!
It’s time to fly!!

Sometimes I feel like those little ducks.  Yet, I am much closer, may be even older than the mother duck pushing the babes out of the nest.  If I reflect on my life as it is now, I do see both, and in many ways both are taking a Leap of Faith.  Sure, the more physical evidence of the leap is seen in the baby ducks.  However, that mom, likely has some inner angst about what is about to happen and must have tremendous faith to step out of the way.  I relate to both.

This year we plan to re-launch Thrive!.  This in many ways will be a Leap of Faith.  We intend to bring our whole selves to this new business.  This means we no longer want to have our lives compartmentalized.  In the past, we had our corporate presence and we had our various more personal pursuits.  The revitalized Thrive! will be designed to integrate both.  We plan to maintain our work with leaders, teams and organizations, and we also will include our strong belief that business is personal.  That the corporate world would greatly benefit from embracing a whole person/whole team approach.  In many ways this concept is really mother bird speaking.  We know this concept is a mature and vital path that works.  We have been embracing it ourselves for years and have built a powerful partnership that continues to ignite and sustain our health, wealth and relationship.

The baby duck part of the leap is simply being willing to step out fully as who we each are and who we are together.  Last year we started leading the Couples Alive Series couples programs up at The Haven.  The Haven Institute has always been like a safe nest where I can learn and develop.  So it was easy to step into leading together.  We didn’t question out value or wonder about being accepted.  We simply brought all we have learned through being together for over twelve years and assumed if we were open, real and curious we had lots to offer any couple – same sex or not.

Now we want to be more transparent in who we are out in the bigger world, to take the leap of faith and trust that we can fly. Sure, may be not everyone will like discovering we are not simply a business partnership.  However, I believe until now our biggest doubters have been ourselves.

Aside from the work transition and re-launching, I am also leaping into the world of writing.  I have been writing for years.  It has been my path for integrating and revealing to myself my inner world.  More recently I have stepped further out.  Through my blog and writing for 406 Magazine.  Yet I don’t think of myself as a writer.  I don’t fully commit to that path.  This year I am making the leap.  I have signed up for a kick-off workshop with writers I know will challenge and encourage me to go deeper and broader.

So my phrase, Leap of Faith, fits for me.  I am both mature and quite young at what I am jumping into.  I have a solid foundation that I can count on and I am ready for new ground and possibilities.

Though what intrigues me most is the space between the young ducks just launching themselves out of the tree and the older duck giving the push.  That space is where faith becomes something beyond leaping into the vast unknown or holding faith in that which is known for someone to step into.  The space is yet another aspect to leap of faith.  I believe it is that middle ground.  I must leap.  My wings are not young and new – my wings are scarred and older.  I have known the pain of crashing into the ground and failing to fly.  Yet I must still step from the tree and take the leap.  Knowing I have the heart and courage of being both young and old.

So I am thrilled to take the a leap of faith into 2013.

Susan Clarke is a long standing faculty member at The Haven Institute. She leads The Living Alive Phase I, with Carole Ames starting Feb 13 – Mar 10, 2013 and Come Alive April 7-12, 2013, and with CrisMarie Campbell: Come Alive Oct 13-18, 2013; and Couples Alive I – Foundation, Communication and Boundaries, April 15-19, 2013 and Couples Alive II – Edge, Igniting Passion & Aliveness April 19-23, 2013.