For the past twelve months (and it may be more but really who’s counting? Let’s just say, a long time!), we have been transforming our thrive! brand.  I know I have written about this saga at various stages.

Honestly, we have learned so much, and it’s not been as easy as we thought it would be and that is okay.

What I am most proud of is that the revived thrive! is truly a reflection of our own unique voice.  CrisMarie and I both, in very different ways, have lived through the voices of our teachers and mentors.

For me, that started at The Haven with Ben Wong, Jock McKeen and Joann Peterson.  That trio taught me how to be a person, how to relate, how to lead.  It’s hard not to simply keep using their models and leading their awesome core curriculum.  I imagine that will always be some part of my life and work. I hope so.  However, I think they would say, “Carry on, Susan, expand and include all you have learned.  Find your own voice!”

I do like learning.  So I have continued to find great teachers and learned so much from each of these masters.  It becomes easy to speak with their voice and believe my work is to magnify their message.  However, that just doesn’t feel right anymore.  For one thing, I naturally adjust and tweak their model to what works for me.  Integrating pieces and shifting and shaping the learning into my own message.

So it is time to stop delivering the message of other masters.  I have a message, crafted and build over many years of transforming my life – through cancer(s), beyond a victim’s stance around my history, rebuilding my life multiple times.  Indeed, here I go again.

One might wonder, if I am a master, how is I keep finding myself rebuilding and transforming?  Honestly, I think it is simply because that is what living fully is all about.  It is about seeking a vision or creating a new possibility or romance and having the courage to embark on a new path, knowing it’s not all bliss and happiness.

Our new thrive! model is so perfect for my life journey: Oh Sh*t! to Aha! – living and thriving through crisis, conflict and change – over and over again.

This model, more appropriately called, The Path to Great Results (CrisMarie’s influence) Oh Sh*T! to Aha! (my influence) applies to individuals, couples, teams and organizations.  I am excited about the various ways we are sharing our message.

We use our model for coaching, in our couples workshops with leaders and their teams, and now, I am building a workshop for individuals.  Yes, it’s fun, it’s creative and it’s not quite as easy as I thought it would be.  Indeed we are living through our own thrive! version of Oh Sh*t! to Aha!….again.

I imagine anyone reading this has had at least one of those moments either personally or professionally where you either say out loud or in your head, “Oh Sh*t! how did I get here and what do I do now?”

What is “Oh Sh*t!”

It’s a moment when what you are confronted with overwhelms your capacity to respond or even react in your usual way.  What’s worked before isn’t working now. It may be a good thing, but it doesn’t feel that way.  It certainly is not easy.

It takes courage to stay in that tension and unknown space.  We humans are too quick to defuse tension and compromise, hold back or bully our way through to something familiar and less uncomfortable.  But some events, some situations just don’t let us settle.

Why?

Because we were not meant to settle.  The human journey is one that humbles us and invites us to find new possibilities beyond our own individual beliefs and imagination.

Each of our lives is calling to us in some way and asking softly or loudly for us to surrender what we know to be true and consider something much bigger.  What we see, hear, taste, touch and smell is limited.  What is really possible is well beyond those physical restraints, and yet it’s not about separation, it’s about embodying that possibility in this physical home we have chosen.

Embodiment it is about being committed to, and grounded in, our physical experience, yet fully embracing the non-physical possibilities.  To embody the magic and possibility of being a spiritual being having a physical experience will allow us to utilize our Oh Sh*t! moments and transform all that learning and mastering into something new.

There are tools that make the journey easier and less bumpy.  These are what we share with our clients and in our programs.  We find them valuable.

And the Aha! comes when we are working together and people open and are willing to be fully responsible for themselves and curious in each other.  We can then hold the paradox of our physical separation and our spiritual oneness.  It’s not so much out of ashes that a Phoenix rises but out of wholeness – the good, the bad, the ugly and beautiful – that’s inclusion.

Want to learn more about our message and our model?

Visit our website, www.thriveinc.com or call for a coaching session, invite us to work with your team or come to my Living Through Crisis, Conflict and Change: Oh Sh*t! to Aha! at The Haven June 13-15, 2014.

Play in the mess and the magic of this human journey!