Looking back while moving forward…

By On · 18 Comments · In blog

Today I began working again, with an old coaching client of mine. It has been 6 years since we first worked together and in that time an enormous amount has happened, for both of us. We started the session, as I always do, just understanding where he was at and how he felt about being coached again. He announced that somehow he felt disappointed that he was here once again. Here, needing some sort of support to define and plan the next chapter of his life and to understand why he wasn’t, where he thought he would be by now.

I asked him to spend some time writing a list of what had happened over the last 6 years, what he had achieved, created, lost and found. I then asked him to also list all the things he might acknowledge himself for, what he had learned about himself, how he had grown, what had and hadn’t work for him, where he felt he had excelled and even where he felt he may have dropped the ball a little…

We looked at all aspects of his life, from his career, to his health, to even becoming a father.

As we completed the exercise, only silence followed.

‘You there?’ I said.

‘Yea’ he said and more silence followed.

‘So what are you thinking about?’ I asked, hearing a little secret sniffle.

And then, what exploded through my computer, was an astonished, emotional, exhilarated flow of disbelief, at just how and what he had achieved in that time and also the utter surprise at the lack of reflection he had allowed himself within the last 6, very busy years.

Note: It is important that we leave our ego at the door when beginning an exercise like this, that we are as open to honouring what HASN’T worked as we are, to what has, and as we reflect, we do it without judging, wallowing or refusing responsibility for what has taken place along the way.

So here it is, laid on the line for you. Take some time to reflect! Try it out and see how looking back, can actually support you in moving forward…..

I chose this beautiful image to illustrate the blog today (taken by his adoring daddy) of my beautiful little man, Jesse Red.  Today is his last day of being 6 and when I look at this gorgeous little being, in all his splendor, he will always, as he was from the moment he came into this world, be one of the greatest accomplishments of my life!

 

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  • Roz O’Fallon

    I was diagnosed with Colon Cancer last August at 34 & am now hopefully clear…didn’t really think to give myself credit for not having a complete mental breakdown instead of chastising myself for not going in sooner…I am not psychic, it was not my fault, I was just living my life. Thanks for that perspective.

  • Louise

    I would just like to say that you are an inspirational woman,your outlook on life is amazing! and although you so sadly lost your husband and are now both mom and dad to your gorgeous babies i can tell that you have always been a very optimistic person who enjoys life and can take on anything that comes your way. your blogs are funny and very thought provoking.lately i have felt like ive done nothing really with my life and have felt down but reading your blogs have made me realise that i have accomplished alot,i have 2 gorgeous kids girl & boy 4 and 6 1/2 (the half is very important i was told) and a wonderful hubby who would do anything for us and if thats the only thing in life that i do then i am a very blessed person.just want to say thank you for opening my eyes to life!

  • Irene Mitropoulos

    Wishing your little man a very happy b-day for tomorrow. Xxx

  • Rebeccablois

    Thankyou got your advice! I have got to say that Jesse is andy through and through with his looks and what a beautiful photo he took! You have such a beautiful family!

    • Rebeccablois

      *for not got! Blady predicted text!!!

  • Agltr71

    Happy Birthday To Jesse Red, I hope he enjoys his last day of being 6. God Bless.

  • Beth Forrester

    That is a wonderful exercise we can all learn from…..focus on what you have accomplished  instead of only what you have not, make new plan and keep moving forward! I love quotes, this is one one of my favorites and  fits well into this topic.

     “Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; but remember
    that what you now have was once among the things only hoped for.”
    –Epicurus

  • Susana Matos Nunes

    This is the reason why I like you so much…. You remaind me so much of me…. but a “me” who’s in standbye to look out others. I’m a very positive person, telling all day long to other people: “there’s nothing you can’t do! We can do everything we want to!” But the most times I don’t apply it to myself!
    You really help me to stop, take a deep breath and wonder when, why and how to make that exercise… I believe I do it a lot in my mind, but maybe is not enought!
    I’m determined, strong, positive, persistent….. well i guess today it’s just not my day….
    Lucky me I have this amazing lady, who I admire very much, to remaind me some important things life have, usually the most simple: health, a beautiful family, and our little treasures, who have given us the wonderfull experience of having them growing up inside us….
    The image of Jesse show the love of the photographer for him and how sweet angel only a child can be….
    Have a great and really special wonderfull day!!! ALL OF YOU 3!!!
    Kisses, Susana

  • http://twitter.com/Crixacus River

    Happy Birthday little guy!  Vashti, today I’m going to try to slow down and “smell the roses” , as it were,  and try to notice all the little things, since that seems to be paramount in how you manage to soldier on after Andy’s passing. And it also shows in how happy your children are even still. Thank-you for your blog and for sharing yourself with us. Loads of love to you and the kids! x

  • Cyndi

    Happy Birthday, Jesse Red!!  Hope your day is wonderful and fun!

  • Chrissie

    Loved this message……I get it 100%…. I quickly jotted down a few things that I accomplished in the last 6 years and although there were times I felt totally out of control with taking care of my 3 McMunchkins and felt that I put a lot of things on the back burner…..I realized I really did do a lot that I said I wanted to do before I turned 40. I took a few chances and it really paid off….in so many different ways….
    I will continue setting goals for myself however small are big they are….I never want to live with regret for the things I did not do….

    One of my fave quotes:
    “I do not regret the things I’ve done, but those I did not do.”Rory Cochrane

  • Sara

    Happy 7th birthday Jesse Red.  Yours words are always inspirational Vashti. xxx

  • Sarah Stewart

    After reading your blog entry, I thought you might be interested in this article.  Dr. Marsha Linehan at University of Washington (here in Seattle, WA) is
    internationally known in the psychology field for her pioneering work in
    Dialectical Behavior Therapy, including the concept of “radical
    acceptance”.  Oprah Magazine even printed something on it- albeit a
    watered-down, layman’s version- but the basic principles are still there.  My Mom, a psych nurse for over 30 years, took
    a seminar from Dr. Linehan several years ago, & is a big
    believer in DBT since it can work for everyday problems to serious mental health issues.

    Making
    friends with reality: at a certain point, it hits you: you’re probably never
    going to be a movie star or a dot.com gazillionaire.

    Psychologist Marsha Linehan on how
    to live happily ever after with the person you turned out to be.(Interview)

    Source:  O, The Oprah
    Magazine

    Publication Date: 01-OCT-06

     

    WHEN YOU DIDN’T PASS THE MATH
    test, or the guy you liked didn’t like you back, you could tell yourself
    “maybe next year,” or “better luck next time.” That’s the
    beauty of youth: Second chances are abundant. But what happens when those
    chances, those next times, start to dwindle? How do you acknowledge, as you get
    older, that things you’d dearly hoped to achieve are never going to happen–and
    do so in a way that doesn’t lead to despair?

    Marsha M. Linehan, PhD, a professor of psychology at the University of
    Washington in Seattle, is best known for working with suicidal patients and
    those with the psychiatric condition known as borderline personality disorder.
    But there’s a good reason we turned to her for counsel about the angst of
    dashed dreams: Her pioneering “dialectical behavior therapy”
    incorporates a unique practice, derived from Buddhism, called radical
    acceptance. The term refers to a willingness to recognize and tolerate what is,
    rather than fight it or judge it. It’s a way to free yourself from wanting
    something to be or not to be–and that, as Linehan explains to O contributing editor
    Aimee Lee Ball, is a way to free yourself to live.

    [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

    Q. We’re wondering about life’s coulda/woulda/shoulda’s. Suppose you always
    wanted to have a painting hanging in a museum, and instead you became an
    accountant. Or you wanted children, and now you’re perimenopausal. How do you
    live with that kind of existential disappointment?

    A. Life is a series of situations in which you don’t get what you want. When
    you’re younger, you make it through emotionally by telling yourself it’s not
    too late. But at some point you cross a line that means what you’re continuing
    to hope for won’t be found. The question is: How do you both accept that fact
    and still build a full and vibrant life?

    Q. Can you answer that question?

    A. Yes. But let me backtrack for a moment. I’ve gotten in the habit of saying
    there are only five responses to any given problem. The first is to solve the
    problem–either change the situation or leave it. The second is to change how
    you feel about the problem. Say you’re in a job or marriage where you’re not
    getting what you want. Often people become bitter because they focus on the one
    negative thing, instead of opening their perspective to their entire life. Can
    you reevaluate and find the parts of the picture that are good and focus on
    them?

    Q. And if that’s not possible, what’s number three?

    A. Many people are in situations where whatever is missing in their lives, they’re
    never going to feel different about it. Enron employees are a good
    example–they’re not ever going to be able to say that what happened to them is
    okay. In that case, radically accepting and living with the unhappiness is your
    only option. You don’t deny the pain of what’s missing, but you learn to live
    with it.

    Q. You can learn that?

    A. Yes. I’m going to come back to this because I think it’s most people’s issue.
    But there’s a fourth alternative: Stay miserable. And a fifth, which a client
    pointed out to me: You can make things worse.

    Q. Oh, let’s not make things worse–let’s go back to radically accepting. Are
    there actual exercises you can do to learn how?

    A. Radical acceptance comes form the depths of your being, and it involves a
    number of skills you can practice. In fact, the most important thing is to say
    to yourself that it is practice–rather than telling yourself that you’re
    flat-out going to accept. Once you put the demand on yourself to accept, every
    failure to accept makes things worse.

    Q. So it’s a bit like physical therapy: You’re not there quite yet, but you’re
    working on it.

    A. Right. You can let yourself think about what’s not in your life, what you don’t
    have that you want, as you relax your body and your face. Then you can practice
    saying out loud that this is a fact and you can accept it. What I call
    half-smiling sounds weird, but it works: You relax your entire face and then
    let your lips come up just slightly on either side, and you think about what it
    is that you’re trying to accept. There’s a lot of interesting research
    indicating that you can change emotions simply by changing your face. You’re
    sending a message to your brain through your face that things are not so bad.

    Q. Making it okay that you’re not going to achieve what you’d hoped to achieve
    could be seen as rationalization.

    A. What’s wrong with that? But the truth is, we’re not trying to make it okay or
    not okay. We’re trying to accept it as fact, because that’s a way to get
    unstuck. If you wanted children and you don’t have them and you radically
    accept that, you can go out and build nurturing relationships with young
    people. I was meant by God to have 12 children, but that isn’t what I got. I
    don’t have a biological child, but in my life there’s a child who’s like my
    own. The failure to accept is the failure to replace. Because you won’t accept
    that there’s a hole in your life, you do nothing to fill the hole. Maybe you
    can never fill it all the way, but believe me, a hole three-quarters filled
    beats an empty hole.

    Q. So do you give up on your original goal?

    A. Not necessarily. Radical acceptance doesn’t mean you don’t reach for achievement.
    You just can’t catastrophize not being the one who makes it. Once you tie your
    identity and happiness to achieving some goal, you’re in trouble. I will tell
    you my sperm theory of life: All sperm swim, but only one fertilizes the egg.
    In life it’s unreasonable to expect to be that one. You can demand only that
    you swim to the best of your ability.

    Illustration by Brett Ryder

    • Sarah Stewart

      Well darn, I have no idea why the formatting went all funky on that…. 

  • Bonnie Armendariz

    Thank you Vashti for being you and creating this blog to inspire and push us all on different levels. It’s bittersweet celebrating the kids birthdays sometimes. I wish I could keep them with me forever so full of love,sweet and kind. Bit have to do my best to push them to be independent without me. I cried not long ago thinking of our 15 yr.old leaving for college one day,lol.
    I have had a lot of horrible things happen throught out my life. Out of my control. I do not blame myself our dwell. My challenge is to set goals for me ,myself as a individual but also as a wife and mom. You truly inspire me to make a better effort in all I do. I hope Jesse had a special Birthday.xx

  • Joanna Sharif-Crawley

     I am sitting here in my study ( in a reasonably quiet house!) and thinking how strange life is… Never in a million years would I have foreseen how turning on the TV one chilly night in England ready to watch the first of a new series, could have led me on this journey to where I am now. All the new contacts made along the way and some serious life lessons learnt. A very sincere thank you Vashti xx

  • Rplus5

    look at his beautiful little face,I see a lot of his daddy in him,a wonderful accomplishment in your lives!

  • Claire Howdle

    This was a really helpful exercise for me. I am the sort of person who often looks back at how things have changed over the years but i dont think i have actually acknowledged how much i have achieved . As a child all i ever wanted was a loving caring family when i grew up, to find a man that could love me for what i truly am, and to have the chance to give my children a childhood that was filled with love, laughter and adventure. I actually achieved that when i was 19 but i have always credited it to my lovely fiance. (Well he is my knight in shining armour) But i do realise now that I made the choices that led me to this wonderful man, and i have put just as much effort into our relationship as he has. I feel like the luckiest woman in the world to have achieved all i wanted at such a young age :D Thanks for the eye opener Vashti :D