Oct14
Posted on Oct 14 by Ruth Davis
Some decisions are easy. You know you want to or don’t want to do something and it’s clear and simple and done. Other decisions require more thought and contemplation because the answer isn’t as clear-cut. Maybe you take out a piece of paper and write the PROs on one list and the CONs on the other. Maybe you ask your friends and family for their input. Often, writing it all down brings clarity. But sometimes, all of that thinking only muddles the issue. I remember the night I needed to decide if I was going to continue working with my amazing coach in 2011. My list of PROs and CONs was evenly matched. There were just as many reasons to say YES as there were not to. I was so overwhelmed with having to choose that I couldn’t sleep. And the lack of sleep led to a head cold. Have you ever tried to make a decision when you felt like your head was submerged in a fish bowl? But that’s exactly what I needed. To NOT be able to...
Oct07
Posted on Oct 7 by Ruth Davis
I’ve settled into the rhythm here: the daily walks up and down the hill to the beach, the weekly trip to the farmers market for sourdough bread and fresh, ready fruit, and the quiet evenings sitting outside with Cody as the sun goes down over the big hills. Against that steady, comfortable rhythm, I have become very aware of the places where I am oh, so uncomfortable. I did not think that, living across the street from the beach, I’d be bored and lonely and spending much of my time posting comments on FaceBook. But, like Jon-Kabat-Zinn wrote, “wherever you go, there you are”….and all of your challenges come with you… We think that if we just had this, or did that, or lived here, then life will suddenly be easy and perfect and magical. HA! We forget that the one variable that is part of the equation is still our own self. That, until we change our core beliefs and behaviors, we will be confronted with the same challenges we struggled with before this or that or here. Case...
Sep30
Posted on Sep 30 by Ruth Davis
Community. Collaboration. The power of a group. These are some of my favorite concepts. It’s more than the idea that one hundred people working together can accomplish more than a single person. What excites me about collaboration is the energy and power of diverse people coming together with different skills, different ideas and different ways of expressing themselves and joining together for a single cause. Last week I participated in a CIRCUS YOGA class. What drew me to the class were the words fun, community, collaboration. Too often, we think that, in order to connect to our hearts, we have to do it alone. Sure, there are some things we need to do alone. Silent meditation, solo retreats and solitary adventures all help us find our unique power and vulnerability. But we are on this planet together and there can be great gifts gained by working together in community, by sharing in a group, by coming together for a single purpose. When we work with others, we connect into much larger energy. We can enjoy the benefits of other...
Sep23
Posted on Sep 23 by Ruth Davis
I have been back at the beach for three weeks and I hear myself chastising my writer self, “Why haven’t you started writing your book proposal yet! You created this space and your wasting time!” I tell myself it’s only been here three weeks, that I needed to acclimate, settle in. And that I had a big Mac course to launch and begin. Still, I am having trouble getting started. So I have been listening to Elizabeth Gilbert’s Magic Lessons Podcasts. For those of you who aren’t familiar, Gilbert wrote Eat, Pray, Love, and has just published a new book, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear. In one of Gilbert’s podcasts, she is talking with a woman who is stuck in her writing. Gilbert invites the woman to have an affair with her writing, to keep it secret and sneaky and exciting, to counter how open and generous she is with everything else in her daily life. The energy of a sneaking around affair didn’t resonate with me, but I loved the idea of growing a new relationship...
Sep16
Posted on Sep 16 by Ruth Davis
As a coach, I often work with other coaches to get clear and stay connected to my bigger heart visions. I’ve been wanting to do some kind of coaching, to push me out of my comfort zone, to poke me in places where I’m feeling stuck, to identify some old patterns so that I can create new ones. But I didn’t want to do the same kind of talking coaching work that I usually do. I had heard that coaching with horses can be a powerful way to learn things about yourself. It’s not about riding or horsemanship, but about interacting with the horse’s energy. So when a friend announced that she was facilitating an Equus Coaching Day just 45 minutes from home, I signed up. I have very little experience with horses. I’ve gone horseback riding a handful of times but I’ve never been one to dream of horses. In fact, the only thing I knew about horses I learned just last year when the man that owns the hill next to Paradise Park got a new...
Sep13
Posted on Sep 13 by Ruth Davis
I’m settling into being back at the beach at the mobile home and RV Park I call Paradise Park. The sun rises an hour later here, so we’ve been sleeping in past 7:30. And that’s OK. I’m finding my rhythm with the tides-when to walk on the beach, when to walk along the street above the cove that I call Hawk Walk, and when to hang out at home, in the cool of the air-conditioned RV. And I am settling into why I am here and what I want to be focusing on over these next four months. Surprisingly, some ideas are popping and they are clear and obvious and easy first next steps: register the domain for ruthrdavis.com, gather a group of women for an in-depth 7 week Heart Sparks group, and go to Patti Digh’s Live is a Verb Camp later this month. When I realized how many of the people I engaged with during my trip were people I had met at her first camp 2 years ago, I knew I had to go. Because these are the kind...
