Tape Transcript of Interview with Cheryl Richardson, Aug. 2, 2005
by Boyd Martin
(This transcript omits comments and questions from the interviewer.)
Usually what happens is a person gets tired of tolerating an area of their life that is draining their energy in some way. Sometimes it takes the diagnosis of an illness, or some traumatic event--the loss of a job, the death of a loved one--some major life event that makes a person say, "Wait a minute, I'm not particularly thrilled with the way I'm using the precious time I have here on the planet. It's time to make some changes." For other people it's more of an accumulation of experiences that continuously rob them of their spirit, their creative energy, their physical energy, and then some small event is the straw the breaks the camels back, and they're ready to make a change.
When we are tolerating a mediocre life it's as though we step into this comfortably numb place. It's in where we operate on autopilot. On autopilot we end up not seeing the signs. It's very much like driving down the highway, and you're lost in your head worry about something, or daydreaming about something, and you go right by the exit. You don't even see the sign that says, "Hey take this exit, here's the way to go." Many of us are living our lives on autopilot, and we don't see the opportunities that come into our lives, or we don't see the little warning signals that say, "Hold on, here, something's not right." A lot of times that little red flag is an inner gut sense--a nagging inner voice that says, "You know, let's see there have been 50 people laid off in my division over the last six months. Maybe I'm gonna be next." But instead, we just live in that state of denial, just trying to make it through the day, and we're not able to see the signs.
Then it seems to come out of left field. When you're living in that comfortably numb place, that's what happens. We honestly didn't see it coming. Maybe on some intuitive level you saw it coming, but it just doesn't feel that way.
We each walk a unique spiritual path. My path is different from your path. And some people paths mean that something will occur to wake them up where they'll make a choice to live a more conscious life. Others may end up living their whole life in a comfortably numb place. As we know, there are varying levels of consciousness, and there are varying levels of conscious people. A wake up call in someone's life is a call to consciousness. It is an invitation to live a more conscious, and awake life. Not all of us accept the invitation, and I choose to believe that if we don't it's because on some bigger level that none of us can see, it's because we need to walk down whatever path we're walking down, even if that path is a comfortably numb place.
What's really important is to really focus on your own self-awareness, your own growth, your own commitment to consciousness, because you learn to be respectful of other peoples' paths. You learn to be respectful of the fact that while I might be becoming self-aware and starting a journal and reading self-help books, or going into therapy, or whatever it might be, but my spouse isn't, instead of trying to convert him to get him onboard, if I focus on being the power of example like the old 12-step model--the positive power of attraction--if I focus on being a power of example and respect his or her space, you've got a better chance of eventually inviting somebody onto the path with you when they're ready, in their time, and in their own way when they're ready.
[Re employee coaching common issues]
I would say mostly work-life balance issues come up; people wanting more time for their lives. People originally thinking they need to be better organized, or to be better time managers, when in fact, it's usually that they have too many priorities; too many things on their plate. They need to eliminate some of them temporarily or permanently. An improvement to their quality of life I'd say is the general desire of everyone that I've work with--even if I'm working with a corporate executive who is wanting to manage their staff more effectively. Their personal life, their work-life balance issues, absolutely comes into play in that conversation because when we live a more balanced life, or when we feel that we're living the life we really want to be living, we're just much better to be around, and we are more effective.
[women vs men]
When I did do coaching, 65% of my practice were men. This was really kind of surprising to a lot of people, because traditionally we know that women buy the majority of self-help books, and women attend the majority of self-help seminars and workshops. But I think that the nature of coaching itself is very practical and action-oriented. What I found is that men are really hungry for support and guidance, although they've not been trained to asked for it, nor have they had a very practical place to go for it. Traditionally, you've had therapy as an option, and that's about it. There's so much stigma attached to therapy for both men and women--men in particular. All of a sudden there was this profession called coaching were people experience well-trained coaches giving practical advice, and I think that was a very attractive option for men. I noticed people with my books, "Take Time For Your Life," and my most recent one, "The Unmistakable Touch of Grace," those two books in particular have been very popular with men. I have to say that the latest book was quite a surprise for me. Take Time wasn't a surprise because, like I say, I had so many male clients--which really chronicled the process that I took clients through. But I've had more men stop me at events and say, "I had no idea who you were, I was standing in an airport, I saw your book on the shelf, something told me to buy it, I read it, and my god, it told my story." And I say, "It did, really? I thought it told MY story!" I think I've live a more traditionally male-oriented life because I don't have children from a career standpoint. I think that might be part of the reason men can identify with it so much.
When you begin to live a more conscious life, you recognize that we have the ability to be connected to the sacred dimension of life at any moment in time. But the only thing that keeps us disconnected is not being present. But it's not enough to just say to somebody, "You've gotta be in the now," everybody says that. What I did in the UTOG, was tell, 1. my own story in terms of my awakening to Grace--my journey to living a more conscious life, as well as stories and examples from other people in such a way that it outlines a process that allows us to live a life more balanced between silence and activity. It's really in silence that we're able to find that present-moment place. There's a whole section of the book called The Link Between Science and Silence, and I talk about the brain chemistry--the neuroscience research that is looking at what happens when people meditate in a deep way. And we really do enter what I would call a spiritual state, and that's a state where you have a complete sense of everything happening as it should, you feel a connection to all living things, you recognize there is an interconnectedness to existence. you're able see, truly see, what's going on in your life. you're able to see and experience signs of grace that are occurring all around us at any moment in time. It's just that we're not present enough to see them.
It's not like you need to be meditating every day for three hours to be able to see them. It is a process of becoming more awake in your life, making the very practical changes you need to make to get off that treadmill, or stop operating on autopilot. The good news is that as you begin to make a commitment to live a more soulful life--to life a life that honors the essence of who you are--there is this divine force that rallies behind us to support our efforts. I have watched this happen with literally thousands of people. When I had a coaching practice I would see it happening in people who didn't even believe it--they didn't even believe in the fact that there might be a greater intelligence or a higher power in existence. They didn't need to believe in it--it didn't matter--this divine force rallied behind them. What I mean by that is things like, a man would say to me, "I really want to spend more time with my family. I'd like to be home a couple of days a week when my kid comes home from school." And we would create a practical plan to help to make that happen, and suddenly something interesting would happen. Like the gentleman whose boss came into the office one day and just say to him, "You know, I was thinking about just cutting back on hours of work on Tuesdays and Thursdays." Was thinking about giving everyone one afternoon off during the summer months. Something outrageous. Or, the person would cut back and then sales would increase, and their productivity would increase, even though they were working less hours. So you see a lot of ways that we are supported.
[miracles]
When you're sitting at dinner the night before, and you're talking to your family about how you'd really like to take a trip to Costa Rica--it's something you've always wanted to do--and the next day a brochure of Costa Rica shows up in the mail out of the blue. You see it, and in that moment you think, "Wow, what a coincidence." You might get chills, or there are times where events will happen and tears will spring to your eyes. The first thing we want to do is recognize it for what it is. What if it were a divine tap on the shoulder saying you're not alone. "You're not alone. we're paying attention." There is this benevolent force of energy that you are engaged with--that you are co-creating your life with. When you have that fleeting moment of "Oh my god, I can't believe that just happened," (and, by the way, "oh, my god" is a very common response to these kinds of events)--believe it. Decide that this isn't a random event. This is a sign of grace. And the next questions is what am I going to do about it. Maybe I'm going to call the number on the brochure and just get more information. Because one of the things that prevent us from seeing the spiritual signposts that show up in our life, or following them, is our apathy. Something will happen, and we'll say, "Wow, that was really amazing," and then go right on to the next thing. We don't necessarily act on it, or see it for what it could be.
If we would trust these signs more and act on our inner nudges, or the very blatant signs we get from the world, if we would trust enough to take action we'd find very quickly that we are being led in the highest and best direction for ourselves. And it's not always the direction we want to go in, by the way. We don't always get what we want--like the old Mick Jagger song--but you get what you need. And sometimes the direction you think you're going in ends up being a completely different direction, but it opens doors for you that are far greater than you could have ever imagined for yourself.
[small change makes a big difference] One of the most valuable and important things a person can do is put support in place, some kind of support system. That's why we started the Life Makeover Groups on our website at cherylrichardson.com several years ago. Because I knew that it's one thing to have support from somebody via email, and the have support over the phone. It's a whole other thing to actually meet in person with the expressed intention of improving your life, making the changes you want to make, and then supporting each other in making them. Experience has taught me that 95% of people who have support in place, actually succeed in making the changes they want to make in their life. If we're left to our own devices, we end up just rolling right back into that comfortably numb place. So, I would tell anyone that the No. 1 thing you can do first is get support. We have the Life Makeover Group database on the website. It's absolutely free--it doesn't cost anything. You can go there and either list yourself as somebody who would like to start a group in your home town, or you can send an email to an existing group near you and join with other people. That's a very important thing.
I also think journaling is very important. You don't have to journal every day for an hour, but even if you were to journal three or four or five times a week--even in short spurts--journaling is a very powerful tool for building a relationship with yourself, remaining self-aware, identifying what's working and not working in your life--what needs to change and what needs to just be strengthened. So journaling is also deeply important.
It takes discipline to build habits that support us in some way. That's important. It takes discipline, which means we've got to do it over time, practice it consistently, and not expect perfection. What happens to a lot of us is we'll say, "OK, I'm going to meditate every day, or, I'm going to journal every day," and suddenly you miss a day, and on some level you say, "Ah, well, see? Did it again. Said I was going to start, blew it off, and to heck with it," and then don't go back to it.
So, having support in place and having someone holding you accountable, being able to be in a Life Makeover Group where you say, "Between now and next time we meet, I'm going to journal a minimum of ten times,"--setting yourself up to succeed, by the way, so that you say, "Alright, I'm only going to journal twice a week instead of every day. And if you end up journaling three times a week, that's great. We just need to build new habits, and they take time. And a lot of times it occurs in fits and starts. You do it for a while and then stop. I don't journal all the time. I go through periods in my life where I journal regularly, and then I go months without ever journaling, especially when I'm working on a book, so it's just about returning.
[END]