Summer Personal Coaching

As most of you know, I maintain a very regular practice of personal fitness. It has become my lifestyle over the last 20 years, beginning with long-distance bike riding, mountain biking, triathlons, and other endurance sports, and evolving to more attention to strength training, yoga, and close attention to nutrition. I’ve sought to build my body and mind in a balanced way, strength and flexibility, striving to be better while accepting all that I am. Recently, I’ve started to teach yoga and fitness classes at Heart of the Village Yoga Studio. I’ve always enjoyed teaching and coaching sports… skiing, snowboarding, soccer, baseball… This past winter, I coached Special Olympics athletes. Recently, I taught yoga to some high school students and teams. So, why not coach some individuals this summer, too?

I’ve decided to work with a few selected individuals this summer as a way to get started. I am a ACSM Certified Personal Trainer and Registered Yoga Teacher (RYT-200). I have been working myself for the past year with Dave Knight at Spectrum Fitness Consulting in Beverly, MA, and have been inspired by my friend in California, Tyler Simmons of Evolutionary Health Systems. In addition to numerous yoga teacher-trainings, I have attended many strength and conditioning workshops over the years with Cressey Performance in Hudson, MA, and will be working towards my Certified Functional Strength Coach and Precision Nutrition certifications this summer. I will be looking for 5 individuals who’d like to work together with me for 3 months!

Now, to get the word out… I just joined Thumbtack.com to help me spread the word. I also have a new small website for my business name: Perspective Coaching.

Yes, life is a balancing act. For me, it is a lifelong practice. So much to see. So much to do. So much to learn. So much to share.

Twelve Wellness Perspectives

As a yoga teacher, a strength training coach, and an outdoor educator, I thought I’d summarize some of what I’ve learned throughout my own personal life experiences in the format of my own 12-step outline for personal wellness. I call them perspectives because they are topics to be considered and perhaps explored further (they’ll have different meanings for different people), and because that’s what I’m now calling my Vermont-based coaching work: Perspective Coaching.

So, today I am posting a draft of my outline for my friends to review and to help guide me as I develop content for the next twelve posts.

I come to this effort with a desire to help readers evolve to a healthier – perhaps more sustainable – lifestyle. My assumption is that each of us are struggling to exist in a challenging world, that each of us have our own life-story of hardship and distress, and that each of us is looking for a way to flow through life with a greater sense of ease and common good. I’m also offering these 12 wellness practices from a guy’s perspective… but I’m not intending it to be only for guys.

My preliminary outline is below. Within each topic, my plan is to develop how-to’s which give some options for people to try. Please contact me with comments.

I’ll discuss perspectives my own experiences in Yin Yoga and Power Yoga, indigenous cultures, experiential and adventure learning, therapeutic and adaptive yoga and sports, western strength training and wellness practices, and my own body-mind-spirit explorations.

1. Calm Waters: Finding Safety in the Storm. (I’ll discuss basic practices to help calm the nervous system, including surrounding yourself with support.)

2. Breathe: Our Primary Focus. (I’ll discuss breathing techniques and some visualization practices to enhance abilities to find calmness and focus.)

3. Cultivating Awareness: Being our own Witness. (I’ll bring attention to the concept of observing your thoughts and not becoming attached to them.)

4. Heart Sense: Moving from Head to Heart. (I’ll discuss concepts such as acceptance and compassion, and share practices which help develop intuition and sense of inner knowing… and moving away from a life of judgment and comparison… and moving towards a thriving life, naturally.)

5. Setting Intention: What am I Practicing? (Based on the idea that we become what we practice in life, I’ll discuss goal-setting practices and the benefits of setting positive intentions… and living in a manner as if they are already happening.)

6. Reach Deep: The Courage to be Your Self. (I’ll discuss practices to let go of “what you think should be” and to develop an attitudes of positivity and courage. I’ll discuss the concept of Dharma, and realizing your strengths.)

7. Mindful Movement: Finding Inner Power and Balance. (I’ll discuss basic principles of yoga asana and mindful strength training practices, and developing physical balance and alignment. I’m guessing that this will my focus for further posts too.)

8. Nurturing Harmony: Stabilizing Attention and Intention. (I’ll discuss practices which support finding equanimity and personal harmony, including the benefits of nutrition and regular practice.)

9. Adventurous Spirit: Maintaining Attitudes of Awe and Discovery. (The world is constantly changing. I’ll discuss practices which enhance abilities to learn, adapt, and sustain an awesome life in the light. Live a life full of experiences.)

10. Practice Loving-Kindness: The Karma of Connection. (I’ll discuss the concepts of Karma, Oneness, Gaia, and the importance of feeling connected and engaged in the bigger picture, with others, with nature… and perhaps leading changes within your family and community, one relationship at a time.)

11. Reflections: Strengthening Learning and Self-Regulation. (The learning occurs during the times of reflection. I’ll discuss non-judgmental reflection and de-brief practices.)

12. Starting Again: Life Goes On. (I like to look at my life according to the legend of Kokopelli, bringing joy to my surroundings, one day at a time, planting seeds, then moving on. I’ll discuss this perspective, the power of living in the present, but also the concept of being part of the evolutionary cycle of life. My Soul Lives.)

Be Selfish. Practice Yoga.

When teaching yoga to young people, especially when many of them are new to yoga, I remind them that the practice of yoga is really about learning about themselves and perhaps how they each relate to the world. I ask them to be selfish; to take away from their yoga practice the necessary skills and knowledge that might be relevant to their current lives and their personal goals.

At a fundamental level, our basic instinct is to survive. We can’t help anyone else if we aren’t alive and able. Learning how to adapt and be resilient in a changing world is fundamental to our existence, each of us, individually and collectively. This starts with awareness and presence. What’s going on now? Use yoga to learn present-moment awareness. Use mindfulness-based practices to not let your personal intentions get “hijacked” or disrupted by distractions and unimportant mental constructs. Use yoga-based movements to train your body to be balanced, strong yet flexible, hard yet soft, determined yet adaptable, aging yet youthful. Use these skills to be aware of change as it happens and to survive through, or breathe through, or move through, the inevitable hardships and stressful challenges in your life. Use yoga to re-program your body when stressful or traumatic events happen, to re-wire your neurological circuitry and let go of bodily stressors which no longer serve you, and to build resilient whole-bodies.

In a competitive world, our desire is to perform well. To win a game, we practice playing the skills of the game better. To score well on an exam, we study and learn the information being tested. If we don’t perform well, it’s not a reflection on who we are, the fabric of our being; we just didn’t perform well. Use yoga to learn focus and to enhance personal mind-body-spirit performance. By learning to let go of thoughts and behaviors that aren’t serving you well nor enhancing your overall ability to perform well, you are better able to focus, to see clearly, and to perform naturally as you have learned and practiced. By focusing on the performance of your whole being – body, mind and spirit – you bring your whole best-self to the game of life.

In our modern world, our instinct is to strive for happiness. We tend to be happier when we are well. We tend to be happier when we feel engaged and connected to people in our lives and in the natural world around us. Use yoga to discover your strengths, what makes you thrive, and to learn how your body responds to healthful and unhealthful habits. Use yoga to discover the natural and instinctive needs that our bodies desire for supportive personal interactions, community, time in nature, and feelings of acceptance, compassion, gratitude… and love.

Of course, survival and performance and happiness are all connected. We are all connected. Use yoga to explore the wondrous possibilities of mind-body-spirit connections, the miraculous possibilities of our human existence, and the infinite Oneness of our Universe. Feel connected. Accept possibilities. Have faith. Practice.

Yoga is not just about seeing how far you can stretch or push yourself into a posture. Yoga is about learning about yourself and how you relate to everything around you; it’s about finding balance between your desire to strive and your natural instinct to just live; it’s about learning how to move through – and breathe through – life’s rough spots and living well when you’re tested; it’s about being aware, paying attention, and letting your whole-self thrive naturally and holistically.

Go ahead. Be selfish.

Survive well and be happy. For yourself.

Practice yoga.

We’ll all benefit from each other’s wholehearted practice!

A Winding Path. A Constant Direction.

My work has led me on a winding path: architectural / structural engineering; teaching skiing and snowboarding; training and developing staff; leading outdoor hiking and biking trips; teaching middle / high school; designing homes; managing programs, projects, and businesses; improving systems and processes; facilitating health and wellness programs; training athletes; working with wounded veterans and people with disabilities; teaching yoga. It’s been a wild ride, full of adventure, full of learning, full of change, full of kindness and love.

In fact, I am going through another change right now as I announce my re-re-retirement as an actively employed professional engineer. Yes, I will continue to help long-standing clients like Vermont Barns and The Wadsworth Company as a part-time design and business development consultant; I still enjoy the creative, problem-solving process collaborating with like-minded timber frame artisans and Vermont “homestead” developers. But, I am letting go (again) of the identity of a professional structural engineer. I don’t believe the identity alone allows me to thrive on a day-to-day basis in my natural wholehearted way.

My path has always been directed with the intention of helping people, serving others, and making connections… Connections between what-we-do-today and a greater good, connections between people, connections between challenges and answers, connections between ways-of-living and nature, connections between mind and body and spirit, connections which help us all come together…

So, whether it’s working in the non-profit or the educational sector or the wellness sector, whether it’s working independently or as an employee, whether it’s coaching or teaching or leading or training or facilitating groups, I’m back on my way. Diverse, yet directed.

Kokopelli lives on. Planting seeds. Spreading joy. Bringing new life to local villages.

Wish me luck. I’m open to ideas. But, I really just wanted to say:

I’m baaack!

Connect, Cooperate and Collaborate

I believe it is our natural, indigenous tendency to get along with each other: to connect, to cooperate, and to collaborate. It is at least the way I work best. From my perspective, we are responsible for ourselves and for each other.

It seems that we live in a world of specialization, separation, competition, comparison, and blaming others for things that occur in our lives. Things happen. But we are all in this together, aren’t we?

Who-we-are, in my opinion, is NOT the story of what-happens-to-us. Who-we-are relates to how we practice living in our daily lives, how we do what we do. Are we practicing living our daily lives in a manner consistent with our life’s purpose? Are we paying attention to our intentions, individually and collectively? And, are we missing out on real opportunities for expressing our higher selves and living full lives by separating ourselves and not connecting with others?

It is with these thoughts and feelings that I will try to better focus the work I do, again. I have believed for a long time that my work should be a true expression of who I am. In an economy based on competition and comparison, it seems natural that most workplaces promote attitudes of competition and comparison, specialization and separation, sometimes requiring daily work defined by the needs of others or an employer. It is so easy to be caught up in the race…

One of my skill-sets is problem-solving in the professions of building systems, structural and architectural engineering. I have found challenging and engaging work in these fields. I have accomplished much for which I am very proud. But, it is difficult to express myself fully in this field of work alone, to approach my work in my natural wholehearted manner, when I am defined by someone else’s definition of my scope of work and my job responsibilities. I don’t want the business needs of someone else (an employer, for instance) to define who I am.

It’s time to take charge of my work and my career, again, and to find like-minded, inspired individuals and organizations with whom to connect, cooperate, and collaborate. I am confident that I can find ways to better practice living and working in a manner more consistent with these intentions here in this southern Vermont community.

I am so very fortunate to have a few people in my life who see the bigger me, the real me, and who have consistently believed in me and my work. Thank you Rob and Besty Wadsworth of Vermont Barns and The Wadsworth Company, Jo Kirsch and Andrea Ross of Heart of the Village Yoga Studio, Linda Walsh and Larry Geller of Ability Plus, Eva Belanger of Warriors Live On, and Paul Jensen of Albany Therapeutic Massage and Sports Performance Center. Thank you also to my yoga teachers, especially Beryl Bender Birch, Biff Mithoefer, and Eoin Finn… and Jo Kirsch… and also every skier and snowboarder with whom I’ve ever shared the slopes… for helping me see my light. Thanks also to my parents, Alex and Natalie, Jo (again), and my warrior brothers and sisters, for accepting me and standing with me… even when I walk astray. And thank you even to my engineering peers, who have continually given me the chance to perform valuable and important community-building work, albeit somewhat specialized, even when I randomly walk in and out of their business world!

So, I am announcing that I am re-re-retiring from my work as an employed professional engineer! I will continue to do some project development and design work as a self-employed consultant, working on projects and collaborating with organizations doing timber-framed and sustainable home design/build work, but I will also focus more and more on working with non-profits and educational organizations as a coach, a teacher, a visionary, and a team leader and facilitator, too… connecting, cooperating, and collaborating.

Here we go again. One life to live…. celebrate impermanence!