it's all coming together...

and my website, after many many many days of preparation is now live! i can't reveal it here as this is my personal blog and the website is my business site - and whilst i'm proud of both, this is much more a personal outlet for me and as such, perhaps not ideally stumbled upon by my clients!

sooo it's been a good week...started my first leadership coaching gig with a client (it was good), have 2 more potential clients lined up (am meeting one on Monday am and the second I've given a proposal to and i'm waiting to hear back), my 1st client has re-signed for more sessions and my non paying client is about to get a job so she will convert to paying...so the business side of things is starting to ramp up and i'm really pleased...

my challenge is to continue to make connections and find new sources of work - but right now, word of mouth is working a treat...

so to all of you who have supported me in this venture and recommended clients, thank you :-) it means a lot to me to have your support!

have i mentioned that

i love what i do?

i met up with one of my coaching clients today and we had a GREAT session - not only did i enjoy it, but he subsequently sent me a text saying how 'valuable' he had found it - i love it when a client feels strongly enough about my work to comment on it :-)

during our session he also commented what a great job i had - and you know what, he's absolutely right and it's not like i didn't already know this or appreciate it (coz i appreciate it big time) but it was interesting to hear someone else's take on it...

there are of course many positives to running a business that is made up of the things you love doing, being your own boss, managing your own time, working with people you want to work with, not working when you don't want to etc etc

of course like everything it comes with it's own set of challenges - but i have to say, that they are all worth it - even though there are times when running your own show can be lonely and you have to do things (such as business development) that aren't your core competency - overall i would highly recommend it...

the best thing for me is that finally i am living my dream and helping people lead happier lives - and you know what, in doing that, and giving my energy to them, i am happier! go figure...

just the tonic...

so will you know if you've been reading my posts of late that i've had an 'up and down' sort of a time - to be honest, the last 2 weeks has actually been mostly up, so it was a bit surprising that i felt sort of down and sad lastnight as i went to bed, with no real apparent reason why...

follow that up with a nightmare filled sleep, then by an early wake up call from the neighbourhood birds which meant i couldn't get back to sleep, meaning i tossed and turned for 2 hours until the alarm finally went off, and i woke up feeling not myself...

so not really wanting to get out of bed, i dragged myself out, into the shower and over the bridge (where there was a massive accident) to my best friends house to do her tax...

doesn't sound ideal for someone in my state of mind right? wrong!

we had the LOVELIEST time together - she had the kettle boiled by the time i got there - so we had tea, chatting, did the tax, more tea, more chatting and generally had the nicest 3 hours i have had in a long time :-)

thanks kirst - coming over, spending time with you and connor on your deck in the sun, drinking tea was just the tonic!

there are no less than 13 candles...

in our study this evening, and this is no romantic gesture that either one of us has made towards the other!

no, the bloody light bulb blew this morning and despite our best efforts to change it - the light fixture is a nightmare and according to ben, the most ridiculously designed fixture on the planet - it is now hanging for dear life from the ceiling by only an electrical cable...

can't be safe right? but he won't let me try and fix it as he says it is live electrical wire and too dangerous...

sooo methinks before i ring an electrician to fix it, i'll be looking for a new (similarly sized) fitting that can be put in it's place, coz for the entire 51/2 years i've lived here, i have hated the light fittings!

good excuse for shopping??

sooo that is the reason for our candle lit study - which i have to say, not only looks nice but smells fantastic!

migraines...

i'm so over this blog at times - i write a good post, and as i'm making changes to the colour and font, the whole thing decides to lose itself...frankly, its a fucking nightmare!

so now i'm in no mood to write it again - what i will say is this:

lastnight i had a migraine - not a really bad headache, but a migraine, where the pain was so bad that if i had died i wouldn't have cared...all those other times i thought i had a migraine, i am sure now that i didn't...

the pain was excruciating and unrelenting, the nausea came in waves every time i moved or even thought about moving, and light was just out of the question, and even my usually comfy and soft pillow felt like concrete...the only escape was sleep

so to all those migraine sufferers out there, you have my sympathy - i had NO idea it was that bad

eat pray love

i'm soooooooooooo annoyed, i just wrote the most amazing post and it's gone - into the ether! anyway i'll try and re-create it!

eat pray love is what i'm reading now - a welcome relief following the trauma that reading the kite runner was for me - admittedly the kite runner will go into my top ten favourite books - it was beautiful and heartfelt and real and so much about the human condition that it will never leave me - hopefully the sadness of it will!

so in late 2006 my wonderful coach kathleen gave me 'eat pray love' which has sat on the shelf (like many other books do -this one was not singled out in that regard) ever since - i felt that after the kite runner i needed something much lighter and a friend had only last week suggested eat pray love

so i'm now almost 2/3rds through it and it's fabulous - it's funny, real and poignant - one woman's journey - and i'm LOVING it! and whilst i won't be rushing off to india or an ashram anytime soon. can you see me getting up at 3am more than once to sing/pray?? methinks not!!! it has renewed my interest in learning to meditate - for years i have listened to others talk about the benefits of meditation and i think i might just be ready!

see one of my big issues, and one i constantly tell my therapist i'd like to change, is the noise in my head - i wish there was a button that i could simply push to turn it off or some way of achieving the 'quiet' that i know must be there somewhere, but no matter what, the noise remains - so perhaps meditation might actually help me get there - ironically the very thing that has put me off meditation is the fact that i don't think i'll be good at it! but as i tell almost every single person that i work with in a coaching capacity, learning as an adult isn't like learning as a child - it's harder to make change when you're older - not to mention the fear of looking like an idiot is now very much a real fear, whereas when you were 5 and learning to ride a bike, nobody, including you gave a toss about how you looked if you fell off a bike...

so i am going to go into this with an open mind and some kindness towards myself and a reminder that i will be LEARNING - i don't expect to become a zen master after only 1 class!!

so i'm looking into that - have in fact found a 1 hour once a week drop in class in north sydney - i mike this - not much commitment which means i won't have to withdraw if my business suddenly takes off - and therein lies another issue i have - not wanting to disappoint people - what is with that? surely the only person that would be disappointed if i withdrew for good reason would be me...mmm might have to think about that one...

sooo meditation is coming, i've made contact about volunteer work, i've followed up some work leads, am seeing more friends whilst the work isn't busy and i must finish my website content - i've imposed a deadline of sunday on myself in an attempt to have the entire thing finished, reviewed and live by end of october...

soooo even if you aren't religious (i'm not, not in a traditional organised sense anyway) this is a fantastic read....

the ride, i hope, is coming to an end...

and this sounds kinda weird right, coz most people might associate the term 'ride' with 'fun'! but the ride that i am referring to is the rollercoaster i've felt i've been on and unable to get off for the past 3 or 4 weeks...

haven't had much fun to be honest, a lot of soul searching and navel gazing that frankly left me feeling sad and a wee bit helpless!

so i've spurred myself into action - something that ALWAYS seems to work for me! i'm gonna try to do more - turns out as lazy as i think i am, i am in fact BORED - yep, you read it right - i'm bored! so here's what i'm gonna do:

- finish the website so it can go live
- consider doing some volunteer work to fill in the time until i am busy with my business
- do some more study (this was on the cards anyway) and Nov will be a busy month
- get out a bit more and do the things i love
- spend less time doing nothing
- try not to analyze everything: difficult when you are a trained analyst (in 2 ways!)
- exercise
- read more, but perhaps not sad books like the kite runner
- find a writing course that fits in so i can get back into my writing
- investigate playing tennis again - i miss my tennis :-(

ok, now that i've gotten all that written down hopefully it will serve as a reminder when the rollercoaster ride is beckoning me to get on!

feeling much better....

the kite runner

is absolutely by far the saddest book i have ever read...Ben said when i'd finished crying lastnight that a) it was only a story and b) that it must have been good if it made me cry (meaning real)...

oh man - it was traumatic and even now, a day on from finishing it, i still tear up when i think about what some people have to overcome in their lives...

guess it didn't help that in the middle of all of that there has been a lot of confronting 'past demons'....

so it's been a tough and sad few days and i hope now that we are able to go onwards and upwards (as the saying goes)...

so thank you khaled hosseini for an amazing read - sad yes, heartfelt yes, real yes, and now at least i understand more about what the afghan people went through...Ben reminded me again yesterday just how lucky we are to live in Australia, and he is right, absolutely definitely right!

just got myself a sort of present...

see foxtel emailed me with an update the other day saying from 1st october their package structures were changing - again methinks, as this seems to happen so often now, not that i'm complaining though, as every time they make a change it does seem to get cheaper - relatively speaking!

so i decided to upgrade my package and i now have one of the two movie packages in our package - not like i watch a whole heap, but it does provide a few more options and some great series that aren't on free to air...and all for an extra $12 a month

a bit self indulgent perhaps?

oh well!

some books are simply heart wrenching...

you know i'm a bit of a book addict and i'm reading a lot right now - function of not having much work at the present time and enjoying my reading, after many months of not having either the time or the inclination...

so right now i'm reading 'the kite runner' - and whilst i figured it would be sad, i had NO idea what was coming and i went to bed lastnight crying - it's just so sad, in a way that makes you question everything about what it is to be a friend...

i had no idea i would find it so moving - and i'm wondering why it has taken me so long to take it off the shelf...

and now i find myself compelled to get to the end, in the hope that redemption truly becomes an option for this poor kid...

i love books that are so moving, and i hate hearing about people treating others in such an inhumane way :-( why are some people so cruel??

i'm probably never gonna get an answer to that that i'm happy with, no matter how hard i try or how much time i put into it...

the indifference of some to the suffering of others saddens me...