by Heather Plett | Sep 5, 2013 | mandala
I saw the wisdom in her eyes. She’d lived nearly 70 years on this earth and had walked with grace through a lot of pain and growth and self-discovery. As her coach, I wasn’t sure what I could offer her. I often wonder that when I see the wisdom in the eyes of my clients, and yet I show up and ask the questions, and somehow they always end up taking a step even deeper into their True Selves. It’s a beautiful thing to serve as witness, storycatcher, and guide.
She had just shared the story of a middle-of-the-night breakthrough in which she’d realized that she was still carrying a burden of anger with her. She was seeking clarity about what the anger was about. Was she still angry at her husband who’d died a few years earlier? God? Herself? She wasn’t sure.
At the end of the session, in which her own storytelling helped her find some of the clarity she was seeking, she looked over at the mandala journals beside me. “What are those?” she asked. “These are my mandala journals,” I said. “When clients are interested, I offer them some mandala-journaling processes that help them work through some of the questions sitting on their hearts.”
Her eyes lit up. “Tell me about them.” And so I did. I found the ones that I thought might help her peel back the layers of the question she was sitting with, and walked her through the simple instructions. “Sometimes,” I said, “when we’re stuck inside something so deep that we don’t have words to help us unpack it, a mandala can help us find a path through.”
“When we simply use words in our journals, we can get stuck in left-brain thinking. We try to use logic and reason to work our way through our questions. The deeper soul questions don’t respond well to logic and reason. They need to be invited into a different space – a deeper space in the heart where intuition, creativity, and spirituality rest.”
“A mandala is such a space. In invites you deeper into your intuitive heart. It serves as an invitation for those questions so deep and shapeless you don’t have words to define them.”
When I looked at her again, I saw something new in her eyes – softening, understanding, and gratitude. Something had shifted. Something in her heart had opened up. “Thank you,” she said softly. “Thank you for giving me this tool. I think you’ve just gifted me with exactly what I need.”
A week later, a mutual acquaintance emailed me to say she’d seen my client in the neighbourhood. “She looked lighter than I’ve seen her look in years. Something has been lifted off of her shoulders.”
I didn’t take that woman’s weight off her shoulders. She found the path through her own anger to a place of lightness. I simply asked the questions and gave her some tools to help her on the journey.
That look in her eyes, however, served as a catalyst for me. (It’s almost always the case that I gain as much from my coaching clients as they gain from me.) I’d almost forgotten the value of mandala journaling, until she reminded me what a powerful tool it can be. I’d let it slip in my priorities, under the other work I was doing, but suddenly I knew that I had to bring it back into my primary work. I needed to make it available to other people seeking paths through their pain, anger, inertia, grief, fear, stuckness, growth, etc.
I dove back into it, and before long, I’d created the foundation for Mandala Discovery: 30 Days of Mandala Journaling.
If you’re looking for a new tool that will help you entertain the questions in your heart, perhaps Mandala Journaling is for you.
This is not about art-making or technique (there are lots of other art journaling courses out there for that purpose). It’s about providing you with a simple tool for deeper self-discovery.
For only $45, you’ll get an introductory booklet about mandalas, a pdf that lists what kind of tools you might want to have on hand, one mandala journaling prompt every day for 30 days, and access to a private Facebook group where you can share your mandala journaling questions and insights.
Your soul questions are calling you. Why don’t you create a space where they can feel safe?
by Heather Plett | Jun 14, 2013 | Uncategorized
Earlier this week, I was feeling a little discouraged about the “me, me, ME culture” that seems so pervasive in our North American affluence. I wrote a bit about that in my post about all of us being citizens of the world.
Some days, I go through my social media streams, or I stand in a grocery story checkout, and almost all I see are self-focused posts, advertisements, and magazine headlines about how “you deserve to pamper yourself” and “you can make all of your dreams come true” and “you owe it to yourself to buy yourself more things” and “you can manifest abundance and an easy life”.
It makes me want to say what I sometimes say to my children, “It’s not all about YOU!”
Let me say right from the start… self-care is a good and necessary thing, and I am in no way suggesting that you shouldn’t be good to yourself. Many of us struggle with being kind to ourselves, so I understand the importance of reminding people to take care of themselves. I do this often in my courses, workshops, and coaching sessions. I was raised by a mother who modelled self-sacrifice and self-deprecation, so I know how hard it can be to honour ourselves.
The problem is, many of us replace self-care with self-centredness. We justify selfishness – buying ourselves extravagant and wasteful things, doing things that harm the earth, and ignoring other people in our communities – because we believe that we deserve it. In doing so, we isolate ourselves and we marginalize others.
We forget that we need community. We forget that we need to serve each other. We forget that in all of our lives, there will come a time when we will need to rely on the compassion and kindness of other people. My broken foot this week is reminding me of just that – I need people to do many things for me that I would normally do myself.
After the discouragement earlier this week, I started reading various stories coming out of Gezi Park in Turkey that gave me renewed faith in humanity. What began as a protest against the destruction of the park has grown into so much more. People are standing up to police brutality to protest the way that the concerns of common citizens are ignored by their government. In the process, they have created a beautiful community where they share food, make art, do yoga, look after each other, and dance.
One of the most beautiful stories I read was that of the mothers who showed up to form a human chain between the protestors and police after the Prime Minister told them to take their kids out of the park to protect their safety. I was so moved by that story, in fact, that I created a Facebook group to represent a virtual chain of mothers who stand in solidarity with those mothers.
What I love about these stories is the fact that they show that, at our hearts, we are a communal and compassionate people. When there is need among us, we show up for each other. When someone else is threatened, we stand united against the threat. This doesn’t just happen in Turkey – it happens in all parts of the world.
In the Art of Hosting work, there is something called the Four Fold Practice, which teaches that wholeness in this work (and in our lives) comes when we commit to each of the four practices:
- Be Present and cultivate a strong practice of hosting yourself.
- Participate in conversations with deep listening and contributing from the heart
- Host others with good process
- Co-create a way forward together
This is a beautiful reminder that, to live in community and in a world that needs each of us to show up and offer our gifts, we must host ourselves, participate actively, host others, and co-create a way forward. None of these can stand alone, and none of these is a complete picture. Unless you host yourself, you cannot offer deep listening to others, nor will you be prepared to host others.
I created this mandala awhile ago, playing with the idea that all four of these practices are connected, that there is a flow and an interdependence among them as we learn to work with our own gifts and the gifts of others, and that they are all part of what it means to be in circle with each other.
The more I do this work, the more I know that it is imperative, paradigm-shifting work. We cannot continue to function in a self-centred world, nor can we function well if we fail to care for ourselves or others. We need to rely on each other, but we also need to recognize our own strengths.
If you want to learn more about this, you’re welcome to attend a one-day introductory workshop on The Art of Hosting and Harvesting Conversations that Matter that I’ll be co-hosting in Winnipeg on July 24th.
by Heather Plett | Jun 11, 2012 | circle, journey, Uncategorized
Thank you for visiting my new site! I’m excited to have you here.
It’s been an interesting journey that has brought me to this place – a spiraling journey that started out with my first blog, Fumbling for Words, which later morphed into my second blog, Sophia Leadership, when I started on my self-employment path. Finally I am here, at the site that bears my own name. It feels right, at this time, to be just me, beautiful, flawed, growing, emerging, good enough ME!
I believe that all of life is a spiraling journey – like a journey up a mountain that can not be a direct path, lest we move too quickly and sprain an ankle or get altitude sickness. Instead, we spiral round and round, often feeling like we’re back at the same place, but nonetheless getting closer and closer to our destination.
Hence the spiral that appears all over my new site design. We have much to learn from spirals.
We also have much to learn from circles, mandalas, and labyrinths. As I wrote on my “about” page:
Circles teach us how to gather – looking into each others’ eyes, sharing our gifts, leaning in, and supporting each other through change and growth.
Spirals teach us how to learn and how to live – going inward, seeking the source of our truth and our strength, and then going outward, serving the world with our gifts.
walking the labyrinth
Mandalas teach us how to engage our minds and our hearts – slowing down to the speed of contemplation, exploring our creativity, and trusting the intuitive truth that arises.
Labyrinths teach us how to journey through life – trusting the path, accepting the turns that take us in the wrong direction, and putting one foot in front of the other until we reach the centre.
If you’d like to learn more about circles, spirals, mandalas, and labyrinths, I welcome you to join my free 75 minute call on Tuesday, June 26th at 7:00 pm Central Daylight Time. Register below.
It will be an interactive call (in the spirit of the circle), so I hope that you will join us, but if you can’t, sign up anyway and I’ll send you the link to the recording once it’s done.
This is not a sales call. It’s a learning journey, and I welcome you to come with me as we explore the path.
Here are a few things you’ll get out of the call:
- a basic understanding of circle and how it can inform the way we meet and engage in meaningful conversations
- an exploration of how labyrinths and mandalas can deepen your journey and become valuable spiritual & creative practices
- ideas that will help you engage your intuitive, right brain processes for increased clarity and creativity
- lots of tips that will help you understand your own personal spiraling journey, including an exploration of the value of chaos
- time to explore these ideas in a safe, non-judgemental environment
Thanks again for visiting! Take a look around, and let me know what you think of my new digs! One of the things you’ll notice, if you visit the “work with me” page is that I’ve decided to put my coaching work more front and centre. I’ve had some pretty powerful coaching opportunities lately, in which I’ve seen some beautiful transformations in my clients, on the path through chaos to creativity. It made me realize that this is a gift I need to be more intentional about sharing. If you’re looking for coaching, contact me and we’ll have an exploratory conversation.
by Heather Plett | May 20, 2012 | Creativity, mandala
It’s my birthday. I’m 46. There’s a very good chance I’ve passed the halfway point of my life. I think I may have just stepped over the crest of the proverbial hill.
But you know what? The view from here looks pretty spectacular! I can see lots of hills and valleys still ahead of me. And a lot of aimless afternoons spent wandering in the woods. A lot of late evenings lost in meaningful conversations with great people. A lot of adventures in unexplored places. A lot of good books still to read. A lot of fascinating people still to meet. A lot of failures still to live through. A lot of triumphs to celebrate. A lot of disappointments. A lot of love.
Forty-six feels pretty darn good. Sitting here in the early hours of the morning while my family sleeps, I can tell you one thing for sure – I have never felt more content about who I am and what I’m offering the world than I feel right now. My forty-sixth year was full of a great deal of personal exploration and a fair bit of struggle, but it was all very good, because I feel more confident than ever about what I am called to do.
One of the things I am called to do is to help guide people on the path through chaos to creativity. That’s going to be the the tagline on my new website (that I’d hoped to unveil today, but decided I didn’t want to rush it). I’m excited about it because it feels like clarity and a little more focus.
I know a lot about chaos and a lot about creativity. I have been through both places on the journey many times, and I will visit those places many more times in this spiralling journey of life.
As I step into the next year of my life, I have more and more confidence that I am being called to serve as a guide in this journey. There are many people stuck in chaos who feel lost or frantic or frustrated. Maybe you’re one of them. Maybe you need someone to help you shift your perspective, to begin to see the chaos or brokenness or lostness as a valuable part of the journey. Or to begin to invite creativity into the shadowy places. That’s where I come in.
One of the tools I use to help examine the chaos and invite creativity into the space is the mandala. There are so many things we can learn when we sit down with paper, coloured markers, our intuitions, and our openness.
In honour of my 46th birthday, I’d like to offer 10 people the opportunity to have mandala sessions with me for $46 each. One time sessions are normally $100, so that’s less than half price. If you’re curious about them, read more here. (In case you’re wondering, these sessions are usually done over Skype or the phone, so you can do them from anywhere in the world.)
This is powerful, chaos-shifting work (that’s much bigger than me – I am simply a conduit) and I know that a lot of people will find value in it. One of my most fascinating experiences has been a series of sessions I did with Dr. Kay Vogt, a psychologist who found me through a listserv we’re both on. After a series of sessions and many mandalas, Kay experienced a profound shift in her life. Here’s what she said about the work we did together, “Our work together has been extremely powerful for me. As a professional doing something similar to what you do it takes a lot to impress me. I am very grateful for your mentoring. You have been a coach’s coach for me.”
In case the idea of mandalas scares you a bit, let me assure you of this – you need no artistic talent whatsoever to do this. This is not about making art. It makes no difference what your finished piece looks like. It’s about using a creative tool to explore some of things that your right brain wants to discover that are sometimes buried under left brain logic. It’s simply a tool for deeper self-discovery that goes hand-in-hand with the heart-opening conversation we’ll have.
If this feels like something you’d value, book a session for $46 and let’s go on an exploration together.
Discounted price no longer available. You’re welcome to book one for the usual price of $100.
Note: If you’re curious about the mandala at the top of the page, it’s my birthday mandala. I wanted to do something to represent 46 years of growth (there are 46 tendrils growing from the centre) and 46 years of being who I am (there are 46 words around the edge that represent what I love and value).
by Heather Plett | Feb 29, 2012 | Uncategorized
My current time-waster/stress-reliever is a game called Mahjong, where tiles are stacked in various formations and the goal is to remove all of the tiles by finding matching pairs.
I’ve gotten to the point where I can win about half the games I play, but that meant a fair bit of trial and error had to take place before I could begin to understand the strategy. At first, I’d simply remove any matching pairs that appeared, hoping to get to the bottom. With that approach though, I never succeeded.
One day I had an a-ha moment while playing Mahjong.
Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.
In other words, by removing the easy tiles at the beginning instead of saving them for later when one of them might match another tile that’s more important to remove, I ruin my chances of success in the long run.
The most valuable thing to do is to remove those tiles that reveal something deeper underneath.
The more I play Mahjong, the more I realize those lessons go much beyond a simple game.
Since I started my business last year, I have been doing a lot of things. Too many things. There are lots of things I CAN do, and I’m good at many of them, so when people ask me to do them, I think “I need to make money and I need to get my name out there, so I’d better do this thing.”
I have been writing a book, editing other people’s books, tutoring people, coaching people, mentoring leaders, serving on the board of a women’s empowerment organization, teaching effective written communication, teaching writing for public relations, teaching effective facilitation, teaching emotional intelligence, facilitating community-building workshops, facilitating leadership workshops, teaching creative writing, teaching creative discovery, teaching social media skills, writing and selling ebooks on writing, wandering, leadership, and social media, serving on the organizing committee for an international women’s gathering, building a couple of websites for clients, doing mandala sessions and creating a mandala discovery course, doing a Skype interview series for a leadership gathering, hosting retreats… and… there’s more.
Some days, at the end of the week, I feel like my brain has been riding a merry-go-round for days on end. These past weeks have been especially challenging, since I’m currently teaching courses in three very different subject areas (writing for PR, effective facilitation, and creative discovery), and building a website for the event I’m helping to host this summer, and planning 2 upcoming retreats, and doing some mandala sessions. TOO MUCH!
I need to make money, I need to build my platform, and I enjoy variety, so I have a hard time saying no to the work that shows up.
Just like in the early days of playing Mahjong, I’m removing all of the tiles that appear, without consideration for whether or not they’re helping get to the deeper purpose.
Just because I can, doesn’t mean I should.
It’s time to apply that mantra to my life as well as my Mahjong board. I need more strategy. I need to trust that hanging onto some of the easy tiles will mean I’ll have them in reserve for when they help me get to the deeper stuff.
Yesterday, I took a baby step. Because of my skill-set and experience, I’d been asked to sit on the board of a really interesting organization doing international development work, mostly in Africa. It was SO tempting to say yes, since it so closely matches my values and interests and I knew I would be an asset to them and and it would give me a new circle of interesting connections. BUT I knew it would take time away from some of the other valuable work I’m committed to that’s even more closely aligned with my values and interests and long term business goal. So I made the difficult decision to say no. OOoooo… that was tough.
And I’m going to start saying no to more things, like some of the teaching that requires too much of my time and energy in areas I’m neither effective nor interested (grading papers, for example).
None of it has been a waste of time though. Just like all those practice rounds of Mahjong, before I started winning games, this past year has been incredibly valuable for me. I’ve learned so much more about what I’m good at, what I want to spend my time and energy on, and what offerings of mine people benefit the most from.
I couldn’t get here without the practice.
I couldn’t start saying no until I’d said yes a lot of times. I couldn’t find the work that was most meant for me, without a little trial and error that helped me eliminate the work that wasn’t meant for me.
Here’s what I’ve learned about myself this past year:
I love public speaking. I am often in my most happy place when I am speaking, leading, facilitating, or teaching. But I don’t really enjoy speaking on topics that don’t energize me.
I love engaging people in meaningful conversation, and I love helping them get to deeper levels of meaning. I even get energy from facilitating challenging dialogues.
I love encouraging people, but I don’t really enjoy being in a position where I have to judge their work. I’d much rather offer words of encouragement to my students and help them find their unique gifts than correct their papers and give them grades.
I love creative writing, and I enjoy teaching other people to write more creatively, but I don’t really enjoy teaching business writing.
I am a meaning-finder, a metaphor-maker, a big picture thinker and a non-dualistic processor. I thrive on creativity. I am much more comfortable outside the box than inside. I feel easily trapped when I have to teach or work in environments that feel too restrictive or systems-driven.
I can’t think of anything I love more than doing creative work (like mandalas) and encouraging others to grow in their creativity and self-discovery.
I keep going back to the personal mission statement I wrote about 10 years ago when I first started imagining this work.
“It is my mission to inspire excellence in people, to facilitate personal growth and the discovery of gifts, and to serve as a catalyst for positive change.”
It’s time to start saying no to more things so that I can say a bigger YES to my mission.
This week I woke with a new abbreviated version of my mission statement on my mind.
I am a catalyst for creativity, community, and change.
And I say a bit YES to that.
“When we simply use words in our journals, we can get stuck in left-brain thinking. We try to use logic and reason to work our way through our questions. The deeper soul questions don’t respond well to logic and reason. They need to be invited into a different space – a deeper space in the heart where intuition, creativity, and spirituality rest.”
If you’re looking for a new tool that will help you entertain the questions in your heart, perhaps Mandala Journaling is for you.
