Dear clients, past clients, new clients and friends of Ignite Coaching:

 I trust that you have enjoyed the experience of the holiday season thus far.  I have been using the holiday season to take a break, to plan for next year and reflect on the year that has been.   Somehow it seems that 2010 is going to be Olympian in stature and not only because of the games in February in Vancouver.  This is my sense.  One thing that has been uppermost in my reflections on 2009 is how amazing each of my clients is; including the ones who are about to become clients in the New Year; how grateful I am that I attract clients of your calibre in my practice; how inspiring each of your journeys is and what a privilege it is to be on the journey with each of you.  Each of you along your own individual journeys displays to me so many impressive attributes. Sometimes I see in your eyes the question of  what you might think I think as I sit with you and sometimes you actually ask me what I think when you tell me “everything”.  Sometimes you get self conscious and say things like: “well I feel funny about saying all this to you, what must you think of me!”  In answer, what I think is that I love each one of you dearly and individually and I am grateful for the journey that I have been on in my life, especially the last 3 years,  which allows me this capacity to be with you, to love you authentically and share so much of your life with you.  I am deeply honoured when you trust me this much to share work, family, relationship, health, career and more challenges and aspirations.  When we co-actively reach new heights in your progress, when you sign up for bigger and better and more in your life, when you stand firmly in your own made–for–you shoes, in your own power  and I witness your success, it is incredibly gratifying all round.   I am just as awed by being with you in your low points as I know there is great learning for you then and you will come back stronger and more powerful; that when we are both patient with the lows and sit with them to get through them, we will get to witness the highs. I trust this process and I witness you learning to trust it too.  I am impressed by your courageousness, your honesty, your willingness to do the work of personal growth, your willingness to trust me even when sometimes your eyes show that you think I might really just be completely crazy this time, but you trust me anyway and then email me and tell me afterwards ”WOW, thank you!” and I breath a sigh of relief.   I am as appreciative of your strength, where, in our container of safety and trust that we have, you can tell me fiercely and even angrily:  “No, it is not that! - it is more like this!” because then I know you are finding your own clarity and truth and solutions.   I appreciate your often heartfelt appreciation of me, even though it is not about me, and your acknowledgement of the fact that I do love you; your acceptance that we are a team working on your dreams, the appreciation of the support you get from the coaching relationship and that we have the power of coaching surrounding us and supporting us and other forces too, when we are open to them coming in to be with us. Then there are all the times you have given me gooseflesh with the wonder and revelation of what you say, and how you can move me to tears, all so that you can reach more and more of your magnificent potential.   Just this week I had occasion to celebrate a birthday of someone turning 68 and I could not help but notice the sadness behind their eyes and wondered about the unfulfilled dreams that I knew had not been realized because they had been kept in a neatly boxed life and buried a long time ago, in the name of many things, especially safety.   It reminded me that we each have a responsibility to live fully in the moment, every single moment of our lives, and that often means stepping out and taking risks to grow ourselves in service of those we love and the world around us and yes, our own selves.  When we do that we learn it is acceptable to get messy and make mistakes because that is better than not doing anything at all.  That we might feel the pain and joy more intensely, but surely this means we are truly alive and not just the so called “living dead”.   It reminded me yet again to continue to take a passionate, fearless stand for my life and to encourage each of you to do the same.    It also reminded me to enjoy tears the next time I cried, instead of wishing them away because it hurt my heart so and scolding myself for being “so emotional”,  because ultimately those tears are really physical evidence of love and capacity for a fulfilling well used life.  If you don’t take chances and step beyond your skin, you don’t necessarily get to cry so what an awesome gift to feel that pain, those tears because it means you stretched and you experienced, you took a chance and it got messy  and you moved deeper for the experience.  This enables the light in you to shine just so much more brighter the next time.  When you stretch, you simply do not go back to the same size you were before.  So to each of you receiving this, I have included you because you shine and you are each individually shining lights in my life.  I want for you in 2010 that you get to crank up the “Shine Meter” on your personal light deep inside you, your magnificent potential.  Lets make it so.

 In the spirit of the holiday season, and the impending New Year, I am offering you a e-program for the start of what I know in my bones is going to be a stretching, changing, growing year.  It is a 21 day coaching cleanse program which will, instead of setting New Years Resolutions, engage you more deeply in the journey of healing, growth and personal development, and, if you do set New Years Resolutions, will  hopefully help you get beyond February with them.   It will be presented as an email a day, starting January 4, 2009,  for 21 days, except Sundays because Sundays should be a day of rest, and it  will offer you suggestions, exercises, questions to take on for that day.  You get to take what works and leave what doesn’t but I would ask that if you decide to do it, that you commit wholly to the process of being with the program and also with the doing of it.   I offer it as a gift so this is not a compulsory exercise.  No obligations whatsoever except to yourselves.  If you would like to see what it is about, then send me an email to add you to the list of those who want to receive it. And remember, if you need me to hold you accountable on anything, you only have to let me know.

 I now leave you with this Prayer for the Past:, and greetings for the year that lies ahead: 

Let all those who guide me support me in peeling away

Whatever it is that keeps me blind to what’s possible,

That keeps me hidden from my greatness

That keeps me separate from my loved ones

Today I ask you to lighten my heart, to lift my burdens,

My worries, my fears, my anxieties, my grief

So that I may know and cherish all that I am

I see it, I feel it, I acknowledge it right now

And so I know that it is

-Debbie Ford

Happy New Year!!! 

Love Karen X

 KAREN BRESLER, B.A. LL.B CPCC

“Medicine Woman” 

December 21, 2009 - Winter Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere.  Today we pass through the day where from now on the days get shorter; from days that have more darkness towards days with less darkness.  As many of us use this time of the year to reflect on the year that has been and the year that approaches, it is useful to look at this time through the persepctive of the solstice.    What has been happening in your life as you went through the darkness and how ready are you for the returning light?

Being ready implies you will take action.  Stepping into the light demands that you be seen and counted.  That you step up to the demands of your daily living and aim for the higher road.  That you will leave the land of dreaming and actually get into the land of action by using your very own light to illuminate the way  toward what you really want in your life.   What does that mean?  First we have to look at what is really holding you back right now, standing in the way of the light returning? I want to challenge you to do the following solstice exercise.  Find a quiet space and light two candles. It is useful for one to be dark to represent the darkness and the other to be white or lighter.  Light the darker one and honour the darkness of the past year, the lessons you have learned, the ups and downs, any sadness, the shadows, any losses, the loss of time gone by, unfulfilled dreams, any habits and practices that you might  feel ready to  let go as you know they no longer serve you, knowing that all that the darkeness ever required of you was to be aware of it and flow with it, breath into it and stay present to it, not fight it.  Light the white or lighter candle  now and welcome the returning light, knowing that after darkness always comes light.  That is the natural way.  What lights you up?  What makes your inner light glow just that little bit stronger?  What do people notice in you when your light is shining?  When are you at your best?   What do people say about you when that is happening? Welcome that back.  Now, from this place of light, ask yourself what you would  attempt this coming year if you knew you could not fail?  What is the burning desire you have that you may not even have admitted to yourself, let alone others?  How radical for you to do that thing!  What do you need to do that?  What assistance should you ask for and from whom?  Allow the two candles to burn side by side in a safe spot while you now take paper and pen and draw three columns on the paper. In the first column, commit to paper what you are letting go as it no longer serves you; in the second, write what you are neutral about ie. it can come or go in your life, it makes no difference to you and in the third column, write down what you must absolutely now have in your life, the “MUST HAVES” especially in the coming year,  if you are to live the life of your dreams, if your life is going to be better or different or more special. Do this from a place of the lighter candle, where all is possible as the light returns  and it is easier to see, where there is the appearance of more hours in the day because of the light and therefore possibility saturates the air and hope is renewed.  What do you need, what help or assistance can you ask for to get what you need; what would asking for help look like; how might your dreams look if you dreamed them from the place of the fearless and brave one in you who can not fail?  What is it that you need to happen in your life in 2010?  What would it look like if, for the sake of the exercise you lowered your standards of perfection or expectations by 50%?  Write down what else is needed from this place of lower expectations.  Great!  Now that you have done that, share your writings with your coach or someone who will hold you accountable to assist you to let go of those things no longer serving you, of not spending your time or energy without awareness  on the neutral things and holding you accountable to take  a couple or more  daily action steps towards any of the things you have listed in your third column.  Contact me for assistance if you are fearless and have the awareness and passion to need it.  My focus for 2010 is to take you where you may not yet have looked because for 2010 my requirements are fearlessness and passion in the pursuit of dreams.   I ask for a lot and a lot is therefore asked of me. I love this with a passion. That assists me to live purposefully and in love and joy.  I wish that for you too.  The choice as to how to live your one amazing life is, as always,  yours and your future is determined by the choices you make today.  Make your choices count now!

May your light shine even more brightly as you go out into the world this holiday season and into 2010.

Namaste and all the best,

Karen X