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”