Why it can be a good thing to ‘crash and burn’ !!

Here is a video of us being interviewed at the Starting Over Show in London recently. Whilst only 4 1/2 minutes long, the video captures many of the fundamental keys to our Authentic Transformation process. Thanks to Suzy Miller, the organiser of the Starting Over Show (http://sosvillage.org/)

From Frustration, Anger and Divorce to Authenticity, Love and Acceptance

Hi, I’m Andy Nicholson, relationship and authenticity coach and personal development trainer.

I’m living the life of my choosing, I have learned to love and accept myself, I have learned to love and accept others (although I’m not always as wonderful at this as I might like!! – I am still a work in progress).

It was not always like this…. Five years ago after redundancy and divorce, I was mainly angry and frustrated – I was not in control of my life or my emotions. I was stuck, disempowered.

Then I came to realise that I could become very empowered. I was in fact at a crossroads in my life. Before me was a blank sheet of paper, on which I could design the life that I wanted…

But what did I want? What was possible for me?

I did not know. All I knew was what I did not want. The truth is that I was proud of knowing what I did not want. I felt that it gave me direction, helped me to make choices. I even gave myself kudos for this strategy in life. In my 20s it seemed to work, I seemed to be happier than some of my peers who perhaps did know what they wanted (or thought that they did) and were angry, fearful or depressed for not achieving their desired outcomes. Some even looked up to me for doing what I did.

Then, in my 30s, after my entrepreneurial businesses had ‘failed’ I knuckled down into a career, got a mortgage, a pension, got married… I did all the ‘normal’ stuff. I felt that I did not have enough fun and took life too seriously – but I believed I ‘had’ to, I was conditioned to think like this – the good old protestant work ethic…. So I made attempts to be more fun, more outgoing, I even chose a wife who was very much a fun, party animal, extroverted, the life and soul, needed at least three expensive holidays per year…. She warned me against marrying her, as she felt that she may be too much (for me, for many men) – her statement “I’m a nightmare, don’t marry me” fell on deaf ears. I felt that I was a match for her concerns. Boy, was I deluding myself! Now don’t get me wrong, my ex-wife is a wonderful woman, we just had different expectations, a different pace, differing priorities, values and beliefs. The truth is that her life works for her. Mine was not working for me and in many ways, I unwittingly tried to use her to fix me.

So there I was, 39, uninspired by my job, divorced, directionless. At this point, I bumped into an old friend of mine. After listening to my tale of woe (I poured my heart out – dumped all my frustration onto him), he suggested that I go along to a monthly meeting. No, it was not religious, it was about personal development (PD). I’d actually come across a few ‘PD’ and self-help books in previous years, and whilst interesting and inspiring, like most people, once read, I just carried on as normal, deluding myself that I did not need to change me – I just needed the world to change and give me a break!

I enjoyed the personal development get-togethers. Some great speakers started to challenge my mind-set and my beliefs and gradually open me up to new possibilities. I also enjoyed being around people who were more positive. Of course, I believed that some of the speakers, who had achieved great things, had some special talents that I did not possess and could not possess, so I did not intend to try to emulate them. It was safer and easier that way.

Then, after 10 months of attending the PD meetings, two relationship coaches gave a talk that would cause me to change my life. I’d been separated for nearly a year. My divorce had come through, yet the feelings were still raw. I felt like the marriage had been a waste of time, effort and a lot of money. I had yet to be able to take anything positive from the experience, especially any learnings. I felt like I was likely to make the same mistakes all over again (and I was).

I had been going out on lots of dates, courtesy of match.com and Dating Direct. Initially, this was just to get me out of the marital house and have some fun – living under the same roof for 10 months whilst separated was not much fun. I quickly found that I was able to feel more like my old self when out flirting. Yet after a while, there I was again, seeking the answers and my happiness outside of me, from others – seeking recognition and affirmation.

The 2 ½ hour talk by the relationship coaches, who were married, blew me away. It challenged so many of my beliefs about relationships and challenged my very identity and behaviour as a man. I had to know more. I signed up for their four day retreat at their base in Austria. Three months later, I had the most enjoyable and eye-opening four days of my life. I loved their teachings, it all seemed to make so much sense and yet was so contrary to how I ran my life. I recognised for the first time that I possessed an awesome set of values, and a lousy set of beliefs. I was living my life according to my beliefs, out of alignment with my values – hence I was unfulfilled and frustrated.

Picture – Andrew on top of the world (well, a small mountain) in Austria.

While in Austria, I also started to recognise that only I could take responsibility for my life and achieving better outcomes and more happiness. No one could do it for me. It sounds obvious now, yet how many of us are kidding ourselves…? On the Sunday, over breakfast, whilst discussing the meaning of life… I had an epiphany!  The work of the Retreat was completely in alignment with my values. I found the Retreat owners to be inspiring and I felt passionate about their purpose in life. I wanted to help them to help others like me. Plus, I had all these business, marketing and IT skills, which their ‘cottage industry’ could benefit from – I could help them to spread the word.

So to cut a long story short, 6 months later I moved to Austria, lived and worked at the retreat for 20 months, and almost by osmosis (and by attending over 30 days of training that they offered), my outlook on life transformed. While in Austria, I still liked female attention. I dated a couple of girls and flirted with a couple of others. While I was gradually awakening to myself, I was still in some denial. I was denying my potential. Although I felt that I now had my ideal vocation, I still would not face up to what I wanted in an ideal relationship. I underestimated and under-valued myself.

After 12 months in Austria, I decided that it was time to stop playing games. It was time to claim what was rightfully mine – the life of my dreams, a life and a journey that I wanted to share with my soul-mate (whoever she was). My role in Austria was not stretching me enough and I did not feel that the opportunity to grow at the same pace would remain open to me.  I also put out my intention to meet my soul-mate and I trusted that I would find her when the time was right. This was in April 2007.

Around the same time that I went to Austria, I enrolled to train in NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming), a branch of psychology and personal development that is based around how the brain works and how we think and behave. NLP introduced me to the concept that we all a have wildly different values and beliefs. Along with our innate talents and learned skills, this is what makes us unique – who we are and how we behave.

Andy’s Values
2006	2008
Love Happiness Integrity Connection Growth Health Humour Passion Affection Creativity Family Freedom Abundance	Happiness Pleasure Zest for life Balance Connection Health Purpose Freedom Direction Contribution Congruence Growth Creativity

Having identified my values, I started to want to be more congruent with them and to act with integrity. This lead to two things: firstly, a desire to go back to the UK in order to create my life how I wanted it, living my purpose rather than supporting someone else’s and secondly the desire to find my soul-mate.

You can see in the table opposite how my values changed over two years. I discovered more purpose, energy and enthusiasm, placed myself my purpose and my freedom above the need to please others and seek approval. This shift in values reflected what I had learned from my mentors in Austria about ‘turning up my masculinity dial’.

Being a kind, empathetic and supportive person, I’ve never had too much trouble getting in touch with my feminine side. We all have masculine and feminine aspects to our character. Many would say that to be a balanced and whole person we have to embrace and integrate both these energies, i.e. the yin and yang.

At the end of a 10 day relationship coaching training course in Austria with 12 other people, we were each rated (by the group) on our behaviour and how we outwardly expressed ourselves in terms of masculine vs. feminine energy. This was a fascinating and nerve wracking experience!! My score came out as 59 masculine and 44 feminine. Both scores are out of 100, the theory being that we will typically spend 70-80% of our time displaying the core energy of our gender, i.e. I would typically be 70-80% in my masculine and 20-30% in my feminine. As I said, a fascinating and not un-controversial subject! Again, to cut a long story short, I reckon my energy is now more like 75-80% masculine and 30-35% feminine. This shift has definitely helped me to become more authentically myself.

This is another great example of how I have transformed my experience of life. From all of my study and learnings, I have created what I call my model of Authentic Transformation. This is not a process of re-inventing yourself, or swapping one false self, for a slightly better false self. This process of true personal and spiritual (with a small ‘s’) development is about identifying who you really are and learning the tools that allow you to be authentically you, in all situations and roles. Whilst what I learned and how I turned up my masculinity certainly helped me a lot as a single man, when it came to putting this into practise within relationships, it was not without major challenges…

Towards the end of my stay in Austria, in July 2007, I received an e-mail from one of the dating sites that I had been on a few months earlier. A lady in America had read my profile and sent me an email. I’d not been on the site for several months and my membership had lapsed. I had no desire to start a transatlantic relationship. Whilst online, I looked at who else was also online – there were only a handful of people. I immediately resonated with one of the profiles, a lady from the Highlands of Scotland. We connected and clicked straight away. I happened to be back in the UK the very next week, for the first time in a year. I cheekily invited her to fly down and meet me. She did, and the rest is history… I’d been looking for my soul-mate and I’d found her. Six months later, I moved back to the UK and Diane left her life in Scotland to come and live and work together with me. We had only spent three weeks together in those six months. The fact that we had both done a lot of work on ourselves, and were able to be ourselves without any egos, masks game playing, without the need to try to impress, made all the difference. Our story is featured in other articles.

By loving ourselves 10 out of 10, we were able to accept ourselves and speak our truth to each other without any neediness and falseness. Some people may thing that loving yourself at a ‘10’ is arrogant, egotistical, selfish or even narcissistic! It is not. In fact it is the most self-less thing that you can do. For when you are full of love, you only have love to give others – you lose the need to blame, criticise, judge, hate…

Now it may seem like I am painting a very idyllic picture and everything has been plain sailing. That is definitely not the case. Intimate relationships are one of life’s most challenging things. Not only do you have to master your own behaviour, you have to learn to do so in close proximity to another, very different being. Diane and I are very different. We seemed to accept each other in principle, there were still aspects of each other’s behaviour that we each found challenging. Whilst we share many values, beliefs and our purpose in life, our personality styles are very different. This caused us some challenges, especially living and working together 24/7. Throughout, we have remained convinced that we are soul-mates or ‘twin flames’ and we have experienced amazing connection, synergy and love.  We have had to learn new tools and insights to enable our love to flourish and achieve its true potential.

Ten months into our relationship we enrolled on a training course about the Enneagram personality ‘typing’ system. I had been aware of a variety of such systems; whilst interesting, they all seemed rather complex, confusing and hardly earth-shattering. The Enneagram was different, it dealt with the whole person, you could really identify with it. For us, it was like the missing piece of the jigsaw. It finally explained why Di and I were so different and it allowed us to understand, accept and embrace those differences. We now use the Enneagram with many of our clients.

The other missing piece of the jigsaw for most people is their fears, underpinned by limiting beliefs. Whilst working in the PD industry, I noticed ‘pareto’ at work; only 20% of people seemed to take what they had been taught and use it to transform their lives and achieve the results that they wanted. They other 80% did not – they unwittingly seemed to treat the process as an intellectual exercise, ticking boxes, perhaps becoming ‘course junkies’. When I met Diane, she was Susan Jeffers first and only ‘Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway®’ tutor. I now teach this incredible workshop, based on the best selling book, with Di. It is the most powerful agent of change. It is also the first step that most people need to take in their journey; a step once taken that enables anyone to play full out in all aspects of life, taking and applying the most from any other training that they do.

With these tools and experiences, we believe that we have created a framework that can enable anyone to turn their lives around, overcoming fear, limiting beliefs and unhelpful models of the world; connecting with their values, personality style, emotionality, purpose, personal responsibility and accountability. It is an holistic approach – one that can deliver both immediate benefits and a transformation that takes months rather than years and hundreds rather than thousands of £s.

So in summary, growing up and learning to take responsibility for your life is a process of:

SELF AWARENESS to SELF-ACCEPTANCE to SELF-ACTUALISATION

Self-actualisation is a term used by the famous psychologist Abraham Maslow, who created the wonderful model ‘the hierarchy of human needs’ – this is another powerful tool of self-discovery that we use. For me, self-actualisation means being the best that I can be. During this process of authentic transformation, you also learn to accept and value others and their differences. This journey can also be thought of as evolving from:

DEPENDENCE to INDEPENENCE to INTER-DEPENDENCE

When life goes according to plan, most of us learn to move successfully from dependence to independence. When life gets hard, we may become fiercely independent, not letting others in, or we may relapse back into co-dependency seemingly unable or unwilling to take responsibility for ourselves. Inter-dependence is being able to accept, cooperate and collaborate with others, learning to give unconditionally and also to be able to ask for help and to willingly receive.

Some of the key learnings from my own journey include:

•    I am way more than my fears, beliefs and alter-ego
•    No one else can do it for me; they can help me to see more clearly and find ‘my way’
•    The answers are not outside of me
•    The answer is not to seek an intimate relationship to fill me up or fill the gaps in my life
•    Be open to new learnings, new perspectives and to challenge my beliefs – constantly
•    To become free of ego, opinion and judgement
•    To accept and embrace that we are all different
•    Real love is free of fear
•    Unhelpful behaviour and unresourceful emotions are largely habitual
•    More empowering behaviour and emotions can be learned
•    We are all innately good inside. We all have a ‘higher self’

Much has been written in recent years about the importance of ‘emotional intelligence’, yet there is little practical help out there to achieve it. Everything that Di and I have learned and developed in our coaching and training business is about helping people to become emotionally intelligent, to be able to live and love with others in inter-dependence, and to live the self-actualised life of your dreams.

We are giving at talk at the ‘Starting Over Show’ in London on Sunday March 7th 2010, where we will also have a stand. Do come and see us.

Andy & Di x

www.executive-relationship-coaching.co.uk www.dimacdowall-lifecoaching.co.uk

‘Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway®’ is a registered trademark of Susan Jeffers, PhD and is being used with her express permission.

How to create a beautiful intimate relationship – lessons for Starting Over

So many people assume that their relationships just happen to them, with little understanding that it will in fact unfold in direct reflection of their own thoughts and feelings about themselves. You see, we all take a certain amount of ‘baggage’ into our relationships with us in the form of conditioning from our past which creates our beliefs and sense of self-worth if we allow it to. Most of us are blissfully unaware of what these patterns of behaviour are, but they will all be subtly reflected in our behaviour towards our partner.

There are two facts which will help you understand how your relationships unfold; the first is that no one can love you more than you love yourself; the second is that you teach others how to treat you.

Loving Yourself and Putting Yourself First

Many of us continually put our own needs behind those of our partner, whilst secretly harbouring resentment about doing so. This in fact teaches our partner that we do not value ourselves, yet we are so surprised when they begin treating us in the same way. When we learn to love ourselves and fulfil our own needs, then we have an abundance to give and share with others. Remember too, that your partner will always be able to sense and feel your underlying energy or ‘state’, whether you have a smile on your face or not… What lies beneath your surface will show itself in seemingly subtle, yet powerful ways…

It’s vitally important for you to be aware of who you’re taking into the relationship with you. By this, I mean you… Understanding and loving yourself fully is the biggest gift you can give to yourself, to your partner and to your relationship. When you love yourself you take no neediness into the relationship with you. If instead, you make your partner responsible for creating your happiness and fulfilling your needs, a huge burden is placed upon them. Not only that, but you will always be in fear of what may happen if at any time they don’t fulfil those needs. It puts a great strain on both of you… When two partners behave like this it is known as a co-dependency.

Loving yourself brings many wonderful virtues into the partnership with you… Firstly, you enter into the relationship as your true self, without putting on any kind of act or mask to try and be what you think your partner expects you to be. You wouldn’t even entertain being anyone other than your true self, because you’d know without doubt that you are worth loving for who you are. You would also know that being single is far better than being in a fake relationship simply for the sake of it. When we put on this kind of mask, not only is it exhausting to keep up the act, but it builds a great deal of resentment beneath the surface because we feel we can never really be ourselves… ironically! Yet, so many of us do this sub-consciously. You will never feel truly loved for who you are when you’re not being yourself. Many enter into a game of ‘fake love’ by doing and being things that will gain us love and appreciation… Life becomes a game of acting so that we don’t experience rejection or disapproval… How different life would be though, if we didn’t fear either of these things in the first place. Well, this is exactly the essence of why loving yourself is so vital.

It’s hugely important to real-ise, that when two people hide behind a mask, the masks will eventually fall away, revealing two complete strangers. Most people call that initial stage the ‘honeymoon phase’… and then wonder why things are never as exciting as they were in the beginning, or they wonder what they ever saw in their partner and the ideal of the relationship.

When you love yourself, you will be able to gift your partner with a huge amount of freedom. You come into the relationship from a place of unattachment. By this I mean unattached to any outcome – you do not place the burden of “I expect you to be with me for the rest of my life, whether you like it or not!” on your partner… get the picture? This is what attachment looks like… You will not be fearful of them leaving you if they choose to because you’ll know that no matter what happens; you’ll handle everything just perfectly. Such fears often destroy relationships with ‘bad’ energy.

By simply choosing to be together, rather than needing to be together, this allows you to place a huge amount of trust in your partner. By also trusting in yourself to deal with anything, it allows you to ‘give’ yourself to the relationship from a place of vulnerability. The strange thing is, that if your partner senses this kind of vulnerable energy in you and sees it reflected in your behaviour, they are not likely to want to leave you or give you any reason to mistrust them… it’s amazing how it all unfolds. On the other hand, when you attempt to trap your partner through your mistrust of them because you couldn’t handle it if they ever left you… and you continually question them and take away their freedom, they are far more likely to respond with exactly the behaviour you’re most fearful of… by leaving you and/or by ending up in the arms of another…

So are you beginning to understand how we create our relationships…?

Where Is Your Focus?

One of the most magical things about sharing yourself with another is that what you focus on in your partner is what will transpire. If you focus on all the good, you will see more of it. You partner will sense that you are seeing the best in them and their behaviour towards you will reflect that. If on the other hand, you’re focusing on everything your partner does wrong, or are expecting negative behaviour from them, they will also sense this and reflect it straight back to you with exactly what you’re expecting.

One of the most beautiful things you can gift your partner with is a list of all the wonderful things they do for you, letting them know just how much you appreciate them. This creates a beautiful loving bond between you both. Not only that, but it opens your heart to true love lets them know just how valid they are in your life. In doing so, please don’t demand that they reply with a counter-list, because this is not giving from a place of authenticity… this is giving in order to receive, which will also leave you in a fearful energy. So many of us tend to work on a hidden barter system when we give; a great example of this is to ask yourself how you felt the last time you sent your partner a loving text or e-mail and didn’t receive a reply? If you were disappointed by their lack of response, then was your gesture truly authentic, or simply because you needed to hear their reply? Giving with no expectation of how or if they should respond according to your rules is indeed a very loving thing to do.

Dangerous Assumptions

Another biggie in terms of relationships is to learn never to make assumptions about anything…ever! When your partner says or does something, their patterns of behaviour and ‘model of the world’ won’t necessarily match yours. Whatever the assumption has been made about has been transferred from their beliefs and perception of the world into yours, which will of course be entirely different. But instead of always assuming the best, we tend to make negative assumptions about what’s just happened, then either don’t say a word and resent it, or launch into an argument.

The best way to make assumptions if you must make them and want a loving, committed relationship, is to always make the best possible ones about your partner’s behaviour and intentions. If he or she says something that has hurt you, express your feelings in a loving way immediately and without blame. Andy and I agreed from day one that if either of us said anything which hurt the other, we would say “Ouch” and explain what had hurt us. We were staggered by the number of times we found ourselves saying “Ouch” when in fact, the other meant something entirely different from the way it was perceived and most certainly not intended to hurt. You might be surprised to find that you make far more negative assumptions that you’d ever imagine… Be aware that if these build up without resolution, they will create a huge amount of tension, resentment and animosity between you…

We often feel infatuated during the early stages of a relationship. This is generally the case when we don’t love ourselves fully and feel that burst of love and appreciation from a new partner which takes our ‘love score’ up to a 10 out of 10. These are the times when we usually become the person we think they want us to be, purely to ensure that we keep receiving that burst of love. This is the mask I mentioned earlier, and it can become an addiction. This is also unfortunately very fearful behaviour, because if they don’t provide the love we need in order to feel great about ourselves, we tend to take an emotional dive into the depths of despair. If, on the other hand, you have genuine love for yourself to begin with, then rather than thinking “Thank goodness someone loves me”, you can remain more realistic and evaluate whether that person is indeed right for you. It may seem unromantic… how romantic is a 46% divorce rate, rises sharply second and third time around?

The Big Differences Between Men and Women

Most people don’t have a clue how differently men and women think, feel and communicate. Women tend to imagine that men think in a very similar way to them… a very mistaken assumption indeed. On the whole, men are more logical, whereas women are more emotional and much of their respective communication will stem from these two different viewpoints. Men focus on one thing at a time, while women can multi-task. While women need to talk to reduce stress, men will want to find a solution to your problems – this often drives women crazy. Simply telling a man that you want him to listen and not provide a solution will appeal to his logical mind and allow the woman to talk… something this simple is sure to reduce arguments and frustration.

Many women aren’t aware that men generally feel emasculated when their woman points out a solution, yet in today’s society, women have high powered jobs, are often the main bread-winner in the house and it can be difficult to know how to maintain the right balance. So you see, learning about the differences between men and women’s thinking, behaviour and methods of communication is a powerful key to learning how to create an ideal relationship…

The Languages of Love

Another wonderful recipe to creating a fantastic bond between you is to know and understand your and your partner’s ‘love languages’. People give and receive love in one or more of five main ways – words of affirmation, touch, quality time, acts of service and gifts. If you know what your love languages are, then communicate them clearly to your partner so they know what makes you feel loved… then leave space for them to fill that gap without placing demands on them to do so. It’s vital too, to learn what your partner’s languages of love are, so that you in turn can also fulfil their needs and create a beautiful relationship.

Soul-Mate Relationships

I truly believe that a soul-mate relationship is something that is created between two people who share a genuine love, respect and truth with each other. Two people who choose to be committed to being together in a loving, trusting and unattached way, and who implement the key points I’ve mentioned above, will learn to love, respect and admire their differences.

You can become each other’s greatest teacher simply by allowing your partner to be exactly who they are and learning from them, rather than demanding they change to fit in with your model of the world. When we try to fix or change our partner, they will never feel good about themselves in the relationship – how could they, when you keep reminding them how they need to be more like you, because who they are simply isn’t good enough for you…

In essence, real love is created when a relationship becomes stronger, deeper and more fulfilling through time… it doesn’t wear off or become less exciting than it was in the beginning… quite the opposite.

It’s certainly food for thought…

By Diane MacDowall

http://www.dimacdowall-lifecoaching.co.uk

Some and see us and listen to us talk at the Starting Over Show, London Sunday March 7th.

http://www.startingovershow.co.uk/