4th Coachee call

I really liked this weeks assignment and more importantly this weeks call with Rachel. We have a lot in common and our conversations flow. She helps me to put into perspective a lot of what i say as well as keeps my thoughts organized. I have a lot of respect for her and what she does.
As far as our conversation we began talking about my 15 minutes of solidarity. I expressed how i wish i could have gone further out in nature, but had to settle with my back porch. I have done a lot of hiking and camping throughout my life and have had these solidarity experiences before, so this was not new to me. I haven't done it in a while though, so it was a nice reminder how productive for the soul they can be.
I spend a lot of time thinking about this SELF, but enjoyed doing it outside. I came to realizations that i have before, yet touched on some other areas that i didn't in the past. I acknowledged the fact that since i was a kid all i wanted to do was help (be it people, animals, earth). Even though i find this cliche, there is something deep in that most people have this yearning. That we all find ourselves with this purpose is something that cant be explained.
I brought up a couple things regarding making people happy such as how it is part a self fish b/c in turn it makes you happy. I always loved this fact, it keeps you grounded, which i feel is important, and keeps you from creating this ego of being this omni-benevolent.
I also wanted to touch on how much harder it has gotten to make people happy and wanted to discuss two possibilities why i felt this way. One being that as we get older, our standards of what we feel makes someone happy rise. the other being that as others get older, their standards of happiness increased.
Rachel agreed and added that as we get older our lives become more complex and we may not be open to being happy as easily we did when we were younger. I made a connection between how now it may not be the tangible ways (i.e. helping someone pay their mortgage) that we are able to make people happy, but instead on another, more emotional level (i.e. being there for them and helping them to accept their current situation and help them find a solution) We discussed this subject, both of us reflecting on how helping people is something we feel passionate about.
Even though we didn't specifically address the question of my future potential self, we ended up hitting on it, now that i reflect on the conversation. we began discussing how important it was not get "hung up" on making others happy, and be okay in ourselves being unhappy, being that (in a circle of like thing) someone one needs to be unhappy if another is to fulfill their purpose/desire to make some one happy. also that one cannot know happiness if they do not experience unhappiness. Like how one cannot know light exists unless they experience darkness.
This addressed my future potential self by how i wish to become okay with unhappiness and not allow for these emotions to negatively impact my life. I touched on how i went through a time in my life where i was unhappy, depressed even, and how i set forth a mission to only be happy in order to keep myself wanting to continue on with my life. ( I used to be in a pretty bad place, but am much better now) But how i went from one extreme (unhappiness) to excepting nothing less than happiness. This was unhealthy for many reasons. One being that I was setting myself up for failure by setting such a high standard of 24 hour happiness. Two being I became selfish in my quest for happiness, pushing away those that really affected my happiness. The pendulum now is back to the middle, where i am still learning how to be okay with being unhappy, and in fact, feel even more connected and purpose driven in this unhappiness.
I am not sure that she new this future potential self was addressed, as i didn't even know until reflecting on our discussion. But its pretty cool how our conversation flow like this and we end up hitting all all areas, without even trying.

NOt to make this post even longer ;], but we also discussed the conversation i had were i presented myself. It ended up not being with someone not close to me, in fact it ended up being with my staff, and more importantly, at least consciously, it wasn't planned. long story short i ended up sharing with them at a more personal and vulnerable level, on a topic that was uncomfortable to me (money). without going into specifics, by allowing myself to be present, suspend my initial thoughts on how i wanted to address the issue, really see where they were coming from, and sharing those feelings of uncomfortability and fear of being let down, my staff began seeing the subject from my perspective at the same time expressing there view point. It turns out they now agree with what i was asking and found a oneness as a group. We are closer to seeing ourselves as one unit, where we are there for each other and help out when needed. more importantly that we can share what we truly think/feel in a safe environment.