life coaching

Nobody’s Guru

/ Nathan M McTague, CPCC, CPDPE, CMNEC / Leave a comment

 23316737_1568435839879840_1335567993384597821_nCan we talk about authenticity for a minute?

I feel very fortunate to get to do the work I do. And I put in significant effort to do the part of that work that is mine to do. But I’m no one’s guru.

(Though, I have studied the Vedas and the Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads, have read a six volume novelization of the Ramayana to my youngest daughter,  and I adore and feel a kinship with Indian mysticism. Of course, if I were going to borrow a word from Sanskrit for what I do, it would be devastra not guru.)

My job is not to save anyone. Or to fix anyone. Or to sit back on my regal cushion and dictate how anyone should live their life in order to reach some final state of bliss from which they never have to return. That is not what I do.

What do I do? Well, I’m glad you asked! Here’s my authentic truth:

Every morning I get up early. (Though I used to stay up late…) I fill the water jar I use with a mix of cool and boiling water poured over the five crystals that live in the bottom of the jar. (Apatite, magnesite, fluorite, azurite, and aquamarine, in case you’re wondering…) I ground into my source. I connect with my guides. And I call to Spirit to join with and work through me. (And because my ancestors were burned at the stake, and starved, and chased out of their homelands, and all our rituals were lost — I humbly borrow from other sources and follow my own guidance for these rites.) I sing over the water during this ceremony, and call in my allies to bless it, and then I drink the inspired elixir. Afterward, I meditate and do yoga or some other movement practice. (Again, borrowing from other sources for this technology.)

I do this everyday to draw in the power, and guidance, and courage to be of service to my people. I do this because I know, even in the smallest endeavors, I do nothing. Whether I am coaching or consulting, or doing emotional body work or shamanic integration — I don’t do one bit of the actual work. The only thing I ever do in any of my practices for supporting others to reach their greatest heights is hold space. I hold space for my clients and I hold space for Spirit. That’s all I am ever doing. Or ever going to do.

That’s my authentic truth.

And authenticity is what it is all about. The space I hold is for my clients to be their true authentic self. When we work together, the process is focused (through whatever means or tools Spirit uses my body to wield) solely on peeling back the layers necessary to reveal the authentic person always already inside each one of them. I am not my clients’ leader, or master, or guru. They are!

I am just a catalyst. A door through which my clients pass on their way to realizing their own truth. A door in a house of Spirit.

My clients are among the most powerful people in the world. I concentrate my efforts on supporting badass (self-identifying) women, femme, and non-binary leaders because I believe we need more fully empowered people in these ranks to lead the world right now. But I also work with some brave (self-identifying) men, too! For all of my clients, in all of our work together, we are digging into, uncovering, and integrating their truth. Their authentic and undaunted self.

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See this amazing human, here? This is one of my clients, Layne. (I asked permission to brag about her…). Over the course of our work together, I have watched Layne become one of the most potent humans I know. Sure, she still has some things that she is improving in her life. (Don’t we all, and if we don’t, what are we doing??) But you know what this woman has that so many people in this world struggle with, or can’t seem to muster — authenticity, of course! Through our work together, Layne has developed her authenticity to such a degree that she can now say what she thinks in any situation, she can act from her own truth regardless of external pressures, and she can honour herself in all her relationships. Our work has put her in touch with her own power, and she regularly checks in with that power when making decisions or taking courageous action. She has become (and continues to hone) her own fully realized self. And she doesn’t need a guru!

But let me stop speaking for her and share with you Layne’s own words: “Nathan has been a fantastic guide and ally through this journey called life.  Over the last five years, he has helped me achieve goals, overcome obstacles, and find the joy of living authentically along the way.  A true gem of a human, I’m ever thankful for the work we do together.” (See that, she called me “a human”…)

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Here’s a little more authenticity for you. I never asked to be a life coach, or an emotional body worker, or a shamanic practitioner. (I actually would happily hermit my days away making art and music and poetry.) But I did ask to be of service to my fellow humans. I did ask to be a tool for Spirit to work through me. I did ask to be courageous in being my Most-Me. And in order to fulfill my end of the bargain, in order for me to put myself in position to hold space for Spirit and to hold space for others who want to become their own Most-Me — I have to talk about what I’m here to do. I have to be brave (af!) to stand up and say, “I’m here to help!.”

So I’m going to do that. I’m going to be in your various feeds, and popping up again and again in your notifications, saying I’m here to help. I’m going to be real, and authentic, but I’m not going to be quiet about it. And if that happens to get in your way, then I would gently suggest that you look at why you’re feeling what you’re feeling about it, and/or that you unfriend me or unsubscribe so that you don’t have to be bothered. Because my people, they don’t need a guru, they need themselves — and I’m not going to let anything (not propriety, or coolness, or anyone else’s resistance to me offering my services to others on social media) stop me from boldly standing up and calling out to those who could use my support in getting there. That’s just one of the ways I hold space for my people (and for Spirit) to do what needs doing.

If this speaks to you… If you want help becoming who you are really meant to be… If you need authentic, inspired, compassionate support, but you don’t need a guru — then may I tenderly invite you to follow up with me? Message me, comment below, send me a telegram. Reach out! Or if you know someone who could use my help, will you share this with them? And, if you feel so called, here’s a link you may use to apply to work with me right now: https://centerforemotionaleducation.as.me/manifesting-my-most-me. I’m here for you.

With love and respect.

∞

Be well.

Argue for Your Un-Limitations

/ Nathan M McTague, CPCC, CPDPE, CMNEC / Leave a comment

If you’re like most humans, you’ve probably spent most of your life either being told and/or telling yourself that you are limited.

You’ve been hearing from both the outside and the in that you can’t do this and you can’t do that (“Can’t you read the siiign?”). You’ve been told that life is hard, life is a struggle, and that you have to overcome nearly insurmountable odds and obstacles in order to achieve the things you want because nothing is free. Even love is (supposedly) a battlefield.

The result is that most of us are so couched in our limitations that we can barely see anything for what it really is, especially ourselves.

Everywhere we go and everything we see and everything we do is colored by the limits through which we’ve been taught to perceive the world and ourselves. From this cloudy perspective the world can look pretty rough, and our station in it can seem like nothing but the space between rocks and hard places. What’s worse – we are often such good owners of our limitations that we believe we can’t even move through this brambled landscape without dragging those weights around with us. And even worse still – these ideas have always been handed to us as though it was a favor we were being offered; as though someone was saddling us with all this doubt, and fear, and limitation in order to “save” us from the brutality of life.

This is why sooooooo many of us have lives full of things that we don’t want, and why so many of us feel unable to whittle away these obstructions in order to have the lives we do want. This is why so many of us simply feel like we can’t. We are so encumbered by these heavy halters that any move, change, or goal seems nearly impossible.

Many of us are so limited that it’s a wonder that anything happens to us at all.

And the most insidious part about all of this is that it’s all a bunch of hogwash. It’s not even really true. And it’s not helping us. Not one iota. We’re not being safely kept from getting “too big for our breeches”. We’re not being awakened from some self-destructive, self-delusional fantasy life. We’re not being sheltered from embarrassing ourselves with our ignorance of how life works.

We’re just being caged.

 So I’ve got a new challenge for us all. Since we’re holding the keys to our own destinies, and since we are what we believe we are, let’s make a promise to each other. Let’s promise to get ourselves out of these prisons of limitation. Let’s promise to leave these bound beliefs behind us and never retrieve them.

And instead of arguing for our limitations and thereby owning them (as the old adage explains), let’s give them up. Let’s argue instead for our limitlessness. Let’s claim and discuss and prattle merrily on about how empowered we are, how easy life flows for us, and how peacefully we move through everything that comes.

Let’s never talk about what’s wrong with us, why we can’t do this or that, or why we’re unable to achieve, be, or have whatever we want – ever again. 

No more complaints. No more fear-mongering (even to ourselves). No more disastrous outlooks. No more foreboding predictions of imminent failure. No more “owning my issues”. No more “saving myself from disappointment”. No more holding ourselves back. No more self-depricating, self-loathing, self-abusive bullsh*t. NO. MORE.

From here on out, let us use our words, both inside and out, exclusively for empowering ourselves and others. Let us dedicate ourselves to looking exclusively at how, where, and when we and our world are unbound. Let us train ourselves to be exclusively aware of all the places and ways that we are, do, and have whatever we want. From here on out, let us argue only for our un-limitations – and sure enough, they’ll be ours.

∞

Want help finding your limitation locks and using your keys to get free? You can hire me as your Life Coach – powerful un-limiting is one my favorite parts of the job!

Be well.