September has snuck up on us again. The long days of summer lie behind, holding adventures, explorations, visits with old friends, lazy summer nights, maybe some fireworks. Countless bags have been packed, unpacked, repacked and lugged around the planet by masses of travelers eager to disprove the old adage "you can't take it with you." Baggage of a different sort is on my mind this month—the kind we cart around internally. The kind that weighs us down, holds us back, keeps us stuck and takes our lives in places we never wished to go. The kind we are so accustomed to hauling around, we don't even notice it anymore.

Announcement: On Saturday, October 28 from 2pm—6pm I am jointly leading a workshop called Yoga Balance/Life Balance. We will explore how to cultivate more balance in our lives—both on the yoga mat, and out our front doors into the whirlwind of our lives. My co-leader is an extraordinary yoga instructor named Maryam Askari who has taught yoga for many years. The fee for the workshop, which will be held in Santa Monica is $100. To ensure a highly interactive learning experience, we are limiting the group size to 20.

You will leave this workshop with specific tools to explore and create more balance in your daily life as well as a deeper understanding of the value of balance postures in your yoga practice.

Balance in life, like balance on the mat is dynamic. We are always moving toward or away from balance. The trick is to keep on noticing where new calibration is necessary, and do the work to ensure that we're in the driver's seat and it is our foot controlling both the accelerator and the brake.

You do not need to be an advanced yoga student though familiarity with the basic yoga postures is recommended. If you are interested, please drop me an email at dinasil@earthlink.net and I'll sign you up!

We are creatures of habit and old habits are hard to break. Change is scary and many of us resist it with every corpuscle in our bodies. We give lip service to wanting to grow, wanting to let go of timeworn behaviors and beliefs that we know hold us back, but when push comes to shove, we hold on white-knuckle tight to the old baggage. It's safe, it's known, it's easy.

As a coach, it is part of my job to help my clients notice the impact of unsuccessful habits on their lives—to help them unpack old bags. Noticing sounds like a small thing, but this little word packs a big wallop. Noticing our patterns sets the stage for change. When we consistently make the connection between old habits and disappointing outcomes, we become hugely motivated to shift gears and figure out what would work better. Without the noticing, there's no incentive to change.

Most people come to coaching to create change in some area of their lives, but change is only possible when we are willing to loosen our grip on ancient history and reach tentatively toward something new. Change, by its very definition, requires a step into the unknown, a willingness to let go, a belief that if you close your eyes and jump, or step, or even inch forward, there will still be land to support you when you when your feet touch down.

In the last month, here's how some of my clients' old baggage has shown up, along with their descriptions in gold of how they are beginning to notice this behavior impacts their lives:

• "I just can't say 'no.' It feels selfish. If someone specifically asks for my help, they must really need me." I feel like I'm being a good person and that people really count on me and that what I'm doing is valuable. But now that I'm thinking about it, most of the stuff I do could be done by a bunch of other people. It's not really me they need—it's anybody. Saying yes to all these demands and requests keeps my needs at the bottom of every list. There's never time or space for my life and my goals and then I get resentful. And now that I think about it, filling my life with other people's stuff has been a pretty good excuse for never dealing with my own.
• "I'm risk averse. I'm happier with the status quo, even if it's a lousy one." I'm living in a pleasant little box and it seems safe—good job, enough money. But the choices and decisions I allow myself to make are basically the same ones over and over in slightly different wrapping. The truth is, I'm good at my work but it doesn't fulfill me. Yet, I've got myself convinced it's all I can do. It's kind of like that movie Groundhog Day where the guy keeps doing his life wrong and the same day plays over and over again until finally he gets it right. Only, in my heart, I know I can't get it right without taking any risks. But it scares the hell out of me.
• "People won't like me if I really speak my mind." I'm so worried about what people will think about me, that the person who I work hard for them to 'like' isn't really even me anyway since I don't say what I mean. And the impact on my lifeÖno one gets a chance to know me, so I end up feeling pretty empty. And to tell you the truth, sometimes I'm not so sure of who I am either.

These clients have taken the first step toward tossing out old baggage by noticing how their habits of mind and behavior have short-changed their lives. The next challenge is to find opportunities to stick their toes in new puddles by choosing not to default to the old habits and to experiment with ones that serve them better and make them happier.

If you're curious to begin noticing your old baggage, start listening for refrains that repeat as you describe yourself. "I'm like this" or "I'm the kind of person who." The words 'never' and 'always' are really good clues to behavior we cling to and assume to be unchangeable. "I'm the kind of person who's always there when you need me," or "I've never had a relationship that's lasted more than 6 months," or "I'm the one who's always the rock. I don't let my emotions get the better of me." Take a peek under the words and see if you can notice what you're really saying about yourself. Is the baggage you've pulled out from under the bed a keeper or does it belong in the trash?

Make a choice about whether you want to hold on to a particular piece of old baggage or whether you'd like to liberate it! The choice is yours.

One of the tools in a coach's kit is what we call the Powerful Question. It's a big one with surprising impact. We use these questions to spark introspection, rethinking, new awareness or new possibilities. A fresh perspective is often the catalyst for change and action. Why not make a choice to unpack a piece of old luggage by asking yourself this question:

What am I holding on to that I don't need anymore?
What's the impact on my life?

About My Coaching:
As a personal, professional and executive coach, it is my goal to bring dynamic leadership, a compassionate heart, and powerful insight to the lives of my coaching clients. I work to help clients identify and pursue what is deeply meaningful in their lives, and collaborate with them to transform vague yearnings or explicit goals into realities.

You can count on me to challenge you, inspire you and support you. I will be a relentless advocate of your dreams and ambitions and help you take bold steps with your life.

My Background:
I am an optimist with a penchant for finding solutions to complex problems in unexpected places. The daily opportunity to use my pragmatism, smarts, humor and heart to help people create lives they truly love gives me tremendous joy.

After graduating from Princeton University, I spent almost 20 years as a feature film, video and CD ROM producer guiding projects to success. By the late 1990's, I decided to channel my action-oriented approach to life into coaching, with the express goal of helping people live lives by design and not default. I completed my professional training at The Coaches Training Institute in San Rafael, California.

Call me at (310) 393-8082 for a free 1/2-hour coaching session to explore how coaching may benefit you.

Contact Information:
Dina Silver
361 21st Street
Santa Monica, CA 90402
Phone: 310.393.8082
Fax: 310.395.7999
dinasil@earthlink.net