Mining for Gold: Discovering ALL That You Are!

Yesterday, while getting my car serviced at the dealership, I pulled out my laptop and set up my temporary work station in the lounge area when a talk show came on the TV that featured a couple fighting and belligerently spewing venom at each other for "entertainment" sake.  The 2 men in the lobby reacted with nervous laughter shaking their heads with disgust.  I asked them:  Did you turn on this crap?  And we laughed some more.  

Admitting to the guys that I am not above watching total crap on TV but nothing like this show which was hijacking my nervous system.  Our bantering continued and one of them said that he and his wife are hooked on the new show on Discovery:  "Mining for Gold" or a title something like that.  He told me an overview which led us to a deep discussion about how primal mining for gold is; it ignites our pioneering spirit that longs to find treasures within and in the material world.  Those that set out to mine for gold desperate to survive often gave their very lives for the pursuit and how unfathomable that is to us in our modern culture.  And yet, the inner journey, the call to discover MORE of who we are, costs us the life that "was", dismantling belief systems that connected us to friends, family and communities - all that was familiar. 

As I drove away from the dealership, I felt grateful for the conversation with the stranger, the nameless man who indulged me in my incessant exploration of what drives (me) humanity.  And I remembered my first workshop that I ever led:  Mining for Gold:  Discovering ALL That You are!  Remember:  We teach what we most need to learn...And boy oh boy!  I am still learning and loving every minute of the experience of this life.

Below is an outline of the workshop:  ENJOY!

Mining For Gold:

Discovering All That You Are!

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

 Tools for Mining Your Gold…

Stay the Course:

The journey of life is like the board game Chutes and Ladders – Just when we think we’ve mastered it, climbing ladder after ladder and the finish line seems near, a chute appears out of nowhere and we slide backwards.  We will never know it all or figure it all out so the goal is always progress NOT perfection.  The key is to pick ourselves up, stay focused on what we want to achieve and never give up!

Train the Puppy:

We must challenge ourselves to break patterns that no longer serve us.  This is tough like training a puppy so we have to be committed to the process. It is easy to focus on what we think others should and shouldn’t do; but to bring real and lasting change, we must focus on ourselves. 

Observe Life:

Patiently and compassionately observe yourself and the world around you like a scientist in a lab.  Acknowledge what is and isn't serving you.   Most of us are used to reacting to circumstances, life's dramas, whatever is being said or to how we are feeling instead of stepping back and being the observer and choosing from an empowered place how we want to respond.

Be Responsible for Your Life:

This is YOUR life.  Blaming others, we give them power over our lives.  Taking responsibility for our lives, our choices, how we show up in the world, we step into our own power where we become victors instead of victims.  All life experiences teach us what we need to learn if we are present and open.  Power question:  “What if the only thing standing in the way of all that you desire is YOU and your choices?”

Stop the Fight to Be Right:

No one wins when we are fighting to be right instead of respecting the various views and opinions of others.  By all means:  Have an opinion!  We all have the right to speak our truth and hold that dear; but this doesn’t mean we are right and others are wrong or vice versa.  Life isn’t black and white; it is a sea of gray.

Love Yourself and Honor Yourself:

Appreciate all that makes you "you"...ALL of it!  Learn to love and honor yourself no matter what even in the moments that you don't find yourself so lovable.  We can’t give others what we don’t give ourselves.  Love and honor yourself in all that you say, all that you think and all that you do. 

Be Grateful:

Breathe in; breathe out…start with being grateful to be alive!  Be grateful for all that makes you, you.  You can lift yourself any time of day by taking a mental inventory of all that makes you feel grateful.  Gratitude instantly shifts our energy and opens us to the abundance of life.

Dwell in the Possibilities:

If we think nothing will ever get better or improve, it won’t.  We must tap into the wonderful gift of our imagination where all things are possible.  When we see the possibilities, feel the possibilities and live the possibilities day by day, choice by choice, we become more of who we are and have more to give the world!

Kathy McHugh, Author of Passing On Hope