Nothingness & Vacuums:

I just returned from a trip that began in Sun Valley, Idaho. I went to see my client, Alison Owen-Bradley, inducted into the Nordic Ski Hall of Fame. 
 
In an intimate breakfast gathering before the main award ceremony, I got to listen and be inspired as her coaches, also renegades for their time coaching “a girl” to win, tell their stories of what it took to break into the sport—as a country, since it had been primarily a European competition, and then as a woman.  
 
“I know who I am,” said one coach, now 84. And that helped him open doors and break through barriers. Alison was the only woman in the weight room with the guys. She loved racing them and winning. Numbers and statistics didn’t interest or motivate her. She ignored them and operated by feel, which her coaches remarked on what that taught them.
 
Alison continues to break barriers, lift weights, dream big dreams, hold high standards, self-reflect, and be naturally driven from within to expand, evolve, and become a greater version of herself. 
 
A woman at the ceremony remarked wondering why a person like Alison, already so accomplished, would need a coach (like me). But people like Alison are exactly the ones who seek that kind of partnership, continually advancing themselves; self-reflecting to continually get to know a greater version of themselves; continually eager to be challenged; continually advancing the consciousness of humanity by who they become. Where two or more are synergizing, more excellence is afoot.
 
The woman pondered again, thinking she wouldn’t know where to begin knowing what she wanted for her life. “A good place to start, then, is with what you don’t want anymore,” I said, “both internally and externally.”
 
You know how the universe loves a vacuum. Knowing what you don’t want and actively transforming it is a continual flow of creating a vacuum and being filled. When you’re becoming a greater version of yourself, changing the frequency you live at, what fills you will also change, becoming greater. Sometimes that means more simplicity, sometimes more complexity. You won’t be content with what used to be, whether it’s a Nordic time or a way you express yourself, or your bank account. 
 
The last part of my trip was being in the middle of nowhere, not too far from somewhere, doing the most nothing I’ve ever done. I love to play—hiking, biking, sailing, running… along with the natural elements—but this time it was a different sort. 
 
It was stars and stillness, deep renewal and listening. Even play can be its own busyness. I set technology aside and soaked, read, gazed, pondered, wrote, wandered and repeated, creating my own vacuum.
 
May you make vacuums that make the space for more of who you are, more of what you love, more of what inspires and fills you, bones and soul. It is your gift to the rest of us.


Here’s to more of You in this world, 

Shelley