Hi friends,
how are you? I hope all is well.
We had a wedding and a funeral in a matter of a few weeks. And a Marriage intensive retreat. But we are back and school started. One fun day we did before all this was a kayaking trip to the Weeki Wachee river. It is a beautiful spring here in Florida. Part of the fun are trees with rope swings !! I knew Tatiana missed it from last summer. She has no fear and jumped right off. Her friend Hailey was more hesitant and I encouraged her to jump and cheered her on and clapped for her when she emerged from the water.
And then ...Tatiana challenged me! So I accepted the challenge and climbed up the tree. Now it was their turn to encourage me. Let me tell you, everything looked very different from up there. It was very easy to encourage Hailey from the safety of the river bed, standing on the ground, looking up. being up there myself, it looked scary, high, and I was very hesitant! Just letting go wasn't that easy. Holding on to just the rope looked a lot less safe than hugging the tree. My son counted "5, 4, 3, 2, 1..." and I still leaned against that tree. But finally I pushed off and did it.
It felt so good!!!
AND the benefit was also, that later on, coming back downstream, I saw a mom up in the tree, just like me. She said "I've never done this before. I'm the mom, and my kids are watching.".I yelled back at her that it had been my first time too and I did it, and that she could do it too!!!
It felt so good to encourage her, because I had felt the fear, I had stood there and done exactly what she wanted to do. I wasn't encouraging from the safety of the riverbed. I encouraged from an authentic "been there done that."
The same goes for my marriage. I don't coach couples from a book, or from what other people experienced. I started putting myself on a growth journey 5 years ago and have no intention of stopping. There will be more stories later, but for now this much : We invested in a 3 day marriage intensive in Sedona. We invested time, money and effort. We were willing to change things and PUT IN SOME WORK. I cried a lot. It ended in us learning a beautiful tool to communicate triggers to each other. In a safe way.
I will give it some time to master this skill before I teach it in my coaching.
The couples who sign up with me and are ready to get to work, are the couples who have success. They are willing to do things differently.
Are you ready to implement some changes? I can help.
PS: message me for a free consult, where you tell me where you are and where you'd like to be in your relationship and I'll take it from there.
You are loved. Deeply loved. Loved beyond measure.
Until next time,
Isabelle
Call or write for a free life coaching consultation
#732-331-2246
Isabellestephensoncoach@gmail.com
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