Bright The Day

Greetings, and welcome to another issue of e-divine, the newsletter dedicated to helping you Build a Better Life and a Better World through the Spiritual Practice of Everyday Life.

This newsletter is meant to serve you. I would love to hear your feedback on what inspires you, what resonates for you, and how I can do more of both of those! Please don't hesitate to send your comments, insights and suggestions to me at adam@dailydivine.com!

Enjoy!

Featured Article

Challenging: The Fourth of the Seven Cs of Spiritual Coaching

When you come right down to it, coaching is about helping others see and do more than they were seeing and doing before. It's about helping others shift perspectives, illuminate the wisdom and insight they already possess, and journey deeper into a life of passion and purpose.

In order for that to be possible, coaching needs to be challenging, so that it inspires that stretching and grow. Alan Dean Foster, a prolific science fiction and fantasy author, once said "I try to challenge myself as much as possible, as often as possible." That level of commitment is exactly what takes a coaching relationship from good to great, as it enables both coach and client to fully engage in an exciting co-creative process.

Achieving new perspectives, stepping closer and closer to long-sought goals – this kind of success is motivating in and of itself. The more you do to get there, the more energy and motivation you have to keep going. The steeper the challenge is, the greater and more expansive the view is on the way up, and the more wonder and joy there is to experience when reaching the top!

Practice Tip: In order to effectively challenge ourselves, it helps to have a focus for the area in which we want to grow. Let us then return to the theme of last issue, where we focused on compassion. One reader emailed to say that the practice tip offered in that issue was based on using reason, rather than on engaging feeling that would take us into the deeper meaning of compassion – total love for oneself and others. Let us challenge ourselves then, to go deeper into the experience of compassion.

This week, as the temperatures drop and the darkest nights of the year approach, challenge yourself to identify what gift you will offer to the world that will express that total love. Even if you don't feel that total love just yet, trust that by finding a way to be of service to others, you will experience that compassion.

Find a food bank, shelter, or other organization where you can be in direct contact with others, and go there in a spirit of humility, trusting that you will learn far more than you will give. This spirit will help you engage with every person you meet as an equal, and as one worthy of your respect and attention. As you serve others, open your heart to the connection between you, and offer them the greatest gift that we can give. Love.

Next week…

Choice-Based: The Fifth of the Seven Cs of Spiritual Coaching

Wind To Thy Wings

In each issue I will highlight a resource I think you'll find powerful and uplifting. If you have a suggestion for a book, movie, album or other resource that you have found significant in your journey, and would like to share with others, I would love to hear from you – email your suggestions to adam@dailydivine.com!

Today's resource was offered to me by Sam Forsberg, a fabulous life coach based in London, England; you can read more about Sam's work at www.seraphima.com. In a recent conversation about vulnerability, Sam offered me the following two questions to ask myself:

• How can I be vulnerable in a strong way?
• How can I be strong in a vulnerable way?

Accompanying those questions was a diagram of a circle, at the top of which float the words Vulnerable One and at the bottom of which sit the words Strong One. The circle itself is made up of arrows that indicate constant flow from one to the other, creating a continuous dance of self-identification. This image, and these questions, have inspired much reflection, and opened up for me a way of stepping into both vulnerability and strength in a new way. What might they open up for you?

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