What's Emerging for You This September???

A new crispness clings to the early mornings as we traverse September into a new season. Although I feel ready for the change to come, I’m a little sad to say goodbye to the long summer days and warm sunshine making my backyard feel like Eden. I will say, the harvest of summer has been rich! I’m still trying to account for all that I’ve gathered in my basket. If there was a theme for this past season, it was discovery and joy.?

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I made an agreement with myself well before June that this summer I would lean harder into reclaiming my time and headspace for myself—to live in wonder and discovery to invite in the unexpected and inspiring. That is what travel and community connect creates for me. It sounds selfish, but any mom who is also a business owner and creative knows it’s anything but—it’s a critical path to creating the nourishment needed to feel and perform at your best.

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But no choice is all sunshine and roses. With the light there comes the dark, and a choice for something is a choice against something else. My choice to travel alone this summer to a writing retreat in France was important to me as a reward for my hard work on my memoir and as a fertilizer for my creativity. The problem was I had to leave my family at a time of transition and celebration of birthdays and anniversaries. I toasted to Brent and our 15th year anniversary from Paris clinking glasses with the kids who my dad trucked over to meet me. But Brent never begrudged me, offering me nothing but support, bearing the distance like a champ as he carried the extra load graciously in my absence.? With this choice, I was exhibiting to myself how far I was willing to go (literally) to make space for my writing and creative expression--a core value of mine--in my life. It wasn’t an easy choice, but it was an intuitive one.”

I learned about the power of creating a stake when I went through the 10-month Co-Active leadership training through Co-Active Coaching Institute (CTI). Incidentally, it was also where I also earned my certification as a CPCC many moons ago.

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A stake is a belief that serves as an orienting and unifying purpose key to designing agreements with others or yourself from which all decisions and intentional of ways of being and doing derive.?

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My stake for the summer went something like this: Befriend possibility by remaining open to the unknown.?

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This stake was a promise to myself that I would forward my belief that when I choose to be bold in my choices, I am leaning into self-trust, daring to discover what is possible. By operating from a belief in possibility, that what I want to create IS possible, I open channels of creativity, befriending the unknown, instead of allowing my fear to hold me obediently in place and safe in the realm of the familiar.

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If summer was a season of discovery, autumn is the season of integration. It is the season for embracing our wholeness, leaning into our power of inner knowing, loving our shadow just as we love our light. It is a time of trusting ourselves to be discerning boundary holders for ourselves and others, moving forward on faith that we are fully resourced just as we are and capable of whatever we choose to create in our lives.?

To identify what guiding belief can best serve as a stake for the season, I begin by asking myself a series of reflective questions that drive at discerning what’s new and different this season.

Unearthing what is new and emergent this season:?

• What is emerging?
• How am I changed or changing?
• What am I longing for?
• What am I ready to release?
• What am I calling in?
• What's my perspective now on my career, wellbeing, relationships, sense of fulfillment and joy?

September always feels like a reset of the clock, as if waking to a new day, refreshed (or exhausted) from the epic adventure and endless distractions of summer. I have longed for the stillness of the season to knock on my door, and now it has. Hallelujah!?

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With the siren song of the school bell, the house is mine once again and I am reclaiming my space with a zeal I don’t remember from years past. Now is my time to restore my energy and focus, reflect on how I’ve evolved, and recalibrate to who I am becoming as I hone in on what gives me the most satisfaction and joy in my days.?

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Before I decide what that is, I hold space to pause and reflect. My goal is notice what emerges while calling in clarity. My method is often writing or talking through ideas as I tap into what my intuition knows about my thoughts and feelings. These answers form a guiding structure for my days and a roadmap toward the future I long to create in this season and the ones yet to come.?

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All of this leads me to acknowledge that I am in an evolution—I am conscious of my changing nature, this feeling of coming into a new state being. The change is in part what I find attractive and compelling, nourishing and worthwhile in my professional and personal endeavors, but it all comes back to noticing how I am always transforming like the maple tree through the seasons.?

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I want to leave you with the thought that change is the only constant. Don’t fear it; embrace it. Lean into all the ways you are yearning to become your most expanded and radiant self. You live in a state of becoming.?

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Accept and allow, leading with curiosity and wonder.

Write It Out

Set a 20-minute timer and write without editing.

Write about a favorite autumn memory from your childhood. Try evoking what was meaningful in this memory to you in how you note and describe the sensory details.

You are evolving! What new choices can I make to honor the future I am building this season?

Remember

Enjoy September, dear ones! Be there for yourself, for those you love, and for the vision that aligns you with your work in the world.

xo,

Katie

#intentionality #emerging #personalleadership #autumn