Wow! For me this card is all about my childhood and the book. by writing the book I am finally telling the story of the little girl. The words that she was too scared to utter are now being spoken. And, it brings Justice for her.

This is what stood out for me from the book:

We hope that people will be fair when representing facts or describing merit or demerit. For most of us, Justice includes honesty, fidelity, and impartiality.

My favourite lines from the poem are:

I seek to know my strength and to let go of what weakens me.

And,

Let me speak and act with justice,

Sifting logic and love in a perfect blend.

I am in tune with my Soul’s journey.

Higher Ground Leadership Principles®, The Spirit@Work Cards®, and the Castle Principles® are registered trademarks of the Secretan Center.

I really enjoyed playing with the Spirit@Work® Card, honesty. I’ve discovered that if I take truth to a deeper level that life looks a little differently. Through honesty, I can be aware of and share what is there.

Honesty is also one of the cornerstones for the writing of my book, Footprints On My Soul.

What I’m realizing about this practicum is that it really is more than writing my book and becoming a better and masterful coach. It’s about digging deeper than the obvious truth and discovering what it’s really about.

How is honesty showing up in my life? Where isn’t it showing up? Why isn’t it? I need to be completely honest with myself before I can be truly honest with others. To do that I will need to incorporate the Castle Principles® – Courage, Authenticity, Service, Truthfulness, Love, and Effectiveness. I have to turn all of them inward and explore what I find there. Who am I? Why? Who do I want to be? How do I get there?

I found the write-up in the book very interesting and rang true for me on so many levels. The question at the end impacted me the most:

How will I bring honesty into all my relationships?

The sections of the poem that I felt really spoke to who I am are:

My Soul walks the path of honesty.

and,

I speak lovingly. I act authentically.

I live honestly.

and,

Holding only what is mine, speaking only what is true.

Those are perfect concepts to keep in mind while I’m writing my book, and living my life.

Higher Ground Leadership Principles®, The Spirit@Work Cards®, and the Castle Principles® are registered trademarks of the Secretan Center.

The Spirit@Work® Card that I drew was legacy, which is exactly what I feel I’ve been moving towards for my whole life. Especially if I consider that you can find the good in all challenges, and coach towards that belief.  That’s a huge part of what my book Footprints On My Soul is; a legacy.

The text section of the book lists a myriad of thought provoking questions. These are the ones that really have me thinking:

Does our work serve others at least as much, if not more, than it serves ourselves?

and,

Does our work enable the spirit? Are we doing all that we can to clarify the relationship between spirituality and our work and life? Is our work meaningful, just, and loving?

The poem is just as moving and full of attainable possibilities. These are my two favourite lines:

Let me gather the best in my life

And leave it to those who follow.

and,

Help me live with integrity

So that the legacy I leave

Is filled with love and grace.

Those two sentences are so strong and filled with hope. I can imagine the difference I can make if I write my story with these two in mind. I believe so strongly that the best in me came from the worst experiences in my life. There’s a part of me that needs to write my story filled with love and grace.

I love the last sentence/question in the book for this card:

How will I create an inspiring Legacy?

How indeed?

Higher Ground Leadership Principles®, The Spirit@Work Cards®, and the Castle Principles® are registered trademarks of the Secretan Center.

Integration was the latest Spirit@Work Cards® card that I drew.  I totally enjoyed everything about this card.

These are my favourite lines from the book:

This is integration – when life becomes whole, and to become whole is one of the strongest of human urges.

and,

Integration is the effortless confluence and merging of all of the activities in our life.

My favourite lines from the poem are:

In a quiet place, I grow aware of all that is me.

and,

May I always value the interrelationship

Of everything that makes all parts of me alive.

Help me integrate love and spirit in the whole of me

And in the whole of everything that I touch.

I took this card into every aspect of my life.  I played outside of the regular work rules and times that I usually do things and mixed everything up.  I lived the part of my life that made the most sense in any particular moment in life, and ended up having an amazing four days.  I can’t believe how much I got completed in what turned out to be a completely stress-free way of doing things.  My life is not made up of separate components that need to be balanced; it’s made up of parts of me that need to be integrated.

The Castle Principles® played a huge role in living integration. Courage, Authenticity, Service, Truthfulness, Love, and Effectiveness were seamlessly integrated into everything that I did.  I especially noticed them when replying to some of the responses that I received on a post in the writer’s group that I participate in.  They showed up at work, and in my marriage.  Although difficult moments were experienced when writing my book, I relied on my Courage and Authenticity for the actual writing; Love and Effectiveness were the cornerstones for supporting me emotionally.

I continued to be amazed at how much The Spirit@Work Cards® that I’ve drawn so far have affected the way that I’m living my life.  I’ve always considered myself to be a spiritual person and a deep thinker.  These cards are bringing everything even deeper.  I’m keeping an open heart and mind as I’m walking this journey, and imagining how I can integrate them into a really powerful coaching experience for my clients.

Higher Ground Leadership Principles®, The Spirit@Work Cards®, and the Castle Principles® are registered trademarks of the Secretan Center.

This Spirit@Work Card® that I drew changed what I thought was the definition of Intimacy and caused me to look deeply into what it really meant.  When I really think about my relationship with the word and what it has meant to me I can see a different side of me.  One that I could never figure out, but fits me like a glove. The question now is what do I do with the proper definition, and how does it make my life, and my relationships, better?  In a way, this may also change how I look at my childhood.  Only time will tell.

The first sentence in the book to deliver a hard upper jab was the following:

Denying our vulnerabilities and avoiding Intimacy with others leads to the greatest poverty the Soul must endure: loneliness.

I have walked my life hand in hand with that sentence.  I have spent most of my life feeling lonely.  It seems as though I have always felt alone, unwanted, and unloved.  Like I didn’t belong.

The sentence immediately following that sentence is:

Revealing our vulnerabilities in intimate, sacred one-on-one conversations is vital for our survival.

There is so much depth to this sentence.  I have been living a superficial life.  Living the life of Cinderella.  A make believe life that allowed for me to not have intimate conversations with anyone.  Not even myself.

Because of my disconnect with Intimacy I find that the poem has a very sad tone to it for me.  Most of it I can’t relate to.  I can aspire to it, but I can’t relate to it.  I am going to choose two sentences from the poem.  The first is like a prayer to carry me forward in my quest for Intimacy.  The second is the simple truth of where I am today.  The two sentences are not sequential in the poem … or in my life.

Give me the courage to connect with others in new ways,

To seek a deeper; more meaningful human connection,

To let our Souls meet in wisdom and honesty.

and,

Unconnected, I walk alone.

I don’t want to walk alone anymore.  I have never wanted to walk alone.

Higher Ground Leadership Principles®, The Spirit@Work Cards®, and the Castle Principles® are registered trademarks of the Secretan Center.

Well, this card certainly rocked my world!  As it turns out it did so in a very supportive way.

To start with, these are the lines from the Spirit@Work Cards® accompanying poem that spoke volumes to me:

May I communicate from my Soul.

and

Let me move inward to a loving place,

Where I can let go of fear and fill the voice with love.

I walk the listening path with courage and authenticity.

After really thinking about what the card meant I realized that I haven’t done that with the 500 Word Facebook group that I’m a member of.  In reality, I haven’t actually told anyone.  (With the exception of two other people.)  This group though is important to me and plays a large part in my journey.  It’s a group of writers.  Very supportive, caring, and authentic writers.  And I wasn’t giving that back to them.  Because I never shared with them what my book was about.  I hinted at it, explained in great detail what the Higher Ground Leadership® program was all about.  Spouted about how I was going to write this book as part of my practicum, and all of the good things and expected personal growth that comes with it.  I never dug deep down into my Soul and shared exactly what that journey was about.  They may have guessed parts of it.  A title of Footprints On My Soul would give a group of writers a pretty good guess as to what it was about.  I never validated their unspoken inklings.  I just danced around with words that told … but not really.

All of that changed on September 9th, the day I drew the card Communication and really searched my Soul as to what this card really meant to me.  I had to briefly share the story behind my book with this group of people.  I was so scared while I was drafting my Facebook post.  I was visibly trembling and so close to tears that I couldn’t believe that I wasn’t crying.  I wrote it, edited it a bit, and then read it over again … and again, and again.  All together I spent about an hour and a half putting this very courageous and authentic communication from my Soul together.

Then came the really hard part.  Hovering over the post button.  Hovering between “Press it!”, “Don’t press it.”, and back to “Press it.”

I was terrified of what they would think of me if they found out about my childhood.  I wondered whether they would ask me to leave the group.  Or perhaps worse, remove me from the group immediately.

The tension of what I was going to do was almost unbearable.  I reminded myself that my practicum was to live this journey for 100 days, regardless of how much courage it took.  I reminded myself that I wanted to experience every bit of it for two reasons.  To free my Soul, and to become a masterful coach so I could coach others to do the same, with a full understanding of what it could take to do so.  I pressed post, and shut down my computer.  It was done, and I couldn’t take it back.

I was so scared that I didn’t peek at the post until that evening.  There were a couple of very encouraging posts.  It alleviated some of my fear, but hardly any of the group had commented or pressed like.  Why?  Had I gone too far?

The next morning the first thing I did was check into Facebook.  The suspense of whether my post would be accepted was just too much for me.  I had to look under the bed to see if there really was a boogey man under it.  It took me more than two hours to answer all of the replies that I received on my post in the twenty-four hours since I had written it.  All of the replies to my post were supportive in so many ways.  Each one unique to the person replying.  They were authentic, heart-felt posts that obviously took a lot of thought and time to put together.

All of this because I drew the card Communication and lived it the only way that I could.  As it turns out, it also lined up perfectly with The Castle® Principles.  My Facebook post took Courage and Authenticity to write it, and to press the post button.  It implemented Service, Truthfulness, Love, and Effectiveness in the way that it was written, with the reader in mind.

This was a very challenging card to play with for four days.  I read the accompanying text in the book, and the poem, at least once every day to fortify the strength needed to truly live this card.  I won’t be untruthful, I am glad that this card is finished being the main player in my daily life.  I don’t regret drawing the card.  It did bring an inner peace to my Soul, by supporting me in writing the book and courageously sharing my truth.

Higher Ground Leadership Principles®, The Spirit@Work Cards®, and the Castle Principles® are registered trademarks of the Secretan Center.

The first Spirit@Work Card® that I drew to guide me in writing my book, Footprints On My Soul, was Intuition.  As outlined in my Higher Ground Leadership® Practicum Proposal I will draw a new card each Tuesday and Friday.

The lines from the poem that seemed to speak directly to my heart were the following:

“My awareness shifts from my head to my heart. 

My intuition speaks to my Soul, an old friend.”

and,

“Help me find a blended awareness of my mind and my heart.”

The perfect words to guide the first days of writing the book.  I believe that I managed to incorporate Intuition very well into my writing.

I had prepared a very rough outline of the order that I wanted to write the book.  Something told me that it would confuse the reader if I started it when I was fifteen, (as indicated in my outline) then left the middle of that memory to go back to being four, and progressing through the book chronologically after that.  As I went to start writing I realized that it would also be hard to properly write the chapter about being fifteen, as part of it would have already been written.  I would be faced with the dilemma of not rewriting that section and hoping that the reader would remember, or writing the section again in its proper spot.  I went with my intuition and started the book when I was four years old.

Then, the next day while driving in my car, I was hit with a very strong intuition.  The book doesn’t start at four.  The book needs to start with why the book is being written.  So, I wrote that part.

The perfectionist was a little concerned about the fact that I’m writing the first draft by hand in a bound journal, and now everything is out of order and I’m only on my second day.  My new writing friend, intuition, stepped in and I suddenly had a peacefulness that knew that I didn’t have to worry about the order right now.  All I need to do is write from my heart as originally intended.

As I reflect back on how much I changed over the last few weeks, and especially the last couple of days in regards to writing the book.  I went from being so scared to write that I could barely put together a rough chapter list to writing more than the 500 words each day that I committed to.  I also have a feeling (intuition) that everything that has happened to me happened so that I could write this book.  Everything is exactly the way that it’s supposed to be in this moment in time.

Is it possible that it’s the cards and that reading the definition and poem before I start each writing session is what is actually keeping me grounded?  I’m only on my third day, so I definitely don’t have the answer today.  I will be considering the possibility as I progress through this four-month journey with the Spirit@Work Cards® and the Castle Principles®.  I have a feeling that intuition is going to stay with me through the entire book.

Higher Ground Leadership Principles®, The Spirit@Work Cards®, and the Castle Principles® are registered trademarks of the Secretan Center.

I expect that the main concept for this blog site will change over time as I change and my interests change.  For now, the main reason I started this blog is to write about and share my journey for the next four months.  I am currently a life coach with a CVACC designation who is well on my way to receiving my CVPCC designation.  I would love to coach people who have had traumatic starts in life similar to mine.  In order to serve that segment effectively I chose to explore and understand my own past first.

With that in mind, I decided to study Higher Ground Leadership® through The Secretan Center.  In order to achieve certification I am required to complete a Practicum Project.  Part of my Practicum Project is to write the first draft of my memoir, Footprints On My Soul, implementing the Castle Principles® and the Spirit@Work Cards® into my writing.

This blog is also part of my Practicum Project and will be used to share my experiences twice a week on Mondays and Thursdays.

Castle is an acronym for:  Courage – Authenticity – Service – Truthfulness – Love – Effectiveness.  This is how I’m planning on using them to guide me.  (Taken directly my Practicum Proposal.)

Courage:  It will take a tremendous amount of courage to write the book, Footprints On My Soul, and to blog about the experience.

Authenticity:  I want my Soul, and the person I have become, to be felt throughout the book and by my readers of my blog.

Service:  To inspire the readers to see that peacefulness, kindness, and respectfulness, are possible regardless of the situation.

Truthfulness:  To accept and share my truth of living a traumatic childhood and how it has affected me as an adult.

Love:  To remember to always love myself through this journey and to believe that I am worthy of love.

Effectiveness:  To embark on this journey daily, and to realize and accept that there will be days when it will be difficult.

The Spirit@Work Cards® will be drawn twice a week on Tuesdays and Fridays and will be used as an inspiration for writing the book.  What they meant to me and how they affected my writing will be the main focus of my blogs.

I drew three cards to guide me in the overall feel of my book.  The first card, Flow, represents my past.  This card held so much emotion and was very thought provoking.  If I were to pick one line that spoke the most to me, it would be: “I sit quietly and listen to my Soul.”  For me, the challenge is going to be looking at my past in a way that soothes my Soul and allows me to remain true to the person that I am.

The second card, Infusion, represents the present.  It was surprisingly perfect for me and fit exactly what I’m doing right now!  The sentences that resonated with me the most and were almost prayer-like were:  “Let me live authentically.  Let love circulate through my being And become one with all that I am.  May my thoughts, my words, my feelings, and my actions Be totally infused with love.”  It is important to me that this book is written from the heart, with heart.  It is not about hurting people.  It is about sharing my childhood truthfully and compassionately from the heart.

The third card, Respect, represents the future.  I found the meaning of this card to be quite interesting and appropriate.  The entire poem that goes with the card touched me deeply.  The sentence I’ve chosen to share in this post was part of the card description.  “We cannot receive the outer rewards without first doing the inner work.”  An affirmation that I’ve chosen the right path in order to become the masterful coach that I strive to become.

Higher Ground Leadership Principles®, the Spirit@Work Cards®, and the Castle Principles® are registered trademarks of the Secretan Center.