At our last coaching session, I was asked to produce a list of questions to enable discussion. Apparently, my coach was looking for just 5-10 questions but I produced much more!

One of the questions I chose as critical for my life was “What kind of father do I want to be?”. So I’ll be generating additional thoughts on this for my session tomorrow.

In case you were wondering what my laundry list of questions was:

Very thought provoking for me. Although we won’t have time to cover all these questions, I hope to find answers to most if not all at some point in the near future.

It’s all a part of really getting to know oneself. After all, if we deny or hide parts of ourselves, how can we really know ourselves and figure out how to drive our lives?

In my last coaching session, my coach recommended to me that I should try meditation as a means of calming my mind and getting re-centered.
Up to now, my multitasking tendencies made it difficult to sit still for any length of time. The only brain clearing activity I used was during highly focused moments to only concentrate on ONE thing at a time, versus many. That in itself was calming to me, to be able to think solely about one thing and not get distracted by a hundred
other thoughts.
These would be activities like running or cycling. For each of these, I cannot zone out completely or else I would get messy in my technique (see my Training blog for my thoughts on how technical these physical activities really are) or I could be put in a dangerous position like riding off the road because I was daydreaming.
Piano playing is another such activity. I love it because I am focused on reinforcing muscle memory in the keys I am playing and forcing my brain to remember notes and chords while making my fingers do the actual motions. I don’t think about anything else because if my mind drifts, my playing suffers…
Earlier this year, I read a book called The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari by Robin Sharma. It talks about a person who was so consumed with his rat-race, high speed, wheeling/dealing life that he forgot everything else that was important to him. So he goes on a quest to find himself again, reaching a monastery somewhere in Asia. In it, they also talk about meditation whereby you would start a little each day, as little as 10 minutes, and build to hours if possible. The task is to concentrate on a rose and take in all its details, examining and contemplating them.
I knew at the time that I would probably never be able to sit still long enough to try this. But now my coach has given me a new book to read on this topic, A Path with Heart by Jack Kornfield. I have just gotten into this book and it is quite good. I will post more about this topic later as I get through the book. However, I will note that this book is much more than just about meditation so more on this later…