June 29, 2009 | 10:02 pm

Crime and Punishment (a different take on the Madoff scandal)

Posted by Misha Henckel

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Misha Henckel is a Los Angeles-based personal and executive life coach. Her executive clients are generally leaders of entertainment and media companies who are focused on re-inventing themselves and re-envisioning their organizations. She is founder of Life Mastery Circles, a workshop series for women, and is co-founding a new organization for empowering and developing women leaders. She can be reached at www.mishahenckel.com or .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

It’s the topic du jour: Bernie Madoff sentenced to 150 years in prison. Whoop dee doo! Sure he will suffer and the prosecutors would have made their strong statement, but in my view, little else has been accomplished. Unquestionably, Madoff did a most terrible thing. But was he the only culpable party? The SEC continues to be perfect in their own eyes, and none of the “victims” want to take any meaningful responsibility for their part in being ripped-off. Yes, as a society, it is most convenient for us to blame it all on Bernie. But if we do not address the real source of the problem, it will happen again.

Many, many people participated in building the myth of Bernie Madoff. For years, he was practically a god in the financial world. No one, it seemed, questioned him. With people willingly handing over their personal power, i.e., their capacity to evaluate the validity of something, their ability to gauge the integrity of someone, their judgment - Madoff was able to do whatever he wanted to do with their money. And that, right there, is the core of the problem. The “victims” made themselves into victims. Seems so harsh to say, but we gotta deal with the truth here, otherwise, nothing will change.

Of course when everyone is doing it, it’s easier to lose one’s head and go along with the herd. The Madoff scheme is a glaring example of how we can completely lose sight of reality and just buy into whatever seems to be the thing to do. Not unlike Bush, Congress and the WMDs. Isn’t it time for us as a society to wake up and really see what’s in front of us? Isn’t it time for us to step out of the mythology that we seem so enmeshed in, and deal with reality?

Our personal power is meant to be kept and utilized, by us, as a force in our day to day lives. It’s not for giving away to anyone else. Whether they run Wall Street, the White House, or our synagogue, it matters naught. - We must blindly follow no one. Our capacity to reason, our intuition, our judgment is meant to be used by each of us to shape lives that really work for us.

In today’s rapidly morphing world, we dearly need our capacity to discern truth from untruth, right from wrong, and light from darkness. Handing that power over to anyone else is nothing short of suicidal.

No one can do for you or me what we must do for ourselves. We need to remove the veils of fear that conspire to keep us trapped in a herd mentality. And we must open our minds, our hearts, and our eyes, so that we can choose the best course of action in every area of our lives.

Email me with your questions and I will be happy to respond. Answers will be anonymously posted to the blog.

June 26, 2009 | 9:49 am

Death and Life

Posted by Misha Henckel

Misha Henckel is a Los Angeles-based personal and executive life coach. Her executive clients are generally leaders of entertainment and media companies who are focused on re-inventing themselves and re-envisioning their organizations. She is founder of Life Mastery Circles, a workshop series for women, and is co-founding a new organization for empowering and developing women leaders. She can be reached at www.mishahenckel.com or .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

Yesterday certainly brought shock to our collective consciousness. Fifty is far too young an age for anyone to die. And as maligned as Michael was in this last decade, with his passing we are certainly seeing just how much he impacted the lives of others. More than anything, though, we are shocked that he would leave so abruptly. While I myself still cannot believe it, I know there is a message here for all of us.

We live so much of the time, stuck in our heads, stymied by frustration, and paralyzed with fear. Useless emotions, they serve no purpose but cause our lives to shrivel into bitter nothingness. We can spend hour after hour, day after day, month after month in the vice-grip of these dark places within ourselves. OR, we can choose to open our arms wide, rip off the protective coverings on our hearts, and embrace life and all that it brings. We can choose to suffer through life, or to delight in each moment. Life is meant to be lived with our whole heart and our whole soul. Anything short of that is not worth it.

Today - Live. Feel. Surrender to the fullness of each breath.

Email me with your questions and I will be happy to respond. Answers will be anonymously posted to the blog.

 

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June 22, 2009 | 1:39 pm

Now… What Does A Life Coach Actually Do?

Posted by Misha Henckel

Misha Henckel is a Los Angeles-based personal and executive life coach. Her executive clients are generally leaders of entertainment and media companies who are focused on re-inventing themselves and re-envisioning their organizations. She is founder of Life Mastery Circles, a workshop series for women, and is co-founding a new organization for empowering and developing women leaders. She can be reached at www.mishahenckel.com or .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

“So, what does a life coach actually do?”

It’s a question I get all the time.

“I work with people to become more whole, to bring the conflicting parts of themselves into alignment, so that they can fulfill their potential.” (Well, that’s one way of putting it.)

“Okay, but what does that mean?”

“How does it actually work?”

“Is that like a therapist?”

So much of what I do is “new stuff,” not yet in the mainstream and still to be backed up by science, that it is always a huge gift when someone from that world steps up and brings their perspective. Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, a neuroanatomist is one of those. Her remarkable story describes life as we experience it, from the two very different parts of our brain – left and right hemispheres.

We have been trained to function almost exclusively from our left brain – to be logical, analytical, and “separate,” living in the past and in the future. Much of my work is to help people retrain themselves to include the right brain experience – to be inclusive, joyful, peaceful, loving and present. More and more, we are recognizing that success and fulfillment in today’s world requires a heck of a lot more right brain than left. Go to http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html for Dr. Bolte Taylor’s Stroke of Insight and find out what’s possible.

Are you ready for a new kind of success? Email me with your questions .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) and I will be happy to respond. Answers will be anonymously posted to the blog.

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June 11, 2009 | 12:31 pm

Reinventing Yourself? It’s Time to Come Out of the Closet.

Posted by Misha Henckel

Misha Henckel is a Los Angeles-based personal and executive life coach. Her executive clients are generally leaders of entertainment and media companies who are focused on re-inventing themselves and re-envisioning their organizations. She is founder of Life Mastery Circles, a workshop series for women, and is co-founding a new organization for empowering and developing women leaders. She can be reached at www.mishahenckel.com or .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

Reinvention – it’s one of the words of the hour, along with Change, Obama, Stimulus Package, Economic Crisis, and Bankruptcy. Yep! Whether it is personally or professionally, most of us are finding that we’re being required to reinvent ourselves in some significant way. (If that is not the case for you, be prepared. Chances are it’s coming.) Seems logical though. With so much change happening, we have to adapt. And that’s to be expected. Life is not one seamless, unchanging flow. The hiccups, the bumps in the road, the obstacles – it’s all part of the deal. We can accept that. Right? We can adjust, and adapt, and make our necessary changes. Sure!

Problem is, what we’re facing seems to be more change than would normally be anticipated. It’s seems broader and deeper – more fundamental and more far-reaching.  Many of us are familiar now, with the talk of a Great Shift, the End of Times, 2012, and so on. In the past couple of years, that conversation has moved from the domain of the lunatic fringe, right into the mainstream. Whether we are willing to believe in that or not, it’s hard to refute the notion that something “big” is afoot. Even the densest of us would have to agree that life is changing rapidly, and that the economic crisis is only a small part of the whole picture. So with change happening by the day, how are we to respond? How can we possibly reinvent ourselves when, in many cases, we have almost no clue as to what tomorrow will bring?

There is this Hasidic story, I love, that I think is very helpful:

Zusya was this great and pious rabbi who was highly esteemed by his many followers. One day they found him very upset and fearful. “What is the matter, Rabbi?”

Zusya turned to them and said, “I had a dream that I had died and gone to heaven. And there the angels asked me about how I had lived my life.”

“But Rabbi, you are so scholarly, and humble, and kind. What could they possibly say to you?”

“In my dream,” he answered, “they did not ask, ‘Why were you not Moses? Nor, why were you not Joshua?” Zusya trembled. “They asked me, ‘Why were you not Zusya?”

The clearly learned and highly revered rabbi had finally awoken to the realization that no amount of great accomplishment would supersede the primary obligation of his life – to be true to himself. Could it be that this amazing teacher had not been living the life that he was meant to live? Sure sounds that way. It seems even the great rabbis found themselves keeping up with the Moseses and the Joshuas, and losing touch with their own souls.

Today, we are under enormous pressure to reinvent ourselves. But who should we become? It is very likely that we’ve already tried being the perfect daughter, perfect spouse, perfect father. That didn’t work very well. Did it? And perhaps we’ve learned that living up to the expectations of others is not the way to chart the course of our lives. I would posit that we need to become our true selves. The change keeps changing, but what is lasting is the potential that we are. Like Zusya, fulfilling our inner potential is the mandate of our lives. And in times like these, when the s—- keeps hitting the fan, over and over again, we need to look within to what is unchanging.

So how should you reinvent yourself? Reinvent around your soul.

“Impossible! Never going to happen! I wouldn’t know where to begin.”

I’ll tell you how.

Inside of you is an energy that is waiting to emerge. It is the energy of your soul. It is the source of your creativity, your insights, your talents, your unique gifts. And it is waiting for you to allow it some place in your life. For this energy of your soul to work for you, it needs to be placed at the very center of your life, not shoved somewhere in the background. Once given its proper place, your soul will bring you a life that is truly fulfilling – the one that you were meant to live.

Of course, the challenge we face in letting our souls out, is that we have so many beliefs that tell us to do the very opposite. Our true self - what we really feel, what we really want, who we really are – is often the one part of us that we have buried deep inside ourselves, for fear that we would rock the boat, disappoint others, or break the “rules.” So this is going to be a coming out of the closet of sorts. Depending on how much we’ve been hiding, it will probably take a good deal of courage and inner strength to reveal our true selves.

Too scary, you say?

Then, start by simply coming out to yourself. Be honest with yourself about what you really feel, about what you really want from life, and about what is really working and what is not working. You don’t have to come out to the whole world, just to yourself is a great start. Once you’re being true to yourself you can start to take small steps in the right direction. The more true you are to yourself, the more you get to know your own soul, the stronger you will become. You will find that the “false” beliefs you were carrying around, that were limiting your life, start dropping away. You will begin to find the courage to share your true self with others. And you would be well on your way to being the person you need to be to withstand the current chaos and even thrive in these turbulent times.

Are you struggling with reinventing yourself? Are you stuck in your career or your relationship? Email me with your questions at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)and I will be happy to respond. Answers will be anonymously posted to the blog.

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June 1, 2009 | 4:55 pm

Relationships, the true bane of our existence…?

Posted by Misha Henckel

Misha Henckel is a Los Angeles-based personal and executive life coach. Her executive clients are generally leaders of entertainment and media companies who are focused on re-inventing themselves and re-envisioning their organizations. She is founder of Life Mastery Circles, a workshop series for women, and is co-founding a new organization for empowering and developing women leaders. She can be reached at www.mishahenckel.com or .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

In the last 12 months, the world has turned upside down. (Some would say, right –side up, but we’re not going to debate that at this juncture.) With the economy and all that it affects, falling apart, I could be justified in expecting that our perspectives on relationships would also be changing. After all, at times like these, the value and meaning we give our relationships should be so much greater.—Instead, I’m finding it’s just more of the same old stuff. Women complain, as usual, about what their guy did or didn’t do, and how hurt they are; and the men, well, they suppress their feelings and act as if everything is just fine, especially when it isn’t.

It leaves me to wonder: as fundamental as relationships are to our lives, how is it that we haven’t come close to really figuring it out? Why can’t we get them to work the way we want them to work? It seems we haven’t made any real progress at all. We are still hooking up with and marrying the wrong people. Or when we do have the “right” person, it doesn’t quite work the way we want it to.

This amazing woman that I know – she’s highly regarded in her field, a kind and caring friend, great mom, good inside and out – recently, told me about the challenges she was facing with her (equally remarkable) boyfriend. “He doesn’t give me the attention I deserve. It’s always all about him. He just doesn’t know how to treat a woman.” – Sound familiar? She keeps threatening to end things. I’ve seen them together, and it’s clear to me - their souls match beautifully. I pray she does not give up on him and instead gives the relationship a chance to work out for them. 

Another friend, married nearly twenty years to a man she does not love or truly respect, routinely laments the lack of fulfillment in her marriage.  While she admits that he is a perfectly good and loyal man, he’s not been a “true” husband – not in spirit, nor in everyday matters. They haven’t slept together in many, many months, and even when they have, it is merely mechanics. She’s miserable (and surely so is he), but she said to me, she’s just not willing to make any changes. “It’s going to cost me too much. And it’ll be the same income for two households? And then what will people say, I’d be a total failure?” I pray she finds the courage to be true to her higher self, and take the leap to a better life.

And of course, there are the couples we all know. The ones who don’t really talk any more – there isn’t anything to talk about. The ones who married because they were doing the right (fits the rule book) thing, but who never stopped to think or didn’t know that they would be better off doing the true (fits their souls) thing. They thought they looked good together – their parents and friends may have said so. They may have even thought they were soulmates – though how could they possibly have known, then, what a soulmate felt like. The marriage is not really working, but it’s not bad enough for them to leave, or good enough for them to fix. Tragic! I think. What a waste of life. And what on earth are they modeling for their kids? Oy!

What is it with relationships, we so often get them wrong! And how is it that we have a propensity to give up on the good ones and stick with the crappy ones? I think it’s about control… It’s easier to stay in an unfulfilling, unchallenging, empty relationship if it means we feel in control, and safe, than it is to get out and find something true. And the really good relationships – the ones where the souls match up - those often challenge us to grow. And that doesn’t feel safe, now, does it? No, self growth is hard.

My relationships have been challenging to say the least. And while I sometimes wonder, “Why couldn’t I simply have that perfect guy who would be loving and supportive?” – I know that, at least, my relationships have always ensured that I grow. I think the key for me has been to recognize that relationships are part of my growth mechanism. And they have pushed me into being a stronger, more authentic version of myself.

I am convinced that our relationships with the main players in our lives are almost invariably a mirror of our relationship with ourselves.

Very recently, I was faced with a painful encounter with a dear friend. I was hurt and saddened by what seemed to be a significant insensitivity in response to my very open-hearted position. I couldn’t understand it. How could anyone be so cruel? Why was this happening to me? I didn’t deserve to be hurt like this. As I pondered the situation, it became clear that my pain was directly the result of my un-met expectations. And they were entirely entitled to their position – harsh as it was. So how did I need to change (grow) in order to heal the pain? As I looked deeper into myself, it became clear: the way my friend responded to me was a direct mirror of how I was treating myself. I was hurt because my friend was not being true and honest with me, and when I looked deeper I could see that I was the first culprit. I needed to be truer to myself. I wanted to be acknowledged by my friend, but I needed first to be acknowledging myself. Immediately, as I gave my whole being over to taking proper care of my inner self, sending myself thoughts of love and care, the pain receded. Within hours, something that could have hurt for a very long time was gone.

It’s time for us to come up with new ways to view relationships – ways that really work.

Here are some thoughts:

• Relationships are not only for love, support and enjoyment. Relationships are for growth. They can challenge and beckon us forward to become the person we’re meant to be;
• If we are willing to grow, we can take our relationships to new levels of meaning and love;
• To heal relationships, we must first heal ourselves;
• Empty, un-connected, unfulfilling relationships are for growth too – the growth is to find the courage to get out, and to claim from life a relationship that is true and meaningful.

Everyone’s situation is different, of course, and you may be thinking that I couldn’t possibly understand what you face. But some truths are fairly universal: If you are staying in a relationship out of fear (fear that you may lose face, lose financial security, lose anything) then you should probably get out. If you feel deeply connected to the person but are avoiding or wanting to run away from a relationship because of fear (fear of the unknown) you should probably get in and get fully committed to it.

Yes, the world is falling apart, the financial security blanket has been ripped out of our hands, the rug has been pulled up from under us, and a great opportunity presents itself. This is the perfect time to take a look into the dark corners of our hearts and begin to heal ourselves. It is time, finally, to value yourself, care for yourself, honor yourself, and be true to yourself. Our significant relationships can help us to do this. Pain in these relationships points us back to ourselves and the inner healing we need to do. If we begin to look at our relationships in this new way, instead of being a constant source of discomfort or even trauma, they can be a wonderful support for us on our journey to wholeness.

At the very least, I hope I have provoked you into thinking deeply about your relationships, and perhaps into opening up for some new possibilities in your life. If you would like your questions answered, email me at misha@mishahenckel.com. Answers will be anonymously posted to the blog.

 

 

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