148: Colour your life

I have often written and spoken about the importance of ‘touchstones’ in enhancing our well-being.  ‘Touchstones’ are the experiences, aromas, tastes, sights, sounds, touches that bring out the best in us and make us feel really good?  In my Executive Coaching I help people to identify their touchstones and then consciously bring them into their ‘everyday lives’. 

This ties in with my insights a few years ago when reading ‘Care of the soul’ by Thomas Moore.  The subtitle is ‘A guide for cultivating depth and sacredness in everyday life’.  He says: ‘when you look at the image of soulfulness, you see that it is tied to life in all its particulars – good food, satisfying conversation, genuine friends, and experiences that stay in the memory and touch the heart.  

To demonstrate my message, let me share one of my own examples:  I’m passionate about sunrise and am privileged to live where I can experience the joy of sunrise from my bedroom window each morning.  This starts every day with great wonder and appreciation of my connectedness to the Universe.  I enjoy watching the light changing and going through different tones of pink, I love the sounds of the bird calls backed by the stillness of a world still half asleep. The busyness of the day has not yet begun.

So, in addition to making sure I’m up every morning in time to experience sunrise, how else can I bring more of that touchstone into my life?  Let’s look at patterns - I enjoy the privilege of having my own garden where I can plant and grow flowers and I consciously plant those that will remind me of sunrise.  Yesterday I was excited to find that a rose I planted last year had come into flower.  Appropriately named, ‘African Dawn’ this rose has the most amazing range of colours.  In the photo you’ll see three flowers from the same bush.

So I picked those roses and brought them into my home.  What do they remind me of?  You guessed it….. sunrise.  So this is one way in which I’m consciously creating a ‘golden thread’ running through various aspects of my life.  I placed the roses in my coaching room as a reminder that I need to help others to bring their touchstones into their lives on a daily basis.   

A good Executive Coach can help you to live life to the fullest.  The benefits are enormous – more energy, greater work/life balance, enhanced self-leadership and leadership of others.  Continuous improvement leads to sustainable growth and helps us to shift our ‘way of being’.