• Home
  • About
    • Elizabeth: Personally
    • Education Certifications Affiliations
  • Coaching
    • Educational Coaching
    • Non-Profit Coaching
    • Executive Coaching
    • Leadership Coaching
    • Group/Team Coaching >
      • Sample Workshops
    • One-to-One Coaching
  • Testimonials
  • Media
  • Africa Project
  • Blog
Critchley Coaching
Contact Elizabeth
403.256.4164
​[email protected]

The Gift of Uncertainty

8/27/2016

1 Comment

 
Picture
​One week ago, our son Greg married Cara.  This marked the ending of our ‘summer of weddings’.  Kaitlyn and Matt were married in July.  After all the planning and dreaming and phone calls and baking and cooking and entertaining of the past year, I find myself in an unusual position.  I’m a bit adrift.
It isn’t that our kids went from living with us to getting married.  In fact, they have both been living on their own for over a decade.  They are well established, independent and happy.  Even so, I sort of figured out that I knew what life looked like for me in that scenario.  In the past six or eight months, I very consciously decided to be fully present for the build up to, and for the moments of, these two very special events.  I have no regrets about doing that.  As such, it has been easy to not think about what would come after ‘wedding season’ for me.
 
Clearly in almost every visible way, nothing has changed.  Both kids still live where they did 6 months ago.  We still see them and talk to them just as regularly.  I still have my coaching practice and my work at the University.  I still dance. 
 
There has been, however, a fundamental shift in how I see myself and how I view my life.  I have such a huge value for family that I know I want to value each of our kids as they have become part of their own new little family.  I want to give them space and at the same time continue to create a place for all of us to celebrate our larger family.  What I think I am coming to notice (and I am still processing all of this), is that I have spent more than 30 years identifying as a mother.  That role informed every single decision I have made in that time.  I would do it all again in a heartbeat.  While I still identify as a mother, I find that a door has opened for me where I can now identify as some other things as well.  I feel like I have an opportunity to create whatever I want in my life.  I feel uncertain about what those new or new-to-me, things will be.
 
I recognize that I am someone who does not always love change.  Routine doesn’t bore me; it often gives me security.  Routine means I don’t have to think very hard about what I will do.  Routine means that I am confident in my ability to do familiar things.  I recognize that sitting on the edge of uncertainty can be a scary thing for me.  If I was coaching myself through this process, I would ask myself two questions:
 
 “What are the gifts that this uncertainty brings?”  
“What is it that I could do now, that would allow me to look back in a few years and say, ‘That was a wonderful turning point in my life’.
 
The answers to these two questions can hold the key to next steps for anyone who is facing an uncertain time in life.  What I know for sure is that there is always a gift in any situation and that sometimes the smallest step can be the start of a wonderful journey.
 
For my part right now, I am going to continue to live my ‘Summer of Welcome’.  But now, instead of welcoming guests and wedding preparations, I am going to welcome new ideas, new adventures, new confidence, new opportunities and new challenges.  I am going to welcome the chance to say yes, and to say no.  Most of all I am going to watch and listen carefully for the gifts that are presented to me as I face this undiscovered chapter in my life.
 
My inquiry for you this week is to ask yourself, “In this moment of uncertainty, what is the gift?”
 
Finding the tools you learn in these blogs to be helpful?  Contact me today to learn more about how we can work together to facilitate the change you want.
 

1 Comment
Sheri link
8/28/2016 07:31:17 am

Once again, I love this. I too love structure. And while I embrace change for some things, I struggle with change with other things. Your blog has given me, once again, a reason to pause and a reason to ask myself your question. Thank you for sharing. And a huge CONGRATULATIONS to your children!

Reply

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Picture

    Sign up below to have my blog delivered to your inbox weekly.

    Enter your email address:

    Delivered by FeedBurner

    RSS Feed

    Author

    Elizabeth Critchley (CPCC, ACC) is an accredited, certified, Professional Life Coach who excels at helping motivated clients clearly define and work toward their goals, dreams and purpose.  She believes it takes the same amount of energy to create a big dream as it does to create a little dream.  She encourages her clients to dare to dream big.

    Archives

    February 2025
    January 2025
    December 2024
    November 2024
    October 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015

    Categories

    All

©2018 Elizabeth Critchley