In the beginning her coaching practice attracted women who were living small lives, preoccupied by things that didn’t matter. Brown now attracts women who want to move into a state of joy and who have a substantial effect in the world with their presence, their words, their work.

“There’s a whole secret dialog that goes with that,” Brown says, speaking from her own personal experience. It’s often the seemingly small unimportant things that are having a large cumulative effect. In her shower stall, for example there is room on the shelf for three items across. Four of those were hers, two were her husband’s. She put hers in the back so he could access his more easily.

One day she thought, “Forget that. I’ve got more stuff I need more room.” So she moved her stuff to the front. Result? He didn’t even notice. “That`s when I realized there were so many little things I was deferring. Things that had bothered me for a long time. I was doing all this so it would be more convenient for my spouse, dismissing what was best for me.”

This may seem insignificant but these subtleties accumulate and suddenly women find themselves at a place where they’ve lost themselves in the process. “Smart women think this doesn’t happen to them,” says Brown, “And yet it does. I speak about this in terms of integrity, keeping a wholeness about yourself and your needs, keeping promises to yourself. You don’t gain or lose integrity in one choice but in the many choices over time.”

Another way that women give away their power is in how they make requests of others. For example, when a woman wants to go to the movies she may ask her spouse, “Do you still want to go to a movie today?” Asking in this way defers her own needs. Instead Brown recommends saying, “I’m going to go to a movie do you still want to join me?” This puts the power back in your hands as no matter what he says you’re still going and don’t have to explain it. Contrarily, if you say you’re going to go that could be construed as a subtle diss to him. Asking in this way you’re neither deferring your power nor being over-controlling. “True power doesn’t need to control or accommodate,” Brown notes.

In her practice Brown teaches non-judgement. That means not judging your body, what you eat, how you react at work or at home. “Judgement and learning can’t co-exist. If you choose to go down the path of judgement you set yourself up to go to this moment again and again and get stuck. Once you choose learning everything opens up and becomes curiosity-driven. It’s a compassionate lens and everything is new. This works even if you feel you need to go to store and indulge.” Brown recommends looking at that experience and recognizing that you may need to do it to learn from it as an experience of contrast to behaviour you actually want in your life.

“Notice “what is” and that truth is neutral. If you’re fighting reality you’re spending a lot of energy fighting “what is” and that energy isn’t available for other parts of your life.

Brown considers herself fortunate to have had coaches who were excited with whatever she brought to them no matter how “negative” or extreme. “They thought everything was ‘awesome’. They were my compassionate witness and my unconditional champion.” We need constants like this in our lives, whether it be a coach, parent, or friend who teach us, believe in us and see every act we do as revolutionary and necessary for our progress so we can internalize these qualities for ourselves.

Kathrine Brown, North America’s most innovative weight loss coach, is the developer of the process Conscious Weight Loss: weight loss while life happens and the publisher of the ezine Wisdom Connoisseur: your voice of clarity on weight loss, which has subscribers in 10 countries.

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John Stevens Sensei & Susan Harrow

This weekend John Stevens, a 7th dan Aikikai and Buddhist priest came to our dojo, Bay Marin Aikido. Stevens, who has written over thirty books on Buddhism, Aikido and Asian culture, is considered one of the foremost authorities on Aikido. The experience was enriching, wild-hearted and intense.

Beginners and experienced Aikidokas (Aikido practitioners) were challenged by Stevens’ examples of how to practice. He demonstrated eight ways of practicing the first pillar of Aikido, Shiho-Nage, 4-directions throw, which we were then to practice. A bit of chaos ensued. The mood of the dojo was filled with excitement, joy, bewilderment, a place of opening, which had us laughing and sometimes straining to understand.

He kept saying, “This is training. This is practice, eh?” He has a lovely lightness to his presence and  practice. He said that, at this time in his life, because he couldn’t use as much physical power in Aikido he had a much better understanding of its essence. This came through quite clearly when he demonstrated throws. The energy and lightness of his touch is something I want to emulate.

One of my favorite parts of the weekend was learning Kototama, the secret sacred sounds of Aikido. These sounds evidently sunk in to my unconscious mind. My sweetie informed me that I was practicing them (loudly) in my dreams and was driven from the bedroom to the guest room so he could get some sleep!

You can hear John Stevens Sensei performing Kototama or sound meditation in a church in The Netherlands here. He said that on the first take he was too self-conscious about how he sounded so it didn’t turn out. It was only when he forgot himself that he found the freedom to let the sounds come through unobstructed.

As you can hear, they came out whole and strong and clear. I find that when I media coach people this is true for them too. When we speak from a place of no-thinking our stories universally come out whole and complete. They don’t need editing. If we can drop into this place and rest there our thoughts and actions serve us well.

After two hours of practice we took a break for lunch and then began several hours of calligraphy using breath, kiais (short yell before or during a strike or technique) and lots of ink and paper. Of course our practice and life experience show up here as well; In the way a line is too thin or forced or broken, how we flow, the way we begin and end a stroke, our attention, the ways we stop ourselves or critique in the middle of doing. Whether we will it or not who we are is seen clearly, in the black ink of our doing and on the white paper of possibility.

Stevens suggested we put up our Calligraphy in the dojo and live with it, and watch how it evolves. He commented on how our sensei, Hans Goto’s, strokes had changed since last year. Both of them have been practicing Aikido for over 35 years. Often we don’t notice the shifts that happen over time as we move through our busy lives as we do.

Since starting to practice Aikido I’ll try to apply what I learn there to PR and to life. The phrase, “How you do anything is how you do everything” has truth to it. When you put yourself out in the world and connect with others everything shows up: whether you’re doing calligraphy, cutting a flower, speaking to your children, or handling yourself on-camera, we see who you are.

I remember Hale Dwoskin, CEO and Director of Training of Sedona Training Associates, saying, when you think of someone as a stranger they are really just a forgotten part of yourself. Aikido, and PR bring those reminders quickly present to right here right now. Everything that you do, say, are and think is your private dojo, and noticing how you respond to every given experience, an opportunity to practice.

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