Flying over the North Atlantic at 38,000 feet, we’re about to cross over the southern tip of Greenland. As I return home from my last teaching trip of 2018, I find myself reflecting on all that has happened this year at the Center for Transformational Presence. I took out my iPad to begin making notes, and suddenly became aware that the beginning of January—just a few weeks away—will mark 10 years since I created and introduced the first Transformational Presence course. It’s hard to believe all that has unfolded with this work over these last 10 years. It’s definitely a milestone to celebrate.
It feels like a beautiful synchronicity to be crossing over Greenland at this moment of realization. Out of the window, I gaze down on a magnificent snowy landscape of jagged mountain ridges and a river. Though there is no green to be seen in early December from seven miles up, I understand that this southern part of the world’s largest island is very green and verdant in the summertime. For me, however, the metaphor of the name itself conjures up images of a land or an energy that is ever-green, regenerative, sustaining, life-giving.
These descriptors capture the essence of what Transformational Presence has come to mean in my own life. Over the last ten years, Transformational Presence has become the force that sustains me as I navigate life in all of its fullness—incredible opportunities and rich experiences, as well as challenging situations, deep disappointments, and even crises of faith. It is the regenerative power that keeps me going when I am exhausted. And it sparks wonder, creativity, and new life in moments that I least expect it.
Transformational Presence has also been my teacher. In truth, it probably started being my teacher long ago, but it wasn’t until ten years ago that I recognized its name.
While Transformational Presence does not belong to me, it was given birth through me. For that I am profoundly grateful. I am filled with deep humility that it chose me as its initial steward. Ten years later, I can’t imagine what my life would be without Transformational Presence.
Transformational Presence was born in 2009 as a five-month advanced virtual course for coaches who wanted to work more intuitively, to expand their intuitive awareness and deepen their understanding of how life works as energy in motion. That five-month course quickly evolved into a seven-month accredited coach education teleclass program.
A year later as the work was rapidly expanding, it became clear that it needed a home base. So I created the Center for Transformational Presence in early 2010. Since then, every next step we have taken has been in response to what Transformational Presence itself has asked for. Our soul mission:
We ignite and sustain Power-Love.
While coaches continue to make up a significant percentage of our program participants, we also increasingly serve leaders, managers, HR directors, teachers, counselors, entrepreneurs, spiritual leaders, healthcare professionals, and public servants.
Through the in-person and virtual programs and personal coaching offered by the Center for Transformational Presence, as well as through the work of nearly 800 graduates from five continents, this way of living, leading, working, and serving has rippled out to thousands of people in more than 35 countries.
So how did this happen? How did Transformational Presence expand to such a global presence in just ten years?
Perhaps a year before the birth of Transformational Presence, I was uncertain about the direction my work should take going forward. I knew that I was doing good work as a coach and as a spiritual teacher. Yet I couldn’t find a vision for what I was supposed to create.
Then in my morning meditation, I began sensing a crystal clear invitation:
Say Yes to the service you are asked for.
In truth, it felt more like an assignment than an invitation. I don’t think I could have escaped that invitation even if I had wanted to. There was no place to hide. At that time, I had no idea of the depth and breadth of what would happen and how it would stretch me over time. Yet I knew in every cell of my being that, from that moment forward, saying Yes to what Life asked of me was my job.
So I accepted the job. I started saying Yes to every form of service to a greater good that was being asked of me. Many times, I didn’t know how to do what I was being asked to do. Yet I trusted that I would find my way and that the resources that I needed would show up. And when resources didn’t show up, I created them myself. I made mistakes; I had some embarrassing moments; more than once, I experienced discouragement and disappointment. And yet it’s been an incredible journey.
The more I listened to what Life was asking of me, the more creative and resourceful I became. My learning and growth curves have been steep, often in areas that I wouldn’t have expected, and sometimes in areas that I hadn’t been interested in before. As a result, so many extraordinary people, experiences, and opportunities have come my way – just because I said Yes.
From the beginning, Transformational Presence took on a life of its own. I had no traditional kind of vision or intention of what I wanted it to become. And I never imagined that it would become global work. While I was its steward and principal voice, Transformational Presence itself was the “leader.”
At each step of the way, this powerful energy taught me how to listen, sense, and feel where it wanted to go next, and then to follow that energy. The few “vision statements” I created over the years were simply documentations of what Transformational Presence was showing me at that time about where it wanted to go. There was never a business plan, a list of goals, or a master long-term strategy. Frankly, in the last few years, it’s been all I could do to keep up with everything that was unfolding.
At this ten-year mark, I’m realizing that some people have very tangible visions and dreams of what they feel called to create or build. I am blessed to serve as coach or mentor “behind the scenes” for some of those people and support some wonderful projects.
And then there are others like me who feel called to ever-evolving service. I had no idea 20 years ago that my “service” would look like it does today. And I certainly would never have imagined that such amazing people from so many countries would join me to carry this service far beyond what I could have ever done on my own.
However, what I have always known is that at my core, I am a teacher, guide, and mentor. As I ease into my mid 60s, I am discovering deeper meaning and purpose in those roles. I am blessed to do the work that I do. I am blessed to say Yesto what Life asks of me. I am blessed to work closely with extraordinary people from all over the world. I am blessed to keep learning and growing, discovering and creating. And I could go on and on.
As I return home from this last “service” trip of 2018 and approach the end of the first decade of Transformational Presence, I admit that I’m also tired. Both my body and soul are asking for more time at home. I can’t imagine no longer doing this work. So I’m quite sure I will continue saying Yesto the service Life asks of me. Yet in the last few months, I’ve also been making my own request that Life will start asking me for new forms of service that don’t demand quite so much travel! It’s not my wish to stop traveling—just traveling less and for shorter periods of time.
Thank you, thank you, thank you to Transformational Presence for these last ten years. I look forward to discovering what the next ten years of service, mentoring, coaching, and teaching will bring.
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