What's keeping you up at night?

Dear <<First Name>>,

Do you get songs that just go round and round and you wake in the night with snippets like mist coming and going as you move from sleep to half sleep and back?

My latest ear worm - and the thing that is keeping me up at night - is ‘waving through a window', a song from Dear Evan Hansen.

I thought, rather than use my own poem I’d therefore use snippets from the song as the basis for this Solstice newsletter.

You never know, it might get it out of my system.

"I've learned to slam on the brake
Before I even turn the key
Before I make the mistake
Before I lead with the worst of me"

How often do we do that do you think – stop ourselves from engaging or taking a step because of an assumption or judgement that we’ll make a mistake?

I’ve been on a few Landscaping Your Life coaching walks recently where the break has been slammed on a little too soon.

We’ve turned around and retraced our steps because of an assumption that we’ve taken a wrong path and are headed for a dead-end.

Only to discover later that had we persevered along the original path it wasn’t a dead-end at all.

Where in your life are you getting frustrated from the lack of progress – and how might that progress be through inappropriate brake slamming?

To release this behaviour, how about reaching down with your arm and envisaging releasing the handbrake on that situation, slowly engaging gear, putting your foot on the accelerator and moving forward?

My paths & destinations poem may also help with your exploration and enquiry.

I know I’ve certainly slammed on the break a few times over the launch of my podcast – which I’m happy to say is now live – how cool is that?!

I'm excited to share all of the tools from my Landscape Toolkit (2 or 3 every podcast) to help people get back on track. If you've got friends who would benefit from listening to it, do let them know about it!

Landscaping Your Life with Alison Smith is available from Spotify, Apple and other podcast apps. (once you’ve had a listen I’d love if you would vote for it as part of the British Podcast Awards.)

Looking through my window sending virtual hugs to the kidlets next door.

"On the outside, always looking in …..
'Cause I'm tap, tap, tapping on the glass
I'm waving through a window"

These words could be the theme tune for lockdown don’t you think, although I suppose we were on the inside looking out – even if that reality holds within it the same sense of isolation for many that the song is speaking about.

They also remind me of the words from my What is normal poem that starts:
“My normal isn’t your normal, yours isn’t mine
It isn’t today, never was, and will never be”

A reminder perhaps to not look through the window with rose coloured spectacles believing your life to be less than someone else’s.

With the death of my beautiful 22-year-old cat last week, these words also invite me to question how much I’ve stayed on the other side of the window. (It’s actually a conversation I had with her as I told her she could let go and I’d be ok.)

I wonder, how much have I used Smudger as the excuse for not getting out there in the world as much as I perhaps could. After all, I never thought when she first came home with me that she would have been still there purring away by my side for so many years later.

How are these lyrics inviting you to see the window you’re looking through from a different perspective?

"Will I ever be more than I've always been?"

Blimey that’s a question and a half, and worthy of a newsletter in its own right!

I’m sure I could ask myself “Will I ever be more than I’ve ever been?” about many things – my book, Can’t see the wood for the trees – landscaping your life to get back on track, my coaching, my speaking and of course now my podcast.

Oddly, it’s not something I wonder about with my poetry.

I’ve moved a number of posts on values from my old to my new website this week, and I suspect that values impact how, when, and whether we ask the above question of ourselves. For example, I get a sense that my poetry meets a need for expression and truth that simply arises from a state of being. Whereas, my coaching, podcasting or training meet values of contribution and achievement that have milestones or thresholds attached to them.

Which means for me my book requires x copies to be sold for my achievement value to be met, and yet simply writing a poem allows truth and expression to be met.

I’ll certainly be pondering on that a little more over coming days and weeks.

I love values – do get in touch if you’d like a coaching session to understand your values more and how they might be hindering or could help you to achieve your goals.

"When you're falling in a forest and there's nobody around
Do you ever really crash, or even make a sound?"

Which has me reflecting on the wood we can’t see for the trees.

Is the wood there when we’re not looking at it?

Are the trees even a problem if left to their own devices?

Perhaps a little philosophical for this late in the newsletter, but I will leave it here in case it’s exactly what you need to be asked to consider at this time.

Look out for separate emails about a virtual retreat for 6 lucky people coming up in July, and for my 7 lessons to having a buzzing life webinar on 8^th July with donations to SCOTLAND: The Big Picture for whom I am a corporate sponsor.

With much love, and happy solstice,

Alison xx

If you missed them you can read previous newsletters here, and a recent post answering some common queries about my coaching may just be what you need to enable you to commit to giving me a call to explore this further.