Asking for Help? Leave the Agenda Home! - By: Chandra Alexander

So…if we know we need to be present to experience reality, and the only way to do that is to feel, how do we learn to feel? We have been so conditioned to think our way through life, we are so hard-wired, that we naturally go through the world believing we can use our thinking mind to make it work.

Now I’ve been coaching clients for many years now and when they come and see me they always ask me what tools I use and what they have to do. They are always surprised when I tell them “no tools”. They invariably want to tape our sessions, take notes, have homework, journal, do something. Now these tools may seem noble, but in reality they are just another distraction, a way to stay in your head. Tools may point the way but they are not the way and any tool that’s picked up at some point has to be put down. I tell them I will ask only two things:

1. They need to show-up and 2. I am going to teach them to meditate and that they need to sit for me 10 minutes in the AM and 10 min in the PM. We are going to learn to quiet the mind.

When you show up it means just that and nothing else. And when you show-up with no agenda, there is an openness that invites in what needs to be looked at and felt. In other words, there is no set way to do things. That doesn’t mean we don’t address pressing problems, but rather that we trust the process and pay attention to what comes to the surface. The presenting problem is simply a point of entry, not an agenda to be rigidly adhered to. So…when you have no agenda, you are open to opportunities and realizations that you would not normally be open to.

When you show up with no agenda, you are ready to receive. I understand that oftentimes there are very pressing problems, but trust me when I tell you there is no particular subject that will enlighten you, no particular topic of conversation that is any better than any other one. Any place is a good place to open and enter; life is whole and what had energy will rise to the surface. Trust this process and that this is what needs to be looked at. This is the real stuff, based on the sub-text; what we really feel, not what we think.

For example, many of you would like to be in a relationship and quite naturally hold a certain physical image in your mind of what you want that person to look like. Now the problem with that is that if your ideal man is a tall, with blond hair and blue eyes you will miss the short man with dark hair standing next to him, even if that’s your guy. I mean do we really care what someone looks like if we feel love and cherished? After all, we get attached to certain forms because we think they will give us happiness, but do they? What is instead of holding the thought or image, we held the feeling; we felt what it was like to be loved and cherished. Now by letting go of our agenda, we have just increased our chances for happiness.

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