Bye Bye Aqaba                            September 19, 2006

Kind of sad to say goodbye to Aqaba, I love this place.  I don’t feel like I’ll be back, but L. says she’s almost certain I will be.  The document is 98% complete, just pulling annexes and small piece together, should finish in the next 48 hours.

L. and I have been touching base over the past few days just to check on the post-session after-effects.  Apparently L. is a Reiki master as well, and was doing some Reiki on me the other night, that would explain why I felt like I was in this “bubble” during our session sitting at the lounge in the Royal Yacht club, sipping my tea with mint.

I had 2 powerful dreams the night after my session, full of symbolisms and important people who’ve touched my life.  Pretty amazing.

L. used a term in the session about how I had to start to look at things “outside the picture frame.”  I’ve been listening to John Mayer’s Room with Sqauares a lot recently.  There’s a song called “3X5” and there’s a line in it, “Today I finally overcame trying to fit my world inside a picture frame.”  As I was getting on the plane, I get a text message from L. that said, “bon voyage!”  and I wrote back with the John Mayer quote, I told her yesterday about the song but couldn’t remember the exact words.  L. text-d back, “You go girl, the best is yet to come!”  For the first time in a very, very long time, I feel that it is true.

The power of transformation                     September 17 2006

I had my first coaching session last night with my new life/business coach. The last thing she said to me last night was, “Don’t underestimate the impact of what we’ve done.”  Those were important words to hear, because I was probably just on the brink of doing so, despite the fact that the session left me with some incredible insights into my life at the moment, and where I’ve come from.

We started with L. reading out a list of words to me that I had to separate into 3 columns – Always, Sometimes and Never.  It was a list of about 50-75 words.  Then L. asked me to chose 3 words from each of the “Always” and “Never” columns that I felt the most affiity to.  My Always list was…Sensitive, Capable and Demanding.   My Never list was…Manipulative, Unfair, and Active. It was this incredible snapshot – L said, “Donna, these are 5 words (she eliminated my putting “active” on the never column, apparently just because I often feel like not getting out of bed, it doesn't count) that tell me exactly what you are facing in the work place.”  Basically, people are scared of being “outshone” by me and the only thing “wrong” with me, is that I need to find new ways of communicating – excellent!

Next, she had me go through a list of people (Mother, Father, brothers, Influential Teacher, First Boss) and write three things I learned about myself from each of them.  Again, this was a very powerful exercise.  The most surprising insight is what I learned from my father – that I’m smart, that whatever I want, I can achieve, and that all I have to do is ask and I will get what I want.  I also realized that I learned some important things from my first boss at the beginning of my career – how to be careful with others’ egos and positions, that its not all about what’s on paper, and discretion is an essential ingrediant of professionalism.

Then she asked me to list out 10 things that were a “drain” on me.  I could only list 8, but 5 of those 8 were all about my physical “environment”.  We drew a life/business wheel divided into 8 pie slices of career (4), money (4), Health& Fitness (6), Romance & Relationships (2), Family & Friends (4), Personal Growth & Development (9), Fun and Recreation (8), Physical Environment (2).  The numbers next to each were the numbers on a scale of 1-10 that I rated my happiness in each area (1 being unhappy).  We talked about how important each of those were to me, ie, even though I’m not that happy with the romance area, I’m really not ready to give it a priority in my life.  I can’t be bothered with the energy it takes to be in full relationship with somebody else at the moment, Omar takes whatever I have unfortunately.  Each of the 8 things I listed got put into the wheel, we drew a line between the points on the wheel, and I came up with a very unblanced circle.  We decided to concentrate on the Physical Environment because that really seemed to be the foundation of having the ability to deal with the other parts.

And it’s the area that is most drainig now – besides my house, there’s my office space at work, the need for a new car, and other environmental stimulants (traffic, news, etc).I’ve got to say, honestly, I was shocked that I was so unhappy with my physical environment, I mean, my office mate situation is horrendous, and everybody rolls there eyes when they learn who I share an office with.  But, its surprising to admit that it all “drains” me. I decided on 3 goals to achieve in the area of physical environment that have to do with maintenance and work on the house. 

What was so funny is that as we digested this part of my life, it was all full of so many symbolisms.  One of the problems at my house is that I have to mend a fence.  My fence in my backyard is falling apart.  I love Silver Spring's diveristy, as long as you don't have to mend its fences! The fence borders an older Phillipine woman on one side who is insiting I put a "door" for her side of the fence.  In the back, there is a middle-aged couple who sit outside on their porch in the evenings and smoke pot, they're nice, their dogs are nice, but I probably need to make sure they're "cool" with the new fence.  On the third side is a house with young professionals in it who I think throw Sunday night football parties every week and could care less about their yard, but my fence is their fence.  This is no easy task, but I can't stand a fence that is falling apart!

The common theme that kept popping up through the entire session is communication.  I am having problems communicating.  If that is all that is holding me back – I feel that its something fixable, and with a small bit of effort I can really solve some of these problems.  L. insists that it will be a powerful skill to have for my future, and that I should use my current place of employment now to practice that in.

Aqaba = Home                                                 September 7, 2006

Oh my gosh!  Things changed so much in Aqaba.  I’m not sure how that happens in such a short period of time.  Of course Aqaba is growing at a faster rate than even Amman, so I should expect it.  They are building a new hotel, well actually, they’re building several new hotels, and the Kempinski was just a hole in the ground when I left  - now there is an actual building that you can see under construction – maybe 5-6 floors.

I’ve got to admit that my homesickness is gone – must be Amman, because I feel like I’m at home again in Aqaba. The downside to that is that I’m missing Omar tremendously – everywhere I go I’m reminded of him. I drove past our former apartment yesterday and I really felt of pang of missing it.  I’m staying at the hotel now which is very nice especially when they surprisingly upgraded me to a suite, but I miss being in a “home”.  Even the colleagues from the office here were telling me how much they missed me, it felt better than home!

Aqaba is still hot, Aqabites like to say that its “cooled down” but that means its only 100 degrees as compared to 110.

Lots of work to do, so I’m on my way!