In all things there is a law of cycles. - Publius Cornelius Tacitus 55-117 AD, Roman Historian Its hard to conceive of a business that is as fulfilling as life coaching. Helping people to reach for their dreams is about as meaningful as it gets. The greatest clients are very many times those that lack little self-belief or the tools to help them realise their true potential, while being blessed with an usually positive disposition. For these people, personal growth can many times be exponential when they return to terms with their own power.
Far more challenging for the life coach are those clients who look they have hit the bottom of a cycle and can look no method out. Such people are many times convinced that life is out to obtain them - that nothing can leave right no reason how hard, or what, they try. Sprouting on related to the power of positive thinking is rarely the greatest method for a coach to gain the respect of someone who thinks that a higher power has got their number. A more effective approach, in my view, is to try and help the client understand that a cycle is, subsequent to all, just that - a cycle. By definition, cycles have bottoms and tops.
The trick is to shift the client's outlook distant from the short-term 'here and now' and the pain they can be currently experiencing, towards the longer-term and what should be. After all, isn't it true that nothing in life is permanent? Isn't it true that we all skills development 'up' and 'down' cycles in our lives - even if the amplitude regarding the ups and downs differs, sometimes markedly, from one person being to another?One of my favourite books - and one that I credit for possessing got me started on an special journey in life - is Graham Hancock's bestseller, 'Fingerprints regarding the Gods' in which he presents compelling evidence for the existence of ancient yet highly advanced civilizations on Earth many thousands of years ago. I first view Fingerprints regarding the Gods some twenty years ago. The whole pamphlet intrigued me enormously but my imagination was particularly triggered by his explanation of a phenomenon called 'precession'. Prior to reading Hancock's work I had, like everyone else, known that the Earth spins relentlessly on its axis, receiving 24 hours from sunrise to sunrise and that the Earth orbits the sun in never-ending cycles, each lasting just over 365 days.
What I was completely unaware of was the existence of another, distant lengthier, grand cycle that slowly plays out as the Earth continues its heavenly dance around the centre of our solar system. That cycle - the precessionary cycle - is caused by a very slight 'wobble' that exists within the Earth's tensional rotation. Imagine for a moment the Earth's axis like a huge kebab stick piercing the globe through the poles and around which the Earth is constantly rotating. Now imagine that, due to a tiny wobble, the ends regarding the kebab stick itself are describing a tiny circle as they rotate, very slowly, in a direction opposite to the rapid spin regarding the Earth. Anyone who has ever nudged a rapidly spinning gyroscope shall have knowledge of what I mean.
This effect is called precession and the precessionary cycle takes - wait for it - a full 26,000 years to play itself out! As it does so, we skills development a change, so gradual as to be imperceptible, in our view regarding the star processes on our horizon. Incredibly, this almost unnoticeable wobble conclusions within the introduction of an alternate astrological age every 2,100 years or so!As I write, we are on the cusp of 3 astrological ages as we painstakingly transition from Pisces into Aquarius. So, what exactly does my brief 'foray' into the earth of astrology need to do with life coaching?Well, the spot I need to make is that our lives are regulated by cycles - from 'blink-of-the-eye' in duration to unimaginably long. The spot of these cycles, to my mind, is to present us with variation or contrast within an overall framework of constancy. That may sound like something of a contradiction - but imagine an earth without cycles.
It should be completely static, without variation and with a constancy that was permanent, not ever ending and mind numbingly boring. I risk serious understatement when I speak that our universe and our world is a fascinating and great place. The cyclical nature of our environment offers us excitement and opportunity through the access it gives to unlimited variety. At similar time we are provided with the comfort and reassurance that returns with knowing change is not ever permanent. Take time out to explore and appreciate how every aspect of your life is governed by cycles and you can ultimately lose your fear of change.
Instead, you can embrace and welcome it within the knowledge that no reason how many things change, they still wait the same. Swimmers who try to fight tough currents eventually lose their life and perish. Those that let themselves to be swept along with the currents grow to effortlessly transported to a calmer location from where they can use their conserved life to discover their method safely return to shore. The cycles of life are like currents within the sea. Fight the changes they present and you will quickly be sapped of your life and shall to live.
Embrace the opportunity for change, however, and you will soon locate new horizons opening up in a surprisingly reassuring way.