I recently chatted with Kathie Kelling about her story and the work she’s doing that is meaningful to her. Below is an excerpt form our conversation that I want to share with you during March Meaning Month.

With a strong desire to make a difference in the lives of people and inspired by water, Kathie Kelling is changing the world one coast at a time by helping people see their value and acknowledge the gifts they have to share.

Kathie Kelling, Coach and Evocator

[Alice Asked:] I know you travel a lot and organize trip and retreats. Why are you so drawn to travel and why certain places in particular over and over again?

[Kathie:] You never know what to expect when you travel — especially when travelling to the kinds of places that bring you your ideal day. By being able to leave regular life, you can capture a sense of freshness and keep alive just how special it is to be somewhere new. I don’t necessarily you can feel that way in a place that you live in all the time.

Logically thinking, with my love of travel, one would probably think I would choose new places to go to all the time. However, for me, the sense of connection to a place overrides the logic. In each of those places, there’s something that pulls me, draws me in. Mainly that compelling force is water.

[Alice Asked:] How does water play a role in connecting you to specific places?

In Kauai, the water is very present because it’s a small island. In Mexico, the place I rent is right on the beach. In Ireland, where I have my upcoming retreat, there’s lots of coast land. The retreat center I’m using overlooks Clew Bay, which is full of more than 300 little islands that appear and disappear with the tide. It’s inspiring and mysterious all at the same time and that is such a great metaphor for the self discovery process.

[Alice Asked:] What do you find to be most meaningful in your work?

The view from Essence of Mulranny in Ireland.

[Alice Asked:] What are you looking forward to most right now?

[Kathie:] I’m hosting a 9-day retreat in Ireland starting June 8, 2010 called Evoking Your Passion. I’m really looking forward to seeing the look on people’s faces when they take in their first glimpse of Ireland. The country itself is so lovely and unexpected. Even just looking out the window form the airplane. It sounds cliché, but there really are 40 shades of green everywhere.

The retreat will help people imagine and create the story of their lives, lead by me, and also includes time with my colleague Cheryl, our resident artist, giving them the opportunity to integrate the creative self to all the other work we’ll be doing. We’ll also be going out as a group and being introduced to sacred places such as the sea, a labyrinth and historical sites such as the castle of Grace O’Malley the Pirate Queen and a 14th century abbey. There will be no shortage of inspiration!

[Alice Asked:] How do people register for your Ireland retreat?

[Kathie:] They can email me kikelling@yahoo.com or book online through the retreat center called Essence of Mulranny. We need a $200 deposit to hold each person’s space and as of right now, there are a few spots open.

[Alice Asked:] Why do you do what you do?

[Kathie:] I feel I am changing the world by helping people get to know who they really are. Maya Angelou said, “Love life, engage in it, give it all you’ve got. Love it with a passion, because life truly does give back, many times over, what you put into it.” If more people were able to put their attention into creating good from our passions and by loving ourselves, then I truly believe fewer people would impart hurt upon one another.

To those who are not doing (we’ll call them watchers) entrepreneurship is a big dream, a “someday” ideal or, a hopeful aspiration for all their ideas and inklings. In this stage, watchers thrive when they see someone whom they know going for it.

Whether or not you asked to be, there are people in your circle of connections watching you, learning from you, drawing inspiration from you.

If you are a doer, here’s what you should know about being watched.

1. Doers inspire watchers to keep their ideas alive. Seeing you go for it helps watchers begin to start thinking in terms of what is possible instead of what’s inevitable.

2. If you can do it, they can do it. Every day that you persevere, a watcher believes more and more that they can do it, too. A powerful notion if you’ve ever been watched by a kid bursting with creativity.

3. Watchers are among your greatest cheerleaders. Your success is their success. They admire your accomplishments and tell you so. They tell your story at parties and work functions. They drop in on your website from time to time and marvel when they see you in the press.

4. Watchers will need you one day. When the time comes to for a watcher to become a doer, you will be among the first people they call for advice and encouragement, ideas and connections. Watchers moving in to the doer stage deserve your time and attention.

Now that I’ve pulled back the curtain on the fact that you may have a watcher, let me give you passionate doers one quick private investigation exercise: Do you know who’s watching you? What side of you are they most often seeing? Who are you watching?

And by the way watchers, if you are paying attention as you watch, you will learn and become a doer. However, if you perpetually remain a watcher, you may eventually be demoted to voyeur.

In either case, if you’re not taking action, no one is watching you.

The Google search results didn’t disappoint me.

I found links for “squash self doubt,” “overcome self doubt, ” and “break-through self doubt.”

Dealing with self doubt started to sound like a life-long quest and not something I could get rid of in a day. Bummer.

Deflated, I decided to pick up my copy of The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. I knew there had to be something in there. And there was something. Something radical!

Pressfield says suggests and idea about self doubt so opposite of where I was headed that it just might work. On page 39 he writes:

Self-doubt can be an ally. This is because it serves as an indicator of aspiration. It reflects love, love of something we dream of doing, and desire, desire to do it. If you find ourself asking yourself (and your friends), “Am I really a writer? Am I really an artist?” chances are you are.

I was shocked and then convinced all in one breath. Can the plague of self doubt actually be an ally?

It’s true that any yearning desire is the one most easily doubted.

I often ask my clients what they see themselves doing in their wildest dreams and the truth is always buried deep beneath a stash of more responsible or acceptable answers. When we are at last able to uncover the real thing, it is often quickly dismissed or peppered by self-doubting question that vaporize it into “just a silly old idea.”

But those deeply doubted desires are actually the solid truth.

Why do we doubt what is so solidly true and real? Pressfield gives one answer in the final line of the excerpt, which reads:

The counterfeit innovator is wildly self-confident. The real one is scared to death.

I get it now. We doubt what is true because doubt is a compass whose job it is to steer us in the direction of our dreams — a direction that feels uncertain, new and impossible. A direction that often supplies us with feelings that show us what it is worth the fight.

There is no fight in something that is easy, fake or a rip-off.

Self doubt is a natural reaction for the warrior who lives her dreams and defends them from herself.

It can be a difficult question to get to after wading through the gummy mud of, “What do I have to do right now?”

At the outset, the question, “What’s next?” can feel big and daunting. However, it is a question that is full of possibility, creation and attraction without any of that restraint of “What do I have to do?” or worse, “What should I do?”

Answering the questions, “What’s next?” carries a small element of suspense. But then, something interesting happens as we become more specific with that question.

What will I eat for my next meal? How will I spend my time next summer? What’s the next big idea I want to dust off? What is my next project? What will I change or add the next time?

Did you feel it? The suspense quickly folds into a shooting star trailing right into our gut. I can tell you that I can clearly answer each one of those questions above almost instantly from my gut.

That’s a lot easier than trying to figure out what I have to do or should do. Those are just questions we try to answer based on what we think others would do or would have us do.

Asking “What’s next?” helps us find the answer from a position of what we most want to do. That feels 100% better.

Give it a try.

Ask yourself, “What’s next?”

And let me know what you discover!

Something newly present in our lives can not only create new knowledge and new routines, new friends and new interests, but also can mark a new beginning.

Some beginnings are full of anticipation, adrenaline and immersion.

Others are familiar, even second nature, in some ways, but strangely unfamiliar and mysterious in other ways.

My new beginning is more like that. He’s 8 weeks old, 12 pounds and has 28 razor sharp teeth.

We call him Wesley and he is most definitely the mark of a new beginning.

I look forward to sharing more as he grows.

So often when we are searching for this thing we’re born to do, we are looking for it like it’s something we lost or something valuable we dropped in the street, like a lost $100 bill, that we must always be searching for or we’ll never feel responsible or complete.

Recently, however, one of my clients shared her story with me and illustrated so clearly that it’s not that we have to go searching for that one thing we are to become but, rather, that we need to connect to the creative conduit that will reveal it to us.

She explained to me that toward the end of  her corporate job experience, she felt a deep sense of longing to do something creative. At that stage, she felt that doing something creative as a career would be such a wonderful way to make a living.

She had always been interested in flower arranging, so she took a class and loved it. She had a natural talent for it and enjoyed connecting to her creative self. Within months of completing the class, she took a second job in the evenings and on the weekends as a floral designer at a local flower shop, and during the day she continued working at her corporate job.

She explained to me that at that point, she felt her world opening up. She started seeing possibilities instead of wallowing in misery. This new awareness and attitude was key to finding her calling. Within a year of floral arranging, she was looking through some local newspapers and flipped through to a page with an ad for a workshop teaching Reiki. She had never studied or thought about Reiki before, yet somehow she knew the minute she saw that ad it was the opportunity for which she had been searching.

Right below that ad was another for therapeutic coaching certification. Yet another curiosity was sparked.

The workshop in Reiki uncovered her gifts and talents as a healer. She wanted to take it even further and soon became a certified therapeutic life coach and added a few more healing modalities that she could use to help her clients.

It wasn’t a strong desire to become a healer that led her to her true calling, but her ability to connect with a creative conduit, in her case floral design, that led her to her ultimate calling. And now she has the added benefit of having both in her life.

As you search for a connection to the person you long to become in the world, I encourage you to look for your creative conduit. Woodworking, writing, painting, singing, acting, teaching, crafting, sewing, gardening — whatever connects you to that center of creation. It will ultimately lead you in the direction of your dreams.

It was true
What I knew
What I dreamed
What threatened the seams of yearning in my heart.

It was gone
Before I listened
Before I cared
Before I dared to say, “I love you,” and sweep it off its feet.

It remains
Someplace it can breathe
Someplace within reach
Someplace it can breach the false security of my fear.

But when the weather or other forces of nature do make everything easier, there’s an interesting phenomenon that happens to many entrepreneurial spirits: we take a deep breath, we roll up our sleeves and then…we rest.

We take a break — a long three-month break. Then before we know it, in the throws of Fall with Winter nipping at our necks, we panic. We suddenly realize that we had a whole summer of opportunity that slipped by because we rested. We languished in the false relief of sun and fun instead of using all that energy and ease to our advantage.

What if good were great? What if great were outstanding? What if everything you do now to nurture your connections, creativity and commitment were enough to carry you through until next June, even when things don’t feel so easy later in the year?

Now is a great time to connect with other people, enjoy the beauty around us and use it to our creative advantage. So don’t rest. Instead, rest assured that you made the most out of an incredibly opportune time of year.