It’s been a long time since I have posted a blog entry, and even longer since I have written regularly for Reinvention Revolution.

It’s been a conscious choice, and I thought it was time to check-in again.

When I began my blog, I committed to myself that I would only write when I really wanted to write, and, further, that I would only write when I felt that what I had to say would help other reinventers navigate their own reinvention journeys.

The first criteria was easy to honor. I’m a life coach and I wouldn’t be ‘walking the talk’ if I let writing become a ’should’ or ‘ought to.’ I work with my clients to free themselves of such obligations, and instead to tap into the internally generated flow of inspired action. So I need to do that for myself as well.

The second criteria is a little trickier. As I wrote for the blog, and received feedback from my readers, I realized that I often don’t have any way of knowing what will really help reinventers. It’s different for everybody. It’s different for each person at at any given time. And, I’m not inside anyone else’s experience.

Of course, as a life coach, I can help an individual client with their reinvention, but when I’m writing for a larger audience and for a group of people whom I don’t know personally, it’s a different ball game. I’m often not sure whether I’m hitting the mark or not; it’s a completely subjective thing.

Furthermore, as I tried to be sure that my writing was serving other reinventers (a laudable goal, to be sure), I found myself increasingly in the role of teacher.

Frankly, I don’t want to be in the role of teacher. It’s a role I never wanted, and yet it is really easy for me to slip into, if I’m not conscious.

The hitch is that it violates something that I know deeply, and that’s one of my fundamental premises in working with my clients, too: I don’t know your way, for you, in your life.

I work with clients to find their own way, not what I think their way is.

And I always completely trust that they have all the answers they need about their way.

You do too.

Nobody else knows the best way for you in your reinvention. Period.

Some people may be able to help you find your own way, as a reinventer, if they can clear any of their own agendas and perspectives out of the way. Easier said than done, sometimes. That’s what professional life coaches are trained to do.

So, in terms of my future writing, and for the purposes of this Reinvention Revolution blog, I may be ‘coach’ sometimes, but mostly I want to be ‘fellow journeyer on the reinvention adventure.’ I certainly don’t want to be ‘teacher.’

When I am in the role of coach, I always need to clear my own agendas and perspectives out of the way, so it’s all about my clients’ agendas, their perspectives, their journeys. That’s what I pledge to do, all day every day, in my work. So my own voice, in that work, is hopefully very minimal.

This blog can be the place for my own voice. It can be about my journey, my perspectives, and the tools that I’m playing with, for me. To me, this feels more in line with the spirit of blogs when they were first ‘invented.’

There are a lot of very useful blogs out there, with great advice and great tools. I’m not criticizing them in the least. I’m saying that may not be the approach that works best for me, given my philosophy and commitments.

And the challenge in this, for me, is not knowing whether that approach will be of assistance or value to other reinventers.

I always want to help and support reinventers, but, at least for now, I need to give up that criteria for this blog, because it’s too restrictive for me. It’s too difficult for me to know whether I’m meeting it in my writing, and sometimes that keeps me from putting out what is really in my heart.

I’m hoping that by speaking more from a very personal voice, that of a fellow journeyer on the road of reinvention, it will help you too, in some way. But I’m freeing myself from feeling that it has to, because ironically, I don’t think I could have ever known that anyway, in this forum. And my guess is that it will be helpful for some, and not so much for others, like anything else. And I’m OK with that.

So, I’m giving myself permission to not know. That may be my greatest freedom of all, to not know. To trust that I will find my way as I go along.

I don’t know where this blog is going. I’m going to feel my way, and that feels right and good.

Happy New Year and many, many blessings for a wonderful new year of being a reinventer!

Filed under: Being a Reinventer, The Revolution, The Reinventer's Path, Lynne's Reinvention Journey on December 31st, 2008