Day 77: Liz Cosline

December 16, 2009 at 12:01 am, Category: Featured, Inspiration

“All of it is immensely inspiring because your life is just so incredible.  Your life is such a gift, and you’re allowed to do anything with that; how more inspiring could that be?  You can be whoever you wish to be, and you can do with your life whatever you wish.  It’s mind-blowing.”

.



.
Right click here to download…
.

Toni Reece: Thank you so much, Liz, for agreeing to be part of the project, and before we jump to the questions, can you please introduce yourself?

Liz Cosline: Sure.  I’m Liz Cosline as stated, and I’m a life ownership coach, certified, and I also write books and speak to audiences about the possibilities of life.

Toni: Well, that just lends beautifully to the first question.  When you think about that word, inspiration, Liz, who do you inspire and how do you do that?

Liz: I try to inspire anyone I meet, and I do that by asking certain questions — especially once I get to know them — about figuring out what is wanted in life.

I think that is a very core question about “What do I want?”  When that gets answered, it opens up all kinds of possibilities because it hits pretty much every aspect of life.  I’m not talking about possessions or anything like that.  What I’m talking about is what will bring joy and fulfillment and what will bring you happiness and really start looking at life in a very beautiful way.

Toni: Do you find that those questions are difficult for some people to answer?

Liz: I do, at first.  I think some of that is societal.  When you say “What do you want?”, the first thing that comes to mind is “Well, I want to go to graduate school.  I want a house.  I want a car and a dog.” and things like this.

It’s because we’re not taught to dream high enough or big enough about our lives.  Once explored, and once you start asking some more questions about it, people seem to almost get permission to dream bigger.

Toni: When you’re working with people and you’re asking those questions — which at times, as you’ve admitted, can be difficult — how do you think that then translates into them exploring their potential?

Liz: I think they need to go inside, really, instead of the things that have brought them joy in the past.  And once they start looking at those patterns and start looking at those trends, it really helps them to zero in on the things in life really that they want to do and they want to be a part of, even the people that they’re seeking out.   As they explore it more and more, they get a real sense of who they are, also.

Toni: Do you find that sometimes that’s a lot different than what they were before the question was asked?

Liz: It seems that sometimes it’s unrealized.  I think that every person knows deep down inside — and now I’m going to talk about the core, all the way inside — exactly what’s supposed to happen in life.  But we get so distracted, and we have so many people tell us what it should be that we get off track.

As people go after it, yes, it becomes clearer and clearer as it’s talked about more — and sometimes exercises and things like that — so it becomes clearer as they continue to think about it.

Toni: When you are working with others and you are inspiring them in this way and helping them to explore their potential by going inside and realizing what they want, not what’s dictated to them — which I love the way you say that — do you  find that people become re-inspired so to speak?

Liz: Oh, absolutely.  Again, it almost seems like permission.  “Well, I can dream big, and I’m allowed to go after what I want, and I’m allowed to think about what is best for me”, and in doing that really finding the things that will make life worthwhile, almost list them up.  It’s a beautiful, beautiful thing to see, because there’s a revitalization of energy that comes into their being.  It’s like looking at the days in a new way.  And that is what is so incredible when you see this happen.

Toni: It’s really interesting, Liz.  When I’m listening to people during the interviews, there are certain phrases that just come to my mind that I write down, and right now I just put down on paper that you help people remember.

Liz: Well, thank you.  That’s a beautiful, beautiful way to say that.  I think the child in us knows exactly what was meant for life and exactly what is the path they were supposed to be on, and we simply get distracted or off-course, or forget, as you have now so greatly said.  I think we forget.

Toni: Now let’s talk about you.  When you are looking for inspiration, what do you need?  What do you look for to be inspired for yourself?

Liz: I continually look at myself, and I take the time to feel the feelings inside.  I take the time to listen.  That’s really what it is on the inside, I think, is a compass that will tell you when you’re going the right direction and when you’re not going the right direction.  That is done by feelings.  So I do that.  But one of the things that inspires me incredibly is to see people just full of joy, to see people helping others, to see when I help others that also inspires me immensely.  But it’s really looking at the beauty of life.

Now I take time every day.  I wake up in the morning – and I ask others to do this, too – and say “It’s going to be a beautiful day.”  First thing when I wake up, “It’s going to be a beautiful day.”  Now I’ve made my mind and my soul and everything … geared it to have a beautiful day, and it makes a huge difference.

Toni: Did you always come to the table that way?

Liz: No.  This actually happened … when I almost died in 2001 is when things really, really switched over.  I came so close that I shouldn’t be here really, medically, but it was an absolutely wonderful experience in what it … it made me go to my potential.  It absolutely made me go to my potential.

People don’t have to go through that to get to their potential; they just need to believe that they can, to believe that they have the right to do that.  And people have the right to live their life fully.

Toni: So you went through an experience that allowed you to give yourself permission to go towards your potential; you were almost forced there by what you went through.

Liz: Yes.  You can always reject it, so I don’t know about forced, but it was a stopping.  It was a stopping in life, a forced stopping, and it was a time where I could absolutely reflect was I doing everything that I wanted to do.  And though I was doing many of the things I wanted to do, no, I wasn’t going to the 100% of what was going to transcend me.

In having that stopping and reflection — and that’s something that everyone can do — I took a real good look and decided to go for it all.

Toni: Way to go!  Are there tools or methodologies that you reach for, Liz, when you are seeking additional inspiration, when you know it’s time for me to fill myself back up?

Liz: Other people can fill me quite a bit, and seeing the accomplishments they do.  One of the exercises actually that I suggest to many people is to look in the mirror and tell that person in the mirror everything you want that person to know.  Tell them the good, tell them the bad, tell them what you like, tell them what you might want to change, and be as honest as you would a friend.

Often we don’t speak to ourselves in the same way we would speak to a friend — that gentle, supportive, but honest kind of dialogue.  I suggest to people to do that.  If you can’t look at yourself in the mirror, write yourself a letter, and that often brings out many of the things as you’re writing that you normally wouldn’t say.

Toni: Have you done that for yourself?

Liz: Oh, yeah.  In fact, I’ve done it several times, because it’s a wonderful way to check to make sure that you’re on track.  If you’re just viewing it from an outside view in on what this person is doing — of course, it’s you — but it’s a wonderful way to kind of change the mindset on telling you what you need, want, and also celebrating you.  It’s okay to say you’re doing a good job.  It’s okay to do that, and there’s nothing conceited or egotistical about it.  Just congratulate yourself when you get something done.

Toni: When you take all of these forms of inspiration that you’ve talked about — and I love the stopping, that you actually had a stopping in life and that allowed you to reflect which sounds to me a bit of what you’re doing for others — that you, in a more gentle way and in a healthy way, you are allowing them to stop and to pay attention to themselves and reflect back to them so that they can be revitalized.  It’s a gentler way that you’re paying it forward, what you went through; that’s what I heard.

When you do this type of work then and look for this inspiration for yourself, how does that then help you to explore your own potential?

Liz: I always go into when I help others and have them reflect on themselves.  I always go into every situation that I am going to learn from it.  As people go through going after their dreams and finding their course, in every situation we can learn something about ourselves.

So I go into every situation, and it doesn’t matter that I meet you for the first time, that is my mindset, that I will learn from you and that we will help each other and energize each other and the whole bit.  And that becomes immensely inspiring all the time and gets me, my potential, to go even further.   It just helps me to grow even further because everything in my mind is going to help me grow.

So I am always growing.  I am always growing towards my potential.  I am always going further, and I’m always going towards the destination.

All of it is immensely inspiring because your life is just so incredible.  Your life is such a gift, and you’re allowed to do anything with that; how more inspiring could that be?  You can be whoever you wish to be, and you can do with your life whatever you wish.  It’s mind-blowing.

Toni: How do you then take how you explore your own potential, how you come at the word inspiration, and then how does that then all tie together with what you do in your work?

Liz: The more that I’m growing and the more that I’m becoming, the more that I can give to others.  The life ownership coaching that I do is really to tell people how amazing they are, how incredible … all the incredible things they can do.  I bring that energy of celebrating them immediately.

Anyone that I am coaching just has incredible potential; that’s what I believe.  There is no reason for me not to believe it.  I bring all the things that I’m becoming to them but have them decide what they’re going to become or wish to become or want to continue being.  It is all about being; all of it.

Toni: Can you just take a moment and clarify that statement for me?  What does it mean that it’s all about being?

Liz: A lot of people think that the world happens to us and that we keep reacting to the world, and that is not my belief that all.  We are happening to the world, and we are energy creatures.  We have vibrations in us, and we are full of energies that we give out and energies we receive, and that is part of being and becoming.  Who you are is you being.  You are a human being.  You are a human being upon the world.

When we don’t think about us being a wonderful individual here, being about others, being about ourselves, being about the thing we can do, we get into ruts about things happening to us, and I don’t believe that’s true.

Toni: So therefore, what I just wrote down is there are no excuses.

Liz: Pretty much.  There are no excuses.  You are in control of your life.  Everything that happens within your life is your responsibility.

Toni: What a great lesson to leave for this interview for the Get Inspired! Project, and Liz, how you come at inspiration, how you handle inspiration and pay that forward to others is really a gift.  I thank you for taking part in the project today, and there’s a lot of learning here for everybody who will read and listen to your interview, and for that we thank you.

Liz: Thank you very much, Toni.

___________________________________________________________

For more information about Liz Cosline:  songofoneunexpectedlife.info

.