Day 87: Sunny Schlenger

December 26, 2009 at 12:01 am, Category: Featured, Inspiration

“Coming from a place of empowerment and energy really allows you to see opportunities and possibilities and creatively just go beyond your growing edge, because you’ve got your eyes open.  You’ve got the energy to act on it.  And I think the energy generates the enthusiasm which feeds the creativity, and it’s just a wonderful cycle.”

.



.
Right click here to download…
.

Toni Reece: Thank you so much, Sunny, for agreeing to be part of the project, and before we begin, can you introduce yourself?

Sunny Schlenger: Okay.  I’m Sunny Schlenger, and I am a personal mentor and coach and author of two books on organizing: How to be Organized in Spite of Yourself and Organizing For The Spirit.

Toni: Well thank you!  When you think of the word inspiration and what it means, let’s start with who do you think you inspire and how do you do that?

Sunny: I would hope it’s everybody because … it’s funny I was just reading on Twitter a quote that really caught me:  “The greatest gift you can give to others is the example of your own life working.”  That is what I aspire to.  I happen to live in a beautiful part of the country, Sedona, Arizona, in the U.S.  We just love to have people come out here and show them what it’s like to live a relatively de-stressed life.  That is my aspiration.  That is what I think I’ve been able to do at this stage of my life, getting close to 60, and I would like to live my values and be who I am so that whatever I do flows out of the overflow.

Toni: Wow, that’s pretty amazing.  How do you think you can do that?  How will others see that?

Sunny: Another thing that helps me, I think, and has been very, very much a part of my professional practice is that I do think I have a gift, an ability to see people as they really are, meaning their best authentic self.  It’s almost as if I look at them and perhaps … another type of professionalist like a stylist would be able to look at them and see how they would best look professionally dressed.

I kind of see right through to the core and what it is that is there just waiting for expression.  I’m kind of like a cheerleader but more than that.  I think I give people permission to be who they really are which is in itself kind of an empowerment.

Toni: I think it is.  How do you think being that way with someone — first of all setting the example the way that you do and then tuning into someone, which is what I’m hearing that you do to allow them or give them permission to be themselves — how does that then work for them to explore their potential?

Sunny: I think being seen realistically, positively is something that not a lot of people get to experience in their life because either they’re judging themselves or they’re feeling judged by others, so they’re not experiencing that clear flow.

And if you hold a space to see the best that someone can be, they do experience that as a type of energy which sets the stage for them to be able to see “Well, what kind of choices can I really make?  Can I really make choices?  What a concept!”  I think that’s fundamental.

Toni: Do you give them their permission to make those choices?  Is that what you do?

Sunny: I think so, and the organizing has been a tremendous help as a way to open the door, in essence, to get people to examine how they do make choices because it’s relatively safe, it’s not going into a tremendously personal area.

Just to give you a very, very simple example, people aren’t aware that they make choices at every tiny step of their lives, and it’s the sum of the choices that result in life being lived in a way that’s experienced joyfully or not.

Something as simple as saying … let’s say you’re going to paint the house is the type of thing people would put on their to-do list, even paint a room, and have a lot of trouble getting through that and judge themselves negatively when they don’t experience that painting the house or painting a room is actually a sum of a lot of different things being done and choices being made along the way.

If you take it all the way down to the very first step you have to make, people think “Oh, buy the paint, measure the room, choose the colors, get a paint swatch” or whatever.  The first thing to do is to get yourself out of the chair and on the phone or into the car, wherever you have to go to put yourself in the place to begin to make the choices.  So I think I’m a mover in that sense.

Toni: To get them out of the chair.

Sunny: To get them out of the chair to realize they can, they need to, and what a wonderful way to go.

Toni: Is that an example of what you mean by an organizer?

Sunny: A professional organizer.  I’ve been around since the early days of the profession helping people manage their space and time more effectively.  What I’ve transitioned it into is really learning how to live your life in a way that you are who you are, you’re where you are, you’re enjoying your life, and you’re giving something back.  Those are my goals for helping people to be who they are and live their lives in a way that is fun and meaningful.

Toni: Can you give us an example of what that means, to be an organizer?

Sunny: Let’s see.  These days I’m helping people who are kind of a sandwich generation.  They are caught between the needs of their children and their parents, and they have to begin to think forward in terms of how their parents need to be assisted in living their lives.

But one beautiful part of that that I like to encourage people to look at is creating a personal legacy as you’re living it day to day.  Creating the kinds of things that you would love to be passed down to future generations and helping your parents create theirs, and bringing the family closer together.

So organizing doesn’t just have to mean straightening or downsizing or anything like that.  It can mean finding the treasures among the trash.

Toni: I see, okay.  And that can be probably literally, but also figuratively as well, I would imagine.

Sunny: Exactly.

Toni: When you think of the word inspiration, what do you need to be inspired?

Sunny: For me, I used to give the analogy of when you’re helping other people, you’re constantly emptying your pitcher full of water into the containers of others, and women tend to do that a lot to the point where the pitcher’s empty and they’re looking … “Where’s the water?  I need to water the next plant!”  And it’s your responsibility and my responsibility to keep refilling the pitcher.

I have learned what fills mine and what sustains me, and for me a very big part of that is nature.  Putting myself in nature and relaxing just seems to do that for me.  It’s different for every person, but it’s essential that you find what it is, and it can be a variety of things.

The other thing for me is I need to be in flow.

Toni: In flow …

Sunny: In flow.

Toni: What does that mean?

Sunny: To be able to move from creation to creation, whatever that might be.  Whether it’s creating a conversation I want to have with someone or creating a scrapbook page I want to do.

I need to be in that space where I’m open to inspiration coming, just coming naturally and moving me from one project to the next so that I’m not racing at breakneck speed from the beginning of the day to the end of the day.  I’m flowing with my energy as it naturally goes in and out and up and down, which means taking time to restore myself when I need it.

Toni: Can you give examples?  A lot of people don’t realize that they need to do that, and so this is where the Project is so helpful to others, and hearing what other people do.  So when you say that taking the time to restore yourself, is that what you mean by being in nature and doing other types of things?  Is that what you mean?

Sunny: Yes, exactly.  There’s a switch.  There’s an inner switch and it took me a long time to recognize when that was flipped down and I needed to flip it up again, because I would push myself to the point where no matter how much water I put back in that pitcher, I just couldn’t absorb enough of it to keep moving.

But now when I realize the switch is flipped down, I can go to where I need to be, do what I need to do at that time so that I can keep moving.   I think that recognizing that point is absolutely critical when we’re people who are used to pushing ourselves.

Toni: Well, this is really an  important point here that you’re making.  How did you recognize that when you hadn’t in the past?  I would assume just by what you had said that you weren’t always like that, that you didn’t always recognize that.  So when did it become recognizable to you, so others can learn from that?

Sunny: That is a wonderful question.  Part of me wants to take the easy answer and just say “Oh, I just grew old enough and wise enough”, but I think that I began to see the patterns that what happened when I didn’t do that as opposed to what happened when I did take the time and take the steps proactively.

It’s like they say out here, you have to hydrate constantly – drink or die.  It’s kind of dramatic, but because of the dryness in Arizona and because of the altitude, they are saying prepare yourself for any activity by having it in you ahead of time.  And I think water is just a wonderful analogy, because we need it to live.  Our bodies are mostly made up of water.  And if we take care of ourselves before we’re over-demanding, we’re much more likely to be successful.

Toni: Well, thank you for answering that question.  Now, how do you think with everything that you do — now that you can recognize that you need to flip the switch, and the things that you reach for to fill your own bucket — how does that then help you, and does it help you to explore your own potential and what you need to do so?

Sunny: Toni, it makes all the difference in the world.  It really does.  Coming from a place of empowerment and energy really allows you to see opportunities and possibilities and creatively just go beyond your growing edge, because you’ve got your eyes open.  You’ve got the energy to act on it.  And I think the energy generates the enthusiasm which feeds the creativity, and it’s just a wonderful cycle.

Nobody is in it all the time.  I mean, we all go through dry spells.  But if you know that it’s coming back and the things that help it come back, and you’re kind to yourself, it’s part of the way it’s meant to be, so you will be helped to do that.  I really believe that.

Toni: And that’s how it helps you to explore your potential?

Sunny: Totally.  Just being open and realizing that there are no crazy ideas.  If it comes to you as an inspiration, as an idea, just a little something to explore, follow where it leads.  Because those are where the next things come from.  Don’t judge.  Don’t prejudge.

Toni: That’s fantastic.  You have been incredibly insightful in this interview and given a lot of information in such a short period of time.

Sunny: Thank you very much.

Toni: You really have.  I just want to thank you for that.  Before I let you go, I just want to know, how does what you went through as far as recognizing what you needed to do to continue to be inspired so that you could continue to grow into your own potential, how did that then correlate to what you do for others?  Do you see that connection?

Sunny: Yes.  I think that I’ve been blessed to be able to take my experiences and use them to help me understand what other people are going through in their battles and to be able to offer advice as a mentor and to be able to creatively help people figure their way through things.  Because I know, I know without a doubt there’s a way through.  There always is.

Toni: But isn’t it fantastic then that a great way to end this is that what you do then, is that you get them out of the chair.

Sunny: Exactly.

Toni: And that’s fantastic.  Thank you so much, Sunny, for agreeing to do this, and I can’t wait to see the reaction and learning that people will get from you by listening or reading your interview.  So thank you again from the Get Inspired! Project, and I hope that we get a chance to talk soon.

Sunny: Thank you.  Best of luck in everything you do.

Toni: Thanks, Sunny.  Take care.

___________________________________________________________

For more information about Sunny Schlenger:  www.suncoach.com

.