Tara Mohr's Blog, page 10

up at 3 am

I can still remember that night like it was yesterday – even though now it was almost a decade ago.

I was up in the middle of the night, sitting alone in the living room of our high-rise apartment, looking out onto nighttime lights of the city.

I couldn’t sleep because, to be honest, there was a knot of sadness in my chest that wouldn’t leave me.

So instead I was awake, asking myself why my days felt more gray than full color, why I didn’t feel excited or optimistic about my life, even though I seemed to have every reason to – a good job, a wonderful relationship, and so many other blessings.

Yet I had the sense that if I just kept doing the job I had (or the promotions that would come after it), I would end up with regret, knowing that in some way I had not done what I came here to do. (I didn’t know clearly what that was, however.)

That night, one clear thought announced itself to me: Tara, you are being more loyal to your fears than to your dreams.

It was absolutely true.

That thought set me on a journey. I started working with a coach, who lovingly helped me unearth the dreams that had been waiting inside of me, buried or rationalized away.

I started investigating my own self-doubt, perfectionism and fear, the internal barriers I harbored as a woman wanting to share her voice, to contribute, to create – but who was never taught how in a world that doesn’t embrace women who speak up.

As I learned new tools and ideas from the worlds of psychology, coaching, and spirituality, and put them into practice, I changed, and my life changed.

I started writing again, reclaiming something that had always given me so much joy, but that fear and self-judgement had made impossible. I found my way to managing my inner critic so that I could put pen to paper (well, fingers to keyboard), write what I really had to say, and even press “publish,” sharing blog posts publicly. Huge change.

I started to recreate my home, my dress, and the way I spent my time to reflect what felt like a more authentic me.

And then, with the momentum of all those changes, I was ready for the bigger one. I admitted and accepted that the kind of work I wanted to do was in the realm of personal growth, spirituality, creativity – even though I could hear inside my head the scoffing and judgements I imagined would come from the cultures I was moving out of – traditional business, philanthropy, and prestigious academic institutions.

Slowly I shifted course. Slowly, I learned how to place my loyalty back on the side of my dreams. Yes, I brought everything I’d learned and become from those other milleus (business school, the philanthropy world, an Ivy League education) with me, with gratitude for the strengths and lessons they offered. But I used them to support my desired path, not stand in the way of it.

After getting an extensive training in coaching skills, I started working with coaching clients, and I was stunned by the phenomenon that I saw.

My clients were mostly women who wanted to do work they loved or who wanted to make a larger positive difference in some way.

They were so damn capable (like you) but they were holding back and dealing with nearly constant self-doubt (that they didn’t even know was self-doubt because it sounded like the truth in their heads!). They were getting stuck because they were trying to use the diligent, analytical forms of working that had served them well in their careers and in school. As I had learned for myself, those are absolutely the wrong tools for the task.

I felt a huge sense of responsibility to help these women get the changes they wanted in their lives – after all, they were coming to me and paying money for coaching, for results!

So I became dedicated to discovering what truly made a transformative difference in allowing my clients to play bigger in just the ways they wanted to. I took pieces – pieces of what had helped me learn to play bigger, pieces of what I saw working for them, and refined, wove together, sifted, learned more, and refined into the Playing Big model that I’ve now written and taught about for the past eight years.

What my clients needed was different from the usual coaching model and professional development toolkit, because there are unique challenges for women looking to create, speak up, and lead.

The Playing Big approach runs counter to the usual thinking on mentorship, confidence, fear, feedback, and communication – and is so distinctive it’s been featured in news media ranging from Harvard Business Review to goop to The New York Times.

In my own life, the results of using these tools are many, from regaining a creative and writing life that I love, to publishing a book, to serving on nonprofit boards for causes I’m passionate about, to speaking on stages that would have terrified me years ago. They’ve also changed how I feel in my life and work – more free in sharing my voice and my perspective, more improvisational and at ease creating and making things happen, so that I can make the difference I want to make, and, of course have a more fun and exciting life and career. Sure, I absolutely still have my playing big edges, but I also have tools that work to apply to them.

More than two thousand graduates of our Playing Big course have reported the amazing results in their own lives – from starting businesses, to shifting careers into work that excites them more, to negotiating for the job (or title, or pay) they want, to picking up beloved creative or other hobbies again that bring them alive.

Our next Playing Big online course is starting soon, and we’d love for you to join.

If you’ve already gotten started with the Playing Big book, fabulous! The course is a way to apply the learnings to your life in a paced, supported way. You’ll put the concepts into practice. You’ll have the opportunity for lots of discussion, coaching from me, and time to get your questions answered. And you’ll get a wealth of resources not included in the book.

A little more about the Playing Big program:

    •   It is based entirely on time-tested, proven tools that have been shown again and again to work.

    •   Our 12-module curriculum teaches you how to manage self-doubt and fear, how to communicate and negotiate with power, how to clarify your vision and access your own unfailing inner wisdom and much more, so that you can do the work you most want to do in the world – and get all the joy and fulfillment that comes with that.

    •   Warning! You may make some new friends or find some new collaborators in this course! Our discussion group, small group option, and community calls forge amazing connections of like-minded women all across the globe.

    •   The program is taught in a flexible way – so you can listen, watch, or read at your convenience, making it work with your busy schedule.

    •   You cannot fall behind. The program is structured so that you can plug into whatever module we are on (even if you missed one) and catch up on what you’ve missed when time allows.

    •   This is not a mass automated experience. In order for you to be supported, get your questions answered, and feel truly connected to our community, I am fully present with you every step of the course, in live course calls with teaching, coaching and Q&A.

Lastly, I’ll say this. We know that you don’t want to add more to your to do list or feel more striving or overwhelm in your life. You’ll be getting tools that help you play bigger not by doing more, or working harder, but rather by aligning your life with what you really want. You’ll be able to play bigger in a way that is not exhausting, but energizing. Turns out playing small is way more tiring than playing big – I promise.

What comes next is simply learning more. Please sign up if you’d like to receive details on the program curriculum, format and graduates’ experiences, so that you can discern if it’s right for you. We’ll send you further information right away.

Here’s to your playing bigger!

Love, Tara

 

Are you feeling the call to play bigger?

Over the years, I’ve learned this: there comes a time in our lives when the life we’ve been living doesn’t quite fit anymore.

What felt fine before starts to feel constraining, or dull, or gray. We slowly come to realize that one chapter of our lives is ending – or has ended – and it’s going to be up to us to create the next chapter, or to discern what path is calling us.

Although these moments can be uncomfortable, they are incredible opportunities. That part of you that yearns for more authenticity, more impact, and an intensified desire to do what holds meaning for you? In these moments, that part is speaking louder, and you have the opportunity to listen.

If it’s one of those times for you, I want to invite you to join me for the upcoming Playing Big Course and sign up for our Early Information list. This is my pioneering class for women who want to play bigger in their work and in their lives. It happens online and by phone, so you can attend from anywhere around the world.

We are now entering our ninth year of making a global impact in teaching women to play much bigger.

I’m always honored by what people have to say about their experiences in the course. Here are a few examples:

“I have gained so much more out of Playing Big than I ever expected. I came in hoping that Playing Big would help me tap into my calling and provide some motivation and tools to pursue it. I did not expect the transformational power of this series. Tara’s tools and exercises get at the heart of playing bigger in a way that is sustainable and that I can keep going back to. I feel that I own my voice more confidently, that I’ve accessed the wisest part of myself, and that I’m showing up more authentically throughout my life. I have strongly recommended this course to all of my friends.” – Betty Chen, Director of Family Engagement at Summit Public Schools

“After attending the Playing Big course, I am much better at communicating from a place of strength. I mentor several colleagues. So often now, concepts we discussed in Playing Big jump out when I’m coaching these ladies. I’m glad I can share some ideas to help them play bigger in their careers. I feel much better about my abilities and contribution in the world. But most of all, I am happier about what I am doing.” – Meg, Finance Executive

“I now have a vision that propels me forward every day. I know that my voice is needed and that I have a duty to play big in this life, to heal the world in the way I know best, no matter what my inner critic voices are telling me.” – Amanda Vella, Yoga Teacher and Writer

Our next session starts in mid-March.

If you are interested, all you need to do today is sign up HERE. This will put you on the list to receive details about the course, and give you access to our fabulous early bird discount. Sign up for our Playing Big Early Information list here.

With love & gratitude,

Tara

 

Talking with Teen Vogue

 

Good morning!

I’m writing today with a few updates …

This month I’m proud to be featured in a Teen Vogue article on mentorship. In the piece, I shared some of my most passionately held beliefs about mentorship, one of them being that we’ve put far too much emphasis on telling women to look outward for answers, and not enough emphasis on encouraging them to tune into their own inner guidance.

In the article, I also got to speak to the idea of the “inner mentor” – that older, wiser you that you can find within and consult for direction and guidance, a concept which many of you know from the Playing Big book. I’m so happy see this idea make it into the mainstream in this way. Special thanks to journalist, Jessica Matlin, for bringing it to this audience.

Journalist Jessica Matlin who wrote this piece

 

If you haven’t caught up with Teen Vogue’s incredible coverage and commentary on social and political issues under the leadership of Elaine Welteroth over the past couple of years, check out what they are doing. Read about courageous Editor-in-Chief Welteroth here.

Teen Vogue EIC, Elaine Welteroth

 

You can read the full article, How to Get a Mentor, here.

If you haven’t yet, get the Playing Big book here so you can find your own inner mentor.

Love,

Tara

New Year’s Poem

 

New year. It will not be

what you plan or what you chart.

Remember, dear? It never is.

The lines will not run straight

or the surfaces be smooth.

After all, the curriculum

is given, not chosen.

New year. Today, do not resolve

anything for yourself.

Resolve something for all of us.

The very heart of time is begging us

to never wish for I again,

to only ask for us.

And intention? Do not

even intend anything

or try to name the roads

you want on your map.

Instead, look back

and fall to your knees

for every time you have hurt yourself.

Repair.

Remember how you loved

before you were born.

Grow more like dust on the earth,

for joy crackles between

the powdery grains of self, not in them.

New year.

Another turn.

Another turn of the sphere.

Another turn to be.

 

– Tara Mohr

2018 Playing Big Programs

As this year comes to a close and we are all beginning to turn our thoughts to the next one, I want to share with you what’s coming up for our programs in 2018.

If you are new here, you know I write regularly, but you may not know that I also lead courses that allow you to go deeper with your learning in a community of women.

If you want to use your voice more fully, experience less self-doubt and fear, and gain greater access to your inner wisdom, then my Playing Big course is for you. The next session of Playing Big will be taking place March – August 2018.

If you are also feeling a call to help other women play bigger, the Playing Big Facilitators Training is for you. This course is for women who want to use the Playing Big model in their own lives and careers AND who also want to bring it into their work mentoring, managing, coaching or counseling others. Our next session will be starting in October 2018.

All of my courses are taught online so you can attend from anywhere in the world, and they have a flexible format that works with busy schedules.

Here’s what a couple of graduates have to say about our programs …

“Playing Big is a game changer. It exceeded my expectations in every way. Clear, well-designed modules that manage to be elegantly simple, yet profound. The program has helped me to gain clearer and clearer vision about my own work, and also provided the framework to push myself out of my comfort zone – without fear.”

Sarah Neville, Director, Open Line Communications

 

“This is an amazing course! It helped me figure out what my ‘playing bigger’ looks like and how it could be different as life evolves. The course is a nice balance of practical tools, self-reflection and guidance from Tara and resonant stories from others. I thought it was fabulous that I could do this with my own time and without judgment. Overall, I would highly recommend this (and have been) to other women who desire to make a bigger difference in their lives in an authentic way.”

Zeryn Sarpangal, Vice President of Human Resources & Corporate Affairs at Achaogen, Inc.

 

If you have interest in learning more about either program (or both — many women have taken both courses and they work great in combination with each other), click HERE to get on our Advanced Notice list so you’ll receive program details and be the first to know when registration opens (and get access to our early bird discounts!).

When you sign up, you’ll also be able to download our 2018 Playing Big Program Guide with details about our programs. This is a helpful document you can share with your organization if you are seeking funding from them. Many of our participants have had great success with having their employers sponsor their leadership development. (We know this can be a lengthy process at some companies and institutions, so we wanted to get these supporting materials to you well in advance.)

We hope you’ll join us for a fabulous experience of community, growth and learning in 2018!

Love,

Tara

 

Collective Courage

“If one woman told the truth about her life, the world would split open.” – Muriel Rukeyser

Today’s TIME cover is about that truth-telling. It is also about the shift away from the individual, toward the collective.

When I saw the cover, it reminded me of a conversation I was a part of a few weeks ago – a conversation about a different act of resistance, of women’s rebellion, from a few thousand years ago.

In the Book of Exodus, Pharoah commands two midwives to kill any Hebrew baby boys that they deliver. But, the text says, “The midwives, fearing God, did not do as the king of Egypt had told them; they let the boys live.”

What enabled the midwives to do this, to be so brave?

“They were together, they had each other,” one person in the group said.

I’ve read the story so many times, but that insight made me look at it in a whole new way. It was a pair of midwives, two women who jointly chose this act of defiance.

We can imagine what happened between the lines of the text. Did they speak with one another and decide to take this risk together? Did they just look into each other’s eyes and silently agree on what they would do?

Sometimes we have to look away from what our peers are doing to find our individual, courageous choice. But sometimes, in community, we find courage and clarity that we cannot summon on our own.

It is no accident to me that women appear as a collective in this portrait in TIME. They break the world open not only through the truths they tell but also by upending the idea that the “person” of the year is an individual acting alone.

Today let’s be conspiratorial with each other, for the good.

Love,

Tara

 

there are no enemies

I have been writing online enough to know this opinion is an unpopular one, but I will go down saying it.

I don’t believe in enemies or villains. I know hurt people hurt people.

In our wisest selves, our grandmother selves, we take destructive behavior damn seriously. We work to root it out, but we don’t give it mythic power, its own force.

Instead we just know it is what happens when love and wisdom are absent, and when the culture has taken the matriarchs off their thrones.

Sending love to you today,

Tara

a simple way to feel better

In Naomi Levy’s beautiful new book, Einstein and the Rabbi[image error], she shares the Hasidic teaching, “There are ten levels of prayer, and above them is Song.”

This past weekend, I spent a lot of time singing. I went to a couple of religious worship services and sang and sang… and then sang some more.

Now let me tell you, I was not in a good mood when I showed up, but I left feeling so much better. I was a little shocked, because there was no problem solving or unpacking of the issues, no talking about them. There was just song.

I was reminded of the primacy of song, and why every spiritual tradition involves singing in some way.

In the Jewish tradition, there is a word, nigun (pronounced nee-gune), which refers to songs without complicated lyrics or a set tune, but rather with very simple sounds in repetition. It’s a term for what so many of us often do naturally – make up a song of “da-da-dahs” or “la-la-la’s”. Or we might pick a simple phrase – “I love you” or “it’s okay” – and sing it in repetition, varying the tune organically.

When it comes to singing for spiritual and emotional reasons, niguns work particularly magically. We aren’t worrying about what words come next or how to sing the song right. We get out of the thinking, language-based place in our heads into something much more intuitive. And the repetition of the sound offers a kind of container to go deeper and deeper into the intoxication that comes with singing our hearts out. We go into that special place that chanting takes us to.

There’s so much emphasis on “getting still” in spiritual circles these days, on being in silence, on “quieting the mind,” that we may have ended up mistakenly associating spirituality with quiet. And our spiritual practice may entail something very hushed – silent prayer, meditation, yoga.

But of course, spirituality is not just about finding quiet in a noisy world. It is about finding the sacred in the mundane. It is about re-contacting our aliveness after experiences that have deadened us. It is about crying out to something larger than ourselves. Song allows us to do all of this.

And spirituality aside, singing is also – a host of studies show – one of things we can most reliably do to change our mood, to simply feel better.

How can you bring more singing into your life? Perhaps through spiritual music you sing along in a house of worship. Perhaps singing along to a favorite artist in your kitchen as you pack lunches or scrub dishes. Perhaps adding chanting to your yoga or meditation practice. Perhaps singing again in the shower or the car if you’ve gotten out of the habit.

So just a simple reminder today to sing – it is potent medicine.

Love,

Tara

pain of the soul

I’ve been in a hard time lately – nothing alarming, just the kind of hard time that life brings all of us.

In a recent moment, when I was thinking about what was so hard and what I could do about it, I remembered something I wrote eight years ago, something I hadn’t thought about for a long time.

I had written this: the amount of pain I experience is directly proportional to the amount I’m out of alignment with my soul.

(And I’m talking emotional pain here, not physical.)

When I first wrote this idea down, hearing it from somewhere inside me, I wondered, could that really be true? Didn’t pain happen simply because life is full of challenge and suffering and injustice, or because really bad things sometimes happen to us? Couldn’t pain just have to do with our emotional lives but really have nothing to do with the soul?

Yet when I inquire into my own pain, and work with others around theirs, I find that with pain, there is also often some soul starvation, some soul violation or denial that is at the root of the pain.

Our souls long for freedom, and oppression pains our souls.

Our souls are meant for love, and animosity and hatred pains our souls.

Our souls are meant to be treated with reverence and care, and callousness pains our souls.

When our soul doesn’t get what it needs, we feel pain.

What I find to be the miracle in this way of working with pain is that it means our pain doesn’t only teach us about the shadow side of life.

If we let it, our pain can always teach us about the light, our own inner light. Pain is always a little arrow pointing you to some unmet need of your soul. Your pain will point you to some part of your divinity that is being strangled or stamped on – by yourself or by others.

Pain can always lead you there, if you follow it to that discovery.

In my own life,

the pain of isolation tells me about the connection my soul is meant for

the pain of exhaustion and overwork tells me about the vitality and balance my soul is meant for

the pain of experiences of harassment, objectification, and abuse tell me about the free and joyful sensuality my soul is meant for

And what the soul needs, the soul is. The soul needs love and is the energy of love. The soul needs creativity and is the force of creativity. The soul needs compassion and is the spirit of compassion. So your pain not only tells you what your soul needs, it tells you what your soul is. And that tells you about what the holiest part of you is.

And so, in pain, we can ask:

What part of my soul got hurt here?

What need of soul was denied or ignored?

And as we choose where to devote our time and energies, we must keep asking:

Where is the misalignment between my life and the longings of my soul?

Where is the misalignment between our society and the needs of its members’ souls?

What can I do – small things or big things – to bring about more alignment between life and soul?

Love,

Tara

the instruction we got…

You can listen to this post in audio, too. Click the player to download an mp3 file.



 

the instruction we got …

The instruction we got was crystal clear. The instruction was to love our neighbor as ourselves.

This is our primary human task.

I fail at doing it fully, you fail at doing it fully – we all do. But the good news about that is that since we never complete the task, it can remain the central, in-progress project for our entire lives.

It can – and should – compel our focus for a lifetime.

To love our neighbors as ourselves can’t simply mean to regard them positively in our minds and hearts. After all, we don’t love ourselves that way.

We love ourselves by working to feed, clothe, and shelter ourselves, to protect ourselves from harm, to give ourselves comforts and opportunity and liberty.

Loving our neighbors must be like that: it must be made manifest with what we do with our dollars, our time, our actions, and our compassion.

In a recent interview, Diana Butler Bass said the brave thing that needs to be said about this: everyone is our neighbor. Everyone, the victimizer and victimized, is our neighbor.

We are one body. If part of our collective is sick, deluded, abused, insane, the rest of us cannot escape the suffering that that part will cause us. To be well, to be safe, we’ve got to help everyone get well.

I believe that the charge to all of us is to keep asking, day after day: how can I live up more to this instruction to love my neighbor as myself?

How can I love my neighbor as myself in this situation?

How can I today do it a little more courageously, and with more challenge to my ego and my comfort?

And how do I do that with the neighbor that I might be tempted to hate, with the neighbor that I deem evil, the one who is against what I am for?

As clearly as it has been told to us, as clearly as it has been given, we have still strayed very, very far from this core instruction. But it waits for us, waiting for us to see its wisdom and understand its promise. And life will keep showing us the tragedy and waste that unfolds when we do not follow it.

May you hold this in your heart today: may I love my neighbor as myself. And everyone, everyone, is my neighbor.

Love,

Tara