Tag Archives: life coach

Dressing the Part

Dressing the Part

In order to illustrate a few points, I’ll tell you a bit about me today…  When I was in high school, I dyed my hair every color of the rainbow.  Green was my favorite.  I pierced my ears, my nose, and eventually I even pierced my lip. As a filmmaker and standup comedian, my image was a powerful statement.  It certainly helped me on stage at a time when I wanted to feel assertive and commanding.  My punk aesthetic was a way to stake my claim for freedom and individuality and playfulness.   

Circusoh
Several years ago, I started a circus and took it on tour across the country.  My circus’s gypsy aesthetic of the motley tribe of wanderlusts sent me fishing through antique clothing stores to invent my ringmaster costume…  It was another avenue for creative expression that was powerful and unique in a new way. 

Aliciaindia_headshotRecently, I traveled in India for several months.  I spent time at ashrams, learning yoga, meditating, meeting new people.  I packed one pair of jeans and a few t-shirts from home.  It was with a delicious contentment that I gathered beautiful, flowing scarves and punjabi pants at each stop along my dusty journey.  I had removed my lip ring and let my hair grow, and it’s now past my shoulders.  For many years, I enjoyed playing with people’s perceptions about appearance, knowing all along that the essence which radiates from deep within is more true than what clothes I put on, what shape my body is, where wrinkles have settled in from smiling, or what color my skin is.

Alicia_headshot
And today, I enjoy a sense of confidence, creativity, and freedom that I wear along with my long hair, high heels, and a new brown jacket.  I am having a ball dressing in a commanding way, and fully inhabiting this new space.  My interactions with people feel unfamiliar.  Along with a sense of power, I also feel a sense of responsibility with the power I’m commanding, and a desire to increase my humility, my grounding, and my compassion to root myself. 

How we present ourselves is a manifestation of how we see ourselves, and a wish for how others might see us.  I encourage you to experiment with your appearance.  Step outside of your comfort zone. If you always wear suits or dresses, try putting on a crazy hat and wearing your clothes backwards to the park.  Creativity is about exploring possibility, and it’s fueled by your willingness to be in the unknown. Are you ready?

        "When one lives with concepts one never learns.  The concepts become static.  You may change them but the very transformation of one concept to another is still static, is still fixed.  But to have the sensitivity to feel, seeing that life is not a movement of two separate activities, the external and the inward, to see that it is one, to realize that the inter-relationship is this movement, is the ebb and flow of sorrow and pleasure and joy and depression, loneliness and escape, to perceive nonverbally this life as a whole, not fragmented, nor broken up, is to learn.

        -Krishnamurti

What is “coaching?”

What is “coaching?”

Free_woman_2
You’ve probably heard lots of talk in the last few years about Life Coaching.  Everybody and their dog has a coach these days.  Your mom has a personal trainer.  Your brother has a financial coach.  Your uncle has a comedy coach.  Your wife has a relationship coach…   :)

Life coaching is a process whereby we are supported to discover and live out our deepest desires and highest aims.  Coaching differs from therapy in that it does not diagnose or treat any condition.  Coaching deals with the condition of being human (as any good therapy, art, or relationship does.) 

My aim as a creativity coach is to assist you on the path to getting what you really, really want.  And as an artist (performer, writer, comedian) I know what it’s like to walk this path.  I do this by helping you to hold your vision and stay in integrity with your vision.  And the way I’ve gotten what I really, really want is simple.  I follow Gandhi. 

        "Be the change you want to see in the world." (or in your life.) -Ghandi

Creative Heart Coaching

Creative Heart Coaching

Coach_logo_small You have a unique gift to offer the world.  What if you have an idea of what that gift is, but don’t know how to use it or trust it?  In a unique process tailored to your goals, visions, and ideals, I can help you bridge the gap between possessing your gifts and talents and expressing them.

As a creativity coach, I can support you to crystalize your vision, unfurl your natural rainbow of imagination, and cultivate tools and habits to effectively inhabit the life you truly want to lead.  You can find deep satisfaction, joy, and connection in the artistic process as you create a pathway to actualize your dreams.

Creative Coaching is for performers, artists, writers (even if you’ve never performed, painted, or written) who want to jump-start a career or enliven an avocation.  The Creative Coaching style is rooted in the work I’ve done to transform my own creative blocks; I offer compassionate, authentic reflection for the places you want to shift. 

As a professional performer and writer maintaining daily creative practices, I can model ways of working creativity.  As a natural entrepreneur I can also help you work externally, addressing organization, time-management, self-promotion, marketing, branding, and business planning.

I am called in this life to share what I have learned and applied to my own creative work.  Fostering growth in others is a great honor and privilege.  I believe each of us is imbued with gifts to share with humanity, and unlocking them brings us a powerful sense of appreciation, value, and connection.

Your Partner in Possibility,

Alicia Dattner

        "Don’t ask what the world needs.  Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it.  Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."

                   -Howard Thurman (1900-1981)  educator, minister, civil rights leader