She Negotiates Balance and Purpose

Chrysula Winegar Joins She Negotiates University Training and Coaching Staff!

I recently joined the She Negotiates University training and coaching staff and will be teaching She Negotiates Balance and Purpose beginning January 17, 2011.  Lisa Gates, Head Coach and outright genius woman, interviewed me over the weekend.  Want to know more about this step I've taken, why I am obsessed about helping women take back control in their lives and why I chose She Negotiates as my partner? Read on my friends!

LG: Chrysula, who are you...inside out?

CW: Wow Lisa, the ultimate question isn’t it? Like all women, I wear a multiplicity of identities and they are all me. Not exclusively, not necessarily in order but often simultaneously, I am: 

• a child of the divine                                               
• a daughter
• a sister                                                           
• a niece, cousin, granddaughter, aunt           
• a friend
• a wife
• a mother
• a student
• an entrepreneur
• a worker                                                            
• a servant                                                           
• a leader
• an activist                                                           
• a community participant
• a writer                                                           
• a dreamer

LG: I know you don't mean equal time allotted to each role or hat we wear. But why do you think we persist with this perception of balance?  

CW: Balance has become synonymous with something much richer and deeper than two sides of a see-sawing scale. We are searching for a sense of peace, a sense of purpose. Not just searching, but hungering. We want our down time to actually feel restful. We want to dust off those dreams and live them. To do that, we have to start living consciously; to make active choices instead of year after year, job after job, day after day, of reactionary living.

LG: So whose responsibility is balance? Are companies to blame? Is it media and the ubiquitous Blackberry?  How do we switch off when we will lose our jobs if we are not on call 24/7? Or lose our kids if we’re not on top of them every second?

CW: Companies have a huge role to play, as do governments. But they can’t do much without individuals stepping up to lay claim to their own lives. I often say it’s the holy trinity of individual responsibility, corporate culture and policy and careful baseline legislation. You may be in a position to influence and guide the latter two elements. But the one piece where you have control is yourself; your choices, your responses.

LG: What got you so passionate about this stuff? 

CW: I’ve lived all over the world, worked in giant multi-national corporations and one-(wo)man bands!  Culture is everything - in our homes, communities and workplaces. I first thought about the issue of balance when I was a recruiter in Sydney and then London almost 20 years ago! I interviewed dozens of people each week and was fascinated by how people got to different points in their careers. I was equally fascinated how my bosses and clients had little tolerance for alternative paths. The non-linear, non-hierachical way was usually rejected; those candidates swiftly pushed aside. So few organizations had cultures that could handle anything out of the norm. 

Then I went back to grad school at night. I was able to do this only because of an inspirational and supportive boss who allowed me great latitude and was my greatest advocate. Soon after, family illness struck. It honestly never occurred to me work out a sabbatical or even an international transfer. I just quit and packed up and went home to Australia. I was the primary carer for my darling Aunt for three months until she passed. Now, I am a mother. It’s a whole different level of non-linear and non-hierachical. Very few companies really understand it or get it right. 

We have all experienced gross imbalance to some degree. It looks like stress, frustration, burn out and a constant feeling of being overwhelmed and exhausted. We have these huge responsibilities and innumerable roles. We are passionate about each of them. The workplace is generally rigid and unforgiving, though it is slowly shifting. 

In the meantime, we dull our pain with TV, we medicate with endless hours online, and our dreams lay dormant, suffocating because we cannot find the energy to open the window to let the oxygen in. It has to stop.

LG:  What’s the missing piece?

CW:  Vision. Passion. Purpose. Anchoring the daily details of our lives in a truly personal declaration of who we are and why we are here. Learning to harness and leverage that so that we can implement our vision into the reality of our existence. That is exactly why I chose to teach with She Negotiates above everyone else out there. 

 

LG:  Thanks for your trust and the compliment :)

CW: It's more than a compliment! The core curriculum that has been created here, with the She Negotiates signature training, Balance and Purpose and then the Busyness in Balance courses are taught by women who are not only experts in their fields, but who live and breathe their expertise. The core curriculum offers concrete, transformative tools for daily living.  

LG:  What are you most looking forward to with your course?

CW:  In January’s Balance and Purpose Course, we are going to get into the nitty gritty of this missing piece.  And then we are going to change the world with what we discover. 

LG: Yes. That's the inside out piece we all run with here at She Negotiates!"

You'll be hearing more.  Also my blog is undergoing a redesign and moving house!  I'll be making more detailed announcements soon, but the new look and name will give me a lot more freedom to explore different ideas and thoughts.  Watch this space!  

I'd love your thoughts on this new project of mine above, and if you'd like to join the course, you could give yourself a fantastic Christmas/Holiday gift.  Sign up for the She Negotiates Balance and Purpose Course here.

Cross-posted from the www.shenegotiates.com blog.