Cleaning up messes

Filed Under Stretching the comfort zone |

When I first started my coaching training years ago, I was introduced to the work of Thomas Leonard (God bless him!).   One of the concepts struck me as being particularly powerful - that of cleaning up tolerations…those usually niggly little things that tend to take up lots of mental or emotional energy just because they haven’t been handled.

The definition of a “Toleration” is anything that you are putting up with. Tolerations distract our attention; eg. “I really need to fix that…” and siphon our energy.

Today I was presented with an opportunity to clean up something that was, in the grand scheme, not a huge deal, but in the short term was eating at me.  I’d not been completely honest about a situation and knew that if I kept silent, it would bite me down the road.  So despite the intense dread, I made a couple of phone calls, left barely coherent messages, got the return calls and set the record straight.  Not pleasant.  Will have to live with some repercussions, but feel a lot better and was actually commended for the courage it took to make the calls.  I’d like to think that this was such a great lesson that I’ll do better from now on, but as I keep growing and trying to clean my heart and soul to be a clearer reflection of the Divine, I imagine there’ll always be more and more subtle cleaning that takes place.  I hope I learn to love this!!


Always do what you are afraid to do.
Ralph Waldo Emerson


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