I should do a little portfolio of my certification badges — this one makes five. This one, in fact, really just means that I’ve gotten the other four: Life Coach, Happiness Coach, Goal Setting Coach, and Life Purpose Coach. I took a little bit of a pause after I finished this one — a few days without watching any videos! — but I’m working on the sleep class now, and then will start the Wellness Coach certifications, too. Am I an over-achiever or am I just procrastinating on actually starting the business part of this idea? A little of both. There’s actually a bunch of classes on the business part of being a coach and I’ll probably try to take those, too, while simultaneously working on learning how to make videos for the course I want to create, and build a website, and do all the other things I’m trying to do.

Last week, I met with a friend who’s going to be my business accountability buddy and we gave ourselves goals for the week. I was feeling reasonably good about meeting my goals, until we met again this morning and I realized I’d missed one of them entirely, and made mistakes on two of the others. Sigh. But I did finish the Master Life Coaching certification, so at least there’s that.

Meanwhile, it rained for two solid days straight this weekend. It wasn’t a particularly cold rain or a particularly torrential rain, but Sophie has now decided that she agrees with me: she would prefer that the sky did not drip water on her. Last winter when it rained every day for days on end, we just went out in the rain anyway — I stood under the trees in Stewart Park and threw the ball for her and got wet and tried to practice happiness, looking for beauty and listening to the rhythm of the dripping in the leaves — but this weekend, we mostly stayed inside. Our regular morning walk, but we didn’t play ball. Not at all!

Two whole days, with no ChuckIt, no throwing for me, no running for her. She accepted this willingly enough — she really did seem to agree with me that going outside was not pleasant — but wow, was she happy to run around today. Major, major, major zoomies in the sunshine. I know in my head that it’s a good idea not to be too committed to a schedule with a dog — routines set expectations and expectations create behaviors. Flexibility makes life easier for both of us. But we’ve fallen into a schedule anyway. The past few days it was disrupted, though, and Sophie provided remarkably amenable to adapting it, except that once the sun was shining again, she really wanted to be outside all afternoon. I should have just brought my laptop outside, but instead I decided it was a holiday for most people, so it could be a holiday for us, too. Mostly a holiday for us, too, I did a little bit of working/thinking, but not much.

One of the things I thought about was the way that we label emotions — good/bad, positive/negative. February always seems like a hard month to me. Someday soon — and I could look it up, but I’m not going to — it will be four years since I last spoke to my son. Four years. What a horrible anniversary. When I think about it, I feel sad. But I don’t think that sadness is “bad” and I don’t even think it’s “negative.”

I do think it’s unpleasant. If I was picking my emotions like clothes from a closet, I wouldn’t choose to wear sadness. And yet, I’d rather wear sadness than try to numb it or hide from it or distract myself from it, because all of those ways of handling it make it stick around. Make it turn into some kind of gooey slime, oozing up from the depths. Instead, I just sorta say, oh, yes, there you are, sadness. Totally deserved, what a sad experience this is. And then I move on, and go back to playing ball and appreciating the sunshine, and not doing the work I need to do, but mostly being happy. I think when we label our emotions good and bad, it makes it seem like the bad ones need to be avoided, but life is richer and more vivid when we acknowledge and experience the full spectrum. My happiness is happier because it is so hard-earned. Which doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t change things if I could, but 100% happiness would be a very pastel & shallow kind of happiness, I think.

The tag line on my new business is currently “personal coaching for people who want to feel better,” which is part of why I spent so much time thinking about good & bad, positive & negative, as they relate to emotions. “Better” could mean so many things, after all. I’m definitely over-thinking the concept, but I liked the directness, before I started my over-thinking. I still like the directness, actually.

Speaking of said business… I have a logo. I have a million variations of that logo, too (<–hyperbole), but this is what it’s going to be. Now to get that logo on a website!