A little while ago I had a coaching session with the only coaching client I have right now – Otto. Otto seemed to be worried and weary and no matter what he did the weariness and worries persisted. He made good money, clients loved him, he happens to be my life partner for a long time now and I know I love him and adore him and treat him very well. But far beyond just me he is admired and adored and loved and built by lots and lots of people every single day. He is recognized as how invaluable he is not only for his contributions which are so important but also simply for the person he is. Otto can give a feeling that makes you feel immediately at ease and raises your spirits. I’ve seen Otto change lots of people’s lives to the better. He is just a phenomenal person and great to live with.

Yet, Otto was weary and he worried despite of is life  going really well in all areas. And not only was he worried and weary that evening when we had the coaching session, he had been worried and weary for a really long time. We had many talks around this and there seemed to be no reason for it and none of these talks made a difference. Otto’s worries and his weariness persisted. It didn’t get worse and it didn’t get better. The only thing that was interesting about it was that it persisted no matter if good things happened or bad things happened. It was just always there.

So now we had our coaching session and I asked him one question. I am lucky that Otto and I have the agreement that his coaching sessions are not confidential so I can share this. But it’s really not about Otto, it’s about something I’ve done and I know many people I know have done and it’s so common so Otto is really only an example and we should all ask ourselves this question. It was a long question and according to the coaching training it was far too long to be efficient but still I asked it.

The question I asked him was: What promises did you make in your life that you really meant when you made them but then you broke them because they simply didn’t apply any longer?

He first didn’t understand what I meant so I gave him a couple of examples. You married your first wife about 40 years ago and you promised to stay with her forever and you really meant it with all your heart then but then you divorced 17 years later and you broke that promise. Same with your children. I know that your heart promised them to be with them in a certain way when they were little but then you couldn’t keep this promise because of your divorce.

So he understood what I meant and we had a great very insightful conversation where Otto told me many areas where he had made promises. None of these promises had been casual. He had all made them with his whole heart. But then life happened and he got in touch with deeper and vaster feelings of himself. In order to live the vaster person, he had to break some of the old promises. He had a choice to keep the promises he had made no matter how true they were now or to be true to the new person who emerged from within. The new person felt to go out in the world and touch a lot of people’s life to be better. The new person was no longer just a good father, money maker and husband. The new person didn’t want a divorce but it so happened that his first wife didn’t feel the same way and the divorce inevitably happened. There were other promises that Otto had made to friends, in former work positions, to his parents and others that were true then but just simply had been outlived and replaced by new much bigger promises.

Some of the choices had been painful – like living away from his children – but overall Otto had felt good with every single one of them and was very clear that they had been the right thing to do. There was no doubt in him so why did I asked the question?

So now I asked a second question: ‘When you broke your promises, how did you acknowledge that you broke them?’ He looked at me puzzled. What do you mean? When someone makes a promise from their heart and soul and every cell is in agreement with these promises and then life happens and we grow and become bigger and we break those promises, we still have to acknowledge that we broke them. It’s critical to acknowledge them to ourselves and perhaps even to the others we made them to. But it’s mostly that we acknowledge them to ourselves: like ‘I broke that promise’. ‘I couldn’t keep it any longer because it was keeping me too small and didn’t let me be the larger person I am’.

It’s important because it set’s our heart free. It frees out soul and spirit. Promises we make are like invisible ties and they need to be cut if they no longer apply.

It was amazing to see Otto after our conversation. It was like a dark cloud lifted and I was so thankful to both of us that we could have that conversation. I was thankful to the wonderful life I am living, a life that walks free of chains we carry in our body. Chains we make but then have to be broken for us to be happier and healthier and more prosperous.

There are a lot of promises we made to others along the line of dying. Like lots of people promise each other to stay together forever and then if one person dies the other person dies soon after. Sometimes we promise this in the way we love and in our passion and we don’t even have to say a word. When we do it, it seems like the utmost expression of our love and since we adore the person so much we do it freely.

Or we promise to ourselves that we live to a certain year. Like I want to live to be 80 or some say I want to live to be 100. But then you might be 100 and it’s not been enough and you don’t want to die but that promise has been working in you for a long time and you can’t escape it now and your body breaks down. Unless you openly declare that you break the promise because it doesn’t make sense anymore, your body will follow it and make it true.

I am declaring today that any promise I’ve ever made to be true to a person will not mean that I follow them in death. They are only meant to follow them in the living. I am true to your aliveness and will always be there but will never follow anyone into death no matter how much I adore  and love them them now. That’s a promise I am making to myself right now. And I am looking for people who want to be alive with no end so this promise is always keeping us together living better in every way physically, emotionally, spirituality, mentally…. Just simply in every way.

Join us at a People Unlimited meeting here is Scottsdale and get inspired to live a life in your body now that sees no end ever. Find people like me who are sincere in living and want you to be alive with no end.