Much I as would rather hear positive thinking than negative, I’ll take my own feeble insights over inspirational sips from someone else’s fountain any day.

Maybe I should explain myself, for I realize that 'insight' could be defined in may ways.   I'm going to define insights as what happens in us when we have a moment of observation about the truth of our world and our experience: perhaps we notice what works and what doesn't for us, perhaps we notice the link between things, perhaps we have a AHA! of some sort based seeing something a new way - even if we’ve encountered it many times before.

Insights are personal, specific to us, and don't always (or maybe even ever) apply to other people. Although when shared they can have value for others, the main value of an insight is that it tends to reset the direction of our own inner compass.

And it happens in a wisp of a moment.  

Sometimes for me that feels like the moment I take a stand.  Other times I feel that as a sense of release or a feeling of "this, and not that." But it is always sweet clarity.

No matter whether we are talking to a friend or a coach, the moments that have the most meaning, are those when our own insights pop up in plain view.  Like a balloon we’ve tried to hold underwater.  

That’s why advice from others is so unnecessary and more often than not, unwelcome.   

The biggest disservice we can render anyone is to try to replace their wisdom with our own.

There's no doubt in my mind that it's possible to create a future that is nothing like the past.  But not long ago I did not know that.  In fact I was down on all fours in my garden in my London home, in agony.

I had just lost I hoped I'd be with for the rest of my life.  (Yes, I did believe in princes, white horses and someone coming to save me!)

Those of you who know this story already, know that I reached a point when I looked back and all I could see was failure... this massive loss plus a long string of 'failed' relationships behind me and one person in the middle of it all: Me.

I knew in some way I was the problem, even though I wanted very badly to blame the person who had just 'abandoned' me, and all the others before him, right back to my own father. 

My Dad and I have a great relationship today, but when I was younger that was not the case, and for many years I treated my father as if he was my life-curse because he divorced my mother.  But even after therapy,  I had very little peace with my past and I seemed to be on auto replay.  Everything I'd tried up until that moment was more like an attempt to try to get a better past, then a step to create any real and lasting ability to move myself into a new future.

I have to tell you that what changed life for me was to decide to actually commit to personal change.  I had a series of wonderful personal coaches / teachers (Michael Neill, Bill Cumming, Debbie Ford, Byron Katie) who had a profound impact on my life.

So, it's ironic that today, I had a chance to look back today on my old life. I met someone who had a similar job and a similar relationship background and I saw the flashback of my own past.

I knew without a shadow of a doubt I made the right decisions to stretch into the unknown, to invest in myself through coaching, reading, meditating and questioning and then to absolutely leap into all that has made possible.

And how very important that has been.