Transformational Coaching
“Because personality is a process, the human being is constantly remaking himself or herself. Left to itself, the mind goes on repeating the same old habitual patterns of personality. By training the mind, however, anyone can learn to step in and change old ways of thinking; that is the central principle of yoga.”
~The Bhagavad Gita
I knew this deeper dive into Yoga would be the perfect union ♡
In wellness,
Susan
Photo by Tim Goedhart on Unsplash
While earlier this week the 15 day forecast showed nothing but overcast skies and rain, the weather today unexpectedly turned out to be BEAUTIFUL today! I found myself appreciating the radiant hues of the sky as I watched the earth turn from dark to light this morning… I also love how my plans today have completely changed from working out indoors to making plans to walk Green Lake in order to take advantage of this small blessing. After all, it’s the little things right?
So for this week’s Friday Focus I decided to write about faith. I’ve gotten a few questions this week that relate to assurance about the future, how to deal with stress in the present, or even not knowing what to do and feeling a bit frustrated.
While the specific answer will vary from person to person I thought I’d post a set of powerful questions that come down to faith. (Bonus: related reading to previous posts on control such as this one.)
Taking the time to truly reflect on your responses below will allow you to have a better idea of what faith looks like to you. Especially during the times when we feel the need to control the situation. Ready?
Powerful Questions on Faith
If you’ve ever questioned whether or not you truly have faith in certain situations answering these questions will allow you to have a deeper sense of your truth. You may realize logically in your brain you know you need faith, but also quickly realize your body and actions don’t reflect the full ownership of this faith.
Take the time to truly listen. Once you’ve identified what faith looks like to you (because it looks and feels different for everyone) you can work to embody these details for a more faith-ful life.
Here’s to cultivating faith, especially in times when we need it most.
In wellness,
Susan
Malas are hard work. If I had the inventory of a crystal/bead shop then maybe not so much, but even still, once you discover someone’s root intention the hard work comes in trying to find the perfect alchemy of stones, crystals, colors, and the perfect ornamental piece (wherever that may be!) to complete the mala. In the case of the picture below, it happened to be a naturally shed deer antler that made this beauty complete:
But I love the work. It’s humbling to be witness to someone’s raw and beautiful intention of the next few months. And it’s rewarding to discover each piece of the puzzle and to see it finally come all together the way it was supposed to for each person.
What amazes me each and every time is the complete trust every client has had in me. To provide me creative freedom means I have earned your trust, and for that I am forever humbled and grateful.
For this next piece I am creating I was delighted to find THIS beautiful amethyst stone which will complete the Divine Heart mala.
I can’t wait for this mala to finally meet its owner. Just in time for the new year!
Namaste,
Susan
Only 2 months left in the year… Can you believe it? I sure can’t. It’s as if with every passing year it goes by faster and faster. Makes me recognize, yet again, how precious our life is and how wisely we need to choose how we spend each moment.
This reminds me of something Naval Ravikant once said, (and I’m paraphrasing) “our time on earth is like a blink of a dragonfly”. It’s true, in the grand scheme of the Universe our time is so short and I often ask myself, do my actions reflect this truth?
So for this week’s Friday Focus I wanted to ask another set of powerful questions we can use to reflect on time. Especially since we only have 2 months left in 2017!
Powerful Questions
Go ahead, spend some time for yourself reflecting on these powerful questions and allow your heart to answer these questions. You may notice some new truths that have been brewing within yourself begin to surface, or some overarching themes that consistently come up.
Speaking of time… don’t forget to set your clocks back this weekend. We have an extra hour to make things extra special 🙂
In wellness,
Susan
Are you living your life with a micro perspective or a macro perspective? Here’s what I mean; you get rejected from a sales opportunity, a friend, a lover, a job, a client, a barista, whatever it may be… and if you find yourself dwelling in the rejection this is micro living.
It’s important to learn, acknowledge, but what’s more important is to move on and look at the macro picture.
What is the bigger picture of your life? What is your purpose? If you are strong in your own vision of your self and your life the micro doesn’t need to paralyze you.
It doesn’t need to carry the weight you give it.
Give yourself permission to let go. You are precious. You have something to offer. You have an unlimited supply of energy within you if you tap into the right resource states we all have within ourselves.
We give ourselves too much of a hard time for what life is meant to be, which is why so much of this blog is dedicated to bringing greater awareness around neural networks, paving new pathways, mindfulness, and self compassion.
Live with lightness. Enjoy every second. Be grateful for every breath. Hug someone you love.
Live in the macro. It’s where you’re meant to be.
In wellness,
Susan
In an earlier post I wrote about personal power and how easy it is to give it away to other people, objects, or simply daily events that happen in our lives.
Today, I wanted to focus specifically on one major way we give away our power so easily, and that is: caring about what other people think.
If you’ve done the 24 hour self realization test you may have noticed this particular theme come up over and over again. Why is it that we care so damn much about what others think? To the point that it actually changes our very own behavior and possibly the trajectory of our path?
Let’s be honest, we’ve all done this at one point or another in the past. Heck, maybe even within the last day!
The list can go on…
What I’ve noticed a million times over is that people who have this tendency are doing one thing 90% of the time – they aren’t caring enough about themselves.
What’s happening in our brains is that we are already looking outward and caught up in a fear based state of other people’s projection. Now, remember what I’ve said over and over again – with every action there is an opposite and equal reaction. This is power.
If you have a tendency to immediately jump to what other people think, you also have an equal tendency (or the opportunity) to immediately jump to what YOU care about in yourself.
Instead of caring about what other people think about you, why not care about what you want to do?
You may begin to feel something shift within you. You may begin to imagine all the times that if you shifted your mindset to caring about yourself first, how empowering this actually feels.
Remember, no one is actually thinking about you as much as they are thinking about themselves.
Take baby steps to build your personal power. Use the right tools whether they be books, meditation, a spiritual practice, or a coach/therapist to get you along the right path.
Owning your personal power is a birth right and we need as many people (with the truest of intentions) to step into their God given power – your true Light!
In wellness,
Susan
Men, you may need to skip this post or if you have a woman in your life, read on because this post is GOLD.
Before I dive into this I need to mention one thing, the best part about this chocolate milkshake recipe is that it’s completely healthy for you! Yes, you read that right, HEALTHY. Put yo hands up!!! ?
I know so many women who suffer some form of hormonal change right before menstruation. This could result in feeling hot, irritable, bloating, and/or of course craving all the salty and sweet foods a person can ask for.
I’ve actually found NLP and training the unconscious mind to be immensely helpful when it comes to reprogramming your brain on the expectancy of PMS but that is a whole other (possibly series) of post for another day.
Today, I wanted to share with you a recipe that I love to indulge in even if I’m not craving a milkshake because it’s THAT good.
The recipe:
I don’t know about you but just writing about this is making me want one RIGHT NOW and I just had one a few hours ago 😉
I hope you have access to these ingredients right now, I guarantee you it will satisfy. Enjoy and happy craving busting!
In wellness,
Susan
Labels. Society and humans have created labels as a way to quickly categorize every thing possible including the way we feel. While it is highly efficient to name and label things so that we can go about our lives and continue to evolve, labels can be detrimental to our quality of life.
What I’ve seen time and time again is how a feeling or an event can suddenly be so generalized in the mind that suddenly you are IT.
For example, you have a prolonged depressive time in your life where you are in a medical condition you wish you didn’t have. Suddenly that moment (or moments) where you felt severely depressed is so generalized you are suddenly “in depression”.
Or how about the few times at work where rushing deadlines and frantic managers have caused an uncomfortable level of anxiety within you and suddenly you believe you “have anxiety”.
This list is endless as you can imagine. Fortunately, through awareness and active monitoring of our thoughts, we can stop the generalization of these moment to moment feelings so that we suddenly aren’t just a label.
Yes, that feeling was real. The event did happen. However, it doesn’t define who you really are.
You are much more than the feeling that lasted a couple of minutes or maybe an hour or two. You are much more than what happened in the past. You are now. You are living and breathing. You are love in this very moment. You are the experiencer of experiences. Not the actual experience.
The power is in your minds, and how freeing is this? To know you always have a choice. To know that if it’s possible to generalize a thought so much so that we become the thought, that we have the same power to go the complete opposite direction and unbecome that very thought in an instant.
Powerful thoughts on this wonderful Friday morning.
In wellness,
Susan
Have you ever found yourself literally talking to yourself inside your head? Or perhaps talking to yourself, and it’s as if you can’t stop your own voice from thinking?
“I know what I’ll say to her when I see him next time, I’m going to say….”
“That just doesn’t make sense, why would you even think such a thought? It’s not even who you are!”
“Why is this the longest minute ever… and I still need to run another 3 minutes before my next station. Oh I see that it’s still raining maybe I do need to get that new umbrella this season.”
“Why am I having this thought and why the hell can’t I stop myself from thinking?!”
And so it goes on…
If you’re advanced in the mindfulness arena you’re well aware this is your ego, your smaller self. But what is one to do once you’re aware of what’s actually going on?
One way, as there are several, is the use of NLP. What I love about NLP is the use of customized visualization. You can visualize whatever detail you need to help you get to the truth and today, I will share with you exactly what helps me in this type of situation when I struggle with stopping thoughts whirring inside my head.
Whenever I need to get out of my head and into my heart I drop into the heart space. I go straight to visualizing my living, breathing heart in the flesh. I imagine it’s steady heartbeat, the blood pumping in and out of the main arteries. I see my heart doing what it does automatically and suddenly I feel and know the deeper truth of the moment. It’s as if I stepped down (or up, remember NLP is all about finding out what works for YOU) out of the silliness of my thoughts into something real… the TRUTH.
Now stop and think about what works for YOU. Is it imagining that you’re suddenly in outer space and you can’t hear a single thing? Or maybe it’s visualizing looking into your dog’s eyes and knowing there is a deeper wisdom in those eyes and by looking into those eyes suddenly you are made aware of a deep truth you always knew inside.
You see, visualization is limitless. You just need to find what works for YOU and how powerful is that?
Spend a few minutes today figuring out what works for you. After all, it may save you hours of misery from the mental rat race we so easily find ourselves in if we’re not mindful of our thoughts 😉
In wellness,
Susan
As Summer slowly comes to an end so does my experiment with clay (but not for long…).
For as long as I can remember I’ve had a deep curiosity with this art form. For better or for worse, the timing never showed it’s prime opportunity so it wasn’t until this year, 2017, where I had a chance to take the dive into learning all things clay. And boy was it AMAZING.
Getting lost in how the clay feels, structuring the slabs, to learning how to center my first piece on the wheel were only some of the highlights from this Summer. I can’t tell you the amount of burst out loud laughs erupted from the studio as I and these newfound friends shared life stories.
I’m forever a proponent of switching things up, doing something new, and re-discovering yourself all over again, and I’m so glad clay was my form of outlet this Summer.
I’ve found another form of meditation and a new part of myself through clay. This will certainly be a part of my life and I can’t wait to see how this new journey unfolds.
Here’s to trying new things and going after the small inklings we feel throughout our lives, because you never know what you might discover until you find out.
In wellness,
Susan