Mindfulness Based Coach Archives

Managing Your Schedule Effectively

If you’re anything like me, you’re one of those type-A personalities that knows what needs to happen and when without even writing it down. While we may think this is a strength, and at times it totally is, there is a lot of mindfulness and insight that goes into writing it all out on a daily or weekly time-table.

The physical act of writing out ANYTHING- whether it’s your thoughts, your to-do’s, your goals – is magical. It allows your eyes to see and therefore your brain to register everything as finite as opposed to a looping cycle in your brain that seems never ending.

When we keep everything in our head it’s easy to get overwhelmed. Instead write it out.

What I absolutely love is have clients write their entire day out in chunks of time. It allows us to feel peace in knowing everything that we need to do as an important “slot” in your day (or week) and we don’t have to re-visit the thought again. Here’s an example:

6:30am – 7:00am – Brush teeth, Brew Coffee, Meditate
7:00am – 8:00am – Get Ready, Eat Breakfast
8:00 – 8:45am – Commute, Listen to Podcast, Call Mom
8:45am – 12:00am – Work (it’s also a great time to list any small to-do’s you might need to do during breaks such as calling the dentist to make an appointment, etc.)
12:00pm – 12:45pm – Lunch, Walk, Get Fresh Air
12:45pm – 1:00pm – To-Do list (again, anything that requires a quick phone call)
1:00pm – 5:00pm – Work
5:00pm – 5:30pm – Commute, Listen to Podcast or Meditation
5:30pm – 6:30pm – Exercise, Yoga, “You Time”
6:30pm – 7:00pm – Commute, Listen to Podcast or Meditation
7:00pm – 8:00pm – Dinner
8:00pm – 9:45pm – “You Time” (this can be time to learn something, read a book, take a bath, anything that energizes you and is restorative)

This is just a sample. Each day might be different and you should annotate those differences either on this list or a different list for that special day.

For example, if you’ll be working on a special project for yourself or your child (DIY, Child’s recital, etc.), make sure you have that written out, including any errands you might need to run for that special event so you aren’t thinking about it and ultimately spinning you out.

Trust me, this is a game changer and if you’ve done something similar to this before, you know what I’m talking about.

When you do this exercise notice how you feel more at peace and how there is so much more room in our minds to just BE.

With that said, I hope you take the time for yourself to do this exercise… it will be worth the peace of mind.

Here’s to managing our schedule so that we can effectively manage our thoughts.

In wellness,

Susan

Susan is a Life Coach based in Seattle, WA. Her main focus is to coach people build a strong emotional container so that we can experience the fullness of life coming from a place of deep confidence. Susan also coaches clients looking to heal adrenal fatigue by using a mental meta-model aimed at breaking down old mental patterns and behaviors so that we can finally tap into our own personal power.

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Mid-Year Check In

Ok guys, summer is officially HERE. Wow does time fly!

As I mentioned in the last post, I wanted to take some time to do a mid-year check in with our goals.

How are you doing so far? Be honest here and truly reflect on what you had aimed for this year. In your assessment ask yourself:

What actionable steps have I taken toward each goal
Am I where I want to be at this point in the year?
Am I on track?
Have I been holding myself back and can I trace it back to a particular thought?
If so, what fears or irrational thoughts have I been entertaining?

Remember, our thoughts play the biggest role in how we go about our dreams and our own personal development. Now is a great time to see how your thoughts have been affecting your goals.

What are you choosing to believe? How are you directing your thoughts to serve you?

Put your brain to work! Come up with 5 new solutions for your goals that you can put your creative brain to work on. Here’s an example:

Instead of having thoughts such as, “I don’t think I’ll ever ask for that raise”
Try thinking thought such as:
- “How can I creatively think of solutions to this problem?”
- “I know I am capable, I am just working through the fear”
- “I haven’t asked yet, but I will and I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be”
- “Dealing with the unknown might seem scary, but this is challenging and exciting at the same time”
- “If I’m open enough, I’m sure I will find other people or resources that can help encourage me”

The thought options are limitless! And can you see how re-framing your thought can suddenly change your entire perspective and shift your energy toward proclivity?

I promise it will be worth your time. Do the thought work and put your powerful brain toward positive use!

In wellness,

Susan

Photo by Brooke Lark on Unsplash

Are You Using Negative Affirmations Without Knowing It?

Did you know that our brains only understand positive language? For example, when we say, “Don’t eat dessert today”, our brains only interpret, “~~Don’t~~ eat dessert today”.

When you look at the course of the day, how often do you think in negative affirmations vs. positive affirmations? It’s crazy to think we have the capability of thinking 60,000 THOUGHTS PER DAY. Yes, 60k!

Of the 60k are you managing your brain in a way so that you are directing it’s course? Are you mindful of the positive or negative thoughts you are generating?

Here are a few more examples of just how easy it is to use negative affirmations when we’re not aware of what we’re doing:

Don’t spill the drink
- Be careful with the drink
I won’t mess up on the next date
- I’m going to show up as my authentic self
Don’t forget to breathe during the presentation
- Focus on your breath
Don’t get mad
- I understand emotions only last 90 seconds if I allow myself to feel

Knowledge is power, and when we understand how our brains work we are better equipped to manage the direction of our thoughts.

Ask yourself, how can I re-phrase my thoughts so that they are USEFUL to me?

Exercise:

Get a piece of paper and create 5 huge bubbles on the page. These bubbles represent the 5 major thoughts a person has every day until it is solved, at which point a new bubble appears (because our brains are THAT good at problem solving).
Inside the bubbles write a word or phrase that represents the major thought and/or problem you find yourself constantly thinking about
Of the major thought and/or problem statement, re-write how you can now use positive affirmations vs. negative affirmations

Remember, our brains are ALWAYS at work. Give it something positive to work on and watch the magic unfold.

In brain wellness,

Susan

Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash

Your Imagination: How Often Do You Use It?

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”

~Albert Einstein

A little inspiration on this beautiful Monday morning!

Could we ever have imagined a life where letters would come from a screen? Where you can punch a few numbers and contact your mom in less than 2 seconds? Where you can see virtual pictures of anywhere in the world through a tiny screen in your hand? Where you can press a button and have whatever you want delivered to your doorstep in a few hours?

Our brains do such a good job of keeping a record of our capabilities based on past results, but it also does a good job of keeping you exactly where you are because it’s safe.

In the past, we needed to be safe. Safe from lions, safe from starvation, safe from blistering cold weather.

Now? Now we know better yet our brains haven’t evolved with our pre-frontal cortex.

So, how are YOU using your imagination to dream big? What NEW frontiers are you asking of yourself so that you can grow and evolve to a bigger, better version of you?

In wellness,

Susan

Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash

Friday Focus – 5/25/18 {Taking Action}

Sometimes it’s hard to take action, especially when you don’t know what the future holds or how you even feel about which direction to go toward.

But I’ve learned time and time again, and coach this as well, that not taking action IS action – you’re just directing your energy the other way!

Oftentimes we let our perfectionism get in the way of taking action. We don’t want to mess up, or better yet, FAIL, because how horrible would that be?!

But guess what? Staying still doesn’t make it any better. Sometimes, we need to take one tiny, small step in order to gain a data point so that we have more information. And sometimes, we need to take a couple of steps in order to get better information.

It’s the only way we’ll ever know.

Besides, what we’re most afraid of isn’t necessarily what happens, what we’re afraid of is how we deal with what happens. It’s our thoughts and emotions about the situation that cause us suffering.

It can either be a learning experience or a time to shame ourselves. Which one will you choose? Because yes, our brains are that powerful to create both realities.

So, in what ways will you take that one, small step? How will you choose to think about this next goal of yours? Will it be an adventure or will it be something you have to do?

The choice is yours, always.

In wellness,

Susan

Photo by Deanna Ritchie on Unsplash

False Positives And Why They Aren’t Good Long Term

Have you ever taken action in order to feel better?

Whether it’s calling your co-worker as soon as you can to smooth over an argument, doing the thing you didn’t want to do because it would make things “easier” with the family, or here’s the clincher, buffering in the form of food, alcohol, or the internet in order to feel better instantly.

If you’ve ever been in any of these situations, and trust me, there isn’t a human in the world that hasn’t done this at least a few times, I’m here to tell you there’s a more effective and insightful way of truly making yourself feel better than taking action on a a false positive.

We call these actions a false positive because while you may feel better in that moment it doesn’t truly allow you to act from a place of true honor, and it only temporarily relieves you of your pain until the next situation comes up where you have to act again in order to not feel discomfort.

The reason why it’s so easy to act on false positives is because we instantly feel relief, and to our minds the pleasure of relief indicates that we should return to this pattern of behavior even though it doesn’t necessarily mean the action was justified.

Unfortunately, we are only playing defense with the false positives.

The more we act on false positives, the more tired we become in the long run because we are constantly in a reactive state.

What if instead we became friends with discomfort? Isn’t that why we act so fast on false positives? Because we want the discomfort to go away?

What if instead we got to know the discomfort and we got to understand why we feel the way we do, and that the reason we feel the way we do is because of an underlying belief that is causing our pain?

For example, you’re anxious about an upcoming presentation you have to give at work and thinking about the speech and all the ways in which your nervousness will show is making it unbearable. So you reach for the bag of cookies, and before you know it the entire bag is gone.

Or here’s another one, you get into a raging fight with your partner and can’t believe how angry your partner is when you know full well you seem to be “right” in this particular situation. You are fuming and find yourself pouring a glass of wine (again) in order to take the edge off.

You see, in both examples we turn to the false positive in order to feel better when really, what we need to do is face the discomfort of what we are feeling in order to understand what is REALLY going on.

In the example of the presentation, if we dig deep enough, that anxiety could really be masked as fear of rejection or acceptance, and that can hurt big time. In the second example, that anger can be a mask of feeling hurt, not seen, or unloved.

When we really get to understand what the discomfort is trying to tell us, we allow ourselves to truly honor the feeling we need to acknowledge and accept so that we can process in a healthy way and develop patterns and behaviors that serve us, not limit us.

By practicing this self awareness we can get to the real work and growth of our own emotional maturity so that when we experience life and its wide spectrum of situations with confidence in our abilities to handle ourselves wisely.

In mindful wellness,

Susan

Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash

The Secret

“Therefore the secret of all power, all achievement, and all possession depends upon our method of thinking.

This is true because we must be before we can do, and that we can do only to the extent which we are, and what we are depends upon what we think.”

~Charles F. Haanel

Our minds can lead us to the largest and unthinkable potential of ourselves or the exact opposite.

What thoughts are you thinking yourself towards today?

In mindful wellness,

Susan

Photo by Unsplash

Energy Building vs. Energy Wasting

When we think about every thought and every action, and distill them down to the essence of what they are, they always stem from two things: Love or Fear.

In other words, energy building or energy wasting.

From the moment you wake up to the moment you fall asleep every little thing throughout the day is either energy building or energy wasting. The thoughts, the decisions, the actions, the foods, the intentions, literally everything stems from these two.

A Course in Miracles states, “Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God.”

When we look at it from this perspective we can see how we waste our energy when we act or think based on an unreal “reality”. When we act from fear or lack, we are essentially believing in something that doesn’t truly exist, and therefore leak energy trying to chase or prevent some thing out of fear.

How much more enriching, simple, and true can life be when we act from Love? It feels lighter doesn’t it, when we act from gratitude, service, joy, and abundance knowing this is our truest reality?

Suddenly when we shift our perspective everything we do becomes energy building.

It’s incredible just how this tiny shift can change our energetic capacity.

So tell me, how does life feel to you when you are in the mode of energy building? What do you feel in your body? How does life look to you? What does your voice sound like? How does food taste in this state?

Here’s to recognizing the opportunities to build more energy into our lives.

In wellness,

Susan

Photo by Katy Belcher on Unsplash

Friday Focus – 3/16/18 {It’s All About Appreciation}

This week’s Friday Focus is all about appreciation.

Perhaps it’s a sign of Spring, but these past two weeks have been particularly hectic. As if a budding flower is feeling the sudden heat of the sun, I felt a surge of chaotic energy that felt both good and tiring. And as the bud becomes the flower, basking in the sun, I am now feeling that sweet release and contentment as I gear up for international travels.

Which brings me to appreciation.

Throughout the hectic moments in our lives it can be incredibly easy to forget our true nature. We can get caught up in the small stresses and obstacles that come up. We begin to stare at our to do list or our calendar and begin to wonder, “how is this all going to get done?” or “when will this ever end?”.

That’s when I turn everything around to appreciation.

I begin to appreciate every little thing in my life. From the blankets that keep me warm as I turn to bed to the transportation I am riding to get to my next destination. I begin to truly give thanks and amplify what is already in my life.

And when I do this, suddenly the task at hand doesn’t seem so big. I begin to realize everything is happening for me.

When you can appreciate everything in your life now, then you can appreciate everything that comes. The fear or anxiety that suffocates you in the moments of chaos falls away too, instead of following you to the next thing.

Appreciation is a powerful and real energetic quality we should all invite into our lives. It changes your perspective. It raises you up. It brings you to the truth, your light, your true reality.

May we invite more appreciation into our daily lives and in each and every moment, and watch how our life magically unfolds.

In wellness,

Susan

Photo by Ludovic Gauthier on Unsplash

The Answer You Seek Is YOU

Have you ever felt the need for someone or something to affirm your thoughts, feelings or emotions? Someone who can say, “Yes, that is totally normal.” or “It’s ok, give yourself a break! Great things are coming”.

If so, you’re not alone.

Best friends, books, online forums, and heck, even strangers are some ways in which us humans try to receive affirmation. It’s our human-ness, and dare I say it stems from our innate, instinctual need for the tribal qualities we find in deep community living and relationships that aren’t so common in this day and age. Unfortunately, the more advanced our society becomes, the more lonelier we are.

This might be one reason why everyone in the future just might have a coach, but in today’s post I wanted to focus on this need for affirmation.

First, there’s nothing wrong with the need for affirmation or frankly, you for asking. When you find the right person or people you can turn to, affirmations are a great way to ease your soul; to give you the peace and inherently deep knowing (you already have) that you are in fact, OK. The problem begins when you begin to depend on these outside resources and it becomes a crutch.

You see, this post today is to remind you of your own personal power. Your soul voice that already knows the answer.

What if I told you, you can turn inward to receive your answers? Whether through automatic writing, meditation, visualization, journeying, whatever it is that works for you, there’s a way to become still and listen to your own intuition.

Trust your own self. Trust the dormant power within. Trust your soul voice that is always speaking to your heart. Have ultimate faith in your own personal power.

And of course, when you do reach for outside help try to find a mentor, spiritual guide, coach, someone who can help you develop your own personal power. Someone who recognizes your own strength and light. Someone who understands you already have the capability to find the creative solution to your very own question.

In wellness,

Susan

Photo by Carli Jeen on Unsplash