On my website if you look over to the right, there’s a button that says Ask a Coach Community. If you were to press that button you could become a member and you could receive a free personal/spiritual growth writing assignment every week for a year. Many people are writing frequently and I love this wonderful community that is forming.
I was inspired to write about the way one of the members completed the assignment. The assignment begins like this:
Your mother probably told you at one time or another, “You should feel grateful for what you have. The children in ________________________ are starving.” This is likely what helped give gratitude such a bad name. It’s surprising what a bad reaction I get (or give) when I or someone close to me is feeling down and “list the things you’re grateful for” is the suggestion. Once we feel sad or afraid, are we stuck? We only feel stuck. Expressing gratitude is an amazing tool to move through these negative feelings. Negative feelings can affect our health and life adversely.
Then there are many suggestions of exercises to do. Well, one of the members decided to begin to teach her 3 children about gratitude by asking them what they are grateful for.
Her 17 year old listed the things you’d expect her to list including “getting my phone back”.
The 10 year old boys list said:
1. My good fortune to have freedom
2. My family
3. The freedom of speech
4. To do good in school
5. That I have good food on the table at mealtime
And the youngest, almost 3-year old boy drew a picture of his babysitter/pre-school lady!
The member said about her little one, “I have no idea what part of grateful he understood, but amazing was his response.”
I feel so blessed to have association with people who are teaching their children about gratitude. My cup runneth over.
A difficult concept for people to understand is that the first thing you must get under control in your life in order to have the life you want is your emotional balance. To do this may require therapy or using self-help tools like the Love Letter .
Some say: “Living by your emotions and making decisions based on your emotions will never allow you to grow and succeed in the way that you deserve”. I say that could be true because you will continually attract more and more negatives into your life if your thoughts and feelings are largely negative . However, if you begin the adopt a different attitude, an attitude of learning from what is happening, you can begin to climb out of your negative spiral.
If you are not at peace with yourself and grateful for the blessings that you do have, you may become stuck in an unhealthy cycle of thoughts that will continue to keep you unhappy. Most likely your relationships will be affected by this kind of upset balance.
If your negative emotions are controlling your life, many times you will feel as if you are out of control and you have no say over anything that happens in your life – like a victim of life. This type of stress and anxiety can lead to unproductive and unhealthy habits, sometimes even dangerous ones.
Caffeine, nicotine and drugs and alcohol are typical ways that people try to take control and get a handle on their emotions. Some of these substances can lead to serious health issues and you will get even further into an unhealthy rut.
Try this life coaching tool:
Find-the-Gift Exercise
Use this often and:
1. You’ll step out of victimhood into your powerful authentic self.
2. You’ll have an effective tool for problem-solving and guidance.
3. You’ll be more creative.
4. You’ll increase your insights and understanding about yourself and others.
5. You’ll have a lot more fun dealing with the difficulties of life.
6. You’ll be able to quickly jump to the learning about your life without going through all these steps.
Use this when:
You’re in a situation you don’t want to be in.
You feel stuck in negativity.
You feel like a victim.
Current Picture: Several years ago moved to Las Vegas because my husband got a great job opportunity. It’s one of the last places on earth I would have chosen to live. Moving away from most of my closest support system was very difficult because I’m a gregarious person.
Negatives
Learning and Gifts
i. Hate heat and miss the climate in California.
ii. Don’t see enough green vegetation.
iii. Know very few people.
iv. Stressed from having moved twice in 15 months.
v. No escape from smokers in public places. I’m highly allergic.
vi. Don’t even like saying I’m from Las Vegas because people might think I’m into “sin” and gambling or that I’m (God forbid) superficial.
i. Found the austere and uncluttered topography in Las Vegas a healing environment.
ii. Found a raw foods restaurant and support group. Raw foods has been a great way to do some bodily healing.
iii. Get to experience and enjoy working in a nurturing, at-home environment for the first time in my life.
iv. More of an opportunity to be with the Real Me without the distractions that I used to create for myself like filling up my time with other people.
v. Get to practice that nobody gets to be wrong-even Las Vegas.
Please note: The number of negatives and learning/gifts may not and don’t have to be equal.
New Picture : Living in Las Vegas served me perfectly to find more of the Real Me . It’s made even the 120 degree heat seem ideal for this business of changing my life. If I began to slip into or get stuck in any groans and moans, I easily got my positive attitude back by using this tool again. Much of the time, it’s become second nature to me. If I find myself resistant to using this tool, I ask my buddy or coach for help.
Find-the-Gift Do-It Your Turn
1. Write your current picture in 3 sentences or less. The current picture can be a situation in the present or something from the past that still has a negative charge, i.e. something that still elicits a negative emotional reaction when you think of it, or when you are in the presence of that person or situation.
2. Write 4 or 5 negatives about the situation on the left and 4 or 5 things you learned and/or gifts you received from the situation. A gift may be an actual object but most likely will be an unexpected benefit or something you’ve learned about yourself or life. The number of negatives and learning/gifts may or may not be equal.
3. After you finish your chart, a recap of the learning and gifts can be helpful. I call that the New Picture . Take a moment to recap your learning now or let it emerge in the following hours, days or weeks and go back to write it down then.
Life coaching services provide many benefits to individuals by promoting self-confidence, helping with career guidance, strengthening relationships and other important aspects of personal life.
Choosing a life coaching service maybe one of the biggest and most important decisions you’ll every make. Not only do you need to consider the price, but also their level of expertise and the approach they will take. More than likely, you will need a coach that is attentive to both your career and elements in your self confidence as well.
The fees for life coaching range widely but mainly depend on your location, the number of sessions and the methods they apply. This typically provides a half hour of one-on-one coaching per week. I, for example, generally do forty minutes to one hour sessions and my fees are monthly with discounts for a verbal commitment to stick it through until we both agree your goals have been met. (I don’t recommend a coach posting their fees because sometimes a person might decide the cost is too much because their sub-conscious is really afraid of the potential changes in their lives and the fee will give them the needed out.)
Fees for business executive coaches and personal career coaches tend to be much higher. One reason for this is because these areas usually require more time, easily leading to one to two hours while important business matters are discussed. Some packages may cost anywhere from $100 to $150 per hour while executive life coaching may range from $1,000 to $10,000 per month depending on the professional’s level of experience and the career field.
Life coaching can be a very effective tool that helps you leap those hurdles and get on the path to success. This isn’t a question of whether or not its worth it, yet what your career and personal well-being is worth to you.
Each time you tell a person how you feel and they don’t reject your for it, trust builds. Not only that – you will have a relationship based on who you authentically are. No mask to come off later and disappoint the other person because they thought you were someone else – the one with the mask.
Anyone who is attracted to reading something called How a coach can help you to build a sense of trust most likely has some trust issues. Those issues impact us in many ways. Following are some examples:
Personal relationships – “What if I’m myself and you leave me?” That is often the basic reason people get into poor relationships in the first place. They ignore their own inner knowledge of themselves by acting how they think the other wants them to act.
Work relationships – “Can I really allow myself to trust anyone who I don’t know well or in a job situation?” They don’t trust people to be supportive and authentic.
Making decisions – “I’m really not sure what to do.” They have a hard time because they don’t trust themselves.
How can a life coach help you with these difficult situations?
When you talk to someone weekly who always supports your agenda, tells you the way they see things in your life quite openly and who has an attitude that your answers are in you, you begin to trust that person.
When that life coach also keeps pointing out the ways your attitudes and emotional responses are right, you begin to trust that person more. And you begin to trust yourself more.
As you experience success after success in support of yourself, you eventually become a trusting person because you know you have the information inside you that will steer you where you want to go in your life. You will know if a person is trustworthy in your personal and work relationships and you will trust yourself to make decisions.
That is one of the things an experience of life coaching can provide you.
Regardless of what people would have you believe, women can be understood. There are a few things that men need to understand about women in relationships. The following tips will improve your relationship.
Tip #1 — Women are very up and down.
Women can be like a roller coaster when it comes to emotion, decisions, and every area of their life. (I make very quick decisions, however.)
Tip #2 — Women need to feel special.
They need to feel they are the most important and special person in your world, You could leave notes, call her on your lunch break and wrap your arms around her as she does the dishes. Compliment her. She’ll love it.
Tip #3 – Women want to feel secure.
Women want to feel secure in their relationship. If you want to keep a woman, be sure to provide mental and emotional security. She wants you to listen when she needs to talk. . Don’t try to solve their problems because women don’t want you to solve their problems – just listen.
Tip #4 — Woman like a man who can challenge her mentally.
She likes the stimulation and the challenge. This does not mean you should manipulate or use her or play games with her, but instead, that you should be able to give her the game she wants to play.
Ask him to gain more understanding of a woman in a relationship and your relationship may improve dramatically.
If you have worked with me, you know that Love Letters are a mainstay of my coaching because I know that to make the changes my clients want to make, they need to heal their past relationships and Love Letters are a free and easy way to do it.
I’ve decided to try recording some real ones that I wrote and my husband wrote during the years. I got a new little camcorder so I can do it. Here it is:
Once again, I love you for sharing and opening yourself to me. Last night I wrote a love letter to my son and to my father…..and, I am beginning to discover some underlying fears and blocks within me. A little more defined than before. Writing has begun to reveal things in me and it’s in some manner helping me to be with myself, with whatever I am, have done, am doing, and start to see that I just Am. All my life I have put myself, unconsciously of course, in a position in all my relationships of proving that I am “good”, because I have this core belief that I am bad, and that I don’t have good feelings for anyone. So I want to be needed and acknowledged….of course, it’s more complex than that, but it’s a way of explaining it to you, and to myself also, what is beginning to surface that I see in my behavior, intentions and why precisely I feel so stuck, and depressed. I don’t know how to choose what’s good for me, I don’t trust myself.
I will continue on this path of writing, uncovering, and of course I need God’s help for this. It’s a scary path. But it’s necessary.
I’ve noticed that lots of people write about anger management on the internet. Seems like most of the suggestions have to do with thinking and controlling yourself. If someone has a problem with anger, a natural emotion, that means that their reactions are too large, too angry, maybe scary to those around them and probably lead the person with that problem to say things they are very sorry for after. It can also lead to violence.
Over 25 years ago I went to a series of monthly workshops and a weekly support group led by John Gray and Barbara deAngelis who were married to each other at the time. In those groups they talked about anger and how old, unexpressed anger was at the root of anger problems. They taught us a technique that I still teach my clients. It’s called a Love Letter because they explained that love is underneath all the negative feelings.
I had a different kind of anger problem. I thought I didn’t have any – anger – that is. Even though I was criticized and yelled at throughout my entire childhood (and early adulthood) by my mother. Of course, I did. I just didn’t know it. I had lost connection to it. Of course, I did yell at my kids and my ex-husband but I didn’t know I was angry.
If you have an anger problem, you might try using this letter writing tool. It’s kind of like having free therapy. You go through your feelings in a safe environment by putting them on paper in a prescribed way. No one gets hurt and you rid yourself of a layer of stuck anger and all the feelings underneath.
We used to say in our groups with John and Barbara, “If you want to feel better, write a Love Letter.”
Then there are many suggestions of exercises to do. Well, one of the members decided to begin to teach her 3 children about gratitude by asking them what they are grateful for.
