If something keeps happening in your life it is time to learn from it. If a pattern of bad habits or unrealistic expectations keep coming into your life, ask yourself what kind of emotional healing do I need to exercise?
As I have been life coaching it has become a clear pattern: some people will not face old feelings. Some of those say they will go work it out with a therapist but they don’t seem to do that. They go find a therapist who doesn’t actually have them express the feelings but rather talk about them.
Talking is good. Talking is fine but unless the old, scary, yucky feelings are EXPRESSED through emotional healing (like written down or verbalized or gotten out some constructive way) they may still be in charge of your life.
Recently, I may have lost another client. It’s a shame. It saddens me that she is gone but her loss is so much greater. She has once again walked away from an opportunity to relieve herself of some of the emotional burden she has carried around for over 50 years.
What am I learning? that the work I do with people which includes teaching them how to let go of feelings really scares some of them and they may run. That’s why I consider courage an important attitude to cultivate if you really want to transform your life.
I have been given gifts and knowledge to help others and myself with emotional healing. I know the benefits of relieving myself of the emotional burden from my past and I’d lose my integrity if I just tried to come up with some surface kind of program that would not scare anybody and sell well.
Don’t worry. That won’t happen. It would be way too boring for me.
I love my (former?) client. I love me and I love you too much to cheat anyone.
“It’s not hard to make decisions when you know what your values are.” Roy Disney
Values are principles with intrinsic importance to you. Taking a look at what your values are is a good start toward answering the question, “Who am I now?” and “To what am I committed?”
For example, what did I value prior to 1980? My list included: not being yelled at, feeling and being safe, no one making me feel badly about myself, safety, no one making me feel afraid, safety, support, protecting and providing for my kids, tenderness toward me, being seen, being nurtured.
What do you notice? Most of my values were self-centered ones. I had lost my ability to see that I had something to contribute to the world except for the bare necessities of keeping it together for my children.
Write down your top 21 values as of this date.
A List Exercise
COMMON PERSONAL VALUES
Accuracy Accountability Accomplishment, Achievement, Success
Adventure All for one & one for all Aspiration
Beauty Calm, quietude, peace Challenge
Change Cleanliness, orderliness Collaboration
Commitment Communication Community
Competence Competition Concern for others
Content over form Continuous improvement Coordination, Integration,
Country, Patriotism Creativity Customer satisfaction
Decisiveness Delight of being, joy Democracy
Determination Discipline Discovery
Diversity Education, learning Equality
Efficiency Excellence Fairness
Faith Family Family feeling
Flair Freedom Friendship
Fun Generosity Global view
Goodness Gratitude Honor
Hard work Harmony, Oneness, Unity
Honesty Honor Inner peace, calm, quietude
Innovation Integrity Justice
Knowledge Leadership Loyalty
Love, Romance Maximum utilization (of time, resources)
Meaning Merit Mobility
Money Nationalism Openness
Non-violence Patriotism Peace
Perfection (e.g. of details of work) Persistence Personal Growth
Pioneer Spirit Pleasure Positive attitude
Power Practicality Preservation
Privacy Progress Prosperity, Wealth
Punctuality Purity Quality of work
Rationality Regularity Reliability
Resourcefulness Respect for the individual Results-oriented
Responsibility Responsiveness Risk (willing to take)
Rootedness Rule of Law Safety Satisfying others Security Self- givingness, Selflessness
Self-reliance Seriousness Service
(to others, society) Simplicity Sincerity
Skill Speed Spirit in life (using-)
Stability Standardization Status
Strength Style Systemization
Teamwork Timeliness Tolerance
Tradition Tranquility Truth
Trust Unity Variety
Well-being, Health Wisdom
IT’S EASY TO CONFUSE YOUR REAL VALUES WITH THOSE VALUES YOU THINK YOU SHOULD HAVE. TO GET PAST THAT BIT OF EGO-MIND, DO THE FOLLOWING:
Another Route to Your Values – A List Exercise
1. Make a list of the 10 people you admire the most. These people can be real or fictional, in your life or in the public eye, living or dead.
2. Next to their name, put down up to 10 qualities you admire about each of them.
Now look through your list of qualities and circle the ones that keep appearing. The qualities that appear most often are your real values.
Example: You admire Oprah because she is generous, courageous and authentic. You also admire your friend because she is helpful, bright and generous. Additionally, you admire your spouse because he is hardworking, caring and generous. So you can see that generosity is a strong and important value of yours.
Values may change – particularly when you consciously put yourself on a path of transformation. So a check at regular intervals is very revealing and important because it is to your values you’ll be looking when commitment wanes.
I left my parents home with a horribly damaged self esteem. I then stepped into a marriage that would take 19 years to see the truth of my creation. I had created a more challenging experience than even my childhood was for me – and further eroded my self esteem. But something magical happened when I started over at age 37. The beginnings of feeling good about who I am started to blossom. This was the start of my emotional wellness.
That was over 28 years ago and I live most days now feeling quite wonderful about who I am and my positive contributions to the planet. That’s what good emotional wellness feels like to me. It encompasses me as a relationship-haver, me as a life coach, teacher and writer. It includes all areas of my life. One of the most recent areas for me to feel good about is my physical self. I love how I look even though I’m almost 66 and have the body of a healthy 66-year-old. I love my naturally silver-tinted hair, and I love how I dress. We all have different appearances and to appreciate our outside we must love ourselves from the inside. I call this emotional wellness.
I was just putting makeup on for an event I’m attending a bit later in the day. I could contemplate plastic surgery or trying to make myself look younger but that is not who I want to be. Emotional wellness is seeing who you are and knowing that you are exactly where you are supposed to be and loving yourself no matter what.
Darn! After so many years together and so much love, I can still act like a creep. Yesterday the Martian came home after work. . .
A word about his work. He is 75 and started teaching Physics at an inner city high school at age 70! He gets up each morning by 4:30, leaves the house by 6:00 and gets home most days between 4:30 and 5. Although financial adversity pushed him into this, it turns out he loves it and loves the kids.
Anyway, my part in making this career work for him is to make his lunch and breakfast and provide whatever support I can. With good relationship communication, I remind him of his purpose and the rewards he gets even when it is hard. Sometimes he is just tired and I can help by throwing around ideas with him on how to get the kids involved and learning.
OK. Back to yesterday. When the Martian came home I was washing the dishes for what seemed like the millionth time. I want him to empty his lunchbox when he comes in so I can wash the containers he uses for salad and dressing. Sometimes he does it right away; sometimes not. But I was fighting with feeling very put upon and tired and grumpy so grumpiness is what came out when he didn’t do it the right away. Oy!
Secret #1 – Who is most important?
Secret #4 – Communicate appropriately.
Secret #5 – A matter of respect.
Secret #8 – The small stuff vs. the big stuff.
Secret #10 – Take responsibility.
But doing all of that (which I did as quickly and as well as I could) is what both of us have done for the 25 years we are together and it’s why we can proudly say we are “living happily ever after.”
Many people go through life with low self esteem. This is a sad, but true, fact that is made sadder by the fact that it doesn’t have to be that way. Every person on the planet is a special, unique person and deserves all good that comes along. Everyone deserves to feel good about themselves. Many of the littlest things in life can do so much to boost your self esteem.
You can:
Smile at the people who come across your path today.
Find something funny to laugh about.
Turn negative thoughts into positive ones and see what happens.
See what you can learn from what happens in your life.
List all your positive attributes.
Ask your close friends and family what they love about you – and let it in.
Do something for someone that they don’t expect and let them express gratitude.
Do something wonderful and kind for someone that they know nothing about.
Compliment the grocery checkout person.
Make a “To Do” list and check off each thing as you accomplish it.
Do something that scares you a little.
Learn something new.
Forgive someone.
These things are so simple to do that you will be amazed at what happens when, for example, you do something nice for someone for no reason, do something that scares you a little, learn something new.and you feel better about yourself. There are endless possibilities to love others and yourself. And remember to accept what you can’t change. Give it a shot for a day or two and see how much better you feel about yourself.
Coaches often work with relationship problems. (I have a personal slant here.) I would not want to work with a life coach getting relationship help if that coach didn’t have successful relationships herself – and I’d want to know something about her relationships.
How can someone teach or coach me about healthy relationships if she has no real experience herself? She may have taken many courses but unless she can examine a successful relationship from the ‘inside out’, how can she work with me and understand what my situation needs in order to help me right it?
If I were looking for a relationship coach because I had relationship problems now or in the past, I’d be looking for the following:
I’d ask the coach about their personal experience in relationships.
What kinds of issues the coach has overcome in helping relationships – theirs and others – and what kinds of tools might be offered.
I’d want to know if it was possible to have the coach sometimes speak to me and my partner either together or separately.
I’d ask the coach’s definition of building trust in relationships and her definition of healthy relationships.
I decided to be brave and go public with my Life Coaching career plans. I know this sounds strange, but the thought of being judged has held me back many times in my life. Well, no more! I don’t want to allow what others may think, stop me from following my dreams. I also want to show my kids that if something really feels right, and they want to pursue it (as long as it is legal and doesn’t harm others) then they should go for it. I will encourage them to stand at the top of the mountains and shout out to everyone just how happy they are to have tapped into what makes them feel awesome.
Since I started sharing my dream and plan, I have been pleasingly surprised at the really cool feedback I have been getting from people. Even the ones who have known me all of my life and I felt most likely to be judged by. This is really empowering. It feels really good to have support. I think I have been too self conscious in the past and I didn’t allow others a chance to stand behind me. I made the mistake of assuming I would be criticized and this kept me from really taking the necessary chances to make dreams come true. I was not utilizing my true talents and personal power.
If something keeps happening in your life it is time to learn from it. If a pattern of bad habits or unrealistic expectations keep coming into your life, ask yourself what kind of emotional healing do I need to exercise?
