Categories
Choice Decision Making Negative Emotions Overwhelm Perspective

Great Strategy to Deal with Overwhelm

Hands up if you experience overwhelm occasionally (or a lot).

Hands up if you are human.

Chances are that if you are human you have experienced, do experience, or are currently experiencing, overwhelm.

We have all been there and done that.

So what I want to focus on today, is how to move through, and beyond, overwhelm as ease-fully as possible.

I often work with clients to take them beyond overwhelm into the ‘now I have got this sh#t figured out‘ realm.

My suggested strategy is also inspired by a great book I was recommended (thanks Tom!) called ‘The Master And His Emissary‘ by Iain McGilchrist. It is looking at the similarities and differences between the brain hemispheres, given they are actually asymmetrical.

Fascinating stuff.

But now let’s make it practical.

Categories
Acceptance Emotional Feeling Growth Life Lessons Perspective

Don’t Do This…Unless You Love Rollercoasters

I am not sure of where you are at when it comes to roller coasters.

Occasionally, they can be fun.

Like once or twice a year (for me), but definitely not weekly.

Pass.

So I would like to (strongly) recommend you don’t make a habit of this.

Unless of course you love roller coasters, and especially the emotional kind…

Categories
Acceptance Belief Honesty Personality Perspective Relationship

Lessons about Grief, Relationships and Family

I am once again perched on a table at my mum and dad’s place, drinking tea, and reflecting on what I have learned over this last couple of weeks.

For those that did not read my last newsletter article, I spoke about the passing of my father and all of the wonderful lessons he taught me over my life. Thank you for joining me, and getting to know my father a little along the way.

Today I wanted to continue with my observations of the experience we are all faced with at some point in our lives.

The passing of a family member or someone near and dear to us.

My first observation is there is definitely no ‘one size fits all’ when it comes to how we handle someone’s passing.

It really highlights the true uniqueness and differences in our life experience, compared to even our closest flesh and blood.

We all have different, and sometimes very different, lenses of perception.

We have different beliefs.

Different perspectives.

Different behaviours.

Different ways of expressing and processing our emotions.

Different past experiences (which shape how we view something new, but related).

On of the most important things we can bring to the grieving process, is a very clear acknowledgement that how I (as an individual) process my own experience, is likely to be VERY different from how someone else will deal with it.

Categories
Acceptance Emotional Gratitude Growth Joy Perspective Relationship

Lessons My Dad Taught Me

I am back in Queensland (Australia) as I write this.

Sitting at a table out the back of mum and dad’s place, drinking a cup of tea, and reflecting on my dad and all the things he taught me.

Dad passed away peacefully in a beautiful palliative care hospital a little over a week ago, with family at his side, after having been ill for the last 6-months.

My life (particularly over the last 20 years) has been one of curiosity and deep observation of my relationship with life, so I might learn and grow, and share my lessons along the way.

As I reflect on my dad, I realise a lot of what makes me ‘me’, were great lessons passed on from my dad.

And although dad was a school teacher throughout his working life, it wasn’t through teaching verbally that I learned most from him. It was how he acted, behaved and showed up in life, where I learned my greatest lessons from dad.

I realised too, as I write this, that he not only ‘taught’ me a lot of life skills, but he taught and influenced 1000’s of teenagers (he was a high school manual arts teacher) over the 35 or so years he was teaching.

Nice one dad!

So let me share with you, what I feel are his greatest gifts and have most influenced the building of my character.

And before I get into my ‘list’, I was chuckling to myself, that dad never drank, smoked or swore, and on this one I might have gone a slightly different direction, and have the bumps and bruises to show for it. I never got into smoking, but I am not sure I can say the same for the other two.

Categories
Choice consciousness Fear Feeling Perspective Self Love Success

You Can’t Do This and Expect to be Happy

Do you want to be happy?

Or happier?

I am pretty sure – about 99.999% – that your response to those questions is a resounding “OF COURSE!”.

So today we are going to talk about one thing not to do if you want to have a happy life existence.

It’s a pretty simple concept (like most things I teach), but it has major ramifications.

The image that comes to mind when I think about this topic is a wheelbarrow I was using the other day, while hauling bricks.

The wheel was a little wobbly (out of alignment) and it was WAY HARD to keep things moving in the direction of the drop-off point.

At one point the wheelbarrow veered off to the side and I lost the load (and nearly tore a muscle or three); so I had to start again from scratch.

TOO much effort required.

So what was the solution?

Simple.

The wheelbarrow needed the nuts on the axle tightened, so the wheel would come back into alignment and perform the role it was designed for.

Moving smoothly, in a straight line.

When things are out of alignment, life gets tougher.

Categories
Nutrition Optimum Health Perspective Physical Activity Self Love

An Essential Tip to Increasing Health & Vitality

A SIMPLE HEALTH FIX TO INCREASE YOUR HEALTH AND VITALITY

I suspect you know this already (to an extent).

But the reality is that the majority of people on the planet are really bad at doing this thing.

So I am here to remind you.

And to remind you that there are significant downsides – health wise – when you skip this.

What I am talking about DRINKING AN ADEQUATE QUANTITY OF WATER EVERY DAY.

And no I am not talking about coffee, tea, soda’s, fruit drinks, or the likes.

It might come as a surprise to you, but your blood is not made of coffee, beer or Coca-cola.

I decided to send this important reminder to you today, as I was recently reading a book called ‘Your Bodies Many Cries For Water‘ by Dr. F. Batmanghelidj.

Categories
Choice Goal Setting Tips Meditation Perspective Success

You Can’t Build Something Awesome, Until You Do This First

There has been a common necessity with my coaching clients over the last few years.

And obviously, the last few years have been among our most disruptive ever.

Regardless of your beliefs or perspective, life has been a little bit wonky.

As a result there are some personal fundamentals that need some work.

And since I am in the process of building a house and farm in Bali, I am inspired by the building process.

Something every builder knows.

It is essentially this:

If you screw up the foundation, it can extremely costly and with a high level of uncertainty.

You might even need to demolish everything and start from scratch.

How does this analogy relate?

It is SOOOOO important, it ought to be a school subject.

“How to build a solid foundation in your life”.

Let’s see what this practically means.

Categories
Belief Choice consciousness Emotional Optimum Health Perspective

The ‘C’ Thing…a Big, but Relevant Topic

This conversation follows on from last week, where I spoke about emotional ‘Junk in the Trunk’.

And it ties in with my full-time health immersion, journey and obsession for the last couple of decades.

One of the things I have learned over time is it is very hard to separate the body, mind, emotions, and even the spiritual element of ourselves into little neat separate boxes.

They are all inter-related.

There is overlap.

You can’t have a toxic relationship for several months or years and not have health issues.

Be they mental or physical – which again are inter-related.

The mind and the body are part of the same whole.

So when it comes to working on symptoms expressed in the physical body, don’t imagine the mind doesn’t play a role in this, and predominant emotional states are not a factor.

Cancer is definitely not a fun subject to talk about.

And I did balk at my own thought to write this article.

But hey, I am here to offer support in any way I can, so let me share with you my perspective on the treatment and healing of cancer.

Categories
Choice consciousness Feeling Life Purpose Perspective

A Common Cause of LOW Energy (not What You Think)

Hands up if you have low energy a lot.

How about sometimes?

We all have times and days where our energy is low.

Which might relate to very practical things like hydration, nutrition, and sleep.

But if we have an on-going experience with low energy, the cause might not be what you think.

Here is what I have discovered through coaching over the last 15 years (and gazing at my belly button often.

Background

When a new client reaches out to work with me; I send them a couple of questionnaires.

One takes about 2hrs plus to complete and is a deep dive.

The other one takes about 5 mins, but is SOOO revealing.

I essentially ask people to rate their ‘Levels’, on a scale of 1-10, when it comes to 12 categories relevant to their lives.

One of them is their ENERGY Level.

Here is what I have witnessed

Categories
Choice consciousness Growth Perspective Problem Relationship

The 3 Essentials Parts to Setting ‘Effective’ Boundaries

Listen or Download – me reading this from Dropbox

Hands up if you are slightly crap, or totally crap, at setting boundaries.

Want to know a secret?

It might not be that you are bad at setting boundaries.

It might be that you are missing two other essential elements to get the best out of your BOUNDARY setting.

Or then again…

You might never have given enough thought, attention or energy to establishing what a boundary looks like for YOU.

In my experience there are 3 ESSENTIALS when it comes to getting the most out of boundaries.

When I say ‘getting the most’ I really mean…

More PEACE, harmony and space to be and express YOU.

Let’s dive straight into the 3 Essentials, which are presented in the order of their application.