Protecting My Energy

Protecting My Energy

Mindset
Learning to empower instead of enabling The phone rings, and I feel obligated to answer. Cindy, a new acquaintance, is hysterical on the other end. I drop everything I’m doing to rush to her apartment. I need to make sure the assignment she was working on is still somewhere on her computer. The deadline is tomorrow, and she doesn’t know what happened to it. Luckily, I’m a computer whiz and must have bragged about it while making small talk the first time I met Cindy. After rushing out of my house to put out the fire, I return home exhausted. Her nervous energy and panic were all it took to drain my reserves, and even though I had my own paper to write, I curl up on the couch for a recharge nap.…
Read More
Are you authentic?

Are you authentic?

Mindset
And what does it mean? “Who are you?” I was asked that question in an interview on Monday. I fumbled a lot because I have this definition of WHO I am, but I didn’t feel like it was the answer my interviewer was looking for. What did I say? I answered that I was a life coach, an American living in Myanmar, a former ESL teacher, and a person with narcolepsy and chronic migraine. Why? The interview was for a volunteer position with the Migraine World Summit, so that’s what seemed relevant. We’ve been trained to show the sides of us that make us most qualified for a position in life, to get the job. Even though I know better, my training kicked in, and I said what I had…
Read More
Five Ways to Respond to Rude Comments

Five Ways to Respond to Rude Comments

life hacks
No one can reject you without your permission We all want to be more connected; genetically we are programmed to seek connection because in our more primitive forms we needed our tribe or group for survival. But when someone rejects you, you need to know how to respond to rude comments in order to keep your self-esteem in tact. Long ago, rejection meant being shunned, banned, or excommunicated. This type of punishment was worse than death. Our bodies are still programmed to respond to rejection negatively, even though we don’t require our peers’ help with basic needs like food, water, or shelter and security anymore. That explains why we feel our adrenaline spiking when we face rejection. Our hearts beat faster, and we feel our pulse quickening. In those moments,…
Read More
Stop Reacting and Start Responding

Stop Reacting and Start Responding

Life Coaching
Some tips for how to get started I blink back tears and swallow the words that want to come spilling out of my mouth. My partner is looking at me, encouraging me to go on speaking my mind but I know it's not useful. I need to stop reacting to my emotions and take a moment. If I give my energy to these emotions, they will continue. I know they don’t deserve my voice. If I can acknowledge where they are coming from, recognize that I am no longer in that place, and bring myself back to the present moment, I can move past them. What Happened I let myself travel back into the past for a short time to write an article about a painful time in my life and how…
Read More
Mindful Coloring

Mindful Coloring

Mindset
This week I met with some wonderful people to talk about mindfulness and how we can be more mindful throughout the day. The first technique we talked about was to remove the words "no" and "not" from what we tell our brain to do. For example, instead of saying, "Don't forget your sunglasses, you can say, Remember your sunglasses." The brain receives the message better that way and you are more likely to actually remember them. We also discussed observing the barrage of thoughts in our heads like a train. You can either be aware and watch the train go by or you can get on the train and visit all the emotional states the train takes off to. Everyone was encouraged to choose a trigger point, something you do…
Read More
Why I’m So Grateful for Gratitude

Why I’m So Grateful for Gratitude

Life Coaching, Mindset, Personal Story
It helped me stop feeling like a victim! My alarm was blaring and I reached around clumsily, my eyes still closed trying to make the noise stop. I was angry and frustrated with my poor night of sleep. I had a horrific dream about someone I loved being tortured, and I stayed up for an hour trying to change my thought process to avoid going back into the same nightmare again. The images were fuzzy and dark, but I knew they would be stuck in my mind all day. I stumbled to the bathroom, stubbed my toe on, and slipped in water on my bathroom floor. My partner had left the shower curtain outside the tub, and the whole floor was soaked. I was lucky I hadn't hit my head,…
Read More
One Self-Hypnosis Technique to Manage Emotions

One Self-Hypnosis Technique to Manage Emotions

Life Coaching, life hacks, Mindset
Photo by Mark Daynes on Unsplash Do you ever feel yourself reacting emotionally to a situation and wish you had more control? Maybe your kids are screaming at you and instead of remaining calm, you give them what they want. Maybe someone pulls out in front of your car in traffic and you feel anger bubbling up inside. Or are you the one who can completely ignore your emotions when they emerge and have no idea what I’m talking about? Whichever is the case, we all have situations where emotions appear and we need to deal with them in a constructive way. Self-Hypnosis is a handy tool that can make that quite simple. How Does Self-Hypnosis Work? There are so many different ways to use self-hypnosis they wouldn’t even fit in one book…
Read More
Recovering From Depression

Recovering From Depression

life hacks, Lifestyle, Mindset
Why Skills Work Better Than Pills There is nothing wrong with taking medication for depression. I've done it before, and it helped me for a while. However, since most of us don't like the idea of taking medication to manage our moods forever, its good to also have some tools that can move us out of a depressed state. So let's talk about depression. Who Gets Depressed? Anyone who has moods can become depressed. Depression is simply a mood disorder. This may sound bleak knowing that literally everyone is vulnerable to depression, but it also means we can all learn some skills to fight back. What medication can't do While medication may be useful for getting you into a state where you can take action, it cannot take the action…
Read More
Set Your 3-Month Goals Now!

Set Your 3-Month Goals Now!

Life Coaching
It’s the perfect time to complete them by the end of the year Photo by rawpixel.com from Pexels Setting goals for yourself is one way to make sure you continue moving forward in your life. But it’s hard to know just how far out to set your goals. Set 3-month goals if you want to see continuous growth and progress. Staying focused on one thing for 12 months can be a challenge. Think back to January, do you even remember what New Year’s Resolution you set for 2019? If so, you have three months left before the end of the year. What steps have to take toward your goal? Can you make it in this last stretch? Why Set 3-Month Goals Twelve weeks is a short enough time to keep our momentum…
Read More
What Can You Expect from my Life Coach Packages?

What Can You Expect from my Life Coach Packages?

Life Coaching
Photo by rawpixel.com from Pexel The 8-week program: Some of you may be overestimating what you can do with my 8-week life coach package, and others might be underestimating it. It all depends on your perspective and your experience. Of course, we will tailor the life coach package to your needs, and we can focus it down if you want a shorter life coach package like the 4-week option. So let me break down the components of my life coach package. Make a decision to change. The first thing I need is your commitment. Without that, there is no reason to continue forward with the coaching relationship. Tony Robbins says, "Change happens when the pain of staying the same is GREATER than the pain of change." If you are there, let's talk about…
Read More
What’s a Life Coach?

What’s a Life Coach?

Life Coaching
And will they make my dreams come true? Life coaches are not fairies that can grant wishes. Sorry, if that’s all you wanted to know you can stop reading here. We have all heard about people who win the lottery and end up broke and depressed. If a life coach could hand you your dream, you may end up like those winners. Would you like to know why? For most of us, success is determined by having a role or responsibility in reaching our goal. There is no joy without progress. If the results are handed to you, you are at the top, and you played no part in getting there. Then the only way to go is down! You can’t replicate the process that got you to the top.…
Read More
Harnessing the Power of Gratitude

Harnessing the Power of Gratitude

Lifestyle, Mindset
Sometimes I find myself needing to take stock of what's good in my life. It is way to easy to let negative thoughts rein, so in an effort to stay positive, and harness the power of gratitude here are 40 things I love and I am grateful for. Myself — I have recently learned that unless I am on the list of things I love then something is out of balance in my life. It is not selfish to love myself. Although I am still learning this one day at a time.  The sky — it’s everywhere, it's so reliable, its always there to brighten my day or amaze me with its darkness. It's easy to harness the power of gratitude when you are grateful for such basic things that are…
Read More
Relationships with Narcolepsy or Without

Relationships with Narcolepsy or Without

Narcolepsy, Personal Story
Building relationships with narcolepsy or other chronic illnesses can be a challenge due to a limited social life. I'm standing outside a huge fancy house with a glass of red wine in my hand staring at a sea of people I don't know.  I feel completely overwhelmed by the sheer number of people at the party, but at least half of them work with my partner. My partner has not even made it to the drink table due to so many people wanting to stop and chat.  I escaped, knowing the formal handshakes and cheek kisses that are obligatory in these social situations tire me out quickly. How I Handle It I gravitate toward the one woman I know, a friend.   We chat for a while until she also finds…
Read More
Stop Wasting Time on Negative Thoughts!

Stop Wasting Time on Negative Thoughts!

Mindset
Is your time valuable? Stop wasting time on negative thoughts!  If you were carrying $86,400 and $10 blew away, would you set down the $86,390 you have left to chase after it? Or would you just let it go?  I recently received a text forward with this question.  When I read it, I didn't even think about the answer. My mind immediately jumped to the conclusion, I'd let it go and hope that it fell into the hands of someone who needed it. The message went on to say that we each have 86,400 seconds in a day.  Our time is more valuable than money because we can't get it back. Once we spend it, it is gone forever.  So, every time we get upset, we lose 10 seconds.  But…
Read More
What is a life coach?

What is a life coach?

Lifestyle, Mindset
First I will tell you what a life coach is not; it is not a therapist.  Most do not have a degree in counseling or psychology.  If they do, they have left the profession to be a life coach for a reason. Life coaches should have some kind of training.  I am a Certified Life Coach.  In addition, I am a practitioner of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Neuro-Linguistic Programming, and the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT).     Life Coaches Help you Shift Your Perspective A life coach will challenge you to look at things from different perspectives. They will question your actions, and the goals you claim to have. They will help you narrow down what is helping you move forward in life and what is holding you back. The goal is to…
Read More