Archive for the ‘SPARK – the newsletter’ Category

Every now and again we all experience a really crappy day. One of those days where everything and everybody seem to have conspired against you and nothing goes right. Your car breaks down, your daughter has a temper tantrum, your spouse is upset, you forget your umbrella and get soaking wet in the rain and on and on it goes.

Every now and again you may even feel crappy for no apparent reason at all and that can be challenging. I have certainly experienced it and really questioned my feelings, because there were no external circumstances that could justify my unhappiness.

Right in the midst of one of these terrible days, you may wish to bury your head in the sand and reappear tomorrow; you worry though that tomorrow may be just as miserable.

Here is my tried and true remedy. This acknowledgement really works and it can even be fun:

1. The first step is to recognize “I am having a really crappy day, ta da!” Acknowledge the obvious: “I am feeling really crappy, I wish I could stick my head in the sand and be gone.”
2. Then get curious about crappy. Where do you feel it in your body? What is this sensation like? Is it tense, heavy, painful? What kind of pain? Is it dull or sharp?
3. Stay with the sensation and continue to be curious about it. As you stay with this sensation, does the sensation change? If so, in what way? Is it moving to a different part of your body? Is it becoming more or less intense? Is the quality of the sensation changing (e.g. from dull to sharp)? Simply notice what you are experiencing right now and stay with it.
4. If you are still feeling crappy, imagine giving yourself a hug, as if you were taking care of a crying child. Wrap your arms around you and embrace yourself in this state of unhappiness. Remember that no matter how unhappy you feel right now, that this too shall pass.
5. Then look at your day with fresh eyes, what is the next task ahead? Give this task your full attention.

You may have to repeat these five steps a few times throughout your day. Every time you do your day will feel a little less crappy, just like a heavy dark cloud lifting and drifting away with the wind.

When we think of gifts, we usually associate them with tangible objects or a favour we do for someone else. There is another kind of gift; it is a precious gift indeed, the gift of self-care.

Every time you take good care of yourself, you are giving a gift to the people you love. Why is that so? Because taking good care of yourself, brings out your happiest self. Guess what – your happiness is the most precious gift you can give to your loved ones.

For some reason we tend to think that self-care is selfish, hence our hesitation to make it a priority. Who wants to be seen as selfish after all?  However, when you realize that taking care of yourself benefits everyone, especially the people closest to you, you may hesitate less. What would it be like to take a soothing bath for your spouse, go for a relaxing walk for your mother, or enjoy a nice cup of tea and a moment to contemplate all by yourself for your child? Give it a whirl!

Here is Your Challenge:

1. Take a pen and at least ten small pieces of paper. On each of the papers write down an activity that makes you feel happy, relaxed and energized. (for extra inspiration check out The Mini-Retreat Solution)
2. Fold all the pieces of paper and write the name of one of your loved ones on the outside of each of the folded pieces of paper.
3. Put all the folded papers in a little jar and put it on your bed-side table.
4. Each morning draw one of the papers and follow your own suggestions. E.g. “Today I will go for a nice walk, this is a gift for my partner John”.

Enjoy! And while you are at it, share your experience on my blog. Thank you!

When I was in grade 8, I took part in a gardening school project and was very excited about my first little vegetable garden. Every day I went to check, water and weed my little patch. It was pure joy seeing the little plants grow.

One day I arrived at my patch with my watering can to see that all my little lettuce plants had been eaten. I was so sad. When I heard from Sonia, the social worker who headed the garden project at our high school that Rob, a grade 9 student had purposefully pushed his little rabbit into the lettuce plants to destroy my garden, I felt quite angry.

Rob was very aggressive and destroyed things on purpose all the time. I was quite upset and shared my anger with Sonia. She said that she could understand my feelings. She also shared with me another side of Rob that I had never known about or seen before. She told me that he often came to her to ask for a hug and to cry on her shoulder and that he really felt quite insecure.

I was still upset about my lost lettuce plants, but I learnt that day that what appears as power and aggression on the outside might be a manifestation of  loneliness, fear and despair on the inside. I was thankful that Sonia had opened my eyes and helped me see beyond Rob’s actions in the garden patch.

I always remember this story when I am faced with aggressive and destructive behaviour. I know that it is coming from a place of fear. Knowing this helps me see the person who is acting in aggressive ways more compassionately.

When I feel compassion with their pain, I don’t get triggered into fear or anger myself. That doesn’t mean that I agree with destructive behaviour or justify it in any way. It simply means that I connect with the underlying cause of this behaviour. From that place, I can feel compassion and no longer feel scared or threatened by the behaviour.

How to move from anger to compassion:

• Take a moment to think about a person who is acting angry or aggressive (this may be at work, in your family or within your community).
• Allow yourself to imagine the pain, hurt, sadness and fear that this person may be feeling inside.
• Remember times in your own life when you felt scared and how you acted towards others or yourself at the time. Feel compassion for yourself and hold yourself as if you were soothing an upset child.
• Then send the same compassion towards the other person and imagine them feeling well and content.

Today is the fall equinox, the day of perfect balance of darkness and light. On this symbolically balanced day, I invite you to join me in taking any new step towards your healthy life balance. Think about one small step you could embrace today and then, most importantly take it.

I have committed to an evening Mini-Retreat that I will do everyday starting today until the spring equinox (March 20). This will help me keep energized throughout the darker time of the year, here in the northern hemisphere.

Please share on my blog what you are committed to do for yourself this fall.

Feeling overwhelmed seems to be a constant in most people’s lives today. Too much work, endless to-do lists, too many demands, too many bills to pay, too much!  This may lead to feeling helpless and unable to do anything.

When faced with the challenge of too much, we often think that we have to take big steps according to the magnitude of how overwhelmed we feel. It may seem counter-intuitive; however, small simple steps will make the biggest difference over time. This concept is also known as the domino effect.

Small steps that you can take right away to start a positive domino effect in your life: Read the rest of this entry »

Do you feel overwhelmed by your never-ending to-do lists? You are not alone!

These lists evoke negative emotions in most people. They seem like silent reminders showing us just how far “behind” we are and how impossible it is to ever catch up.

It doesn’t have to be like this. There is another way to work with your to-do list that is much more fun and energizing and will help you simplify your days.

It all begins with the realization that your to-do list is a tool that is there to help you, not the other way around. When I realized that my to-do list is really there to support me, rather than me having to satisfy it, a huge weight lifted off my shoulders.

What’s good about to-do lists:

1. Jotting things down on paper alleviates having to think of them or worrying that you might forget.

2. From your list, you can choose the items you feel most compelled to do each day.

3. Your list is a reflection of what is going on in your mind. Get curious about your choices.

4. The list offers a place to decide what to do about the to-do’s:

• - Do I want to do it myself?
• - Do I want to delegate the task?
• - Do I want to scratch it off the list because it is simply not that important?

Here are a few ideas that will help your list work for you:

1. Look at your existing list and acknowledge that this is merely a tool serving you.
2. Go through your existing list and qualify items with M (meaningful), U (urgent), D (can be delegated and write down who you want to ask for help), E (eliminate, because it really isn’t serving you to spend your or anyone’s time on this)
3. Once you have qualified your list, ask yourself: Which three things do I most want to act on today? Highlight those and start working on the easiest one right away…this will fuel your energy supply to get ready for the next slightly more challenging task.
4. Celebrate each accomplishment in a way that is meaningful for you. E.g. take a deep breath, smile at yourself, draw a smiley face next to your accomplished task on your list, or whatever feels best to do.
5. By the end off the day, enjoy reviewing your list. Focus on your accomplishments.
6. In the morning, review your list and start back at point 3.

If your list just seems too long and daunting, ask yourself, “Who is this list serving?” If you notice that this is really your boss’ list, your spouse’s list, or your kids’ list, then maybe it’s time to put yourself back on the list and ask “What is it that I most long to do?”

Things such as having a soothing bath, going for a walk, talking to a friend, dancing, or laughing may come to mind. Put the activity that you most long for on top of your to-do list and your list will remind you to take care of yourself first.

This month I am celebrating a big milestone: the 50th edition of SPARK*, my online newsletter. On a personal level, John and I are celebrating our first anniversary this month. We are filled with gratitude and joy for our life in loving partnership.

It is wonderful to receive comments on my blog and e-mails  from SPARK* readers who feel inspired by my tips and stories.  SPARK* really lives and thrives through being read, appreciated and most importantly, when put into action.

I have taken some quality time to read through all 49 SPARK* articles and selected a few timeless tips and stories for you to enjoy.

This is how it all began, with the very first SPARK* published in June 2005: BE HAPPY AS A GOAT

Here are my personal favourites for each year:
2006: How to Walk the Tight Rope with Grace

2007: What’s Zapping Your Energy?

2008: Celebrate Your Success

2009: Habits – How to Make them Work for You

2010: Mini-Retreats in the Nick of Time

In the spirit of celebration, please share what YOU most enjoy about SPARK* on my blog. As a way of saying thank you, I will send you a special surprise gift.

Warmly,

Julia

Often we stand in our own way of achieving and receiving what we most want. This happens when we believe that what we most want is only available in a bundled up fashion with something we don’t want at all. So we take one step in the direction of our dream and then we get scared because we feel as if we are also moving closer to a nightmare.

Take Jody (not her real name), who wanted to overcome procrastination and become more successful in her career. Every time she made some progress, got more organized, became more focused, she noticed how she would slip in other ways as if she was trying to sabotage her own progress. She became curious about this pattern and realized that even though she really wanted to be more successful in her career, she didn’t like the image of what success looked like in her field. All the so-called successful professionals in her field seemed arrogant, aggressive and distant. She realized that deep down she feared being successful out of a fear that she too might become arrogant, aggressive and distant.

I asked Jody to stretch both of her hands out in front of her body and imagine she were holding success in her right hand and arrogance in her left hand. I asked her to notice the sensations in her hands and notice how they were different from each other. She said that she felt light and warm in her right hand as if her hand was warmed by rays of sunshine.  In her left hand, she felt as if she was holding a heavy piece of coal surrounded by heavy brown smoke.

Through this physical experience, Jody was able to see the difference between the two realities that she had mixed together as one in her mind. Even though success and arrogance seemed to appear together a lot of the time in her field of work, they were really two distinctly different things. I asked Jody to write down her vision of success using the sensation of success she had felt in her right hand.

Once she opened herself to the possibility that success was possible without arrogance, Jody started noticing more and more successful people in her field who weren’t arrogant at all.  It was as if a veil had lifted and her eyes were open to see this part of reality for the first time.

Just like Jody, you can apply this exercise to your own life:

1. Where in your life might you be sabotaging your own success? What kind of qualities do you have mixed up in your mind? Here are a few popular pairs:

        Success ~ Loneliness
   Beauty ~ Vanity
   Forgiveness ~ Injustice
   Self-care ~ Selfishness

2. Identify the realities or qualities that you have collapsed into one in your mind.
3. Stretch out both of your hands and imagine you are holding one quality in each of your hands.
4. Notice what each of the qualities feels like in your hand and notice the difference between the content of your hands.
5. Then write down your vision of the quality you want to attract into your life using the sensation you felt as inspiration.
6. Throughout the next days and weeks notice how this quality shows up in your life.

My recent move to Victoria reminded me of the nature of transition with which I am intimately familiar through my work as a life coach and my own life experience. With each occurrence of a change we created, we naturally receive the gift of open space. Now open space is something that tends to be avoided at all costs and so it can be very tempting to overstep this very important step and rush on to the next thing.

We see it in the market place: as soon as the Christmas decorations are gone, the Valentines promotions take their place, on February 15 the Easter eggs take the place of Valentine hearts seamlessly and on it goes.

Moving to Victoria meant leaving my familiar life, neigbourhood, circle of friends, grocery stores and many special familiar places behind. It meant stepping into unfamiliar territory and lots of open space. It can be a scary place and most people feel lost, lonely and alone in the midst of this time of transition – and so did I!

I didn’t know how comfortable and familiar everything had become to me in Vancouver until I left. Suddenly, I found myself standing at street corners in Victoria, studying a map; it doesn’t help that I am directionally challenged. All of a sudden I no longer had friends living just a few blocks away. I even missed the friendly, familiar grocery store clerk, who was always eager to hear my news when I lived in Vancouver. However, once I embraced the open space that I was experiencing, I began to enjoy it.

How often do we:

• have the luxury of a blank canvass in front of us?
• contemplate what we want to create?
• have space for exciting opportunities to show up?

Notice the empty spaces in your own life right now:

• Maybe you have recently ended a relationship.
• Maybe your favourite fitness class has been canceled.
• Maybe your friend opted out on the trip you were planning together for this summer.

No matter how big or small the open space in your life, take a moment to witness the open space and look at it as if it was a blank canvass brimming with possibilities. Rather than rushing to get the paint brush and beginning to fill your canvass with colours, just enjoy the space and possibilities it offers to you right now. Allow yourself to take time to dream. Open yourself to the possibility of opportunities that may naturally appear in your life, now that you have space for them to materialize.

It is fascinating that the expression “to swim against the stream” is a metaphor for making choices in life that go against prevailing opinions. This is considered to be a challenge that is hard to attain. How interesting that we perceive natural phenomena to be difficult.

When we think of salmon swimming upstream back to their place of birth or the thousands of miles birds travel to migrate, we see them as enormous undertakings. However, I wonder if it is even possible for healthy salmon to choose not to return to the river that is their spawning grounds?  Could a healthy migratory bird think “hmmm, maybe I’ll just stay put this winter here in Canada, rather than flying all the way to Mexico”?

It is natural for the salmon to swim upstream. Yes, it takes a lot of energy, but this energy is expended in a manner that maximizes life fulfillment.

As humans our challenge is to get back in touch with the activities that come naturally to us. When we are out of touch with our natural strengths and desires, we settle for a life filled with activities that drain us. Many of us have forgotten our innate strengths, the activities we can engage in for hours without feeling exhausted. Activities that energize us and that we are naturally good at even though they might be perceived as challenging by others.

How to reconnect with the salmon within you:

1. Look back in your life and identify the activities that you enjoyed  most as a child. Go ahead and write these activities down. They may  provide important clues for the kinds of activities that may energize  you today.
2. Now, think about the jobs you have done in your  life so far. For each job, identify the activities that energized you  most and add these to your list.
3. Then think about your  personal life, hobbies and volunteer activities. Which activities  energize you the most? Add these to your list.
4. Now, look at  your list of insights. What small step will you take today to increase  the time you spend doing things that energize you?

The energy you gain from engaging in these activities will provide the fuel to continue on the path of exploring your natural strengths. Soon, you will find yourself eager to swim against the stream, just like the salmon.

When you get stuck on your path of exploration, ask for support from a life coach. Often we take our greatest gifts for granted and think that there is nothing special or worthwhile about that which comes naturally to us. I would be delighted to give you forty minutes of my undivided attention to explore how I might help you identify your strengths so they may be applied toward maximizing fulfillment within your life.

* The Coho Salmon was photographed by David Blevins