Blog
Wanting More in Life
Do you have that restless feeling of wanting more? Most of us experience that in our lives. Seeing someone in need may provoke your feelings of wanting to serve more – to find the time to volunteer. Feeling lonely may provoke you to want more connections with people, to build your friendship base. Being with someone who is dying may provoke us to wanting more presence in our lives. To find a way to live a life of awareness, focussing on each precious day. Coming up short in the money area may have you wanting more money. The list is...
read moreDo You Feel Light?
Sometimes we let life and all we have to do bog us down. Because I actually like to learn and to have a to do list, I can recognize that I haven’t laughed in a while when my head is down and I am producing. Life needs to have lots of humour and at least some spontaneity. We need connection with others to feel light. Enthusiasm for and with others helps to make everything go better. Knowing what gives you meaning and knowing your very individual purpose helps you to feel light. Living with openness and a recognition of the we in everything...
read moreMoving Relationship Challenges to Personal Strengths
We have all noticed the changes in our society in the way in which we interact with each other. For those who want to live above the norm, we can understand that the pendulum has swung from the Victorian era to now where children were seen and not heard to the place where children are known to regularly aggressively swear at their parents and even worse. From children to adults, relationships regularly break down. It is very hard to go against the norm in a tide against relationship honour and respect. We need our family relationships for our...
read moreTherapy vs. Coaching
Because I have a long history as a psychotherapist, I find one of the questions people ask me most is, ‘what is the difference between coaching and therapy?’. There are certainly many similarities as there are in a lot of helping professions. The people who come to both professions want change for the better in their lives. The field of therapy is much broader then it has been in the past and so you can encounter therapists who will see clients for a longer term for challenges such as early childhood trauma, anxiety disorders, or...
read moreLearning
How fun to learn. I just got back from my re-certification of High Performance Coaching (have to re-certify every 2 years). There was beauty everywhere in the hotel. It was in the warm climate of Arizona and I went with a friend. It is so good to have a long time, very special friend on the same journey as you are so that you can share the learning. Socializing adds to the learning for me and cements it all in with fun. We went to the restaurant that was recommended to us called Bourbon and Bones. The food was amazing! They come to the table...
read moreThe Importance of Story
Our story is important to where we are today. Our history contains pain and joy and learning and experiences that we love to reflect on. The important part of story is to be able to reconcile the parts of our story that are painful and appreciate the parts that were great. Many people do not reflect on their past. It can contain a part of them that is too painful. If that is the case for you, I would recommend that you seek out counselling and do so. When you are desiring to live fully and you have things in your past that are painful that...
read moreTending and Befriending
One of the saddest part of our current society today is that fact that we are not as connected as we used to be. I often ask the individuals or couples I see when was the last time you had someone over to your house for coffee, breakfast, dinner or any occasion. It will often be months. You may say that you see your colleagues at work every day and go for coffee but often that does not translate into “I could call on them for anything in the middle of the night and they would be there”. Social support and friendship remains a huge...
read moreFuture Catastrophizing – Yikes!
There is convincing research that suggests that the greater proportion of our health issues can be attributed to our worrying about the future. Mark Twain said, “I’ve had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened”. Others have made humorous comments taking this quote and giving it a twist, saying worry must work because when I worry about bad things happening in the future – they normally never do! Even though that does tickle my funny bone, it is also sad. All that time wasted on worry can be captured...
read moreWelcome – Be Encouraged Today!
Today’s theme is how do you start on a new path in life. Some people are natural dreamers and if you ask them – they know exactly what they want in life. They may not yet know how to access it but they are sure of what they want. It is the others I come across that find it much more difficult to know what they want, that I am speaking to today. One of the tools that I find helpful is to make a life wheel with the themes that you engage in everyday. For instance, your life wheel may include family, friends, life mission or values,...
read moreKnow Yourself
Knowing yourself is a hallmark of people who are successful. This is not about imagining who you might be but really knowing your strengths and your vulnerabilities. Spending time really knowing yourself is important in life. Listening to others feedback. Sometimes I find that my clients do this step but their thinking involves a lot of negativity towards themselves, focussing on their failures in the past. Their life story becomes all about their failure. This is not helpful. Being in the present with an accepting self (much closer to the...
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