Energy Coaching

Vacations open us to a whole new world.  They give us inspiration, peace, health, knowledge, freedom, calm, new perspectives; in short, they give our life back!

While on vacation recently, my husband and me were calmly sitting having dinner and we could only smile at each other.  We spent a long time staring at the sky in silence enjoying the breeze and being in the moment.

The other important point is that vacations give us the renewal we need.  A lot of people forget that they need to recharge in order to perform well.  There is an illusion that we can do it all and that we don’t need to take a break.  If we look at how high levels athletes behave, we will see that they train hard to give their best performance and always include renewal as part of their training.  They eat well, get plenty of rest, take their vitamins, have plenty of support from their coaches and therapists - and then perform their best.  Then, they have an off- season in order to rest.

If high levels athletes take breaks in order to be the best they can be, we can all learn from them and do the same in our lives.

Ask yourself:  How are you living your life today?  Are you taking breaks and finding renewal in activities that bring you joy?  Are you eating well, getting the necessary sleeping time, exercising and playing?  If not, take a few minutes to find some creative ways to include breaks and renewal times in your life.  Write them down and see where you can fit them in the 24 hours we all have at our disposal.

I know you will perform like a champion if you begin to act like one!

With energy,

Ana

Sometimes I find myself in a conversation with someone who tells me about how difficult it is to get what they want.  It seems that someone, somewhere, is  magically stopping them from doing things; or worse, from being the best they can be.  It is as if a conspiracy plot has been established against them and there is no time, no money, no opportunities, no encouragement, no energy in their lives.  Wow, can you feel how stuck this sounds?  No wonder nothing is happening!

I realize that there has been a bit of a rearranging of sorts in the world lately, but that has become an excuse for people to become comfortable with the victim mentality.  It’s like quick sand; it pulls us in and unless we work to change our own perspective we are quickly drawn to it.

There are two main points I want to make here.  The first one is we ALWAYS have a choice on how we perceive the world and what’s happening around us.  More often than not, many people fail to realize that they are in the process of making things happen and quickly forget that it takes time to harvest what they have planted.  When they don’t see the quick results they go in to resentment mode, then anger and then the victim mentality.  I guess we established in the beginning of this post how unattractive this is!  The negativity that this state of mind brings will make everything very difficult and the negative self-fulfilling prophecies will begin to take shape.  Who’s choice it was to feel that way?

Pause for deep thinking……

Now to the second point.  It is crucial to understand that it takes time for the seeds you have planted to grow roots, sprout and bear fruit.  Instead of keeping fostering the resentment and the anger, you want to be in touch with your vision and your dream so that you keep yourself aligned with what’s important to you and what gives you energy while you wait for the seeds to bear fruit.  Having a clear vision will also keep you away from the negative feelings that tend to creep in once we let our doubts come into the process.  When you remind yourself of your vision and keep getting energy from it, things seem to work themselves out and results start coming in quicker than you imagined.

You are responsible for your success and for your actions.  You create your future based on how you choose to see what’s happening to your life.  A victim will see fault in the process.  A survivor will see lessons and opportunities no matter what happens to him/her.

How do you see yourself?  A victim or a survivor?  Are you blaming the process or are you seeing opportunities?

Feel free to share with me the answers to these questions.  I would be happy to send some feedback to you and to ensure that you get the support you need to see things in a different light.

With energy,

Ana

What you put your attention on grows stronger in your life.  Imagine for a moment that your life revolves around what you are passionate about; your family, friends, your ideal career, your favorite hobbies, etc.  Everything that you do has the element of passion and love involved.  How much different would your life be?

Living your passions is the secret to have more joy and love in your life.  It seems like an easy thing to do, but let me ask you this:  Are you passionate about your work?  Are you making time for your favorite hobbies and sports in your life now?  Are you spending quality time with your loved ones?  How long since you and your partner went out on a passionate date?

The writer Viktor Frankl wrote in his book “ Man’s Search For Meaning” that “The greatest task for any person is to find meaning in his or her life.”  We can only find meaning in our lives if we follow our passions.  And how do we find our passions?  Great question!

First you need to be clear about who you are - what your values are, what’s important to you, what makes you smile, what your strengths are and where your creativity lies.  After doing the inner work, you will have clarity and clarity leads to the power to act.  The clarity about who you are will lead you to the clarity about what your passions are.

Your passions are the loves of your life.  They are the things that are most important to you.  When you are living your passions you are aligned with your personal destiny.  When you are aligned with your destiny, your life is joyful, delightful, exciting and fulfilling.  That’s our natural way of living.  That’s the way that leads us to experience true LOVE!

With energy and passion,

Ana

My dear friend Pamela is my guest writer today.  She blogged about her extremely liberating experience of quitting her  9-5 job.  It’s inspiring to read her insights and how she found her path once she let go of the old.  Congrats Pamela and thanks for allowing me to share this with our readers!

Some of us think that we are obligated to work 9-5 as a measure of our success in society. That programming is difficult to ignore and the material goods that accompany a steady pay check are enticing.

Some of us just are not cut out for that lifestyle. We try to conform to the system. We do our job knowing that we are not part of that system and here is the result: We spend most of our waking hours with people we would not normally associate with. Maybe there are some co-workers we strongly dislike yet we are forced into a small, crowded office with them. We get caught in office politics that we do not care about, with people we don’t like, for a job that may be meaningless in the greater scheme of things. We come home tired, angry, frustrated, stressed.

Our true vocation is on hold. There is no energy left after the 9-5 brain drain. We wake up in the middle of the night agonizing over a stupid power play from the office (Why are these people in our bed?). Morning comes and we are already stressed. The night’s sleep didn’t erase the daily grind. Now we have to rush to get ready for work, walk the dog, drink the coffee, drive to the office, find parking, clock in, and face the music again. The weekend comes and it is run to the grocery store, the dry cleaners, rush through basic housekeeping chores, rush, rush, rush. If you have kids, the rushing becomes exponentially more insane. Multiply your daily to-dos by 1,000.

This was my life for 6 years. I sidestepped a life of creativity and spirituality, my two most important values, so I could pay bills. It seemed like the easy way out. I was tired of hustling my talents to make a living. So I bought into the 9-5. My boss was a micromanaging freak with a huge chip on her shoulder. Three years of hell and I landed a job in the arts at a very progressive place promising growth, opportunity, camaraderie, and enjoyment ! What a concept! A 9-5 that is a fun place to work…until it is not.

The economy shifted, the balance of power shifted, and with it came a truckload of stress. And then my body started to react. Everything I put up with at work I swallowed whole and my body was not happy. My stomach hurt. My teeth hurt. I had bags and circles under my eyes. Acupuncture helped but…without changing the situation that was causing the bodily ailments, the discomfort continued. I eat organics, take vitamins, practice Reiki, do Pilates and shun medications but my poor little body was bombarded with negativity and couldn’t process it. No wonder so many Americans succumb to the myriad of medications promoted so heavily in the media. And no wonder they are so overweight. They drown their misery in chemically laden, over processed factory food, which compounds the stress imbalance of 9-5.

I ask you – can  you simplify your life? Slow down? Reconnect to your values?

I did. I left my job to rediscover my true self, so I could reinvent my future. The first week I was home I found myself caught in the habit of rushing. I forgot how to do anything at a leisurely pace. I had to retrain myself to enjoy the process of whatever it was I was doing and to be grateful for everything. Everything is a gift! Then I began to engage in things that bring me pleasure: cooking delicious food, sharing a meal with family and friends, decorating for the holidays, baking cookies, gardening, long walks with my dog. Best of all, after weeks of reconnecting to my soul, I reconnected to my inner artist and got back into my studio. I am a weaver. I need to weave, to create with fabric, yarn and threads. It keeps me grounded, balanced, connected to a higher power and appreciative of my talents as god-given gifts. I go in my studio and create something every day and ask myself – “why am I making this?” And the answer is always “because I can!” Sometimes “because I can” is enough. Who else do I know who is doing what I do? No one. I’m it. And that makes me feel good. I’m it. I’m here to share my talents – gifts from the universe, given to me, to create things that can be given to others, to bring joy. If I can’t bring joy into this world then what am I here for? Certainly not the 9-5 grind. Did that bring me joy? At first I thought it did and I learned a lot (rationalizations here) but I did it bring joy? No. It did not. Did I sell my soul to the 9-5?

So now I have been home for three months. My body has normalized. I have slowed down. I give thanks every day for all that I have. I am using Ana’s coaching/visualization techniques to reinvent myself, to create my future. I am more focused on doing Reiki and meditating. With no expectations. I give back to society. I create. Coincidences keep occurring. And opportunities are presenting. I must be doing something right!

Thanks, Ana, for your friendship and your moral support and for your excellence in coaching me to my new reality.

Namaste,

Pamela

I am currently working with a good friend of mine who is a wonderful teacher in Israel.  We are going over the Mussar, which is a thousand-year-old Jewish tradition that offers an insightful perspective on life.  It is also a discipline for personal change.  As exciting as this learning is, Mussar is much more than something to learn.  It is mainly something to do.  This tradition bears a  remarkable resemblance to coaching.  Once you study Mussar and receives the insights, you must act on them.  Coaching is also based on action; we need to design our steps and start acting on them in order to move forward.

The author of one of the major work of this thousand-year-old tradition, Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzato, writes on the introduction of his book Path of the Just, the following: ” I have written this work not to teach people what they do not know, but rather to remind them of what they already know and clearly understand.  For within most of my words you will find general rules that most people know with certainty.  However, to the degree that these rules are well-known and their truth self-evident, they are routinely overlooked, or people forget about them altogether.”

Just like coaching, this tradition believes that we have clarity inside ourselves.  We know what our mission is and what our call is.  We know what we are supposed to be doing during this lifetime.  The main point is to get in touch with our true nature and be reminded of who we are and why we are on this earth at this time.

I am now working on the trait of Humility, which is the one that opens the gates for all the other traits that follow.  Humility teaches us to occupy our own space in the world - not more, not less.  It is about being who you are and doing what you are supposed to be doing in this world.   

As a path of spiritual self-development, Mussar involves working on yourself.  But, it is important to stress that this is not for the sake of yourself.  Just like coaching, there is a bigger picture involved in this process.  By refining and elevating your inner life, you clarify your inner light and thus become a lamp shedding light into the world.  Just like coaching, Mussar also understands that developing oneself also implies developing his/her family, community and ultimately, the world.  The main purpose of both disciplines, Coaching and Mussar, is not so that you will gratify all your desires, but so that you will become  the master of your desires, in order that you can fulfill your potential, which is spiritual above all else.

With energy,

Ana