BLOG; Thoughts on the business of life and work

Open your heart

12/10/2017

We have all heard the expression or used the expression you need to "learn how to love yourself", as a response to someone who is overly critical of themselves, lacks in self-care practices, doesn't set healthy boundaries, suffers from low self-esteem or is unhappy about their life. It is a catch all phrase to mean: Make some changes or your life is going to go south fast.

This expression has never agreed with me.

I believe we must counterbalance our critical side with more self-compassion and kindness. I prefer expressions that imply strengthening our capacity to accept, respect and appreciate oneself. Loving oneself is a directive intended to bring this about, but as a saying, I reserve it for clients who really deserve a night out away from their kids or maybe permission to splurge a bit. It does not inspire or provoke (in me) any action to rise up and overcome a challenge, make peace with oneself or counter any self-criticism.

Self-love, self-acceptance, self-respect or self-appreciation starts with learning:

Not to identify and believe every thought your mind generates
Not to take your thoughts too seriously
To embrace all of you - the good, the bad and the ugly
To cut yourself some slack (unless you are already slacking off)

I can help you with the rest.

In kindness and compassion,
Coach Minda

I am a work-life coach. I coach people who want to improve their professional and personal lives. I will help you find more zest, hope and energy and more meaning, balance and satisfaction in your work and life.

Click CONTACT to set up your first coaching session.

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The Cultivation of Hope

10/14/2017

14 Comments

"Meaninglessness inhibits the fullness of life and is therefore equivalent to illness. Meaning makes a great many things endurable - perhaps everything." C.G Jung Memories, Dreams, Reflections

No shame in pain
If you have experienced chronic pain or known someone who has, you will know how obsessing and fixating on pain leaves little room for much else.When you are unwell over any length of time, activities and interests that once grabbed you, slowly retreat and shrink.

Ambivalence about the meaning of your own life and feelings of uselessness intensify alongside your growing dependency on others. Fear raises questions: how much more can I take? when will this pain go away? what will I do if it doesn’t? And fear slides into terror sometimes.

I have fortunately never known depression but I have had my first taste recently, provoked by months of unrelenting pain and a lack of freedom to move as I wish. I have been surprised by the depth of my own hopelessness.
And I am the hopeful and optimistic type.

When the pain first got hold of me, I took over an empty room in the house. With a lot of positivity, I stretched, used ice and heat, meditated, did self-massage and dedicated myself to glute strengthening and core exercises as suggested by my athletic therapist. I only got stronger. No relief.

So I broadened my search for hope and help– acupuncture, chiropractic, massage, osteopathy, manual therapy and the use of vitamin supplements - anything, that will take the pain away.

My chiropractor felt confident that after 12 sessions of spinal decompression, I would feel a lot better. Conceptually I saw the potential, but it had zero effect.
Multiple osteopathic treatments made no difference to my pain but I really like anatomical charts and models of the spine.
The acupuncturist said my chi was great. I told him I have never been in better health, except for gnawing pain.
The neurologist completed his test of running volts of electricity through my legs and said no nerve damage. Nerves were firing perfectly. Easily a form of torture if you slightly increase voltage and duration.
The manual therapist did a two-hour deep tissue massage - beyond painful. He was the only one not afraid to give me direct orders: stop dancing, biking, taking hot baths and eating spicy food (for a month) and no coffee and no sex (for a few days). Four times a day, I am to use tiger balm and hydrogen peroxide, do tai chi and meditate. I am giving him a few more tries.
Although I barely watch TV, spending so much time indoors has driven me to buy a Netflix plan. Once I got a taste of Breaking Bad, Ozark and Last Tango in Halifax, I was hooked. I watched reruns of America’s Got Talent, Britain’s Got Talent and The Voice. I cried all over the talent. That’s what pain will do to you!
I stopped reading horribly depressing forums on chronic pain and pain meds. I feel sick about the number of people suffering unimaginable pain. It puts mine in perspective.
I researched side effects of drugs that the orthopedic doc, the anesthesiologist, internist and rheumatologist prescribed. Too scary for now.

Needless to say, months and months of exercise and massage, together with manual, osteopathic, chiropractic, and athletic therapies, including, of course, physiotherapy, acupuncture and spinal decompression treatments have been unsuccessful. I have been fortunate to deal with good professionals; unfortunately no relief yet.

Same goes for two nerve blocks – (nerve-numbing injections to block the nerve).

Low tolerance for misery – high need for meaningfulness
When I first started coaching, I offered ‘supportive care coaching’ to help people address the huge impact of chronic illness. In my pre-coaching days, I was a member of a team, involved in a long-term project to develop educational interventions to enhance team-delivered health care, leading to improved patient outcomes for people with chronic illness. The irony. Supportive Care Coach, coach thyself.

I have low tolerance for being miserable and a high need for meaningfulness in my life. If suffering cannot be avoided, then one thing to do is find ways to convert the pain into meaning. This makes life more interesting and reduces the burden of suffering. Here is what do: I elevate my ‘problem’ into an important phenomenon that is worthy of study. I pay attention to how my mind is working in a whole new way. I think about what insights or perspectives I might gain and share. So while I have a low tolerance for being miserable, learning to live with it helps to meet my need for meaningfulness. I guess I can live with the paradox!

A few narratives which can change your relationship to pain

There is no shame in pain
You are not alone: the walking wounded are everywhere
Suffering is inescapable and acceptance is key
Opportunities for growth and new pursuits may be available

Supporting your family and friends during difficult times
I pride myself on caring for people, both in my work and in my personal life. I have taken care of more than a few family members and friends who have been sick, depressed, had cancer, or were dying. I’m also a mother of three, so caring is part of that job.

Long-term, seemingly intractable problems are tiring for everyone. The problem(s) just don’t go away, so family and friends are stuck with being supportive over the long haul. Many of us are preoccupied, stressed and overwhelmed by our own lives and don’t have the wherewithal to be tuning into where someone else is at and what they need. Asking someone how they feel during a ten-day flu is one thing, but asking the same question over months and months, tends to produce the same answer, which bores everyone. But you can’t stop asking either.

People are often at a loss for what to say. Others, as time goes on wonder, “jeez, what’s wrong, you never seem to get better?" or “you don’t look like you are in pain." Or, nothing is said which hurts even more.

The truth is – in many ways a person’s pain, whether emotional, physical or spiritual, is private and unknowable. Each of us, I’m afraid, must become as self-reliant as possible and learn to cope with our own pain and suffering.

But besides the many practical things we can do for ourselves and each other, suffering can be relieved in part by the heart-warming gestures of presence and open heartedness to the real rawness of someone’s pain, without the need to fix or suggest remedies. Offerings of love, touch, hope, and companionship are particularly important, as suffering is a lonely experience.

Always hopeful,
Coach Minda
I am a work-life coach. I coach people who want to improve their professional and personal lives. I will help you find more zest, hope and energy and more meaning, balance and satisfaction in your work and life.

Click CONTACT to set up your first coaching session.

14 Comments

Win or lose?

2/25/2017

5 Comments

At one time or another, we compare or rank ourselves against others. We tend to focus on points of comparison that interest us. We want to know how we measure up: "Hey, I'm not so bad," or "you sure don't measure up to their talent, smarts or looks," or "you better get your ass in gear."

Competitive thoughts can also make us victims of envy, jealousy and inadequacy. Not so good.

Healthy competition or playful rivalry seem to be good things when they motivate us to do better. We can all respect competitive people. They work hard and want to be good at something.

On the competitiveness spectrum there are all kinds of people, who:

Want to dominate, win at all costs and all the time.
Love competition, mostly as an excuse to improve on their own personal best.
Are wannabe competitors - would like to be best or win, but back down because they are not willing to work hard or make the necessary sacrifices.
Are self-deniers when it comes to competition - they pretend not to care and avoid going after what they really want.
Associate the desire to win with an unenlightened, ego-driven, dark impulse that must be repressed.

I entered my first ballroom dance competition a few weeks ago, after three years of lessons and lots of practice. This came after a lifetime of believing that the competitive mindset was not part of my hard-wiring. I finally admitted that I wanted to know if I was any good, and the only way to do that was to be judged against other dancers.

I had to reassure myself over and over, that "there is no sin in wanting to win a competition." I had to train very hard, both technically and psychologically. First, I had to embrace the not-so-comfortable desire to compete and win. And then I had to develop work-around strategies to address the more likely reality that I would not win.

I told myself things like: "It's not about winning... You can't control the outcome, what matters is to do your best... If you don't do well, you will do better next time."

I placed first in all of the 40 dances I entered. The thrill and sense of accomplishment was mind-bending. I was flying.

Then I discovered there were no other dancers in my category. Forty empty first place medals. The sense of disappointment was mind-bending, too. I crashed.

So in my first-ever competition, I experienced the thrill of victory followed by the agony of discovering that my victory was empty.

All I can say is that, while competing against myself, I did quite well for a newbie.

To compete or not to compete, that is the question.
Coach Minda

5 Comments

Is your online job search as productive as it can be?

1/18/2017

1 Comment

The internet is undoubtedly a valuable tool when it comes to your job search — thousands of companies post every day and they are all available at your fingertips.

According to the Pew Research Center, online search has become the most frequently used tool for job seekers.

But even though the postings are there, are the jobs? That’s why the team at Reviews.com spent six weeks consulting with experts and hands-on testing the most popular sites to determine which has fresh, frequent, relevant unique posts, as well as which aggregate posts from other places on the web.

Here are a few takeaways from their research:

1. Consider the ‘metadata’ these sites provide

Rather than seeing each post as a potential job, consider what they suggest: which companies are hiring, what credentials they are looking for, and who you might know that can help you get a foot in the door.

2. It’s important to be proactive, not reactive when it comes to your job search

Seeking out current employees at a company you’re interested in and obtaining a referral may not be as immediate as applying directly to a job through a site, but it could be much more meaningful.

3. Job sites are a tool, not a crutch

A good job site will scrape for new postings regularly, giving you a strong indication of what is available — but don’t expect the site to get the job for you. Networking and putting yourself out there, both online and off, is the best way to make sure you’re getting the productive results.

For the complete study, along with Reviews.com’s top picks for job sites, visit: http://www.reviews.com/job-sites/

Good luck,
Coach Minda

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