BLOG; Thoughts on the business of life and work

Finding your way

1/12/2019

A year ago today, (January 12, 2018), I had back surgery at The Montreal Neurological Institute. Six weeks post-surgery, in hopes to getting back to 'normal', I began physiotherapy and was committed to a daily exercise regimen. Without much warning, eight weeks into my recovery, I badly tore my meniscus and hamstring. These injuries set me back and 'normal' seemed unreachable.

While in the thick of a personal or professional crisis, a major upheaval or any disruptive life event, most of us temporarily lose our sense of normalcy and the feeling that our life has order, predictability and is under our control. It can be wickedly stressful to lose what you had or what was normal to you.

I don't want to minimize the challenges posed by any crisis, but there are a few shortcuts to regaining your bearings. First of all, reestablish or modify routines and habits that served you well in the past. Let go of the struggle to recover what was lost and focus on creating something new. Revisit and readjust your priorities. Set new goals. Ask how others have triumphed over adversity and dealt with hard knocks. Pay attention to how you think about things and the attitudes and beliefs you carry. How can a change in your thinking change your attitude and bring more peace and acceptance? Finding your normal requires persistence, focus, a whole lot of love and support, and good fortune to move from coping to thriving.

If you want to make changes to your normal, you don't need a crisis or life altering event to renew yourself.

Interestingly, no adverse life event interferes with my morning coffee routine. Some things never change.

Renewably yours,
Coach Minda

p.s An earlier blog, Cultivation of hope is the back story to my surgery. I wrote it to support those suffering from pain and to offer insight to those who see loved ones in some form of decline and suffering.

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What my coaching can do for you

5/19/2018

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Well coached greenery. Coming to life.

A new client remarked that he never considered working with a coach until a friend told him of his success working with one. I have the impression it might not occur to people that coaching is an option when you are looking for guidance and support or, even the development of a specific skill, like time management. I thought it would be a good idea to write a piece about what my coaching can do for you.

To avoid hounding you with a sales pitch, I thought instead to tell you a bit about the circumstances under which I chose to become a coach and about my approach to coaching. I think this will help to highlight what my coaching can do for you.
Of course, if you want to know what clients are saying about me, click here.

When considering a career as a coach six years ago, my three children were on the brink of moving out and on, I was exhausted and grief- stricken from an intense year taking care of my dying parents and my 20-year consulting career, as an instructional designer, trainer, facilitator and project manager was over. I was done.

No longer defined by my roles of daughter, hands-on mother and consultant and borne out of my desire for something new as well as my ambition to help and support people going through difficult times, I embarked on a certification program to become a coach.

My consulting work had exposed me to different work cultures, people and industries (e.g., pharmaceutical, telecommunication, railway, human rights education and health care research) where I had to quickly learn about the nature of the business, the service or product being sold and their markets and customers.

As an instructional designer, my work focused on developing large-scale training programs to address performance problems. This brought me into contact with subject-matter experts giving me a close-up view of specific business problems and challenges an organization faced.

As a project manager, I worked with busy health care professionals (e.g. oncology pharmacists, oncologists and urologists) – often the best in their fields. I was most concerned with producing high quality programs and running projects smoothly: on-time and on-budget For details about my Career History, click here.

No matter how sound the training I developed or how good an instructor I was or how keen the audience might have been, I never knew in what ways people benefited from all the effort invested in their training. Once people went back to the office, did they integrate or apply what they learned to their jobs? Did anything stick? I found that people lacked support, coaching, feedback, opportunities to practice what they had learned or the chance to ask questions they might not feel comfortable discussing in a training environment.

The transition from training to coaching was natural for me. I believe we are all capable of change at any stage of life. And any change, no matter how small, has the potential for significant impact on your life.

At the heart of my approach, is a deep concern for giving people what I think they need – personal follow-up and attention to integrate and apply workable and practical solutions to their everyday and even existential problems. And, lots of chances to get it right! Change takes time.

I try to use a light-hearted, humorous, open-minded and no-nonsense approach to guide, support and help people regain their confidence, change perspective on a situation or difficult relationship, see an optimistic future, carve out a way of life that is more appealing than the status quo and learn new habits (e.g. regular exercise, better sleep routines or lose weight), new practices (e.g, relaxation exercises or meditation) or skills (e.g. time management and stress management) that can be applied to daily life.

If I were to nutshell it, I would say my coaching can help you find more zest, hope, energy and more meaning, balance and satisfaction in your work and life.

Try it, you'll like it!
Coach Minda
coachmindamiloff@gmail.com
514-791-4506

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Open your heart

12/10/2017

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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

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"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.

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Coach Minda

Building and sustaining relationships is central to my life. It is important to see people and things as they really are. I enjoy lots of different people and enjoy free and open discussions. I thrive on helping people resolve problems, turn around difficult relationships and see an optimistic future when others are stuck.

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New Year Resolutions 2017

This video project below captures testimonies from mentors who participated in Concordia University activities for graduates. When filming, each mentor shared notable experiences in their professional journey and offered best practices that have defined their professional success.

Finding your way

What my coaching can do for you

Open your heart

The Cultivation of Hope

Coach Minda

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