We went to sleep late at night in our room at the guesthouse in Thailand. The street was full of tourists and we wondered how on Earth we were going to wake up at 4:30am to prepare for our flight back home. We could set our hand watches, but I knew that my internal clock would do the job. I only needed to look at my watch before I closed my eyes, see the time and tell myself to wake up on time.
Read Who Needs Technology Anyway? »
Martin (not his real name) came with his mom to an assessment with me. He stood at my door, the cutest redheaded 5-year-old, with a cheeky smile. He looked down, but whenever he lifted his head, I could see that his eyes were smiling.
We sat at the table and I gave him a matching game and what do you know, I met another MacGyver, but this one was the first and unique in his kind – MacGyver Pro.
One day, I got a phone call from a mother, who was interested in our child coaching. I talked to her for a while to get a good understanding of her situation. During this conversation, we talked about things that were application to many parent-child situations, which I have since repeated with many parents, so here it is for everyone’s benefit.
Margaret: I have a problem with my teenage son, Jeff. He is 13 years old and I have completely lost control of him.
Gal: How do you mean?
Read Talk to the Heart »
One of the hardest things to measure is change. Whenever we are not happy with something in our life, we want to change it. But then, sometimes for years, we look in the mirror and we can’t notice the changes we go through. Only while looking at photos from last year do we notice the changes. We are different, but we feel the same.
Have you ever looked at photos of people from your high school reunion and through “They look the same, but somehow different”?
Gal (my husband) and I looked at some photos of our high school reunion (which we have missed – poor us!). Some of our friends had glasses, some were bold, some “grew sideways”, some looked older and we realized that we must look the same to them, the same but different.
Read Snapshots: Tracking Changes »
In the past few months, I have been observing our little daughter Noff (“Dad, I’m not little, I’m nearly 7”) attempting handstands and cartwheels. When Noff develops a skill, it is a fascinating lesson in focus and determination.
About a year ago, she went through the same process until she mastered hula hoops and became the center of attention at various outings. Sometime after that, she discovered our digital camera and gradually learned how to take excellent photos and produce interesting video clips, some of which show mainly her…
It is amazing how many people struggle with life. Life has become so hectic and difficult for most people that many can only focus on what is going to happen today, tomorrow, next month and maybe, only maybe, next year.
I think if we were to scan people’s brains, we would find that their brains are busy, busy, busy, thinking about things like the dishes, the bills, the alarm clock and shopping, with only small breaks for planning for something like next month’s birthday party. People like this are in survival mode.
When I ask people about their plans for next month or next year, or even what they think is going to happen in ten years, they look at me as if I have fallen from the sky. They say things like, “Ronit, you are nuts. There are so many things we need to sort out now that we do not have time to think about next year,” and so life passes by and is taken over by things like, the council rates, lunch boxes and stress.
Read The Business Called "Life" »
My mother always said, “When you marry a person, you also marry their family”, and she was right. Lots of people have tense relationships with their in-laws, and many stories have been told about the mother-in-law.
My client Meg came today very emotional and sad. She had been successfully working on her relationship with her husband for over 3 months but doubts had crept in after a serious argument.
Meg has been with her husband for over 10 years. When he started talking about having kids, she started talking about divorcing.
“I do not know if we love each other anymore. We don’t have fun together, the sex is not what it used to be”, she thought and came to me for coaching to make the decision about staying or leaving.
This week, I went to my young daughter’s school with a group of other mothers to celebrate the teacher’s wedding. On the card from all the families in the class, I wrote “Happy wedding day”, but I did not think it was the right blessing.
You see, my wedding day was not a happy day at all (too much family politics), but it did not change the fact that Gal and I have been together for over 27 years and are still very much in love. In my head, a happy wedding day is no guarantee for a happy marriage and I am sad for it. I would certainly like it to be a sign for the years to come, but it is not.
Relationships require work. Having a loving relationship requires the couple to fall in love with each other again every day! Anniversaries are celebrations of this love, only without the big crowd. It is amazing that the world marriage statistics show that only rare couples reach their 30th wedding anniversary. I think it is about time we changed this (and I suggest we start right away).
Read Weddings, Love and Marriage »
For people to think highly of themselves, they need to be aware of every aspect of the self and identify their own personal scale to measure their performance. Most people are so used to defining themselves based on others around them that I can understand why this is not an easy task. Easy it may not be, but it is possible and, I believe, essential.
Last week, in Service Your Self-Esteem, we talked about essential rules to increase self-esteem. To increase our self-esteem, we need to look at ourselves carefully and examine each part of what creates the self.
Last week, we met Eli, my mechanic, and talked about his checklist for car maintenance, the one he uses before returning each car to its owner. Well, here (at last) is a self-esteem checklist – your very own list of the parts of your self-esteem.
Read Your Self-Esteem Checklist »
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