We Are What We Think: My Rice Experiment

33 years ago, when I studied special education, I learned that our thoughts manifest themselves into our life. I had amazing teachers and mentors. One of them, who was a psychologist, taught me the importance of our emotional hygiene as teachers. He said that what we think of ourselves reflects on the children and the people that work with us.

Scientists have examined the power of what we think for years. Many philosophers and spiritual leaders have covered it extensively. Our life is a reflection of what we think. In most spiritual beliefs, there is much focus on thoughts and intention. As a life coach, I work with my clients on the power of thought and I share with them how powerful thoughts are.

About 20 years ago, Gal and I traveled with the kids to France and went to a train station. On the walls was an exhibition of Dr Masaru Emoto’s water experiments. Emoto exposed water to music, spoken words, written words, videos and pictures. He then froze the water until it crystalized, sliced it and took photos of the ice. What he found was amazing!

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Speak Your Truth for a Strong Relationship

I’ve been in a relationship for 38 years, and I know it’s not always easy to speak your truth. When you bring two people together, they both need to compromise a lot and can’t easily balance the ratio between “give” and “take”.

Just recently, I had the chance to be on my own for 6 weeks when my husband went to drum in Africa. I realized that as partners and parents, we compromise many times, to the point where we might forget who we truly are.

When I say “compromise”, I don’t mean that anyone has any bad intentions. It happens naturally. When you live with other people, you can’t just do what you feel like doing. My son was also in Africa and my youngest daughter, who is 17, spent her time studying and having get-togethers with her friends, so she was not home either most of the time.

During those weeks, I examined 3 of my habits: sleep, eating and fun time. I realized I didn’t follow my natural cycles of sleeping, eating or doing fun things when my family members were around, because, first and foremost, I think of their timetable and their needs, and I juggle everyone else into a plan that would work. Me and my cycles are normally not part of the picture.

Don’t get me wrong. It was my choice. I just realized I had neglected part of myself.

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Success vs. Talent: How I almost made the Olympic team

Some people think that talent is the only thing we need to succeed in life. I thought so too when I was young. I was very talented in gymnastics and I thought that talent was the only thing I needed. It was very hard for me to realize that talent was just a baseline and guaranteed nothing.

I’m all for helping our children find their talent, but finding it, and even pursuing it, is not enough for success. They need something more.

Not long ago, I had the honor of working with two amazing young athletes on the Australian Olympic team. They were both equally talented and had all the physical skills, but one of them had what it takes to succeed, and the other didn’t.

Working with them reminded me of my Olympic team adventure as a child and why talent is not enough for success.

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Contentment and Gratitude: How Green is Your Grass?

I’ve written a lot about happiness and realized that some people just don’t get that happiness is an idea, a thought, an action you choose. On the other hand, unhappiness is the absence of that idea. One of the things that make people miserable is always comparing themselves to others.

I guess the reason we compare is that we learn it from our parents. It is an essential part of life and an important factor in our evolution. We must have a definition of what is right and what is wrong to navigate through life. If green, vibrant, healthy grass is the definition of happiness, then yellow, dull, dying grass is the definition of misery.

So, it’s OK to look at other people’s grass to find better ways to treat ours. But it’s not so good to believe that “The grass is always greener on the other side”.

Do you know why it’s not good? Because it’s not true.

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Self-Regulation in Your Marriage

Bride and groom holding their hands in heart shape

Marriage is a give-and-take relationship. It succeeds when two people balance their own desires with those of their partner. If you have been married for a while, you know that this balancing act is not easy. It’s not easy because it requires regulation of thoughts, feelings and behaviors, and when this self-regulation takes too much energy, the person collapses and so does the relationship.

Regulation is a science. To understand why people reach this point of “no more” and consider separation or divorce, you need to know how to prevent yourself and your partner from reaching break point and how to separate external and internal regulation (self-regulation).

Regulation is the ability to control thoughts, feelings and behavior, instead of doing things on impulse. The more we practice, the stronger it gets, like a muscle. Once it is strong enough, it’s much easier to resist temptation and function according to a plan, rather than going with whatever comes our way or whoever applies more pressure. Just think of a baby that needs to hold his pee until he gets to the toilet. He needs to regulate his impulse to pee in his pants (or diaper).

Here are three research conclusions about self-regulations.

This post is part 1 of 33 in the series Save Your Marriage

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Choice Theory Can Save Your Marriage

Relationships are very sensitive. Bringing two people together creates lots of fun and joy, but at the same time, it creates conflict and pain. According to Choice Theory, we can develop habits that create more fun and joy and less conflict and pain.

Dr. William Glasser is an American psychiatrist I highly appreciate. He developed Reality Theory, which later became known as Choice Theory.

In the seventies, Glasser’s work was not widely accepted by his colleagues. While others thought that human behavior was affected by external sources, Glasser believed in personal choice, personal responsibility and personal transformation.

Other psychiatrists categorized certain behaviors as mental disorders and prescribed medication accordingly. Glasser believed he could teach his patients to make better choices to achieve better results.

He applied his theories to education, management and marriage. The examples I give in this post are relevant to marriage.

This post is part 32 of 33 in the series Save Your Marriage

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Turn Your Unhappiness into Personal Growth

I often discuss happiness with my clients. They find it very awkward when I tell them it is possible to find happiness everywhere, including times of unhappiness.

Most people try to avoid unhappiness like the plague. They divide life into happy and unhappy and think they should move towards happy and avoid unhappy. This is good if you think of it as a process and direction, but not if you think of it as something that shrinks you. You see, we can grow from happiness and we can grow from unhappiness.

Trent was a 28-year-old man who worked at a petrol station. He was healthy, made good money, could pick shifts if he wanted to do something in the evening, had time for computer games and had some good friends.

On the surface, you’d think Trent had a very good life, but he didn’t. His friends were all professionals with university degrees, and he still didn’t know what he wanted to do in his life. He told me he’d never known what he wanted to do in his life.

One day, Trent had a weekend away with his friends, and although the time spent together was fantastic, Trent came back very unhappy. This was when he looked for a life coach and found me.

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Make a List: 100 Reasons to Be Wealthy

Home, stacks of coins and a clock - that's how wealth is built

Everyone wants to be wealthy. We want it for our children and for ourselves. The problem with being wealthy is that if you are not born to wealth and know exactly what it means, you don’t know how to get there.

The Internet contains millions of websites, blogs, podcasts and videos of people who promise you that if you do what they’ve done, you will become wealthy. If they were so successful, everyone who visited their site would be wealthy by now. Sadly, the transition from not being wealthy to being wealthy is filled with obstacles.

To me, wealth is a sense of security. Real richness is mostly about things that you have and no one can take away from you. We can be rich in memories, rich in experiences, rich in love and rich in friendships, not just possessions.

This post is part 44 of 48 in the series Make a List

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Pursuing Parenthood: This is Your Chance!

On my living room wall, there is a picture of a woman with peacock feathers for hair. I drew it six years ago and called it “Mother”. I wanted my children to see it every day so they can see how much I love them and how proud I am being their mother.

Last week, when my youngest daughter and my son performed together, I asked them at the end of the show if they were able to see my feathers. They knew what I meant.

Over the years, working to help my clients work on their emotions, I came up with a new form of therapy. I call it “Pride Therapy”. I believe it is the cheapest, healthiest, fastest and most effective form of self-therapy. You work on your emotions, become a happy parent, raise happy kids and boost your happiness by being very proud of whatever your kids achieve.

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Resilient Teens: Bend or Break!

Teenage girl in devil costume peeking shyly behind a post

“Teens today have an easy life” is a very common phrase. I tend to think that grownups say it because they have forgotten what it means to be a teenager. They say that teens need more discipline, more structure, more rules, more determination and more motivation. I say they need to be more resilient, because teens today have it tough and need to be able to bounce back quickly and very often. They need to bend, so they do not break.

It is easy to look at your own teenage years in retrospect, with the “creative dementia” that comes with age, and say that they were fun. People forget. We are programmed to forget the tough things in order to survive, but expecting our kids to perform where we have failed ourselves is a double standard. The reason I have not forgotten my teenage experiences was that I have been working with so many teens since then. Even if I would have forgotten naturally, they have reminded me that this period brings with it many challenges. The physical-hormonal part of adolescence is a myth that grownups have created to help them forget that the social-emotional side is where they failed.

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