empowerment Tag - Page 2 of 6

Assertiveness: Keeping Things Private

In order for us to be assertive, we need to create clear boundaries between us and other people. In the previous post about assertiveness, I explained that assertiveness is the ability to express our needs and desires without hurting others and that this skill is important, yet nobody learns it at school. In this post, I will describe the things we do (and should not do) that sacrifice our own best interest and let other people into our personal space.

In order to be assertive, we must understand that everyone is entitled to his or her own thoughts, beliefs and actions. At the same time, we do not have to accept them as applicable to us. We should always stick to the things that are important to us and take care of ourselves first.

This post is part 2 of 6 in the series Assetiveness

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Assertiveness: It is better to be Wise than to be Right

What a shame! Assertiveness is not something we learn at school, so if you cannot learn it from your parents, because they never learned it from their own parents, then you can be easily manipulated and pushed over.

Everybody hates being pushed over. I see it as a natural part of life. We all do everything we can to improve our position, and if others are in our way, we push them aside. Sometimes, well, most times, we hurt people along the way without any bad intentions. Assertiveness can help us do better in life without hurting anyone.

Many of my clients mainly need assertiveness. When we do not have it and we cannot express our needs and assert our rights, we resort to either avoidance or aggression. It is the old “fight and flight” response. We see a lion or a snake and we either run away or attack. So when I see aggression or avoidance, I know that assertiveness is needed.

This post is part 1 of 6 in the series Assetiveness

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The Expectations Paradox: Mindfulness is the Cure

In the last two posts about the expectations paradox, I explained how expectations from others and ourselves can cause us lots of pain and why respect and acceptance are the keys to overcoming them. It is much better to be prepared for the future than to try to control a specific outcome. Today, I will describe how to develop respect and acceptance with mindfulness.

Mindfulness is a state of reflection with no judgment. This state is similar to mediation. We observe and do not let the ego interfere with our observation and tempt us to label and judge what we experience. In a mindfulness state, we do not give a rating to the event, thought or feeling. We only name it. In a higher state of mindfulness, even naming it is not necessary. We just notice.

I remember the first time I mediated. Gal and I were in California at a meditation course. Every week, we learned a different kind of meditation. We did walking, eating, light, mantra and visualizing meditations and we were very confused. Millions of thoughts ran through our minds and we had no control over them. When we got home, we went to sleep and felt overwhelmed.

This post is part 3 of 3 in the series The Expectations Paradox

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The Expectations Paradox: Self-inflicted Pain

In the last post about the paradox of expectations, I explained how unmet expectations can bring lots of misery to life when we do not understand them properly. Today, I will explore additional aspects of expectations and what happens to us when our expectations are not met.

Many people think that expectations are part of their identity. They expect so much of themselves that they believe this gives them the “right” to expect the same from others. I am sure that if you examine the definition of arrogance (“having or revealing an exaggerated sense of one’s own importance or abilities”), you will see someone who expects a lot from themselves and from others as arrogant. Thinking highly of yourself is great, but expecting others to fulfill your expectations is not!

Most people care a lot about what others think about them. They are in the approval trap and have the disease to please. It is very hard to be assertive and to take care of your own interests when you are busy pleasing others. It may be easier when you are young, but it becomes more complicated during the teenage years, when you realize that that some of the expectations of those around you contradict others.

More people find the pain we experience from unmet expectations unbearable. They think that life is hard when things do not happen the way they expect them to. But this is only because they believe life is supposed to work as they expect.

This post is part 2 of 3 in the series The Expectations Paradox

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Mindfulness Questions to Change Your Life for the Better

Questions are very important on our way to mindfulness. The ancient Greek philosopher Socrates thought that questions could lead us to many discoveries. One of the most important discoveries is that questions can reveal to us what we think and lead us to a better life. The formula is simple. When we ask good questions, we get good answers that can help us grow and evolve to a better version of ourselves.

As a life coach, I use questions a lot. I know that some questions I ask (myself or others) will lead to pain and others will empower. Questions can trigger responses like “let’s move on”, “let’s do something”, “let’s think positively”, “let’s plan”, “let’s change perspective” and “let’s appreciate”, like pressing a button.

Every thought we have also triggers a feeling, so by “pressing the button” for that thought, we can create that feeling. For example, the “good memory” button will make us happy and “bad memory” button will bring us pain and suffering.

We may not have more bad memories than good memories, but if we press the “bad memory” button more often, we will have more suffering.

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The Expectations Paradox: Danger Ahead

From the minute I woke up, at the age of 16, and took control of my life, I had a good understanding of the power of expectations. At least this is what I thought for a long time. I thought that I switched from having low expectation to high expectations and believed that high expectations were the key to success in life.

I still think so, although I believe that it is important to distinguish between expectations from ourselves and expectations from others. Even more important is what we do when our expectations are not fulfilled.

Expectations can be a blessing or a curse and we can always determine what they were after the event. Subconsciously, when we succeed, we tend to consider our expectations as blessings, as a ladder that led us to victory. When we fail, we consider them false, frustrating and painful. In victories, we reward ourselves for having “motivating expectations”. In failures, we blame circumstances and/or people, and sometimes, we blame ourselves.

Expectations are a double-edged sword if we do not define them properly.

This post is part 1 of 3 in the series The Expectations Paradox

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Questions to Practice Mindfulness and Change Your Life for the Better

Questions are very important on our way to mindfulness. The Greek philosopher Socrates thought that questions could lead us to many discoveries. One of the most important discoveries is the way we think and function. When we ask the right questions, we get good answers that help us grow and evolve to a better version of ourselves.

As a life coach, I master questions. I know that some questions I ask (myself or others) will lead to pain and others will empower people, like press buttons for “let’s move on”, “let’s do something”, “let’s think positively”, “let’s plan”, “let’s change perspective” and “let’s appreciate”.

There are many “buttons” in the brain that trigger a thought or a feeling. For example, the “good memory” button will make us happy and the “bad memory” button will bring us pain and suffering. We may not have more bad memories than good memories, but we will have more suffering if we hit bad memory buttons more often.

Questions can trigger happiness, empowerment, hope, anger, frustration or anxiety. When we ask, “Why do they hate me?” we trigger all memories supporting it. If we ask, “How can I make them love me?” our brain searches for memories of things we’ve done that have led to others showing us love.

Think of questions as instructions we give the brain to go and search for something. Like a dog – you throw it a toy or a boomerang and whatever you throw comes back (only the brain doesn’t bring it back wet).

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From the Life Coaching Deck: The Want Muscle

Magda came to see me after 16 years of heartache and pain. She was referred by a client of mine. She had seen psychologists and psychiatrists before, but felt very criticized and had never gone for a second session with any of them.

When I finally got to meet her, I was a bit surprised. She was in her early fifties and looked amazing – almost like a doll. She was tiny and very well presented with beautiful skin.

Yet, during the first 10 minutes of introductions, she managed to say only bad things about herself. The gist of them was that she was not good enough, unworthy and helpless. She said 27 bad things about herself in those 10 minutes. I counted!

This made me very curious about her because at that point we had just met and I knew nothing about her.

Coaching is very much like solving a puzzle. I tried to gather information that would allow me to help Magda in a way that the other therapist could not. As it turns out, Magda was an only child, born to very old parents. Her dad died when she was very young and her mom never had another man in her life.

This post is part 10 of 17 in the series From the Life Coaching Deck

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Parenting 101: Top Parenting Essentials

After coaching so many parents, and raising my own kids, I have accumulated many essential parenting tips that I want to share with you. I hope you find them useful.

Take care of your happiness first. Just like they tell you on a plane, you should put the oxygen mask on your own face before helping your kids. If you want to raise happy kids, you must take care of your own happiness first. If you do not have oxygen, you are no good to your kids. Happy Parents Raise Happy Kids.

Be positive. It is very easy to notice what your kids are doing wrong but harder to pay attention to the great things they are doing. Parents tend to take the good things for granted. In life, you get what you focus on and parenting is exactly the same. If you focus on good thing, you will have more of them. If you focus on problems, conflicts, difficulties, bad manners, you will have more of them. If you notice your child doing something good, say it! Praise kids for being kind, congratulate them for making an effort, acknowledge their kindness and you will see more of it.

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Goal Setting and Long Life

I was officially introduced to goal setting for the first time in my life when I was 18. I was doing a course at university, and goal setting was a very small component in it. I never realized how significantly it would impact the rest of my life.

Research published in Psychological Science says that setting goals, at any age, can add years to your life. I like to think of it in the opposite way as well: goals add life to your years. The study followed 6,000 people aged 20 to 75 for 14 years. The researchers where looking at three components:

1. If participants were goal oriented
2. If participants had more positive or negative relationships
3. If participants had more positive or negative feelings

Throughout the study, 569 participants died (about 9%). The researchers found that those who still lived had more goals and better relationships than those who died. The most surprising thing about the study was that it found that this was true for young participants as much as the elderly. Having goals led to better outcomes. Goals were an advantage for people who worked as well as for those who were retired. So goals get added to the formula for long life.

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