Personal Development, Self Growth Tag

Posts tagged 'personal development / personal growth / personality development / self improvement'

From Sickness to Health: Doctors are Not Gods

In previous posts, I shared with you how my mom, who is 78 years old, was sick, depressed and in pain and how we, her children, tried to help her in different ways. One of my mom’s biggest challenges was her attitude towards doctors, especially her GP (General Practitioner or Family Doctor).

My mom was addicted to her GP. This man has been her doctor for over 20 years. When she went to see him, she did not leave his clinic until he prescribed something for her or sent her to a specialist. When she saw a new drug on TV, she went to him and asked for it. The problem was not that she asked. The problem was that he often gave it to her!

At one stage, we asked my dad to go with my mom to the doctor and read to us what was written on her medication labels. Half of them had side effects that included kidney, liver, heart, joint, muscle and/or brain damage, and even death. We asked my dad to read her the labels, but she said that if her doctor prescribed it, it was good for her.

This post is part 3 of 3 in the series From Sickness to Health

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From Sickness to Health: Working Together on a Shared Goal

Last week, I shared with you how the stories my mother told herself brought pain into their life. My mother was in constant pain and was on loads of medications and pain killers and nothing really helped. She was depressed and often talked about dying. Even the joy of having 5 new grandchildren in the last 8 years didn’t help her, and my mom loves babies very much.

Today, I would like to tell you how my siblings and I gathered and made choices to change my mom’s life and heal her.

It started a year before my parents came to visit. My dad seemed very frustrated. Even the doctors said my mother needed mental help. One day, my siblings and I created a WhatsApp group and considered different ways to approach the problem.

This post is part 2 of 3 in the series From Sickness to Health

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From Sickness to Health: The Story of Our Life

I am in the business of helping people find the joy in life and have been doing this for 33 years. Over the years, I have helped many people and saved many families from pain and heartache. I am very happy and proud to be a life coach and view my clients’ successes as also mine.

My greatest victory happened recently, when my mother, who is 78 years old, came to Australia to stay with us for five weeks. She came here to heal. My mom was unwell most of her life. Since I remember her, she was overweight, had swollen legs and could not stand on her feet for long. In the last 13 years, things got so bad that one of her therapists said that the only place she was going was the cemetery.

This post is part 1 of 3 in the series From Sickness to Health

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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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You Can Change Your Life

Change is not easy and you can recognize the points that have changed your course in life only in hindsight. We call these points “quantum moments”. I have had many quantum moments in life and the ones that have steered me in the right direction included reading books, meeting inspiring people and attending empowering events. I contemplated each of them until I got to some realization that later became part of my being.

My biggest change in life was when I was 15 years old. I remember how before it, I dreamed every day of waking up to a different life. I said, “I wish…” and had millions of wishes. I hoped to be the Genie of the Lamp, but every morning realized I was not. I built up hopes and got up in the morning to realize they were just illusions that I had no power to fulfill.

You see, it is one thing to want and another thing to make it happen.

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Make a List: 100 Ways to Be Kind to Myself

Last week, I wrote about self-kindness and how to write a list of “100 ways to be kind to myself”. Kindness spreads like a ripple, so it must start from within us. I hope that by now, you have a basic list, but if you do not, please stop reading, make your own list and only then continue to read my list below.

Why?

The process of making up the list sends a message to your subconscious that you are important. However, if you copy someone else’s list, this does not happen.

Here is a list of things you can do to be kind to yourself. Only take those that suit your personality and adjust them to your preferences and to what makes you happy.

This post is part 41 of 41 in the series Make a List

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Make a List: Self-Kindness

I have written a lot about kindness. I think that it makes the world go around and I like to think about it as a ripple. One act of kindness ripples and touches the lives of those who are far away from us.

The movie Pay it Forward showed the power of kindness in making the world a better place. I remember at the age of 16, I was a school captain and we had a teacher, named Reuben, who helped us a lot to change the lives of the students in our school. One day, a girl in the group asked him why he was dedicating so much time to us. He said, “If I make a difference in the lives of six of you, and each of you makes a difference in the lives of six other people, eventually, this world will be a better place”. I was 16 years old and this gave me a perfect understanding of the ripple effect of kindness.

For the last 32 years, I have been teaching emotional intelligence and kindness. used to be the part in EQ that we relate to others. In the last 10 years, it has changed for me as I became the state director of a not-for-profit organization, called “Together for Humanity”, which delivers diversity education.

Why?

This post is part 40 of 41 in the series Make a List

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Blessings for You

I think of myself as very fortunate, because I have found a profession that is a purpose and does not feel like work at all. I discovered my purpose 32 years ago when I started my Special Education studies. Serving humanity is very fulfilling and it is great to help people find their own purpose in life.

On my bookshelf, there is a beautiful blackboard that says, “To teach is to touch a life forever”. I have given cards with this quote to many of my students over the years. Touching people, helping them open their eyes to the endless possibilities and empowering them to take charge is a great joy and has become my mission.

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No More Disappointment: The Biggest Loser Leads the Dance

Many forms of therapy try to help the client overcome pain. One big source of pain starts during childhood, when kids, with their lack of life experience, feel that they are a disappointment to their parents. Here is the story of Simon, who believed he was the biggest loser in his parent’s eyes.

Simon was an angry and frustrated teenager when he came to sit with me on my life coaching deck. I read what he and his parents had written to me and felt frustrated to see how yet another whole family was a victim of circumstances. Parents’ love can be overwhelming sometimes and being unaware of feelings and lacking the ability to manage them sabotages the relationships at home.

Parents need courage to realize that they are the most powerful in this dysfunctional dynamic, but most of them feel helpless and send their kids to be “fixed”. A relationship with a child is a dance. Some parents do not understand that they need to lead.

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

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How to Develop Kids’ Thinking: Ask the Right Questions

Parents often ask me how to develop kids’ thinking, so that they grow up to be successful and happy. My answer is: ask the right questions.

Beliefs form the boundaries around our thinking. They separate between what we think we can and cannot do. What we believe we can do is within the boundaries of our thinking. We call these “empowering beliefs”. What we think we cannot do is outside the boundaries of our thinking. We call these “limiting beliefs”.

We are all limited in the way we think. Why? Because we do not know what we do not know. Think of the brain as a map we design from the moment we are born. We are exposed to many things and form beliefs that we use to navigate life.

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