by pam | Oct 29, 2015 | Benefits of being in nature, Conscious Living, Creative Living, High Achieving Women, Inner Peace, Powerful practices, Stress Management, Work/Life Balance
I recently returned from a 3-day retreat where there was no cell service and no internet. What an unusual and blissful experience!
When my friend who I was driving with said there was no cell service at the retreat location, I initially felt some relief and then quickly thought of whom I should text to alert them.
When we arrived at the “spot”, a rustic building by the ocean, I started to relax and drink in the beauty of our surroundings. When I checked into my room, which was small, yet comfortable, I was intrigued by the monkey tree outside my window and felt blessed to have a room with a view of the ocean. For me, being by, in or on the water is where I feel most at home. At a Vision Quest a number of years ago, an aboriginal elder dreamt in my medicine name, which is “Laughing Otter Heart”. Initially I thought, that’s not as reverent as my friend’s name “Soaring Dawn Eagle”, yet it so connects me to the essence of who I am; to water, being in nature and my playful side. Now I smile when I think of it.
Within a short time of being at the retreat center, I felt all my cares melt away; my shoulders lightened, my mind quieted and I connected to my “being” side, (as I am often “doing”). I so enjoyed the three days of interacting with the other amazing women, facilitating my portion of the workshop and basking in the joy of being “unplugged” and in nature.
Did you know that the Japanese have done longitudinal research on the benefits of walking in forests? They have found that walking in forests strengthens your immune system, reduces your heart rate and your blood pressure. Based on these findings, they have institutionalized what they call “forest bathing” or “forest therapy” and have created a number of centers across Japan where people can go and walk in forests. How powerful is that!
With such busy lives and the associated stresses, regularly spending time in nature, and unplugging from technology are simple yet powerful practices that have amazingly positive benefits on our bodies, our minds and our relationships.
When was the last time you unplugged and spent time in nature? I welcome your thoughts and experiences below and invite you to share the post with others.
by pam | Oct 8, 2015 | Beliefs & Values, Conscious Living, Creative Living, High Achieving Women
Source: “deposit photos” – http://depositphotos.com/8148540/stock-photo-backpacker.html
When I first launched my coaching practice that initially focused on supporting people through various life transitions, I attracted a number of women with various physical ailments from lack of sensation to pain in different parts of their bodies. When I took them through an exercise to help them to clarify their top five core values, an interesting thing happened; for almost all of them a “light bulb” went on. They realized they were in a job or a relationship that was severely out of alignment with one or most of their top five core values.
So what are values and why are they important?
Values are the beliefs and principles that are at the core of our being. We learn them from our parents, from people who have had a significant impact on our lives, and from our life experiences. They “determine” our perceptions of and reactions to people, situations and events in our lives.
Personal values
Personal values might include achievement, commitment, contribution, connection, integrity, or family. If you are a High Achieving Woman, it is important that you set goals and achieve them on a regular basis in order for you to feel good about yourself. If “contribution” is one of your core values, feeling that you are contributing and making a difference in the world positively affects your well-being.
Have you ever met someone and after having a short conversation with them felt uncomfortable? When someone steps on or pushes up against one of your core values, you may feel uncomfortable, or angry, or protective of another. For example, if “social justice” is important to you, when you see someone behaving disrespectfully to an individual from another cultural group, something fires inside you and you naturally want to stand up for the individual. Getting clear on your personal values helps you better understand yourself and your reactions to others.
Knowing your top five core values also assists with your life choices. If you choose a business partner who is all about competition and you value collaboration, over time this will bother you. If you value connection and are not able to openly communicate about feelings with a friend or partner, over time the relationship won’t grow stronger as you will feel something is missing or that you need more.
In summary, identifying your top five core values is critical to better understanding yourself and your reactions to certain individuals and situations. Using your core values to assist you in choosing a partner, career or workplace is essential to creating a life of health, happiness, true fulfillment and inner peace.[1]
How have your core values influenced you and your choices? I welcome your comments below.
[1] This is an excerpt from my book Learning to Dance with life: A Guide for High Achieving Women available here: www.amazon.com/dp/B0145ZGDO2
by pam | Sep 21, 2015 | Conscious Living, Creative Living, High Achieving Women, Inner Peace, Powerful practices, Proven strategies
Since today is the UN International Day of Peace, I thought it timely to share some thoughts on how you can find peace amongst the chaos of daily life and work.
Many High Achieving Women are restless from a young age. We are on a constant quest for knowledge, meaning and experience. We set a goal, achieve it and swiftly move on to the next project (often more than one at a time 🙂 ). We are always in motion and focused on achievement. Do you relate?
Some High Achieving Women may believe that inner peace cannot coexist with their drive to succeed. They worry that if they slow down, take some time to explore and find some inner peace, they will lose their passion and no longer be successful. From experience, I can tell you that finding inner peace allows you to be more successful, happy, content and fulfilled in all aspects of your life.
When you think about finding inner peace you may visualize yourself on a mountaintop in lotus position, far away from your current reality. Realistically though, as appealing as that image might be, most of us don’t have the time or the money to spend our lives meditating on mountaintops. I’d like to share a poem that for me describes inner peace (source unknown).
“Peace.
It does not mean to be in a place
where there is no noise, trouble
or hard work.
It means to be in the midst of
these things and still be calm
in your heart.”
What do you do to find inner peace?
Here are a few proven strategies and powerful practices that help me stay calm, focused and grounded.
- Meditating daily; I find the 21-day meditation challenges (CDs and MP3s) available through www.chopra.com helpful in practicing meditation, and learning to focus on one concept or idea.
- Spending time regularly in nature.
- Being grateful for what I have.
- Doing yoga three to four times a week.
What about you? What strategies have you found helpful to stay calm, focused and grounded in spite of the chaos around you? I’d love to read your comments below.
by pam | Sep 11, 2015 | Conscious Living, Creative Living, Discovering Your Passion, High Achieving Women, Powerful practices
Many High Achieving Women know from a young age that we’re here to make a difference in the world. We may know that we are here for an important reason but have no clue as to what that difference is.
In order to truly understand yourself and discover what difference you are here to make, it is important to uncover your unique gifts and talents, as well as to identify your passion and life purpose.
Discovering Your Passion
“Your passions are the loves of your life … things that are most deeply important to you… things that, when you’re doing them or talking about them, light you up … When you follow your passion you love your life.”
(Chris & Janet Atwood, The Passion Test)
When you find your passion and live your life aligned with it, you feel truly joyful, fulfilled, and at peace. It lights your fire and fuels your enthusiasm for life. You feel that you are indeed doing something that makes a difference in the world and you feel alive.
We all have unique gifts and talents to share with the world. I invite you to do a short exercise.
My Unique Strengths and Talents
| Things I’m good at that come easily; e.g. mathematics, writing, athletics … |
Things I enjoy doing; e.g. being in nature, playing piano, teaching others … |
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i) Fill in the table above. Don’t take a lot of time to think about it. Write down the first things that come to mind.
ii) Circle the items that are similar or identical from each list.
iii) Rate each of the circled items on a scale from 1 to 10 according to how much it excites you/the level of passion you feel around it – “1” being “no interest at all” and “10” being “red hot”
Another clue as to whether something is a passion is if you lose track of time when you’re doing it (e.g. editing film, doing photography … )
iv) From the above, identify your top 3 to 5 passions .
Just being good at something doesn’t mean it is your passion or will fulfill you if you work in that area. I’m sure you know someone who was good at math, went on to study mathematics, taught it at school or university and over time was miserable and not at all happy teaching math everyday. So what we’re good at can provide clues to our passions but are not necessarily connected with them. Things we enjoy doing; e.g. connecting with and inspiring others, are usually better clues to what may be our passions. A passion is often a blend of what we love and what we’re good at. As well, your passions may change over your life-time.
What was your experience with the “unique strengths and talents” exercise. Did you learn anything new? Did it confirm to you that you’re on your path? I’d love to hear your thoughts below. Please share the post with others you think would appreciate it.
by pam | Sep 1, 2015 | Becoming an Author, Conscious Living, High Achieving Women
When I set out to write my first book “Learning to Dance with Life: A Guide for High Achieving Women” that launched on Amazon last week, I had no idea the emotional roller coaster I would ride in the weeks leading up to “going public” with the book.
About a month before launch day, I started to feel incredible tension and anxiety in my body. For a number of years adrenalin had been a foreign substance in my body, but in the weeks leading up to the launch, adrenalin and the other stress hormones returned with a vengeance. Not only did I feel underlying anxiety (which is not normal for me), I was having trouble going to sleep and waking up early. I started to have misgivings about certain personal stories I had included in the book. Should I remove them? Should I tone them down? What would people think? I was baring my soul to the world and felt extremely vulnerable.
The next wave was a mixture of excitement and fear. I kept saying to myself “ride the wave”, “let this move through you”, “you are safe.” Reflecting on this, I think I was likely experiencing a number of fears and insecurities from the past that were still in my body and presented themselves with such questions as “What will people think … Will they connect with the book? Will my message reach them?” The old inner critic was running wild!
Then a week to 10 days before the launch, I felt overwhelmed by the number of things yet to be done – finish and proof the companion workbook, craft emails and posts, ask for support from friends and colleagues to share the book launch information through social media and/or emails to their contacts. It felt like there were not enough hours in the day. Then it was down to prioritizing and focusing on what was most important.
A big challenge that came up was reaching out for support to so many people to ask them to get the word out. That really stretched my comfort zone being a high achieving woman who is challenged to reach out for support, and is often the one giving to and supporting others.
Writing my book was the easy bit. It flowed out of me. The emotional roller coaster of pre-launch was the most challenging, yet it was growth-producing and taught me a lot. The most amazing part of the launch was the incredible high I felt when I saw that my book had reached #1 in the rankings in 2 categories on Amazon. I did a happy dance, was “pumped” for my launch party and basked in the amazing energy for a few days. I imagine it is similar to the exhilaration a surfer experiences when they ride a huge wave successfully to shore.
Have you experienced something similar? Do you relate? I welcome your thoughts and comments below. Feel free to share the post with others.
by pam | Jul 27, 2015 | Conscious Living, Creative Living, High Achieving Women, Powerful practices, Proven strategies
What do I mean by reclaiming your life? Many High Achieving Women give to other people, causes, and their work BEFORE they give to themselves. They put themselves at the “bottom of the list”. If they do take some time out for themselves, they often feel guilty that they are not working, or selfish that they are not giving to others. Sound familiar?
Reclaiming your life means consciously examining your activities (giving to others and to yourself), making a decision as to what changes you want to make, committing to them and then making those changes. Here’s a short exercise.
In what areas of my life am I giving to others, how often and how does it make me feel? Here are a couple of examples. I invite you to create your own table and fill it in.
| Activity |
Environment or Individual/Community |
# of hours/wk/month |
Feeling state* |
| 1) Volunteer Board member |
National Not-for-Profit |
2 hrs/month |
++ |
| 2) Driving my 2 kids to their sports activities |
Local hockey arena(s) & soccer fields |
4 hrs/week |
+ |
| 3) Always being a sounding board for my girlfriend |
On the phone or at her house or mine |
4 hrs/week |
– |
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* ++ (extremely positive; energized & excited) , + (positive) , N (neutral) – (slightly tired, frustrated &/or resentful) or – – (exhausted, extremely frustrated &/or extremely resentful)
Add up the number of hours per week and per month you are giving to others and also notice which activities drain you and which ones really “juice” you.
Next, answer the question: In what areas of my life am I giving to myself, how often and how does it make me feel?
| Activity |
Environment or Individual/Community |
# of hours/wk/month |
Feeling state* |
| 1) Yoga classes |
Local studio |
4.5 hrs/week |
++ |
| 2) Having a massage |
Therapist comes to my home with her table |
1.5 hrs/month |
++ |
| 3) Having lunch with a friend |
Local restaurant |
Once/wk x 1.5 hrs. |
++ |
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* ++ (extremely energized &/or supported), + (energized &/or supported) N (neutral)
Add up the number of hours per week and per month you are giving to yourself and note which activities really “juice” and/or support you and any that don’t.
Compare the difference between the two tables. Do have any insights?
I invite you to make a conscious decision to let go of one or several GIVING behaviours that are draining you. Decide on the best strategy for letting go of, or delegating those activities, and set a date to do so.
Now review your second chart. Note the activities that are really energizing and/or supporting you. Do you want to increase the number of hours per week you do those OR are there some other things you’d love to try (e.g. taking piano lessons). Add those to the list and set a date to begin them.
Notice how you feel when you “let go” of some of the GIVING activities that have been draining you and when you add more activities where you give to yourself. I invite you to journal about your experience.
Sometimes we go through life and think that we don’t have choices. In fact, we always DO.
When you reclaim your life, you serve as a role model for other women in your family, community, workplace…; so while doing something for yourself, you are also making a positive difference in the lives of other women.
Did you have any new insights from the exercise? Have you committed to making any changes? I’d love to hear from you. Feel free to share the post with others.
