The Fasting Experience

Hi everybody,

I trust that you had a blessed and peaceful Christmas. For me Christmas celebrations were a little different than usual this year. For one, I did not spend time with my family in Germany (which I do every year) and secondly, I did not have a big celebration meal with a glass of wine and dessert. Instead I have been breaking my 10-day Fast on Christmas Eve and celebrated with watery fruits and coconut water. Did I mind? Not at all – on the contrary, the Fast experience was amazing and I would like to share a little more about it in this blog today.

Expectations
This year was a Transition & Learning year for me with participating in additional Coaching certifications and finally setting up my own company Flow & Balance. It was not a light-hearted decision, but rather one I prepared myself for the last 2 years. In addition, my partner also re-set himself and started off into a new direction. The cost of learning and preparing for internal & external change was certainly felt in our drop in income this year, yet we managed to move to a different apartment, have our holidays AND pay our bills somehow. Just to say that there is always a way, if you are seriously moving into a direction with purpose.

My intentions ending the year with a 10-day fast & detox were to prepare myself for a “new” life and consolidate and fully internalize the learnings’ and experiences of this year. And set myself “right” so to speak. I had never done a Fast before and was a little anxious whether I would be able to hold it through. However, I did many experiments with my eating habits before including being a Raw Foodist which made me very sick after 6 months. From hindsight I realize why, because I hadn’t prepared my body with a fast and didn’t really have enough knowledge about eating balanced and well on raw foods only.

This time I wanted to make sure I do it right and learn more about foods and the body. And Dharma Healing (www.dharmahealingintl.com) run by Hillary was the perfect choice for that. Every day during the 1st week of the fast, Hillary would spent at least 2-3 hours with us to take us through how the digestive systems works, what Vitamins & Minerals we need, what foods to avoid, how to prepare raw food etc. She is a loving and very wise woman who has been walking the talk for many years and her support & giving is unconditional. Yet, she is also tough – there are no excuses. Being a Buddhist, she believes in the concept of “suffering” to get over our attachments. In addition, we had and Iridology reading, Yoga and Meditation Classes, a Dharma Talk, experienced Tibetan Singing Bowls and a Coconut Class as part of the weekly fasting schedule.

The Group
In my fasting group were about 9 people, interestingly only 1 of the group was living where he was born. All others have been living outside their countries for a long time. We had people originally from South Africa, Denmark, USA, Turkey, Indonesia, Japan, Canada, Australia and Malta. Everyone has been on their own journey and came for very different reasons ranging from gaining clarity, overcoming grief & loss, finding a new career path, coping with depression & loss of joy to finding more balance and mental clarity in their lives. Most of them had done fasting at least 2-3 before and returned, because of the tremendous benefits they felt afterwards.

It was a great group with love & care for each other and I am happy for some that it was a break-through from an emotional, mental, behavioural and spiritual standpoint.

The Process
The Fast had essentially two components, a cleansing of your colon via colonic treatments that you gave yourself twice a day as well as a detox of your system via non-eating, taking herbal & vitamin C drinks, teas, coconut water (twice a day) and a broth in the evenings. Admittingly, the “colonics” as they are called were the most difficult part for me since you are required to pump up a mixture of water & herbal tea (evenings) or water & coffee (mornings) through your anal canal into your digestive organs to clean out the debris, worms, biles, stones and whatever got stuck there ages ago. It wasn’t a pleasant procedure, but certainly one that enhanced the effects of the fast and accelerated the cleansing process. I also went twice for a professional colonic (2,500 Baht per session), in the middle of the fast and at the last day of the fast. This was a worthy investment since I felt that the cleansing was done more thoroughly than I could have done it on my own.

You could also buy a daily shot of wheatgrass juice for oral taking or even use it for a colonics. I did the wheatgrass colonic once, but didn’t really know whether it was effective and how much of the vitamins my intestines were able to absorb.

In addition to the daily cleansing rituals and activity schedule, Hillary invited therapists and healers to speak about their services and I managed to go for a Hypnotherapy session, an Angel Workshop, a Reiki Workshop, a Therapeutic-Energy Healing massage and 2 Body Massages (that were for free included in the fasting package) within the 10 days. It was great, all the things I wanted to complete this year just came to me and I had amazing experiences I am eternally grateful for.

I think one reason why this fast is so effective is the fact that you are in a loving, caring and spiritually enlightening environment which provides the right conditions to do inner work in a short period of time. Therefore all the experiences you have, become more intense, focused very much to bring the maximum healing about in the shortest amount of time. The therapists and healers are used to work and leverage this intensity for their clients’ benefits. And while all participants in the fast are from different walks of life and at different stages of their life, the intentions are the same: clear out physical, mental, emotional and spiritual blocks that keep you stuck and unable to move forward in life.

The fast is therefore a process you go through to achieve mental clarity by dropping off unwanted thoughts, emotions and behavioural patterns. Can you see the close connection to the coaching process I advocate at Flow & Balance?

My Learnings’
Certaintly someone needs to be ready and have the desire to go on this journey of cleansing the mind & emotions through cleansing the body. I had to become 32 years old to really develop this desire (while I have to say I have always paid attention to what I eat and do generally consider myself a healthy eater). But once I have found it and experienced the benefits, I know I will make it a regular habit from now on.

I feel much more alive, alert, mentally clear and calm after the 10 days. It opened my eyes that the way for personal development and progress has to include the body at some level (I always knew this cognitively, but never FELT more convinced about than now). We can’t live a healthy and balanced live if we do not pay attention to what we put into our bodies and how we nurture them. Food is energy, it vibrates, it is conscious, it gives us life. How can we eat a cow that is a fellow living creature that has been pumped full with hormones, cruelly treated and murdered and expect to nurture our body? We not only have to digest the animals fats in our body (which is the hardest thing to do for the body since these animals are made up very similar to the human body and are not meant to be eaten), but we also have to deal with the karma we are taking on from this animal. Do we really believe eating this way will not affect us and the consciousness of our cells in the long-run?

Food is self-love, it is self-respect and respect for the universe, for fellow living beings and the beautiful natural environment we are a part of. How can we not be grateful and wondrous about the delicious vegetables, fruits, wholegrains, nuts, seeds, oils and water we are provided by the earth NATURALLY (if we treat the earth with respect & love as well)?

My choice is clear, I am committed to live a wholesome life and therefore the food I am taking, the way I am eating and the way I am taking care of my body day by day is a reflection of the love for myself, all people, the environment, the universe and God. And if you see it that way, what tiny sacrifice is a 10-day fast once a year to reinforce and renew this commitment?

I wish you a healthy, happy and successful 2010! It is never too late to become the person you really meant to be.

Love & Blessings,
Vanessa

The challenge of "Being Present" in a Relationship

Welcome back.
How have you been? Are you already in Christmas mood and all ready to bring joy and love into others life at this special time of the year?

My partner and I managed to put a few Christmas deco items into our house over the weekend and I have to say I, it was not easy. While he is the “more, the better” type, I insisted to keep it as minimalistic as possible with the effect that we had to go out three times to add on a different item each time to make the house at last feel somewhat season-spirited.

Frankly speaking, we have never been the couple that gets things like house moving, decorating, cooking, grocery shopping and house fixing done smoothly. We both have a strong character and hold very particular views on how things need to get done. Watching each other in the process makes matters worse and the usual “I told you so” and “not like this…” can end in raised voices and snappy comments. It is funny though that this mostly happens with things that are largely unimportant or matters of the household. When it is about big things and big decisions in our lives, we are usually quickly aligned and are nurturing the same views.

I often wondered about that without conclusive insights, I have to admit. Yet, what I do realize is that I do play my part in it and can make these little discrepancies between us bigger than they really are which almost always has a negative impact on our relationship. I have this “gift” at times to make a mountain out of a molehill and to push the envelope. Over the last 2 years, I dare to say that I have learnt to accept this part of me and through lots of self-reflection and I am now in better control of myself – my thinking, my feeling and my reactions irrespective of what my partner’s reactions might be. (even though you would have to ask him to confirm my view.)

One concept that I have had to constantly remind myself of is that of “staying in the present”. What do I mean by that?

When we are beginning a new relationship with someone, everything is new and fresh. We are getting to know the person in fascinating many ways and almost everything he / she does is interesting and surprising.

However, once we know our partner, often the very things that were “cute” become a nuisance. Instead of surprising us, the behaviours of our partner seem like an old broken record, played over and over again. We have begun taking the other person for granted and we have started to look at them through different eyes. The lens we apply is the lens of “already knowing” what he or she will say or do. If we keep on using this lens, life and love can begin to be boring, predictable and no longer engaging. The more we live in the past to interpret our partner’s behaviour, the more likely it is that we are getting our self-fulfilling prophecy. He or she doesn’t even stand a chance to be and act different, because in our minds an automatic response pattern has already decided on what is going to happen next.

A different way to react is by staying fully in the present, letting go of the past, letting go of self-righteousness and becoming sensitive to the partner’s needs instead. I admit it is not easy in the beginning, but if you try it a couple of times, you will find that it opens up a new space of collaboration, respect and love.

Staying in the present means that we forgo all the “should’s” and “have to’s” and offer honest questions and support instead. It requires us to pay attention to our own reactions to the situation at hand and towards our partner. If our reaction is over the top and misappropriate given the actual situation, most likely we are dragging the past into it. If you catch yourself doing that, stop and trace the thought or past incidents that you were just thinking of. Ask yourself: “How true is this really?”

You remember Katie Byron’s “The Work” mentioned in the other blog entry? Every time I am starting to get upset about something my partner did or did not do is, I go through a couple a questions in my mind:

•Is it true? (what I think about him or his reactions at this moment)

•What is my reaction / what are the consequences for us if I believe this is true?

•Who would I be (and our relationship be) if I let this thought go?

•What is really most important to me – very often this brings me back to my positive intention and gives me the motivation to approach him “lovingly” rather than with judgment

•What can I offer him / what can I do right now to improve the situation – sometimes I just have to take his hand, sometimes I have to ask him a question of what is important to him, sometimes I hold him and say that everything is fine etc.

In the end of the day, live is really too short to fight and argue about all the little things. We have the chance everyday to make more conscious choices in our lives and relationships. Relationships are an ideal place to discover: “what’s the work that we have to do ourselves towards more wholeness”. Our partner often is only a mirror to show us what we have to heal most in ourselves. If we recognize that, a relationship can become a vehicle for personal, spiritual growth and healing.

It is not always easy, but it is definitely worth it – at least for me.

Imagine, what it would be like to see the person you love with new eyes every day? I invite you to leave the past out of your present and create the next moment with the one you love as it is the first.

The Importance of Seasons

Good morning, everyone!

Time seems just to be flying these last few months and I truly can’t believe that we will celebrate Christmas soon. If Orchard Road and all the Singapore malls and shops wouldn’t remind me of it with their lights, decoration, songs, food and presents, I probably would ignore it all together this year.

I feel more in action-mood than reflection mood recently and Christmas seems like a force-fitted break to me. This is funny though, since I always enjoyed the pre-christmas time with its warm & spirit-filled events and rituals. Maybe one of the reasons is that even after 6 years in Singapore, I do miss the distinct differences of the year’s seasons – autumn, winter, spring and summer. In Germany for instance, each season brings different habits, foods, activities and clothes into our life. In Singapore, the seasonal changes are subtle and are mostly to be observed in whether changes (e.g. like now with more rain, a bit colder) and shop displays. I often wonder if people in Singapore never miss nature’s seasons as a catalyst for personal change and shifts. And if they do miss it, what do they do about it?

I personally do have a strong desire to have my internal seasons in tune with the outside world. It doesn’t feel natural to me if Christmas is about drive & actions and summer about contemplation and silence.

Let’s have a look in more detail what each season stands for and how this is related to personal shifts:

Autumn – Sensing Changes
• Knowing and acknowledging that changes are in the air
• Preparing for a safe refuge where you get ready for the developments ahead
• Staying open & worry-free and securing networks and support

Early Winter – Retreating and Reflecting
• Allowing yourself to feel tired, confused and unhappy
• Creating quiet time, turning inwards
• Reflecting on where we are, what we want and our ideals
• Time for renewing yourself

Winter – Hoping in the darkness
• Being in the dark, waiting for insights to emerge
• Turning things upside down and looking at life from different perspectives
• Deciding on things that are enough – drawing lines in the sand
• Finding a new story about our past and testing new doors to the future

Late Winter - Defining the Vision
• Following the Insights wherever they take you
• Clearing spaces – physically, mentally and emotionally
• Creating a plan for the future

Spring – Growing
• Giving birth to the plans and the new you
• Planting the right seeds
• Bursting with energy and momentum
• Trusting one’s own timing

Summer – Celebrate your Harvest
• Being clear, confident and living abundantly
• Allowing the new fruits in your life to ripen at its own time
• Celebrating success, playing and enjoying

Reflecting on my own situation at the moment, I feel I am more in the season of spring rather than winter. Yet, there are elements from Winter and Late Winter which I would like to explore more fully – in particular:

• Finding a new story about our past and testing new doors to the future (W)
• Clearing spaces – physically, mentally and emotionally (Late W)

To do this I decided to take a break from my usual Christmas Holiday in Germany(and over-eating) and attend a 10-day Fasting & Detox Retreat in Thailand (alone!). It comes with a spiritual counseling centre, meditation and yoga activities and I can’t wait to make more space for my visions and plans to take root and blossom in a more refined ME.

Just like the seasons in nature, you too may experience your life and the changes in it just like the seasons. Perhaps you are experiencing different seasons in relation to various aspects of your life at this time. What season of the year are you in? And what can you do to leverage the natural qualities of this time for your personal growth?

Love & Blessings,
Vanessa

Facing Personal Challenges

Hi there!

It has been 2 interesting weeks for me. I use the word interesting, because I am actually still at an internal processing stage. In the last 2 weeks I participated in a number of work- and non-work related events and as usual this distinction wasn’t very helpful as the lines blurred quickly. What was “work” turned out to be very personal and what was “non-work” opened up realizations to become better at work. It was a timely reminder that life lessons present itself at any time and anywhere as long as we are open enough to receive them and are somewhat “ready” for change.

The beauty about Coaching is the fact that you are constantly challenged to learn and monitor yourself closely to make sure that you do not project your own “business” onto the Coachee. In the Henley Coaching Certification program I am currently participating in, they are emphasizing this fact by allowing us to write reflective pieces of our coaching experiences in the role as a Coach as well as a Coachee. It is a useful way of getting beneath your own surface and understand the interplay of subconscious forces at work (see last blog entry).

Self-reflection has always been a very important part of my life, but recently I have felt somewhat trapped in a vicious cycle. It is like the more I know what I have to change something, the more caught up I get. The “should’s” and “should not to’s” and “have to’s” just kept on creeping in into my self-talk. You can imagine some of the outer effects – my moodiness increased, I started to question myself and what I want, started to blame my partner for all the things he doesn’t do for me, I over-ate, I felt unhappy etc.

On a cognitive level I know that it has been ME creating all this difficulties in my mind by believing in and falling for thoughts that are not true. Of course, this is not the first time I am experiencing this (we are human beings and are thinking ALL the time), yet having done a lot of personal development work over the last few years, I was surprised at the intensity and frequency of these thoughts that only seem to know one purpose: “creating fear and doubt”.

Then I saw a connection – the closer I seem to get towards achieving my goals, the louder my internal critic becomes. You may call it “fear of success” or doubts that are created by my thinking mind about what I am able to achieve or not.

Luckily, as a Coach and personal development “junkie” I do have tools and resources at hand that can help me through a difficult period like that. This time, the support has come in three different forms:

•A book that I picked up from the library on being “Consciously Female” by Tracy W. Gaudet, M.D.

•A spontaneous Healing session with Sound and Channeling by my dear friend Lena Chen (www.lenashealinghaven.com)

•A Workshop I had signed up for on “The Work” (Katie Byron – www.TheWork.com), a process of inquiry to release your limiting thoughts and beliefs and “love what is” (loving the present without judgments). The Workshop was hosted by Elaine Grundy from the Reiki Centre (www.reikicentre.com.sg)

All three resources have been teaching me different things and approaches to deal with the issues at hand. The book I picked up has made me realize that I my well-being (including my motivation and self-confidence) is indeed impacted by my cyclical states. I have been keeping a mood chart in connection with my menstrual cycle for a while now and am generally aware of the links. However, this book is like God’s gift for women who want to have an integrative perspective on how to actually deal with female specific issues in a mindful and conscious way. It would be too much for one blog entry to repeat lessons learnt for me, but all I can say is that I will be working on getting more consciously female and will start to adjust my weekly schedules and routines to incorporate some of the insights I got from this book.

The session with Lena was a very special experience. I have known Lena for about 1+ year and she had worked as a Counselor before. She has her own Healing practice now and is into Holistic Therapies. We are regularly in contact and we have been both talking about a general change in the approach to healing. According to established sources, the world has started to shift from energetic healing energies to sound and light. And as if by design, Lena had started to incorporate voice and tone into her healing sessions together with inner dance elements. She had told me about it before, but when I experienced it myself it was like a journey through time and space, her voice reflecting exactly my mental images and the bodily experiences I had. Her channeling was also powerful for me, since the messages I got confirmed that I am on the right path. Yet, again I also had to realize that being in flow, achieving all that I desire and spiritually evolve comes from the HEART and not the head. I was being reminded that I am a very good planner and analytical person. However, the progresses I will make are not based on my cognitive abilities but rather on my capacity to open up and follow my heart. How true! When she channeled these messages during the session, I could feel the “heaviness” of my own thoughts and mind and the blockage to the heart chakra. I was being told that one of the ways to listen to my heart more closely is daily meditation. And what do you know…? I have always been an on and off meditator, but recently I felt compelled to put more discipline into my meditation practice. So, it shows I do listen to my heart – sometimes at least.

The 3rd lesson I got (beside cyclical considerations and heart-opening through meditation) was the fact that monitoring your thought processes is indeed “work”. Katie Byron’s approach is titled “The Work” and I must say having read her book about 3 years ago, I was a little apprehensive in applying her process. Her approach emerged from her own experiences of being depressed for almost 10 years. She realized one day that her suffering was caused by the beliefs she held about the world around her and not by the world itself. She saw that our attempt to find happiness was backwards – instead of hopelessly trying to change the world to match our thoughts about it “should” be, we can question these thoughts and, by meeting reality as it is, experience unimaginable freedom and joy. Based on this, she developed a simple, yet powerful process of inquiry about our limiting beliefs led by four questions and a turnaround:

•Is it true (the limiting thought / belief)?
•Can I absolutely know that it is true?
•How do I react if I think that this thought / belief is true?
•Who would I be without this thought /belief?
•Turnaround: Find 3 genuine examples of how the opposite is true in your life

I had tried the process on my own several times before with some results. The Workshop reinforced that there is still work to do. So, I decided to give “The Work” a more dedicated try over a period of 3 months but in conjunction with EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) as I still believe that “cognitive mind work” is great, yet combined with energy releasing techniques the results should even be better. I keep you informed how it goes and if it goes well, it is definitely something I want to add into my holistic coaching toolkit. Until then, I will be your guinea pig.

So, 2 weeks gone by, three lessons richer and three hours later (that’s how long it took me to write this blog), did I find my holy grail to solve my current doubts and fears? The answer would be a mixed “yes” and “no”. I am certainly grateful for the resources and support I am getting (and I know I should get myself a coach too…it is on my goal list for 2010). However I also know that self-awareness, clarity of goals and resources are parts of the journey, now it is about translating those into action and ongoing practices. Therefore I just decided that my next blog entry will be titled “Walking the Talk”.

Before you leave, reflect on the following questions with an open heart:
•What are YOUR learning’s over the past 2 weeks
o In general?
o In relation to your goals?
•What resources have you tapped into to handle your current challenges (if any)?
•What progress did you make? How do you translate your learning’s and resources into actions? What do you learn about yourself as you do that?
•What else do you need to think / feel / do to…? (e.g. learn more effectively, listen to your heart, progress towards your goals etc.)

If you have signed up for the INFlow& Balance Newsletter, watch out for the “Goal-setting” article and template, it may bring you a step closer to where you want to be.

As Katie Byron says: “No one can give you freedom but you.”

See you soon,
Vanessa

My transitioning self

Dear all,

This is my official 3rd blog entry after establishing Flow & Balance in Sep 2009 and it seems I am getting used to my fortnightly reflections which I have posted at every other Monday. It really allows me to reflect on what has happened, what moved me, what progress did I make and perhaps also where did I get stuck.

I am actually quite new to experimenting with different mediums like the blog, newsletter and article writing. There is certainly a ton of information out there how to do it “right”, however I decided to trust my intuition and learn as I go along. My intention is that what I write about will be the outward expression of inner journey and to allow my inner-most thoughts to flow out freely is admittingly still a huge learning process for me.

I believe there comes a time for all of us in our lives where we start to express more and more of who we are and what we think, feel and desire and if that happens, we are one step closer to take on our role as creators and become more comfortable with authenticity. My tagline in Flow & Balance is “Living and Leading from your true self” and I have chosen it mostly because of my own experiences in struggling to understand who I really am, what I want out of life and then having the courage to follow-through on what I believe is right, going beyond social conditioning and expectations. Without a doubt, it can be painful at times … yet if we want to make a difference in this world, listening to own heart and establishing our own ground-rules for life are essential ingredients.

Only yesterday, I experienced first-hand that the process of discovering one’s true self can be challenging. I had asked my partner John to review a self-reflective report I have had to submit as part of a Training program I am attending. As he was looking through the content, a few words and messages jumped out at him. We discussed his impressions and as we were talking (he was actually coaching me!), we got to deeper & deeper places. I used EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) during the conversation and I dare to say that it allowed me to unblock some major experiences I had. For me it had to do with Trust, Safety and Control and while I thought I have dealt with it a long time ago, memory fragments from the past kept coming up (thanks to the subconscious mind!) and tears were rolling freely. It was a classic reminder for me that while I consciously made a decision to move ahead and manifest what I desire, subconsciously I allowed past experiences to hold me back. Through the conversation with John, he made me realize that unless I let go of the need to feel safe, trust-worthy and in control, new opportunities cannot emerge. We talked about how many times in my life I was already able to do this successfully and it dawned on me that I was actually in a major transition myself at this moment. And as long as I did not recognize it for what it is, I wouldn’t know what new & old resources I would require and what experience patterns to shift.

So, here I was, thinking I could just transit to a new place easily and effortlessly (since I had it all planned in my head for such a long time) and ignoring the misalignments in myself. You probably would say, “how come I thought she is a Coach, shouldn’t she know better and doesn’t SHE help people in transitions?” I believe, we are all human beings and we are often “seeing” when it comes to others and “blind” when it comes to oneself. Sometimes we do need external support, somebody who holds up a mirror and shows us the beautiful, ugly and unfinished sides of ourselves until we understand and are able to make new choices consciously.

And this is exactly part of my reason why I wanted to become a Coach, because it enables me to be there for others in times of transitions, when the going gets tough and we need honest reflections and reminders of our strengths.

I am lucky to have a partner who has always been very supportive. During the last 6 years, this is the 3rd major change and transition we have been going through together and each time we are both faced with very different learning’s. Sometimes it seems that what I have too little, he has too much and visa versa. It is an interesting constellation with many intense moments to learn from.

Before I end for today, I just wanted to make one important distinction in case you wonder about the differences between change and transitions. In my view, all transitions involve change, but change itself is not transition. Change occurs in the outer world while transition occurs in the inner. The challenge is to gracefully work and move through the emotions during times of change and knowing how to capitalize or leverage them positively.

Our whole life is actually a never-ending cycle of change. Seasons come and go. Beings are born and they die. Seeds are planted, they grow, they come to fruition and die. Plants and animals live and die in an unending cycle. This is a natural process and what happens in our lives is very similar. We are here to learn, create, enjoy, let go and move on – until we are ready to return where we came from.

How we want to move through each of the different phases and stages within one phase, is a decision we have to make again and again. We can deny, refuse, struggle, understand, accept, learn, realize, internalize and align. The choice is ours!

Maybe it is useful to start thinking about your own changes & transitions in life and what did you learn from them about yourself. I hope the following questions are a starting point. If you have any thoughts or insights, I would love to hear from you: vanessa@inflowandbalance.com.

•What are the major milestones / changes in my life that helped me to evolve & grow?

•How did I feel when I was going through them?

•What did I feel / think / do that helped me to transit gracefully and successfully? What can I learn from this? What does this tell me about myself?

•Where am I currently in the seasons of life? What “header” would I give my life at this moment?

•How am I feeling about it?

•Is there anything I would like to change about it?

•If yes, what changes do I want?

•How can I prepare myself for it – mentally, emotionally, habitual?

•Will I need support? Where will I be going to get support, encouragement and honest feedback?

•What will I do next?

Have a great week,
Vanessa

(Self-)reflection & The Subconscious Mind

Dear all,

How have you been? What has happened the last two weeks that kept your attention? What positive things did you learn and experience? What lessons did you have to learn? What does that tell you in the bigger frame of things – about yourself, about your habits, about your wants / needs / shadows and the choices you make? What would you like to keep doing? What would you like to stop doing or change? Why has this become important to you right now and not later or earlier? How do you feel about yourself, others, the world? What else is there that you may not have paid attention to? …

These are some of the questions I have started to ask myself on a regular basis as I ventured onto my path of self-discovery and personal development. Since I have started Coaching, I can say that I am getting better at tuning into myself and revisit frequently what is going on inside & outside of me and whether I act in line with these thoughts or whether there is a tension between I feel and what I do. And if so, allow myself to explore the underlying reasons for it.

Time for regular reflection is one of the best investments you can give to yourself.
People use different methods for self-reflection that can range from meditation, prayer, journaling, diary writing, shadow work, conversation with friends & mentors, I-Ging reading, taro cards, angel card reading, dreams to guided visualization techniques and I believe there are many more. Since I talked about the subconscious mind in the last blog, I wanted to explore a little further today how we can access the subconscious mind for better self-reflection and to understand “what is REALLY going on”. Isn’t it true that we if we would listen to feedback from our bodies, feelings, hunches, dreams, re-occuring thought patterns during self-talk and actions taken, we would always know what to change for the better?

The tragic of modern life is that we have forgotten to pay attention to ourselves and are not making enough time to find out more about the feedback we are getting. We are never a victim of external circumstances, but a victim of our own personal belief and expectation system. And as a matter of fact most of our beliefs are stored in the subconscious mind – to address them, we need to access them and become aware of them. So, how do we do that?

I believe that if we enter an altered state of consciousness (meaning your brain waves operate at a slower rate (alpha, theta, delta) than in an awakened state) which you can access through hypnosis, day-dreaming, visualization, meditation or with dreams at night etc., there is a greater chance of coming closer to the “truth”. Truth could mean understanding the root cause of a challenge you are facing, it could mean unearthing a particular belief and understanding where it came from, but it can also mean to find positive resources or a past memory that can be of help at this particular time for us. The more we train and allow our mind to go there, the easier it is to access this information.

In my Coaching I like to make use of this altered state of consciousness by getting my coaches into a relaxed state and by using visualization as well as body-mind experiences through certain NLP processes. I found this much more effective than just a cognitive reflection or exploration of the challenge or goal at hand. The reflection and learning’s a coachee has at this level are usually deeper and bring him / her closer to the “truth” and core essence. If the mind is quieted and a shift of awareness happens, self-awareness and transformation becomes easier. However, not all coachee’s are ready to go there from Day 1 and timing and allowing the coachee to build up his /her trust towards the process and the Coach are important prerequisites.

But how can YOU go there and experiment with (self-) reflection on this level, if you do not have a Coach? I was thinking about my own methods and I would like to share 3. If they are applied over time, they can become a wonderful guidance and source of inputs to the question of “what is really going on” on a deeper level.

1. Remembering Your Dreams
Before you go to sleep, set an intention for yourself to remember the dream you are about to have.
Ask a specific question about a problem and ask for the dream to help you.
Keep a journal and pen at your bedside table.
When you wake up, try not to move. Staying in one position wiyll help the dream stay present.
Ask yourself is you were dreaming.
Gently pull the images back in, review the dream in your mind’s eye.
Take a few notes right away and don’t wait till morning. Then review the dream and ask yourself:
i. What are the feelings you are most aware of in your dream?
ii. How are these feelings like any other feelings you have in waking life?
iii. Describe XX (an important aspect of your dream).
iv. What part of you is like X?
v. What is X like?
vi. How is this something in your waking life?
vii. What is the central theme in your dream?
viii. Does the theme remind you of anything in your waking life?
ix. What was that time of your life like? How is this like now?
Answer the questions in your dream journal and keep them as a guide.

2. Soul-centering Exercise (based on Dr. Phillip & Jane Mountrose; www.gettingthru.org)
The key here is to relax, disconnect from the active, rational mind and connect with receptive side of your nature.

Take a moment and focus on an issue that you would like to address as you connect with the energy of your soul and higher self.
Read the following process and follow:

As you start to read this process and prepare to relax, take a few deep breaths and feel the tension beginning to melt from your body. Fill your lungs completely with pure, clear air with each inhale and allow the tension to continue to release with each exhale, so that with each breath, you feel more and more relaxed and your body becomes lighter, allowing the tension to drift down through your arms, legs and feet and into the earth. Imagine that you have a grounding cord from the base of your spine and widen it out so whatever you are releasing can melt down into the earth.
Now bring clear energy into your mind with each inhale, so all of the cells of your brain can relax and your mind becomes more and more clear with each breath. And allow the clear energy to move down so that your entire head is relaxed, traveling down your neck and shoulders now, and allowing all of the organs in your body to relax. Now allow a wave of clear energy and relaxation to move gently down your arms, all the way down to the tips of your fingers. And feel another wave of relaxation moving down your spine to your legs and feet, travelling all the way to the tips of your toes, so your entire body is relaxed and filled with clear, pure energy. You may want to stop reading for a moment and focus on relaxing your entire body, from the top of your head to the tips of your toes.
As you continue, begin to focus your breath on the area around your heart, where your soul connects with your body. Imagine that you are sending pure energy into this area, so that with each breath, there is more and more energy there and, as you continue breathing, you can feel the energy intensifying so it may seem like there is a ball of light around your heart. Allow this ball of light to become brighter and brighter, radiating its energy out in all directions, so that you feel yourself completely surrounded by the energy and you can feel this energy permeate every cell of your body with its beautiful light. As you do this, if any pain comes up in your heart, simply allow the pain to come out into your awareness and ask the breath to release it. Letting go of this pain will help you to completely embrace the love you hold in your heart. You may want to stop reading again for a moment and focus on experiencing the energy of your soul in your heart and radiating out around you.
Now you can shift your focus to the area just above your head and imagine that there is another light there. As you imagine it there, allow this light to begin to pour down through the top of your head and fill your entire body, so that you can see and feel yourself filled with this light all the way down to the tips of your fingers and the tips of your toes. As it becomes brighter and brighter, it overflows so that you are completely surrounded with this light and you can feel yourself in perfect harmony and balance with everything that is around you. You can also feel the energy of all of the others who are building this connection and allow it to help you to strengthen the experience for you. Take a moment now to feel this harmony and how you are connected with all that is.
From this place of peace, you can ask for guidance about any problem you may be experiencing. This is especially useful if you focused on a problem before starting the process and can recall how it felt to you then. You should find that your perspective is different than it was before. From this place of clarity, you can bring in new levels of awareness to help you in any aspect of your life. If you are focusing on a problem, you may want to stop reading for a moment and view it from this higher perspective.
As a note, if you were not able to fully experience the energy of your soul, just continue to work with this process and focus on releasing any painful emotions that come up. You will notice a shift as you release the emotions and open to the loving energy of your soul.
Now it is time to shift your awareness back to the present time and feel yourself where you are, sitting or lying down, making note of your body’s position. And, as you breathe, allow your breath to bring you back to your normal waking state, feeling alert and alive. As you prepare to go off to other activities, make sure that you are grounded with the cord that extends from the base of your spine to the center of the earth.



3. Glass of Water technique (based on SILVA Program)
This technique is works well if you need information, guidance and a deeper understanding.

Prepare a full glass of water.
Close your eyes and connect with your body and intention.
With your eyes closed, ask a specific question you have in mind (e.g. “What is holding me back to do xxx?”) and drink ½ of the water.
Put the ½ remainder away, go to bed and sleep. If you got the answer in your dream, say thanks and drink the remaining water in the morning.

If you did not get the answer yet, drink the remaining water first thing in the morning and belief that you will get the answer within the next 3 days.
It is a mental technique and as it works better over time as your level of confidence in this technique increases.

It works because “water” is actually programmed to serve as a reminder of human intelligence to keep searching for the necessary information.

Enjoy your experiments and let me know if you have any questions or just want to share your experiences vanessa@inflowandbalance.com.

Remember what Carl Jung once said:
“Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart.
Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.”

Till next time,
Vanessa

New Beginnings & The Subconscious Mind

Today (14th Sep 2009) is a big day for me as I launch my new Website and Company Flow & Balance. Originally it was planned to send out the first waves of announcements to friends, colleagues, associates and potential clients on 09/09/09 - aligned to the Chinese belief that this is day is special and brings GOOD LUCK & FORTUNE. Yet, I told myself "first things first" and realized an additional small dream this year: "going on holidays with my mother" who has come to Singapore for the 2nd time in 6 years. Her first visit was in Nov 2003 - the month I moved from Shanghai to Singapore and got involved in Antony Consulting. This time it seems her mission was again to launch me off into a new venture. What would we do without the parental support in our lives? At least for me, my mother has always been a role model, my friend and critic and I am utterly grateful to have her on my side during this exciting time in my life.

So, we decided to spend a few days in Langkawi (including 09/09/09:)) and enjoyed the beach, sun and rain forest. While browsing in the hotel store, I made a worthy discovery, a book written by a German who is based in Langkawi since 1992 and has been involved in NLP and Hypno Therapy, running his own Workshops ("My Life in my Hands"), IronMan Camps and Nature-Tourism ventures. I was hooked on - somebody promoting, living, writing and helping people successfully with positive & deep inside-out changes on a Malay island - evidence that progress & consciousness development can start anywhere, anytime. In his book, he covered a cross-section of topics including how the mind works, the body-mind connection and Hypnosis and the paranormal. He shared many of his client cases to demonstrate the effectiveness of hypnosis. A few points stuck with me and reinforced my own take on deep, personal change which I would like to share with you over the next couple of blog entries:

1. The subconscious mind rules until "mission accomplished".

It is a fact that the subconscious mind controls and guides about 90% of all acts that a human being performs throughout any given day or moment. This is so, because consciously we have a very limited capacity to process information (7 + 2 chunks of information maximum). You can compare this with driving a car. Remember when you first learnt to drive a car, how difficult it was to pay attention to all the new things: clutch, rear mirror, direction, speed, traffic lights, other drivers etc. After a while your learning’s have become subconsciously stored and you do things automatically. In this way, habits are formed. An experienced driver cruises, the conscious mind only springs into action when the need arises.

Now, the interesting thing is that the subconscious mind has always a "positive" (in a sense of mission accomplished) intention for the individual in mind. However, depending on under what circumstances and need a habit was formed, sometimes this can have detrimental results. Unlike the conscious mind, the subconscious mind has no ability to consider, reason or end its activity, once programmed. It will follow through until mission accomplished. An example, if a person wants to be slim, very slim and shows this intention in non-eating patterns, the subconscious will follow through until the person can become anorexic and may even die. This could definitely be the case if the reason for wanting to be slim is an emotional protection from something the subconscious mind has registered based on certain experiences earlier in life - meaning that there is even a deeper, emotional reason for the non-eating behaviour and need to feel slim rather than being slim for the sake of being slim.

In such cases, the underlying emotional root cause and the program that subconsciously runs, influencing the person’s eating habits has to be addressed to really produce change. A mere behavioural change approach would be too tedious since it would address the symptoms, but not the root of the matter and hence require many months of behavioural re-training.

This explains maybe a little bit why I always wanted to focus on “Holistic Coaching” rather than “Coaching” alone. A person coming to me wanting to set a goal to become a healthy eater may find that deeper issues that have to be addressed than recognizable on the surface. While it is my task to help the person be focused on the positive goal and build-up or reconnect the person with his / her inherent positive resources, I do believe that lasting change requires eradicating the root cause. Not always is Hypnosis the answer, sometimes a cognitive understanding or looking at the issue from different angles can also help the person to change.

But whatever technique used, it is important to understand that “old habits die hard” and by combining cognitive & emotional awareness, goal-setting, resource-building and subconscious re-programming or energetic changes, we may increase the chance of realizing positive changes and ultimately our goals. An approach, I would like to foster, grow and nurture in Flow & Balance.

I will share some more thoughts in the next blogs, so stay tuned. In the meantime, I do enjoy my time with my mother a bit more. She will stay until 22nd Sep 2009 and I would like to show her a bit more of the Singapore way of life.

Take Care and I will be back soon.

Best,
Vanessa

Realization(s)

Welcome back.
Since I announced in my last entry to test the therapeutic effect of writing, I am back today to share some recent realization(s). When you have decided to become a Holistic Life Coach and work through the creative phase of setting-up a business, its philosophy & marketing as well meeting like-minded people who share the new journey with you, you do not anticpate to fall into deep holes easily. As a Life Coach you naturally think that "I have been through all this stuff" and therefore can't "afford" to personally suffer. It seems incongruent with what you want to create for your clients and your own ability to stand above it all. Yet, yesterday this seemed far away. I was caught in a spiral of negative thinking, anxiety and low self-confidence about my future and all the things that needed to be done in order to get ahead. After tossing and turning for hours in my bed at night, I finally felt a strong sensation and a state of peacefulness began to settle in my heart. As I was lying there, eyes half-open, listening to my heart beat and allowing my feelings to settle, I got a message. The message was not very strong, but clear: "Stop struggeling, start accepting and surrender". It suddenly hit me that only by acknowledging, embracing and accepting the Now and the Past, I would be able to move forward. This time it was different from a logical, cognitive understanding of what needed to be done. I immediatly connected the experience with information I had received 2 weeks earlier about the 4 stages of awakening and felt the message had just been reinforced for me. Life itself is a process of awakening - awakening to the fact that we all have choices in our lives and the more conscious we go through life, the more responsibility we take for it. While the world in itself is changing and our collective consciousness levels are rising right now, the 4 stages are still
reflected in the thinking, feeling and actions of people around us and within ourselves. The stages are:

Stage 1: VICTIM- Mentality (no control & responsibility; cultural programming)
Stage 2: EMPOWERED (more aware, experimentation with universal laws, still EGO-led)
Stage 3: SURRENDER (letting go to the Divine, allowing, not my will, but thy will be done)
Stage 4: AWAKENING (melting into the divine, is only granted by grace, oneself can't make it happen)

This in turn resonated with a book I just read by Gary Quinn on "Living in the Spiritual Zone" as well as a pendulum reading I received today that confirmed my life purpose as a "Spiritual Life Coach". By sharing this with you, I realize the that these partly disconnected experiences fit together, reaffirming what I have to do next to climb the ladder of increased consciousness. God and the Universe wanted me to know that if I allow letting go of my expectations, self-made pressures and past imprints, I truly have a chance to actually get there where I wanted to go in the first place. So, God I surrender, letting your light shine on me and be bathed in your divinity. In Gratitude, Vanessa

Reflection: What message is GOD & the Universe sending to you today?

Hi there!

Well, this is my very first experience becoming a blogger. I know blogging is already "old" in terms of new media and communications, but admittingly it took me a while to warm up to the idea to share my views and ideas in such an open manner. But now I even think, this can become a therapeutic experience since I do enjoy writing :)

The reason I have created this blog is because I am in the process of establishing my own Holistic Coaching Practice called Flow & Balance (hence the same title of this blog). Holistic Coaching means that I will integrate Coaching & Healing Techniques to empower people to change their lives for the better. It is my personal mission to help people to help themselves and create new positive internal realities for themselves, so that their external experiences will change as well.

I spent the last 6 years in Singapore, working at our practice-based management Consulting company AC (www.antonyconsulting.com) which is focused on Change Management, integrating practice areas such as Strategy, Leadership Development and Human Performance Management. Coaching has become important for us to anchor desired changes in the leadership capability as well as organisational culture of the organisation.

Yet, I did find that the cognitive approach to coaching was not enough since I came across people with unresolved emotional issues that have had a direct impact on their managerial and leadership effectiveness. Therefore I started to learn about EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique - www.emofree.com) which I use to release negative emotions and change limiting beliefs as part of the coaching process. I am currently doing a Masters in NLP, Hypnotherapy and Timelinetherapy and will further integrate this into the coaching process.

My larger Vision is to create a Centre for Holistic Well-being (Flow & Balance is the 1st step towards it) which essentially becomes an Integrated Healing Centre where Coaching is part of the Client Engagement process. The vision of the Centre is: Becoming a living Resource Center and Incubator of self-actualization, greater goodness and humanity in action to contribute to the evolution of collective consciousness around the world. A tall order, but I have already found wonderful partners who are willing to contribute and make this Vision a reality.

My intention with this blog is really to share more about myself, my thinking and the work I want to pursue with others to make the world a better place to live in. We are approaching the "end of time" as the Mayan calendar has predicted, completing the 5th cycle of 5,125 years on 21st Dec 2012. While there are several dooms day scenarios out there, I believe we have the opportunity to choose our future and create a new epoch of peace, cooperation, and healing. This is what I would like to be part of, contribute my talents & abilities and build a community based on our humanity and beyond the Ego.

"We live in an illusion and the 'appearance' of things.There is a reality...We are that reality. When you understand this.You can see that you are no-thing. And being no-thing. You are everything. That is all"

--Kalu Rinpoche

Have a great day and I will be back...

Yours,

Vanessa