In conjunction with a colleague, I run a monthly networking meeting with a little difference.
now we are moving to a new level and want to share some of our experience and expertise with other women starting out their businesses.
You can find out more about us on our blog Monday Connections
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The road to enlightenment can be bumpy or smooth, twisted or straight, forked or direct…..no matter which one you are travelling on, be certain that it is exactly the right one you are meant to be on.
The particular road in the photo is bumpy and corrugated – the legacy of being the old Ghan railway track. The railway was re-routed because of the damage caused by the Finke River flooding and regular stranding of the train, so the tracks were ripped up and the railway became a road.
It is possible to traverse this road without feeling every bump and shake….
How? ….you may ask…… by increasing your speed so that the tyres of your vehicle skim across the top/peaks of the corrugations.
And so it is with continuing education…. there are peaks and troughs, but once the momentum is gained then you move more smoothly and quickly towards your goal. With every long journey it is recommended that you have a map, but it’s not always necessary if you have a gift for navigation by the stars……and sometimes, it is the road less travelled that is the one most interesting.
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Setting up in a Hypnotherapy or Coaching practice takes time. Do the study, then some more and then a steep learning curve on how to market yourself and perhaps find a niche.
“Find a niche an inch wide and a mile deep” was a comment made in one lecture I attended.
All well and good, but a couple of years after graduating, I was still looking for that niche like the proverbial needle in a haystack. Around me were fellow students who seemed to have easily and effortlessly slipped into their niches …Past Life Regressions, Lives between Lives, Style Coaching, Relationship Coaching, Business Coaching, Weight Loss, Stop Smoking… and the list goes on.
The bookshelves are groaning with the weight of recommended reading. The printer spits out marketing letters on a regular basis. I have sat down and written about my ideal client so many times I feel like we are conjoined twins…..
Yes, the clients are coming, but for a variety of reasons.
Mostly for weight with an underlying theme of stress.
Now that’s something I understand!
Perhaps I have stumbled upon my niche, except it doesn’t look an inch wide… more like a mile wide and a bottomless chasm deep.
The interest in stress started when I was still teaching. I noticed that if I kept an appearance of calm, then the students seemed to respond better. Combining a teaching job and parenting 2 young children meant that my meditation practice was made up of incidental moments rather than a half hour session at any one time. Breathing at the traffic lights, mindfulness when on yard duty – appreciating the moments of nature… a leaf…. an interesting cloud….
Leaving teaching for a couple of years, I went to a job where I was able to observe how people with learning difficulties reacted to stress. An interest in how the mind adapts to stress grew from here and CBT based Adolescent Counseling beckoned. Back to teaching and full-time for three years. This time the universe threw me a curved ball. Being back in the classroom with a different perspective on student learning was fabulous, but the staffroom was toxic and not entirely from the black mould growing around the school.
But that’s a whole different story to be told later…
I left.
I took time out.
I studied some more and graduated with a Diploma in Clinical Hypnotherapy and a Cert 4 in Training. I didn’t complete the Medical Intuitive course I thought was my next journey.
I went and sat in the Simpson Desert.
Then I went back to teaching part-time and a small client list part-time. Coaching studies to augment the Hypnotherapy and I was just muddling along. I didn’t have anything specifically wrong with my health, but just didn’t have the energy that I used to. Palpitations were becoming more frequent, but I dismissed them as a result of the coffee I was drinking. I didn’t notice that I wasn’t meditating any more. I was asked to speak about women and stress for a local council’s Women’s Network. Scroll back through some of the older posts and you’ll find that speech somewhere and the events that transpired a few months later!
So now it seems that my niche found me, rather than the other way around.
How curious is that?
I’m presenting a workshop next month with the topic “From Stress to Strength – Building Resilience for the Small Business Owner” and I’m preparing for that with a bit of work experience…
Yep!! I’m STRESSED!!
Just getting in a bit of practice….. some good stress involved this time with the imminent arrival of a grandson…some bad stress with a blind, diabetic aging dog that has to be let out to pee 2 -3 times a night.
Sleep deprivation is not good for stress management!
The body mind connection is letting me know I need to manage the stress a bit better, so the emWave is getting a good workout several times a day.
Last night was a case in point. I dream. Colour. Action… always vivid. Sometimes so full of action I am tired when I wake up. Sometimes, not very often now, the events are too vivid & I have been known to wake with a blood curdling yell. That didn’t happen last night, but I woke as I threw off the covers and went to confront some intruders that weren’t there and who came through a doorway that wasn’t there….. it took quite some time to convince my conscious mind that they and the doorway didn’t exist. This time the dog waking and going for a wander down the street at 2am was just what I needed as the activity in going looking for him helped to dissipate the stress hormones and I was able to get back to sleep relatively quickly.
A couple of emWave sessions before starting writing showed that I was entering into “Coherence” fairly easily. More sessions scheduled this morning before the afternoon clients.
It’s all about putting yourself first, to better serve clients.
It could be called Work Experience!
We are bombarded daily with messages …..buy this…..do that…… and whilst our conscious mind can filter out what is important to us at this moment and what is not, our subconscious mind is listening in, filing the information away, just in case it is useful later on……
If you are familiar with NLP, you will know that the filters will
Added to that is how we process the information through our senses.
This could be
These are our Representational Systems.
These senses also contribute to the words that we process or use, so using Visual based communication would include pictures but also words that are visual such as “looks like…”, “to get a perspective….”, “beyond a shadow of a doubt…..”, “appears to me….”, “can you see that….”, “it looks good….”, “focus on……”, “show me…..”. And it is similar for the other senses….
How we view the past is coloured by our perception. Five people with the five different processing skills listed above who witnessed a car accident would have vastly different accounts of the event, yet all be correct. Not only is our Representational System a major factor in how we remember, but our values or belief systems and our emotions also contribute to how our memories are formed.
If you have young children, you might be aware that they go through a stage where they tell lies. It’s part of the maturational process, but they believe what they are saying is true….. much like our current crop of politicians, but that’s another story…..
They are using their imagination, and we are all born with a fantastic imagination. We can create anything in our minds, we can also re-create our memories. This is especially useful if the memories are painful. Using the Hypnotic state, you can return to any time or place in your past and reframe the outcome to make it more positive or less hurtful. You can use the Gestalt process to have those conversations you wished you could have had at the time – this process is quite healing.
So just perhaps, when the past does call – it’s the subconscious mind bringing up something to work with, to reframe, to heal. You just don’t have to live there anymore and can return to a brighter future, bringing back some gems of wisdom or an insight to help you move forward.
Creating your own treasure map is possible…. When you map the resources you have and identify what you need, then you are better equipped to start your journey.
Have recently completed a course to become a Professional Supervisor, I came across a great exercise in the textbook we had to read and have used it in some sessions I have already taken.
You need a large sheet of paper and lots of coloured pens or textas. If you feel so inclined, you could also have on hand some old magazines, scissors and glue – to create a collage – very similar to vision boarding.
In the centre, draw a representation of yourself – it can be a symbol or a picture but make it large enough so that you can draw or write symbols/diagrams or words that represent your INNER resources. If there is no room, that’s fine – just attach them to the original drawing.
Next, think about all the things, people, events that support and sustain you, yet are external to you. Place them around the symbol/picture of yourself.
Use as much colour and texture as you feel necessary.
Take completely different colour and draw symbols or pictures of things that BLOCK you, or are in the way to fulfilling your dreams.
It could be FEAR – when it comes down to it, we all have fears and the three most basic fears are:
and these are what hold us back. Fear of not being good enough can lead to a fear of failure and yes, even fear of success. Strange but true! Many people have a fear of success, because they think that in being successful they may lose friends and therefore no longer “belong”.
The object of identifying the fears and the resources both within and around us it to allow us to work on building new and stronger resources. We have a choice – we can “feel the fear and do it anyway” (as Susan Jeffers so succinctly put it in her book) or we can choose to feel the opposite…. appreciation. I wonder what feels better!!
Going back to your resource map … what treasures have you discovered?
What tools, people or things do you appreciate for having got you to where you are now?
What do you need to move forward?
Is your inner compass set right to get you to your destiny?
Well, you are the mapmaker in this case… so look to your inner resources and review them. Cast your eye over your external resources and blocks and decide what to keep and what to change. Dig deep enough in the centre and you will find gold.
We seek to balance our lives on a daily basis. Work – Life balance can be tricky to manage.
But what if the very balance we are seeking is holding us back?
If you think about a bicycle, the balance you need to ride it, is what enables you to move forward. Imagine if you find your inner balance. Now seek out your unique strengths that you can use to take your life to the next level. Will you use that strength to move forward or remain balanced and motionless?
We all have a choice about the emotions we feel, the decisions we make, and these choices or decisions lead us to the way that we live our lives. The journey is different for each person, but there is a key…. and that key is focus.
Rather than focussing on what you DON’T want or what you think you SHOULD do …..focus on your passion, something that challenges you to move towards success. Life will be everything that you expect it to be…..it can be an adventure or tough. Your beliefs shape how you life your life and colour your perceptions. Your emotions and beliefs will attract to you what you experience.
What are you choosing to experience?
Are you choosing depression, overwhelm, self-pity or joy, exuberance or happiness?
When you are aware of what emotions or beliefs that you are experiencing, you can choose either resourcefully or unresourcefully. Notice how you hold your body, decide whether you want to continue feeling this way or not.
It’s your choice……
A visual blog this time……
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Good, healthy food is necessary to nourish the body and in the same way, good, healthy friendships nourish the heart.
To be “open hearted” is often forgotten in the whirlwind of setting up a business. In the birthing of a business, there can be tremendous creativity, excitement and a sense of hope as one moves towards realizing a dream and one can forget about nurturing your spiritual side.
Not all you the people you meet will be competitors. You may hear negative comments about your idea and yes, these may wound your psyche if you allow it. In this case, you will need to make a decision about whose advice you are going to take – which could be difficult if it is someone close.
When you contemplate and plan your business direction, notice if you feel a spark of passion, a sense of excitement and a feeling that you will be able to overcome any obstacles to fulfilling your dream. It is unfortunate that there are people on this earth that take delight in others misfortune, but remember, this stems from their envy and greed.
An oft quoted saying is ” that when the student is ready, the teacher will appear” and staying open to this idea will allow you to accept genuine acts of kindness when they are offered. Moments like these can be magical. There is a mystery, a synchronicity to being “open hearted”.
Listen and learn.
You may make mistakes, but these are opportunities to learn and grow.
Have gratitude for the opportunity to make mistakes and be like the Ancient Wise Ones who believed that a successful life comes from a love of genuinely loving what you do and what you are. When you follow your heart and listen to that inner wisdom, you are awakening a higher power within yourself.
Expand your awareness and let the Universe provide you with the signs that you are taking the right steps. Look beyond the obvious, and occasionally just stay still and let things unfold as they should.
Notice the little things, sharpen your senses and wonder at the beauty around you. As you do this, notice your purpose in the grander scheme of life. Enhanced awareness helps you to rejuvenate your entire sensory system and taking the time to do this will enable you to face problems with greater ease and make intelligent decisions. Standing in integrity with the intention to achieve your dreams will attract others to you with a similar mindset and an open heart.
A day late for the actual Equinox which according to the Bureau of Meteorology in Melbourne was at 11.02am on the 20th – the 21st is the Wicca festival of Mabon.
Celtic tradition also celebrated this marking of the change from Summer to Autumn.
Harvest festivals meant that people could celebrate the abundance of fruits and vegetables and great feasts were held, business concluded as people began to prepare for the winter months and a period of reflection.
It also marks the passage of womanhood from the fecundity of motherhood as she passes into the crone or Wise Woman.
It’s a time to reflect on the balance between light and dark as the equinox brings us a period of almost equal length of night and day.
A time too to reflect on the change of season and although Australia marks the change of season by the calendar – Australian Autumn starts on the 1st March – we have experienced six consecutive days of temperatures in the high 30C” (which crisped the leaves nicely) and then marked by high winds and a terrific thunderstorm today. All serving to remind us that warmer days are now being left behind and colder weather lies ahead.
So how to celebrate or mark the Equinox?
Bring some balance to your life.
Ever wondered why FaceBook is so popular?
It asks you each time you log in..
. “How’s it going?…..How are you feeling?
……I’m feeling fine, thanks!
But what if this was the only time you were asked?
What if …. your nearest and dearest didn’t ask similar questions?
…or stick around for a reply…..
Clever, almost subliminal questions that will get a lonely person disclosing more information than they probably should.
We all have a need to feel that we belong …. it’s part of our tribal archetype…..
What are you doing – right now?
A slightly different level of questioning – assuming that you want to tell your friends and acquaintances that all is OK.
Really?
With this question, I reckon more BS or “smoke and mirrors” is generated.. ….
No-one wants to be thought of as a “non achiever”!
On the flip side, do you really want to be reading all about the latest issues of your real friends. Stories abound of people dumped and finding out via social media….
Facebook is one of the few places where everyone is a winner.. especially if all your “friends” are coaches…..!
Masters of spin, mistresses of the re-frame……
Call me a cynic….
I do love the story of the Emperor’s New Clothes…… for those of you who are not familiar with it check it out……
http://youtu.be/wng-eSUk9I0