MMM – Morning Mood Management

  

Cruising the web on an information search I just ran into these Chinese bunnies called Tuzki on this Art Site. What amazed me was how quickly they connected with my emotional center. They are simply drawn and yet expressive in my eyes – like this desperate one here:
 

I guess that is why quite a few German bloggers use these Tuzkis to show their actual mood in the sidebars of their blogs. Just imagine to transfer that kind of visible emotional state out of virtuality into real life settings! Wouldn’t it make some communications and things easier to receive visual signals on how our counterpart feels? I am fantazising about: (S)He is wearing a mini mood screen attached to her/his clothes. That would be a wordless “I-message” like “I feel desperate!” or “I am sad”.  That means (s)he knows her/his genuine feeling and shows it this way. Is there a reason that I only mention so-called “negative” emotions? Yes, happiness, joy, enthusiasm, being in love usually are unmasked and visible at first sight.

One step back: Each morning when we get up we check our emotional state by looking at visualized moods that we feel attracted to. Then we decide to accept and even embrace the identified mood in this very moment and at the same time work with it consciously in a MMM - Morning Mood Management. Being aware of an emotional state like sadness also gives us the chance to ask questions like: What is it that can make me feel (a bit) happier in this very moment and soften the sadness? One answer can be: A colourful red rose on this grey and cold late atumn day… and you go and get one. Another answer could be: a cup of hot chocolate. Both is pretty easy to acquire for the moment. 

Back to reality. What about you? How are you today? Are you in contact with your emotional center? Does a feeling like sadness show as sadness or is it masked as anger or impatience or…?

I wish you a happy groovy day:

7 Ways to boost your Influence

 

1. Talk consciously and talk about yourself
Whenever you are having a communication with someone activate what I call your inner dialogue director. (S)He will be aware of the things you say. Your words, your tone and your mimic are the only thing you can really influence. As soon as you say “You are…” or “You did…” your counterpart will leave the level of exchange and answer or even argue: “I am not…” or “I did not…” Try it, in nine of ten cases the respond to a ”You”-Message is a negation of the message and an off-topic dynamic. “You misunderstood me…” turns into “Sorry, I expressed myself in a way that caused misunderstandings, I meant…” Or: “Speak up, your voice is far too low!” turns into: “Sorry, I missed what you said because I could hardly hear it. Can you please repeat it and speak up?” One provokes resistance the other has a good chance to fulfil your needs.

2. Do without “try”
To “try” something means your influence on a situation or action is 50:50. You may succeed. You may fail. Whatever you are trying – failure is part of the game and deflates your influence. If you want to stop smoking, stop smoking. It is easy once you make the true decision.

3. Conjunctive mood 
“I’d propose…”, “I’d say…” What function does the conjunctive mood have in your communication? It makes you smaller and it diminishes your personal standing in a situation. Women like to use this way of expressing themselves. Ladies and gentlemen, please be aware next time you do it again. Awareness is the first step.

4. Leave out written and spoken negations whenever you can
How powerful are negations? They are powerful, sure. Do they influence a situation or person in a constructive way? The Hawaiian MAKIA says energy flows where attention goes. That is reason enough to focus on the things and actions you want, isn’t it. (See also “No! No! No!”)

5. Prefer solutions
The problems are already there and focusing on them weakens your influence in the long run. Genius Albert Einstein is quoted: “You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created.” Brain sciences say the same: Our solution center is located in another brain area than our “problem center”.  Ask yourself the “miracle question”: How can you tell that there was a miracle overnight? Your problem is solved in the morning – what makes you realize that it is solved?” (Okay, I admit that this is a bit hard to do all by yourself and without a coach by your side  

6. Now is the moment of power
Hawaiian Huna again: the 4th Huna principle is called MANAWA. It means: Now is the moment of power. The past is over. The future is a mind construct and phantasy. Your present reality empowers you to whatever you decide to be empowered to.

7. Essence = Essense – an example
Step 1 to 6 without influence:
You have seduced me to start smoking!
I’d really like to try not to smoke.
But I have such a big problem to stop it and I will really suffer from the withdrawal symptoms, my nervosity, my gaining weight and and and…

Step 1 to 6 with influence:
I allowed myself to be seduced by peer group pressure and the coolness smoking seemed to spread in my eyes.
Now in this very moment I live a better life and focus on what feels good and has positive impact on me.
I read the book Easy Way to Stop Smoking by Allen Carr that shows me the tricky trap I was caught in until today or I find another strategy of coping with my “desire” or strong “need” to harm myself.

The miracle shows up like this: Suddenly you are free, you breath fresh air wherever you go, you love to move and do sports again, you change your nutrition and taste wonderful food again, you smell your clean, washed clothes…  

Unloop your life!

Flow

In a comment in my German blog someone wondered how long I’d be able to provide the frequency and quality of my postings. I took it as a compliment and wondered what made the flow for me so far. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi defines flow like this (quotet by Wikipedia):

1. Clear goals (expectations and rules are discernible and goals are attainable and align appropriately with one’s skill set and abilities).
2. Concentrating and focusing, a high degree of concentration on a limited field (a person engaged in the activity will have the opportunity to focus and to delve deeply into it).
3. A loss of the feeling of self-consciousness, the merging of action and awareness.
4. Distorted sense of time, one’s subjective experience of time is altered.
5. Direct and immediate feedback (successes and failures in the course of the activity are apparent, so that behavior can be adjusted as needed).
6. Balance between ability level and challenge (the activity is neither too easy nor too difficult).
7. A sense of personal control over the situation or activity.
8. The activity is intrinsically rewarding, so there is an effortlessness of action.
9. People become absorbed in their activity, and focus of awareness is narrowed down to the activity itself, action awareness merging (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975. p.72).

I guess that is where my personal feeling of flow comes from, too. My goals are clear to me: PR for (business) coaching - a service that can truely support people in their(business)life; sharing insights, inspirations and exchanging with others; spreading the word and promoting my e-book plus the charity activity that comes with it and last but not least: global networking.

Whenever I do something I concentrate and focus on it. Writing and coaching are my true passions and so it is even easier for me to do so. For me it is a kind of dedication.

When I am writing for this blog I forget everything around me. A “we” arises from this action.

Yes, my sense of time changes and is different when I log in here: I forget everything around.

I like the direct and immediate feedback given by a dialogue based Web 2.0.

Writing in a foreign language sometimes makes the balance between ability level and challenge a bit harder for me to achieve. I am working on that one.

Writing for my blog I feel a sense of personal control over the situation and activity and at the same time let go. That combination fascinates me. 

The activity of sharing ideas and thoughts with you definitely is intrinsically rewarding, so there is an effortlessness of action.

I become absorbed in my activity, and my focus of awareness is narrowed down to the activity itself. Writing is the way and the goal at the same time. The 26 letters of the alphabet are part of the flow, well, for me they create and are the flow. I am very grateful for this gift.

(One more gratitude dance. Now!

Do you live up to (hidden) mind scripts?

In my last posts I mentioned the power of thinking several times. You will come across this idea from time to time again in this blog. The way we think about ourselves, about the world, about other people mostly determines our life time’s quality.
The best way to change our scripts is to watch consciously what is hidden in them. Our repeating and mostly negative thoughts create the often enough hidden scripts of our “life’s screenplay”. Mostly we have secret concepts in our minds – I also call them mind scripts – we live up to.

Some people have very positive concepts about themselves. They feel and are successful in what matters to them. Others have concepts that are preventing them from success and joy. Let’s have a look at these  mind scripts. I call them: The Loser concept, the Martyr concept, the Victim concept, the Fighter concept, the Advocate concept, the Winner concept and the Master concept or Director’s script. In my e-book “The 7 Secrets of Happy and Successful Life Directors” they are part of Chapter 2 “Wake up both your Script Writer and Dialogue Director”. (If this sounds interesting you will find out more reading the preview pdf here.)

My experience is that I am already starting to change my scripts in the very moment I recognize them. My awareness is the first step of change. My concepts determine the story of my life. My screen play is based on them and so are my dialogies, my casting characters and/or star roles. That is why our scripts are precious and play an important role in our life.

FF!

FastForward – FF! is a tool you can use to fast-forward your life movie to get across a point of momentary crisis. This method enables you to see some future light again in what feels all dark in the actual situation.

A father of a 17  years old daughter lost his well paid job. His wife had died one year before that. Loss was an actual and permanent issue in this man’s life at that point. His daughter had her teenage issues at the same time and the man felt overwhelmed to cope with all that. So in a typical fight situation he yelled at his daughter to go overseas as an exchange student. In that very moment he did not realize what his words evoked.
His daughter really did what he had “proposed” out of a feeling of anger and frustration. She left him and her home to join an exchange student program. From there she wrote him a letter that she will move out after her return in one year. Now the father felt completely desperate. He did not see any sense in his life at that point.

With his coach he used the tool FF! First he fast-forwarded “his movie” pretty far to a (imagined) time and scenario when his daughter had her first baby, his first grandchild. He and his daughter spent time together with the little child. Their love had outlived the hard times. That gave him comfort and new confidence.
Next time his travel with his coach led him to a time that was closer to the present. He visited his daughter who was a university student in another city. Again they spend some good time together.  
In the third mind travel he visited his daughter at her guest family in the exchange program. He told her how sorry he felt for his behaviour and that he did not mean to throw her out.
That was what the man really did after using FF!. He took some money of his savings and flew to visit his daughter.

Depending on your issue(s) in an actual crisis you can use this tool in self-coaching or better have the guidance of a coach in a face-to-face sesssion. It can be of great support in dealing with situations that bother you.

What about “The Secret”?

Yesterday I was asked: “What do you think about ‘The Secret’?” I have been thinking about this question before quite a bit. My answer was: “I like some of the ideas and stories in the book. What I dislike is any kind of dogma and “musts”. And there is also a danger in the movement as I see it: People start to push themselves and others. They start to conquer who is the best magnet. Turning it around  means: Those who are unhappy or unsuccessful are blamed for being lousy magnets… There is much stigma energy around this ‘omnipotent idea’. In my eyes it is important to be aware of it.

When I looked for a professional training to become a business coach in 2003 I had a short contact with a German group that taught the principles of “The Secret”. The things I saw and experienced there were strange and even scary. The instructors taught everybody literally: “You always have the choice. Everything you have in your life was your choice. Whatever happens to you happens because you attract it to you!” That was before the book was published. What I observed and watched there was what I call the death of empathy. Someone talked about a disease, everybody looked at the person and many said it loudly: “You chose it!” Yes, maybe we unconsciously choose disease as a way of our soul. The attitude and their way of expressing it made me shiver. I met those people twice in seminars and then quit.

My coaching philosophy is free of dogma and musts. My work represents various schools and methods. I love to integrate techniques and methods of teachers like Byron Katie or others as one method or tool among many. Representing only one idea is too little for me. What I love is the Hawai’ian Huna Philosophy and its 7th principle: PONO – effectiveness is the measure of truth. “The 7 Secrets of happy and successful Life Directors” are invitations, inspirations and ideas that I share with my readers. It was written in the spirit of PONO and of course ALOHA.

I wish you a wonderful Sunday
Sandra

Reinventing your past?!

The analogy I am working with as a coach is: I am the director of my life movie. This means: I choose the genre. I write the scripts. I cast people for (star) roles or otherwise I get casted myself. I am the light and tone master. I am responsible for the balance and in the very end it is all my director’s cut - good to know my basic life’s plot.

This life direction gives me the chance to use mind movie tools as well like rewinding or fast-forwarding. A client of mine kind of reinvented her past and made it visible in the present. She had had a miserable childhood and was abandoned emotionally most of the time. This client discovered little figures by Susan Lordi some day  that hit her heart. One was called “Mother and Daughter” and the other “Father and Daughter”. She bought both of them and put them into her kitchen which is a room of thankfulness for this woman (because of its abundance of food and her love to cook). I was interested and asked her to show me pictures of the figures if she likes to do so. She did. Then I asked her whether her intention is to ”pretend a loving childhood”? She smiled at me and shook her head. “The figures symbolize for me that I had deserved to be looked at and treated like these little girls there. I was worth it, too. Whenever I come into my kitchen those remind me of being a good mother or a good father for my inner little girl now. That is why I bought them and that is why I like them being faceless. It is the energy they spread that is caring and comforting.”

Why do I share this client’s experience? It might support you to find some symbol, picture or figure that reinvents your past in a way that makes you feel good in the present moment. I felt touched by this way of dealing with a sad past. This was transformating for me. The client told me that looking at the figures daily she was able to forgive her parents. She said that they also had deserved to be loving and caring parents which for unknown reasons they could not.

xxx

xxxxx

Is our past a resource?

In my German coaching blog a comment was made that our past is a resource. What do you think about it? Do you see your past as a resource? I thought about it and came to the conclusion that I see my present as a resource. My past can show me something about resources that brought me to the present I am now living it. My past is over, I have no direct access to it. Sure, I can analyze it and even travel back by rewinding my life’s movie – something I propose in my new e-book as a self-coaching tool. Is there a link between my past and my present that supports me to create something new now? With this question on my mind I looked at my bookshelves… and I found an answer.

Reinventing Your Life by Jeffrey E. Young and Janet S. Klosko was interesting and fascinating to read. In Germany it was also a bestseller shortly after release. This book is about life traps and how we can deal with them. Our life traps developed in our past during childhood and they do influence many of us today if we are not aware of them or do not know how to face them.  

I warmly recommend this book to people who feel that repeating and self-destructive patterns rule their life. One chapter is “Please don’t leave me!” – The Abandonment Lifetrap, another is called “I’ll never get the love I need” – The Emotional Deprivation Lifetrap”. What I like best are the clear and frank examples from clients’ lives, the checklists and the explanation how those lifetraps emerge.

XXX 

Why?

Language and communiation determine many of our life’s scripts. Do you often ask yourself or others “why…?” Is this a question that inspires changes? Or does “why” more likely accuse or look  for responsibilities or guilt? “Why did I…” “Why did he…” Often it comes with “again”.

Susan is 46 years old and a bit overweight. She works in an office and moves little during the day. She became a member in a stylish and expensive fitness club. When the half year bill for her membership comes Susan realizes that she had only been nine times to the fitness studio in the last six months. So the single workout had a high average prize. Susan asks herself: “Why am I so lazy?” or “Why did I go there so rarely?” “Why do others keep themselves fit so easily and I cannot?”

“Why” is Susan doing that? Does it change her frequency of sport or is it more a reproachful blaming of herself? The question that inspires changes better in my eyes is “What do I need to… do my sport more frequently?” or “What do I need to… be more motivated?” Susan prefers to go to the training with someone. So asking a friend to join her can help. The studio is pretty far from Susan’s flat. So a change of the fitness club can change her fun and freqency, too.

“Why” is a question that most of the time looks back and is blaming someone for somthing. “What do I need…?” focusses on the future and how a change can realistically be made. 

Next time you ask yourself or someone else “why” be aware that you ask a question that looks back.  

No! No! No!

Have you ever paid attention to the way you express yourself? I mean in words and thoughts? How often do you say “No”? How often do you use negations in your written or spoken everyday communication? I cannot. I don’t want to do this or have that… “What bull…!” you may think now. “She is one of those talk-and-think-positively-kind-of-people pretending the bad is good.

Well, I am focussing on brain research. Thinking about problems activates other areas than thinking of solutions. Take that one: Your partner suggests to see a movie. You answer: “I do not like this movie.” Or you say: “I do not feel like going to the movies.” Most likely your partner receives and decodes a negative message. Actually that is a negative message. You say what you do not want. But what do you want instead? The negation even can lead to arguments because your partner may feel rejected. He or she does not learn what you would like to do. You focus on: negation.

Whenever someone suggests something that you do not like switch to the part of your brain where the solution center is located while asking yourself: What do I like? “I have heard about this xy-movie and I am very interested in seeing that one. What about you?” Even if your partner likes his (her) own idea better it makes a compromise easier than just refusing the first proposal.

Two years ago I have started to change my written communication. Now - in my mother tongue – I write and do without any negations. Starting it I saw it as an exercise and doing it it felt so good that I continued. This first step changed my way of thinking over the past years and it gave me a new awareness. I call this “activating my dialogue director”. Remember, in my coaching I am working with the analogy of (business)life direction. The inner dialogue director is part of my “inner film team” directing this movie called life. Communication is most important. Our scripts are based on our communication. Thoughts are words, too.

Focused thinking for me is different to so-called positive thinking. There is an example I like very much. Just imagine you want to drive to your favorite lake in order to take beautiful pictures. In the morning you look outside your window and it is raining. Positive thinking in my eyes would be to spend the day inside reading a book. You then say to yourself: “It is good that it is raining, so I can read my book.” What about your plan to take pictures?! Focused thinking for me is different. You ask yourself: What do I need to go to the lake and take the pictures in spite of the rain? Then you protect yourself and your camera against the water and leave. That gives you the chance to get beautiful pictures of nature and even of a rainbow when the sun comes out again…

Exercise for the day:
Become aware whenever you use a negation today.
Just this.
Awareness is it.