Category Archives: A Balanced Life

New Moon

11 July 2018A Balanced Life, visualizationcoaching, self coaching, setting goals, vision boardMeg

New Moon goals With the New Moon coming up at the end of the week, my thoughts have turned to how I might prepare my monthly vision page. As this is the first New Moon of the new financial year I have decided to structure it a little differently to usual and will approach it similarly to a self coaching session. It will be interesting to see if the results are different as I sit down after a meditation session and journal my answers to the following questions:

What do I want for the month ahead of this New Moon? I’m going to keep the language positive and in the present, recording my intentions on my vision page. I may or may not create a Q & A table to order my thoughts, but it is highly probable that I may create a page that looks more like a mind map as I am quite visual.

I might create a page around the “W” questions…What? Where? When? Who? and write the answers accordingly.

What do I want to change in the month ahead of the New Moon?
Who can help me achieve this change? Does it depend on me alone or can I ask for help?
Do I have an outcome in mind when I make these changes? By stating my outcome in positive language, my brain is more likely to accept the changes and turn the goals into reality
What do I want to achieve? Saying what I DO want will help me focus on a positive outcome and it’s important to make this about something for me and not what others might want me to do.
What action do I need to take to make these changes? A vision will remain just a dream unless there is action.
When will I take action to make these changes? If I want to write a book, then my first step would be to set a realistic time frame and to create some space on a daily basis to do some writing.
Will achieving the goals for this month have a bearing on my long term goals? As the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu said “Every journey starts with a single step”. By achieving small and realistic goals, we begin to feel more confident

A valuable part of the process is ensuring that my outcomes for the month will be realistic and achievable. In addition I’m going to make my page as multi sensory as possible- using visual, auditory and kinaesthetic language. What do I see, hear or feel about my vision for the month ahead?

If you would like more help in creating your Vision Book and regular pages or for more information about Coaching, follow THIS link

Success

5 July 2018A Balanced Life, successaction steps, coaching, goals, self coaching, successMeg

Create a mindset for success.

Have a list of your goals, the action steps and your alternative plan somewhere where you can readily review them. As you move closer to success and progress to your ultimate goal, regularly review your goals. Ask yourself the following question: “What would I do if this step didn’t work?”

Success also depends on your focus.

How committed are you to the goals you have set, regardless of the obstacles that may pop up in your way? By focusing on the goal and making it the most important thing in your life (for now) you must learn to ignore your inner critic by taking consistent action. Let go of the final outcome and focus on your journey.

Evaluate your progress and make a note of what is working for you and what’s not.

Is there room for improvement?
Do you need to change your approach? Evaluate your original plan and notice if it is still relevant and even more important, once you have reached your ultimate goal….
What’s next?

Start planning for your next goal following these five steps to success!

Did you miss the success tips?

Here they are briefly:

Create a mindset for success
List your goals
Action steps
Have a Plan B
Review regularly

If you would like more information on coaching or any of the other services that I offer, fill in the contact form below.

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Meg Phillips Master Practitioner Member of ABNLP

Setting A Goal

19 June 2018A Balanced Life, Coachingcoaching, flexibility, setting goals, successMeg

There is a difference between setting a goal and achieving that same goal.

The idea of setting a goal is to move you from one place (usually “stuck”) to another. If you don’t know the way, you may well get lost or easily sidetracked, but if you have a map, even a rudimentary one or an ancient one – well used, you will get there more easily.

You may need to adjust your journey according to the conditions at the time.

For me to set a goal, I also need to include some measure of flexibility. The first thing to think about when setting a goal is where do you want to go to or achieve?

To achieve your goal you need to follow some specific steps.

Seems simple enough, but let me share some steps that I use with coaching clients with you to make it easier. Traditional and specific ways of setting a goal that I have found useful are based on using the following prompts:

When – setting a date for when you want to achieve your goal
What – what exactly do you want? State this in the present tense so that your subconscious mind registers the goal “as if” the goal has been achieved.
Where – if you are looking for a new house or a job, where do you want it to be?
How – how will you achieve your goal?
Who – do you have anyone to help you achieve your goals? Who can you enlist to be accountable?
Why – What are the benefits to YOU for achieving your goals?

To be continued….

Risk

14 June 2018A Balanced Life, creativityAkashic Records, focus, letting go, RiskMeg

There is an element of risk in most things – driving your car, walking down the street – life is full of possible risks and there is no guarantee that we won’t encounter risk of some sort in our lifetime. There is a great book, Feel the Fear and do it Anyway by Susan Jeffers that encourages us to turn fear into action.

One o and the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom f the benefits (yes, there are benefits) of coming down with the flu or something similar, is that it gives you time to reflect on a whole host of things and usually in an altered state of reality. Allowing yourself time to reflect is certainly part of the healing process and should you subscribe to the effects of various celestial events, all part of the process to work towards enlightenment.

I was recently gifted an Akashic Records session and accepted it without hesitation. So, with the old adage in mind “nothing ventured, nothing gained”, the session was booked in. As the process began, I started to feel quite emotional which was unusual as the session was being done over the phone. Allowing myself to go with the flow and experience this journey, it was somewhat disconcerting to hear the facilitator telling me she saw an archway behind me and a guide standing there. She wouldn’t have realized that the door to my clinic room was open and the hallway arch was behind me! The other images and metaphors that were revealed were equally as fascinating as the guides communicated through her to me.

Of interest to me was the observation that I have been getting sick as a result of fear of letting go. This certainly fitted in with my realization that I have had frequent illnesses since leaving teaching….. I need to fully let go of the unhelpful energies around a disappointing teaching position and open up to the flow and trusting that I will always be safe when connected to the Universe.

The session was over all too quickly and it inspired me to open up and offer some workshops to the wider public, rather than just my client list and within minutes I had an email indicating that someone would like to attend one of the workshops.

Having focused on what I wanted more of and taken the advice and opened myself to better opportunities and possibilities, I can see that there is truth in being aware of where your thoughts take you as there is a powerful energy in intention.

The Cycle of Life

27 April 2018A Balanced Life, Abundance, Autumn Equinoxcycle of lifeMeg

Autumn for me is a time of introspection and reflection on the cycle of life. Recently I have been going through stored boxes that contain stuff from my deceased parents. The years have made it easier to discard what is no longer relevant, but certain items awaken long buried memories. Your sap is in my sap; we are one thing. Part of the healing is making time to read a little each day, varying between fiction and educational works, I have to admit that Manuscript found in Accra is not the easiest book that I have read by Paulo Coelho.

In fact it is the type of book that I pick up and read a snippet at a time and come back to days or weeks later. The book is in plain view on my desk to encourage myself to delve back into it and am glad that I am taking this approach as the re-reading is delivering greater insights than the first reading. In a way this complements the cycle of life, in that there is no beginning and no end. Occasionally a passage just jumps out from the page and can be immediately related to.

“Does a leaf, when it falls from the tree in winter, feel defeated by the cold?

The tree says to the leaf: ‘That’s the cycle of life. You may think you’re going to die, but you live on in me. It’s thanks to you that I’m alive, because I can breathe. It’s also thanks to you that I have felt loved, because I was able to give shade to the weary traveller. Your sap is in my sap; we are one thing.”

Paulo Coelho – Manuscript found in Accra.

With the autumn leaves turning various shades and creating delicious carpets of colour on the lawns and paths which some will delight in and others grumpily observe as a chore, the leaves once swept and gathered will make valuable compost to add back to the garden at a later time. You may think you’re going to die, but you live on in me.

It’s not a time to be sad, especially if you look at the vibrant hues of nature’s palette as the leaves respond to the cooler nights. Still, I will miss the warmer days and the summer light, but this heralds a time to harvest crops and reflect on what lies within and what will come or return after winter. The cycle of life….

Autumn and the cycle of life

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A Sense of Self

13 April 2018A Balanced Life6 core needs, growth, maslow's hierarchy, Self, significanceMeg

It begins with trust. You have to listen to your innermost being or soul and trust, without being led astray by the ego which is often distracted by bright, shiny things. A sense of self is the recognition that we are spiritual beings using the human body as a vehicle. Delve deeply and you will find that a sense of self is often tied to our identity.

Often we align our sense of “Self” with our identity of what we do for a living. For instance, I was a teacher, so often my conversations were defined by teaching, school, students and so on. Being a “school teacher” was a vehicle that has been superseded by other vehicles that I have chosen. I still use the teacher identity or vehicle on occasion, but it’s more like a vintage car that is garaged and brought out for special occasions.

The vehicle you choose to use can be changed so long as it works in a powerful way that allows you to be congruent with your inner self. Ideally, what you do for a living should be aligned with your personal beliefs. There are many unhappy people walking this earth studying or working in fields that they “should” do or are expected to do, and this can be dictated by our core needs.

A sense of self and Maslow's Hierarchy of needs Anthony Robbins suggests that we have at least 6 Core Needs that have to be fulfilled to achieve success and ultimately happiness. Compare this to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs where he organized 5 basic needs into a pyramid where physiological needs like food and shelter and safety needs such as security form the base of the pyramid.

Maslow then orders “Belongingness and Love” relating to friends and relationships and “Esteem” which relates to accomplishments are our psychological needs. The cap on Maslow’s pyramid is Self Actualization which can only be fulfilled once all the other needs below have been met.

Four of Robbins Core Needs relate to our personality and he outlined these in a much viewed TED talk. These needs are Certainty/ Variety; Uncertainty/Significance and Love & Connection and there is a certain level of contradiction between each core need. For instance if we have too much certainty in our lives, then there is no variety and if we put too much weight on achieving significance, then often we will neglect our connection with loved ones.

What does certainty mean to you? Robbins puts forward a list that includes safety, stability, security, comfort and order and you can certainly see how they would fit into Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. There are many people in the world today that would love to have certainty in their lives, yet are denied it by shifting political and environmental confines.

“Variety is the spice of life” is an old saying. Without it we wouldn’t have our intrepid explorers who craved adventure or being able to rise to a challenge as we seek to make changes in our existence.

Significance is about the need to feel needed or wanted. Taking pride in what you do demonstrates the core need to feel special or important whether it is for personal satisfaction or for others. Volunteering is a wonderful example of meeting our need for significance. We can also be quite unresourceful when attempting to meet this need for significance. Who hasn’t been the recipient of gossip or had to listen to endless sad tales about someone’s life?

Love and connection is innate. From birth we crave connection as we are essentially social creatures. Business networking, memberships of clubs and associations fulfill the adult need for connection, even if it may seem overly purposeful at times.

The remaining two core needs are Growth and Contribution and these relate to our needs of the spirit. To nourish our spirit we need to feed it with emotional and spiritual activities. One of my favourite sayings (& I can’t remember where it came from) is “You are either green and growing or ripe and rotting”.

To get a clearer sense of self, ask yourself the following questions. Make a list or a table of your answers and include alongside them your skills and unique characteristics.

What have you achieved?

What do you believe you can still achieve?

What are your limits?

What are your values?

What are your fears?

Who are you becoming?

Need a little help in getting clear about your core needs? Call to discuss which coaching package is best suited for you.

The Power of Metaphor

21 February 2018A Balanced Life, Coaching, Life balancecoaching, emotional intelligence, Homeopathy, MetaphorMeg

What is metaphor?

It’s a way of speaking that uses words or pictures to describe something in a symbolic way.

At the workshop I presented at today, I used both words and pictures as metaphors to bypass the conscious mind. This was to get the participants thinking more deeply about their EQ or emotional intelligence in regard to how much balance (or not) is in their lives.

Without giving too much away…. and because I’m planning on repeating the workshop quite soon, I asked them to think about what tools that they might have on hand to apply in various situations.

Using a variety of photos, including that of my own toolbox, we segued into how they might successfully navigate situations or people using various Emotional Intelligence strategies.

My real toolbox contains a good selection of Homeopathic remedies. Many years ago I used to take it on home visits for some clients who had children diagnosed with ADHD. Much easier than having a bored and disruptive child confined in an office and a wonderful way to observe their behaviours in their natural habitat!

The metaphoric toolbox

This contains various tools that can be used to change perception of self or situations. These tools enable one to respond rapidly to changing situations or to be creative and innovative in an approach to new or novel ideas.

Setting life goals is much like having a garden. You’ve designed the garden beds, carefully planned where the trees have been placed and planted a variety of plants – perhaps even a lawn area. But the work doesn’t stop here. The lawn needs to be mowed on a regular basis. The plants need to be tended and occasionally, plants such as roses need to be pruned to produce the next seasons lush growth.

And so it is with life goals. You’ve planned the goals, placed a few key elements to stand out. All this needs maintenance and constant action to keep the momentum to get the end result. Along the way you may encounter a prickly person or what you thought was a beautiful flower which turns out to be a weed and needs to be removed.

With no way of knowing their story, a metaphor can be transformative to many people as they apply and adapt it to their own life experience or goals and bring about an inner awareness of their own strengths or weaknesses.

Negative self-talk

13 February 2018A Balanced Life, conversationMeg

Would you put up with someone you barely know constantly criticize you?

I think not.

Yet how often do you do this very same thing to yourself?

There will be some people who don’t, but many of the clients that I see, have a fair bit of negative self talk or chatter going on inside. The biggest one is “I’m not good enough”.

Not good enough at what?

When delving deeper the source of the problem usually stems from a childhood perception, although some people are unfortunate in that they have very negative or toxic parents who frequently tell the child that they are “not good enough” in so many ways.

I remember back to my own childhood when I was learning the times tables and I got stuck on 9 times something…even now I’ve filtered the memory so that I don’t feel those feelings of failure! My brother who is three years younger piped up with the correct answer and my parents were ecstatic at his cleverness.

Cue the negative self talk.…….“I’m not good at maths”, yet years later in high school I got 100% in a geometry test, because I loved the shapes, had an eye for angles and measurement. Later in life I developed an interest in Fibonacci numbers, Mandelbrot sets and Sacred Geometry. But because I had that label of not being good at maths and seriously didn’t (and to this day don’t) have a clue about algebra and those weird math stories to puzzle over, my teacher thought I cheated and gave me a detention.

But back to you….. and your negative self talk. Think back to a time when you were a toddler. Your subconscious mind knows what we are talking about even if your conscious mind doesn’t a memory of that time. When you were starting to walk. You pulled yourself upright and most probably sat yourself straight back down again.

Did you think you were “not good enough” then? Of course not!

Taking your first steps….. oooops! Down again.

The Japanese have a lovely saying “Fall down seven times, get up eight.” And that’s exactly what you did until you got yourself mobile. If you are prone to negative self talk then it may pay to remember this.

How to overcome the negative self talk? It will have become a habit and habits can be changed. Some habits take longer to change than others, but this depends on how motivated you are.

Practice observing and listening to others and the language you most frequently use. Notice your language. What if you could substitute some key words you are using for something more positive?

The energy of the words and the tonality are all-important ways in which we communicate subtly.

Is your language positive and empowering or do you dis-empower yourself and others when you speak?

Tony Robbins has some comprehensive language lists in Awaken the Power Within. This is just a very small sample:

Negative	Transformed to…
Angry	disenchanted
Depressed	Not on top of it
Hate	prefer
Irritated	stimulated
Overwhelmed	challenged
Rejected	misunderstood
Sad	Sorting my thoughts
Stressed	busy
Terrible	different

It’s time to start being mindful – use some of these alternatives and notice the difference.

30 Days of Gratitude

7 February 2018A Balanced Life, gratitudeMeg

Gratitude helps you grow 30 days of gratitude.

30 days doesn’t seem like a lot at first, but thinking about what to put for each day would have been a challenge had in not been for a picture that popped up on a social media site at just the right time.

I transcribed each day into my diary and then made a booklet to print off later that has space to diarize each day of gratitude. I had thought to post the next cycle on this blog, but then realized that there are days where I have little or no internet – especially when up at the retreat – so that idea won’t work.

A good friend said “Why stop at 30 days? Shouldn’t we all be grateful for something every day?” and I agree with her. Eileen Caddy’s quote: ” Gratitude helps you grow and expand. Gratitude brings joy and laughter into your lives and into the lives of all those around you” seems so apt. It brings about an awareness into our lives and awakens our consciousness.

By using the 30 Days of Gratitude Journal a habit can be created. Even though it has been a couple of days since the 30 days finished, I’m finding that I’m still writing down what I’m grateful for in my daily journal. I’ve rewritten the 30 ideas, mixing them up a little into my diary for another 30 Days of Gratitude and am looking forward to continuing the journey.