My story        

My passion for helping people change their lives reflects my own life journey. I grew up in a large family of which I was the middle child. As I was too young to be included in my older sisters’ activities my early childhood play was with my younger brothers.  We were the ‘kids’ and my sisters, ‘the girls’.  Then my brothers became ‘the boys’ and I – I was in nowhere land… I learnt independence and to keep my own company, mostly in the world of books. I also learnt that I was usually invisible and my opinion was always a minority vote and so of no significance.  The upside of this was that, together with all my reading, I became a thinker with strong opinions even though I kept them to myself!  It was only in midlife, while writing my Master’s degree thesis, that I discovered my ideas and opinions could add value to others.

Soon after completing my thesis I started studying complementary health which opened up a world of self-development too.  I started my practice with a variety of body-work techniques but soon learnt that health starts in the mind and that the key to physical health is emotional health. As I ‘peeled’ my own emotional onion, healing old childhood hurts and negative beliefs about myself and how the world works, I discovered that it is possible to transform one’s life experience - and so developed my passion for helping others live life to the full. I have experienced being stuck in a dead-end job, in a dead-end career, in a relationship that wasn’t working, and in a business that was shrinking instead of thriving.  Through these experiences I realised that to change this pattern I needed to change as blaming other people or circumstances just kept me stuck.

Having learnt how to turn my life around, I love enabling my clients to release their subconscious beliefs that keep them stuck, frustrated, often anxious, and always unfulfilled. Enabling my clients achieve the clarity and confidence they need to live life fully gives me joy and fulfillment. 

 

The key to getting unstuck

Are you missing something in your life? Tired of struggling to get where you want to be, tired of not having enough – enough money, enough love, enough joy, enough life!

So you want your life to be different – different from what?

The first step to change is accepting where you are. This is the forgotten secret to ending struggle.

Do you want to change

·         a habit

·         an addiction

·         a negative belief about yourself

·         a limiting belief about what is possible to achieve                            

·         how much money you can earn

·         the quality of your relationships

·         your lifestyle

 

Whatever you want to change in your life becomes possible when you accept the way things are now and stop

o   fighting your reality

o   blaming yourself, others, circumstances, God                                                             

o   regretting past decisions

 

When you stop judging yourself you can really take stock of where you are and notice

·         what is good about your present situation, what is working?

·         what would you like to be different?

·         what would that difference look like?

 

Imagine travelling to a new place using a map to show you the route. You have to know your location and your destination before you can decide on the route. Even Google maps asks for you for both.  How you got to your present location is not important. What is important, is knowing where you are and where you want to be, as that is the only way to get to your desired destination. Which road you choose depends on where you are starting from.

Once you know where you are, look around and notice what you like and what you don’t like. The key to change is acceptance. As Carl Rogers the founder of client-centred psychology, said

                the curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.

By longing for things to be different, you are using your energy to fight against what is. That leaves little energy for creating something new, and keeps you focussed on what you don’t want instead of what you do want, which is a good recipe for feeling unhappy or dissatisfied. The more unhappy you are, the harder it becomes to see opportunities for change. Any attention you give to what you desire is mostly wishful thinking because so much of your energy is focussed on what you don’t want and self-criticism for not being able to do or get what you do want.  Moving to something better, changing the things that make you unhappy, is much easier if you first accept where you are now without criticising yourself and your situation. However unhappy you are with your present circumstances, you got into this situation by doing the best you could to take care of yourself.  Judgement and criticism are forms of resistance to what is, and, as Carl Jung said, what you resist, persists.                                                                   

Accept yourself by

·         Honouring yourself for doing the best you could

·         Recognising what is good about your situation                                                    

·         Taking note of what you want to change                                                               

 

Now you can focus your energy on what you really want by deciding:

 

·         What you want instead

·         What steps will take you from where you are to where you want to be

·         What is the first step, however small, that will start your journey

 

 

 

How acceptance opens the way for change

 

Rose stopped smoking                                        

Over the years Rose had often thought about giving up smoking for health reasons, but trying to stop made her very anxious.  Instead of judging herself for smoking and her inability to stop in spite of her health concerns, she needed to accept that smoking was part of her identity, and that part of her did not want to stop. Whatever the reasons for that, she needed to accept herself and her smoking. As we talked about this I could hear the relief in her voice.

I helped her reach a place of full acceptance of herself, her smoking, and her emotional reasons for smoking, instead of heaping guilt and shame on herself. This set her free to be open to the possibility that she could resolve her emotional need to smoke, and that when that process was complete she would be free to choose whether to continue smoking or not. At no point was she to focus on giving up smoking, so as to avoid triggering anxiety.  When she was clear on what need the smoking filled, we were able to change that and only then was she ready to decide to give up smoking.

Cathy ended her emotional eating war                    

Cathy had gained a large amount of weight and her health was suffering and she was very critical of herself for this.  Anxiety triggered her need to eat and her self-criticism fed the anxiety and feelings of desperation, so she was trapped in a cycle of emotional eating. To break the cycle Cathy had to accept herself as she was, and that her uncontrollable need to eat when distressed was her body trying to keep her safe by blocking emotions she’d been taught not to feel. Without judgement of her eating patterns she was able to accept them and become curious about the emotions that eating was blocking. We were then able to find a way for her to express those emotions so she did not need to eat them.

 

You CAN have what you want in life

You can have the lifestyle, the business, the quality of relationship you want if you make peace with yourself and where you are in your life.  It becomes possible to move forward with confidence when you no longer judge yourself for how you got to your present place. Confidence comes from knowing, trusting, and valuing yourself. That doesn't mean that you never feel doubt, or that things don’t get scary sometimes.  But I from my own experience as well as my clients’, I know that success is a journey not a destination, it’s about knowing where you are as well as where you are going so you can choose the route that works for you.

Taking this journey alone is lonely and at times difficult.  Let me

Ø  help you with the process of acceptance,

Ø  guide you to clarity on what you want                                 

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For more information click here.                WEBINAR Link                             

 
assist you to stay on track to get there.

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