Coaching with Jake: Life Skills and Spirituality from A - Z

by Jake Arturio Braden
Read other posts [Coaching with Jake appears most Thursdays on LifeLube]

Here is the second installment of my look at the A –Z of life skills, life management and improving your outlook and hence your chances of success.

Part Two

F is for feeling. Feelings are important as we are sentient beings, we have emotions and they manifest as feelings. These feelings usually tell us something, they indicate where we are. It’s useful to try and see feelings as resourceful or un-resourceful  emotional states rather than good or bad. Judging the feelings isn’t always congruent will feeling better.

G is for growth, and w e all have the capacity and ability to grow, to change and to develop. All of our experiences can lead to this. Growth can be painful (growing pains) however they lead us further down the path of life, we expand and we gain more “life experience”... or we can if we make that choice. With self development or self improvement growing pains are natural. The key is to not get stuck in the pain and spend too much time naval gazing. Acknowledge the painful experiences/memories and try to get a sense of what to learn from it (if anything).

H is for healing, we are all healing. Emotional upsets, traumas etc leave an “energy” in our bodies. When these old wounds come up, just ask yourself, "is this situation true today, is it just a memory?" Just breathe through those feelings.

I for "I am" statements. I have mentioned these before in the context of how they can help us reinforce the positive things that we feel about ourselves, improve attributes we want to improve and even add new ones. It’s basically "I am (insert the attribute, e.g confident)"  - and you repeat this daily. Pick a number of different attributes and say each one at least ten times in the morning and ten more at night Please say them with feeling, or as much feeling as you can.

J is for judgment. How often do you judge others? Are you aware you are judging yourself as well? We are all doing our best with the resources that we have.  This can be a challenge to get your head around, as we often experience other people from we  “our” point off view and forget that we are all different and have different motives and understandings of the world and how it works.

Please visit my Transvelopment blog, and my website. You can also find me on Facebook.


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