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.


[If an item is not written by an IRMA member, it should not be construed that IRMA has taken a position on the article's content, whether in support or in opposition.]

Life Skills and Spirituality from A - Z

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

For the next few sessions I will look at the A –Z of life skills, life management and improving your outlook and hence your chances of success.

Part One

A is for allow or allowing, Sometimes just being in a state of allowance is resourceful, I am not saying that you are accepting something or putting up with something you do not want, it's about being in the energy space of allowing to have that feeling... before you do something to change it. Being in a state of allowance means that you are judging yourself less, judging a situation differently which can lessen its “impact” on you.

B is for Breathing, which may sound simple. Well it is, our emotional state can be changed through breathing more effectively and many of us do not breathe as effectively as we can. So to do this you breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth and try to breath from your stomach or your diaphragm. It’s good to do as much as you can... or all the time if you can. Breathing helps shift the energy of your body as well

C is for consciously create, as in consciously create your life and your experiences. How often to do let your mind run away with negative thoughts with, Judgements, Conclusions, Computations and Decisions about others about your life, about your day and most importantly about yourself? You are the creator of your experience, so why not create a better experience. Remember what I said about mental rehearsal? Same principle. So small steps at first. Spend a few minutes when you wake up each morning creating your day, how you want it to be/go, what intentions you have for it etc..... Run it for about five mins.... Yes it takes practice and gets easier the more you do it.

D is for Dream, Dream, big, Dream limitlessly

E is for Ego. Is it your friend or not? Your ego is behind your little voice, your inner voice and your self talk. Is it the one that tells you that are worthless, you can’t do things... is it the one that demands so much from you and others? Is it the one that needs more and more and more? Like the need to have loads of sex to feel attractive and conversely make the self judgement that not having sex means you are worthless? Does it tell you that you need to have things from outside yourself to “make” you feel good about yourself? Remember I talked about your inner best friend this can be your ego - it can be tamed to support and love you rather than judge you. Your ego can be one that needs to add 100s of sexy men on Facebook to feel worthwhile or the one that supports you and tells you that no matter what you are loved and adore.

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

Coaching with Jake - Managing Your Emotions [VIDEO]

Basic techniques for managing your emotions

by Jake Arturio Braden
Read other posts [Coaching with Jake appears every Thursday on LifeLube]





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

Coaching with Jake - Who's Your Best Friend?

Do you want to sped time with someone who judges, berates, belittles and tells you that you're bad?

by Jake Arturio Braden
Read other posts [Coaching with Jake appears every Thursday on LifeLube]

So who is your best friend? I'd say it's the person who reminds you how great you are, reminds you of all the things you're good at.

How many of you answered "me" ... yourself?

There are times where all of us would like some reassurance, some positive strokes, to be given a compliment or a boost. I recently was feeling out of sorts and needed a verbal hug, some reassurance that I was ok and appreciated... as sometimes happens when the universal energy is “challenging” us. The supportive voices from “others” (friends, family etc) were silent. So I asked - what part of myself can facilitate that need?

Positive feedback is nice and I am not intimating that people should refrain from showing appreciation and complimenting and supporting each other. I am saying that perhaps we can try to be our own best friend first. After all who do we spend all our time?

Wouldn’t it be nice if that time was spent with someone we liked?

Do you want to sped time with someone who judges, berates, belittles and tells you that you're bad? This type of negative self talk can be tamed and turned around to be one of support and caring. So when you require or feel the need for some kind of confidence boost, your “inner” best friend can give it.


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

Coaching with Jake [every Thursday on LifeLube]

Unlock the power of your mind and your imagination...

Faking it till you “make” it!
with Jake Arturio Braden
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How many of you have heard of this saying? What does it mean for you?

Well in NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming ) there is this exercise called mental rehearsal  and it’s what a lot of actors, athletes, sports people and other successful people use. It is basically rehearsing something over and over again in your head, in your mind, and getting a sense of it going well for you. A sense of it going really well for you and noticing “how” that happened.

In an experiment they wired athletes up to equipment that could measure muscle power, and then they asked them to imagine running a race or swimming that 200 metre race. The muscle fired up as if they were actually “doing it”  - that’s because the mind believed it was happening and told the body to react.

To do this it’s a best to find a quiet place and begin by breathing... deep breaths from your belly, in through your nose and out through your mouth...

Once you feel relaxed, get a sense of whatever it is you want to rehearse (that job interview, that presentation to the board, asking that hottie out). Begin with the starting point and imagine yourself doing this, now it’s usual to notice a dominant modality (sight, sound, feeling). Now run through this like it is a movie, you are the writer, director and lead in this movie - make it whatever you want it to be.

You run the whole story from beginning to end. Each step, you can stop and go back anytime and change whatever you want until you feel that it’s “right” for you. You keep doing this until you have the whole “movie” just right and play it over and over again in the movie theatre of your mind. Now you can do this as much as you want.

What was you body language like, the tonality of your voice? Its good to get a really good sense/feel for this. These are the keys to your success!

Now it’s not necessary to spend hours, and you will get quicker each time you do it. The key is to give it a go. Maybe start on something small first.

If you find it challenging to get a sense of a way of behaving that you would like (e.g. confidence) you may want to notice how other people operate. Say you want to feel more confident... pick someone you see as confident and notice them, what they do, how their body language is, how their voice sounds etc. Apply the movie technique to this and get a sense of how it would be to be like them.

Once you have your movie perfected, you have it in your mental filing system to pull out, whenever you want it. It’s a good idea to rehearse just before the time you want to use it. Remember, it gets easier and quicker the more you do this. You mind is a muscle - so exercise it.

See what happens for you and get a sense of how you can unlock the power of your mind and your imagination to support your ability to live your dream life!

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

Coaching with Jake [a NEW series on LifeLube]

Check out future installments of Coaching with Jake on Thursdays, right here on LifeLube.

 I believe that we all have the resources we need to change who we are, our perception of the world and thus what we get from it.

My name is Jake Arturio Braden and I am an accredited  NLP practitioner  (Neuro-Linguistic Programming), providing essential building blocks for discovering how people think and manage their emotional states. I have many years of experience in supporting people in a range of capacities and have a strong passion for self-development and improvement.

I believe that we all have the resources we need to change who we are, our perception of the world and thus what we get from it. I feel that having some kind of life code or mission statement for ourselves is a good support tool for managing and developing our lives.

We never get it done nor are we ever complete... we are evolving beings that can be shaped and moulded by our experiences.  However we have far more power over our lives than we may care to admit.

I am reminded of that quote from Ghandi, "be the change you want to see in the world." For me this says that we have responsibilities over our lives. As gay and bisexual men we can come from a history of discrimination and having to fight for our rights etc. However rights come with responsibilities, and this can be a daunting prospect for people who have felt disempowered. However we can change or improve our lives. There are so many techniques out there that can support you to develop, grow and support yourself to achieve your goals, set goals and improve your self-esteem and hence your relationship with yourself and others.

Over the course over the coming weeks I intend to share these tips with you, sort of like attending a coaching or self-development course, or having a one-on-one session with with your own coach. I will use a holistic approach that will incorporate spirituality, which is an important part of who we are.

I like to ask questions as well... so here are some you may want to consider as we get started on this journey together:

• Do you desire to be in the driving seat of your life?
• Do you desire to be the navigator of your life?
• Do you desire to feel better about yourself?
• Do you desire to have a better life?
• Do you desire to attract the circumstances in your life that will support you to get where you want to go?
• Do you desire to take responsibility for your own life?
• Would you like to create your personal mission statement?
  

Check back next Thursday when we'll start to unpack these questions.

In the meantime, visit my Transvelopment blog, and my website. You can also find me on Facebook.