pain – Touch of Clarity

5 building blocks to resilience

08/07/202108/07/2021 touchofclarity

My 5 building blocks to resilience are really very simple! They’re pretty much your foundations to #wellness.

🛌 SLEEP

Just the number of hormones released during your sleep alone should be enough to alert you to the importance of a healthy sleep routine. This is the necessary recovery time for your body, your mind, your emotions and serves as your daily reset. The relationship between resiliency and the ‘reset’ will feature in part 2 of my upcoming resiliency training programme. If you’re wanting sleep wellness tips though, you can check out a previous blogpost here.

💦 WATER

3.7 ltrs for men and 2.7 ltrs for women is the recommended daily fluid intake by the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Some of this will come via your food intake. The rest needs to come via your drinks. Make it a habit to consume as much of this remainder as simple water, as opposed to other drinks (particularly those with caffeine in them). Research has shown us that water supplementation following a dehydrated state was found to improve performance on tasks measuring cognitive reflection in judgement and decision-making – critical elements of resiliency^[1].

🙏 SPIRITUAL LIFE

Resiliency requires the use of both your intellect and your will (i.e. the heart). There is a very deep connection between resiliency and spirituality, which is often used as a tool to live well in relationships, manage change, cope with adversity, increase power of belief, and commit to upholding values and practices^[2]. Nourish your spiritual life with prayer and meditation, and over time with the help of God’s grace, you will find yourself more ‘connected’ and more ready to face difficulties that will form (painful but necessary) part of your interior growth and maturation.

🥗 HEALTHY EATING

The link between stress and resilience is well known. And so is the advice on healthy eating to reduce stress^[3]. In summary, here are the sub-tips I’ll share on #functionalfood:

Eat to reduce inflammation in the body. Inflammation can cause a multitude of bodily malfunctions and imbalances, so be pro-active in avoiding chronic illness by reducing that.
Eat to promote and support your immune system. Daily raw fermented foods and aids are a great starting point.
Consume your daily (or weekly) required amounts of vitamins and minerals. A 7 day food diary to kick this off is the best thing you can do to check that you’re on the right track!

🏋️‍♀️ EXERCISE

Doing your 10,000 steps is amazing… but it’s not enough. Our bodies were designed for movement – particularly walking – yes. But it was also designed for lifting, carrying and general resistance-style work. The minimum requirements of exercise for adults aged 18-64 are:

at least 150–300 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic physical activity; or at least 75–150 minutes of vigorous-intensity aerobic physical activity; or an equivalent combination of moderate- and vigorous-intensity activity throughout the week
muscle-strengthening activities at moderate or greater intensity that involve all major muscle groups on 2 or more days a week
limit the amount of time spent being sedentary
aim to do more than the recommended levels of moderate- to vigorous-intensity physical activity

Note the importance of strength & conditioning exercise being included in your weekly routine. The body needs it. And if your body needs it, so does your resilience.

^[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30666412/ Given the varied effects of water on cognition, this study explored potential effects of water supplementation, hydration status, and thirst on thinking and decision-making tasks.

^[2] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15528030.2018.1532859

^[3] https://rightasrain.uwmedicine.org/body/food/healthy-eating-for-resilience

I’m Claz, a personal health & career coach as well as a massage therapist based in West London, accredited in the UK. You can book a session with me here or sign up to my workshops on my Eventbrite Page. Upcoming workshops include personal resiliency training.

7 steps to decision-making clarity

28/07/2020 touchofclarity

🤷‍♀️ Why do people get stuck when making a decision?

timj-Vrv_nZHaFTc-unsplash — Photo by timJ on Unsplash

That’s a really good question, and there may be many answers to it! This is why I find it helpful to take a systematic and structured approach to the decision-making thought process. At every stage self-awareness is as necessary as the content that surfaces when thinking through a decision. Many obstacles and hindrances to decision-making often and subtly surface up into the light but can then be excused by the irrational self. In these moments, it can be a challenge to have clear perception.

Whether you are making a life-changing decision about your relationships, your career, your life goals yourself or your wellbeing, here is my 7 step personal decision-making approach for clarity. I hope it will save you time, stress and ultimately heartache, when trying think through your decision!

Step 1: Define your situation

This is where it begins!

The more self-knowledgeable you are, the faster you will pass through this stage. Here, you’ll get to weigh up the significance of this decision you’re making against who you are, what you stand for, where you’re heading, and decide whether this decision needs to be taken now.

If you are a person of faith, then you will also want to bring God into this entire journey.

Self-Coaching questions for step 1

What is/are… [aka Define]:

the significance of this decision?
your needs?
your priorities?
your wants?
your vision, mission & values?
the implications if you do not make a decision about this?
the ideal decision?
the timing of your decision?

Step 2: Clarify what you’re making a decision about

Clarifying what the driving and resisting forces of this decision are, what is influencing the decision and how much power those influences have over you and your decision, as well as gaining insight into your decision-making strengths and weaknesses will help clarify what your decision is really about.

Self-Coaching questions for step 2

Clarify:

how does this decision align with your values?
how does this decision align with your goals & vision?
how does this decision align with your purpose & mission?
what are your decision-making strengths and weaknesses?
what are the driving forces in your decision?
what are the resisting forces in your decision?
what are the influencing factors in your decision?
what gaps are there in your knowledge, skills, competencies and experience re this decision?
who is/are influencing this decision?

Step 3: Identify outcomes of your decision

This activity will help you to separate what are assumed, and what are certain outcomes of your decision. Broken down into short, medium and long term outcomes, this step will help you to reflect on your emotional and psychological commitment to those outcomes.

You’ll also gain some insight into your change readiness.

Self-Coaching questions for step 3

Identify the short, medium and long term outcomes with:

what will this decisions’ impact be on your physical, spiritual, emotional, psychological health?
how will it affect the people directly involved in your life?
what it will mean for the regular routine you live by or your daily activities?
what are the material considerations of your outcomes (e.g. possessions & value of them)?
what are the financial considerations of your outcomes (e.g. regular income, savings, investments, retirement)?
what are the career & job considerations of your outcomes?

Step 4: Consider the options, alternatives, consequences & opportunities of the decision

Here is where you identify all the risks in your decision, as well as the impact of this decision to your and others before actually committing to it.

Self-Coaching questions for step 4

Consider:

what are the pros and cons?
what are the risks? How to mitigate them?
what are the positive and negative impacts?
where can opportunities be found?
how will it cost you in time & personal resources?
what sacrifices will be required?
what would you ideal choice be if you had to choose?

Step 5: Understand any emotions behind your decision

Your heart is greatly influenced by your past experiences, your desires, your passions, your pains, your personality, and a myriad of other factors and qualities.

Here is an opportunity to check the balance between your emotions and your rationale, moving forward without looking back in regret.

Self-Coaching questions for step 4

Understand:

what pressures may this decision be feeding on?
what needs may this decision be feeding on?
how can I be more balanced (head vs heart)?
what emotions are influencing here?
what are my fears?
where might I be experiencing limiting beliefs?
how will my feelings change after this decision?
how are my past experiences influencing my emotions & feelings?
when am I likely to change my mind because of others’ feelings?

Step 6: Capture other viewpoints & objective opinions

There is GREAT VALUE in seeking counsel.

Seek the opinion of those:

immediately involved in this decision
indirectly involved in this decision
experienced in this area
whose wisdom you appreciate & respect
in the ‘helping’ professions

Self-Coaching questions for step 6

Capture:

what do the people most involved in this decision have to say?
what do people indirectly involved in this decision have to say?
what do people with experience of this decision have to say?
what do people whose wisdom you appreciate and respect have to say?
what do professionals from the ‘helping’ professions have to say?

Step 7: Prepare & commit yourself to your decision

Often, limiting beliefs and self-sabotage about a decision happen before the very moment of committing to a decision. This is unlikely to happen if you’ve gone through the previous 6 steps to decision-making clarity. You will know what actions are needed to move forward confidently and courageously.

Self-Coaching questions for step 7

Prepare & Commit:

what are my critical activities moving forward?
what personal preferences do I have?
how can I exercise greater freedom of heart?
where do I need to exercise more resilience?
where do I need to exercise more courage?
what are my coping strategies?
how often should I review my progress and approach?
what does my task list look like?

Need an objective opinion to walk through the above with?

Depending on your situation (particularly the time limitation) and the gravity of the decision you have to make, you may be interested in an intensive breakthrough coaching session to get to decision-making clarity quickly, and for putting a sketch plan in place.

Intensive Breakthrough Coaching Session for decision-making clarity (2.5 hrs)

What is included in your session?

Initial email outlining your preparation for the session
Any relevant tools or materials required for activities in your session
Face to face to face session in West London OR video meeting call (prices vary by location & added onto base price. Video meetings via Zoom are no extra cost.)
Follow up email with reflections from the session and suggested actions

Your investment

My intensive breakthrough coaching session is great value at a base price of £325. For this amount you will gain:

peace of mind and of heart that you have made the most informed and thought-through decision you could possibly have made
clarity on 99.9% of elements, factors, influences and options worth considering
an impeccably designed set of action points / plan to make any changes smoothly based on who you are and where you’re heading
greater knowledge of your blindspots and choke points, with an increased desire to manage those
confidence because you’ll have cleared mental and emotional obstacles preventing you from moving forward
enhanced or maintained good quality relationships (personal or professional)
holistic & well-balanced perspective, energy and momentum
avoidance of more time and money spent down the line from a decision that ultimately cost you more than you could afford
relief from stress and heartache that would have been an outcome of a poorly-made decision

On Envy (& Jealousy) – Part I

11/06/202012/06/2020 touchofclarity

Over the past two weeks, two people have approached me about experiences they are having concerning jealousy. One person has told me that she is jealous of a friend. The other has told me that her friend is jealous of her. There are 3 points that I want to pick up on this:

The difference between envy and jealousy

Envy refers to a sadness at the sight of another’s perceived advantage. From the Latin invidia, meaning “to look against the affairs of others hostilely”, envy breeds resentment and turmoil eventually leading to begrudging the other, to selfishness and to implicit covetousness if it is not remedied.

Jealousy wants to vigilantly guard what one possesses (or wants to possess) and to keep others from having it. The etymology for this word brings up “zealous (which means a fiery kind of fervent), enthusiasm, and longing”.

Jealousy in its rightful and balanced form, isn’t a bad thing. A prime example of this is a marriage. It is right that a husband or wife vigilantly guard the marriage (the person possesses the grace & mission of marriage, but does NOT possess the person who is the spouse **very important**). What often goes wrong in jealousy is when that husband or wife forces the action of guarding beyond the point of vigilance into an extremity of paranoia, and knowingly or unknowingly interchanges guardianship of the sacrament of their marriage into a possession of their spouse. A human being is not the possession of another human being, and should never become one. This will lead to enslavement, objectification and imprisonment in both parties. The human being rightfully belongs only to God, but they have to want to choose that for themselves.

As mentioned, jealousy in its rightful and balanced form can be considered quite a healthy thing. However, envy, in any form is not a healthy thing. At all. Nothing about envy can be good for you, or for the other. Unfortunately, what many people don’t really realise, is that envy is beyond the human dimension. Envy is of a spiritual nature. So if someone is envious of another, there is no cure for this except by spiritual means. Envy employs your emotional, psychological and social (psychosocial) faculties, but the issue of the envy one experiences is not emotional or psychological or social at its very root. In other words, your thoughts, feelings and relational capacities are not the fundamental cause of the envy. We can then deduce that envy is not of human nature. However, the nature of envy can become manifest in anything human. This leads to the thoughts, feelings and relational circumstances where we would experience envy, which then of course fuel our decisions, choices and consequently our actions.

This highlights how the spiritual becomes manifest in the human being. There is a journey there, that envy takes, to infiltrate a person’s spiritual faculties, which they will feel the breadcrumbs of in their soul. And it’s here in the soul that envy will do most damage, depending on the person’s response to it. However, unless you are an extremely spiritual person, do some sort of reflection and recollection on yourself at the end of everyday through prayer and are conscious about where your moral compass is pointing at any one time, then it is very difficult to spot your own envy in yourself. It’s often either pointed out to you, or you notice the effects of the envy, by your own feelings, thoughts, choices, actions, and consequences of those actions.

So whilst jealousy may be taken out of its correct context and would still need addressing, the priority for me, would be to address envy. You’ve probably heard of something called the seven deadly sins? Well… envy kills you. And if you’re a spiritual person, it will kill your relationship with God. My primary concern for souls would be to address this – but it can’t be done on a purely human level. It requires spiritual work that combines your efforts, with that of divine help. There are 3 steps I would recommend to take:

Identify if you are envious, or jealous, or none of the above! Be honest, try to be objective when thinking about it and put your pride to the side during this task. I’ve put some questions below to help you discover if you are or not.
Increase your spiritual capacities. You will need them to remedy your envy.
Remedy the envy. This will take a lot of time, often a lot of painfulness, past hurts may come to the surface. The key to this is perseverance, and keep up your spiritual practice. I will write a blogpost on the remedy at a later date, but for your information, the 3 things necessary to remedying envy are:
1. Detachment
2. Deep generosity
3. Humility

So to help anyone who is perhaps experiencing envy, or knows somebody else who is, here is step 1 of my recommendation:

How do I know if I’m being envious?

Here are questions I would ask myself to determine if I’m being envious. Remember, be honest, try to be objective when thinking about it and put your pride to the side during this task. Answer these questions with a candle lit safely by your side, in a quiet place and time that is today’s ‘me-time’.

Is there something someone else has/doesn’t have/is/isn’t, that I have/don’t have/that I am/am not, which hurts me or which I can’t bear?
What is it that hurts/upsets me?
Where could that hurt/upset be coming from? (Reflect on your past, and do a lot of digging)
How is it taking me away from my true self and living out my values?
How is it affecting my productivity?
Where has it affected my (personal/professional) relationships? What have those outcomes been? What have the impacts of the outcomes been?
Which choices have I been making in my heart as a result of this?
Where have those choices stopped me from growing, overcoming and practising virtue or character strengths?
Where has this situation driven me to act irresponsibly, unfairly or irrationally?
Which concrete actions that have I taken were influenced by this hurt/upset, if any?
Could I survive without/with (without if your envy is because of a lack of; with if your envy is because there is too much of)? Could I excel without/with it?
What would the situation look like if I were not envious?

Answering these questions should give some clarity as to whether there is envy going on in any particular situation – whether that’s in personal or professional life. Envy is extremely detrimental in the workplace. It breeds:

Deterioration in trust
Irrational conflicts
Lack of commitment & focus / Increase in distraction & fault-picking
Avoidance of accountability
Diversion from achieving end goals and results

Managers can observe attitudes and behaviours stemming from envy, and should pull staff up on it gently and in the right way, should it be causing dysfunctionality within teams or inhibiting progress and team excellence. When a personal matter affects an organisation’s productivity, then managers have a duty of care to their staff, and can offer support or help. Nobody deserves to work in a negatively charged environment – whether that’s implicit of explicit.

Keep an eye out on my next blogpost for part II, containing the remedies to envy.

I’m Claz, a Professional Career Coach based in West London, accredited in the UK. I am also a Life & Wellbeing Coach, working with individuals as well as organisations. You can contact me through my website www.touchofclarity.com.

February 2020 Newsletter

25/02/2020 touchofclarity

On Top 5 tips for weathering the storm called GRIEF

10 reasons why ‘failure’ is actually good FOR us

03/04/201903/04/2019 touchofclarity

10 reasons why ‘failure’ is actually GOOD for us.

10. Failure builds up our resilience. Resilience is widely recognised as an essential life skill. One that enables us to fulfil our potentials, despite setbacks, difficult circumstances and adversity.

9. Failure gives us an opportunity to reflect and reassess ourselves. Whether that’s about skillset, character, motives, mindset, heartset, or current circumstances. An action plan is then likely to come out of this reflection! A life coach can help you with this.

8. Failure invites us to creative challenge. Rarely is failing an excuse to move or change the goals set for ourselves. This means reassessing the journey toward the goal. We might have to be more creative about it, and think out of the box as to how we’ll reach that goal. Either way, it’s a great opportunity for inspiration to take root and innovation to make an appearance.

7. Failure teaches us about what works and what doesn’t! This valuable knowledge is transferrable into all arenas of our lives. We must use this experiential knowledge wisely.

6. Failure exposes us to the depths of human brokenness – not just our own, but others’ as well. If someone is delighting in our failure, there is a reason for it. What is this reason?

5. Failure calls others to empathy and compassion… for US. Yes, my friend. We are loved… and sometimes, that love is best expressed through someone’s compassion and kindness toward us. Believe it or not, that compassion may just benefit you far more than it benefits the giver. Welcome to the economy of kindness!

4. Failure reminds us to remain humble. Where others would argue that failure helps us develop skills and character, we ought to remember that failure helps us to grow in virtue too. Virtues are keys to our spiritual potential – especially if one is Christian. If ever there was a rocket propellant to maturity, it’s failure!

3. Failure turns us into natural problem-solvers. Thomas Edison famously failed nearly 10,000 times on creating a commercially viable electric lightbulb. He attempted to solve the problem that caused each failure, remembering them all. It took nearly 10,000 problem-solving attempts to reach his success.

2. Failure brings us extraordinary life experiences, borne out of pain. Think about that one for a moment.

1. Failure only exists because the goal to reach has not been abandoned. Every failure strengthens our resolve to reach the goal, the target, and empty ourselves in authentic love. This is the most noble and greatest definition of success – to give everything of ourselves. During the Stations of the Cross I am always struck so deeply on the third, seventh and ninth Stations, when Jesus falls. For Our Lord, the goal of this particular journey was the Cross. Not the Resurrection. For each time He fell, LOVE lifted Him up to continue to the end. He gave it His all. He gave US His all. Love is worth falling for.

There is a distinct difference between something (or someone) being good to us, and being good for us. Certainly, it won’t feel that occasions of failure are good to us, but certainly, good comes out of all these the things, that they are ultimately good for us. Although we do benefit, it is still important to keep our eyes fixed on the ultimate goal.