Happy New Year 2024!

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

The beginning of a new year is always an opportunity to choose to start something anew, to freshen up our perspective, polish up our resolve, and choose to try new things in the pursuit of the joyful, rewarding and healthy life we all want. There is so much I want to share that would empower and boost you for the new year, so here are two ideas to begin with:

1. Looking Back

Every year, every experience, even the more challenging ones, can be made valuable and worthwhile if we make a point of searching for and extracting the value, the gifts, the lessons that are hiding therein.

We can do it by taking one last close look at what happened last year and identifying the things that have added value to our lives in some way, strengthened us in some way, or made us rejoice or grow in some way, so we can hold on to them. Perhaps it was a new connection we made or a new appreciation we found for an old one; a new insight that freed us to see things differently; a new pursuit we embarked on, something we did that made us proud of ourselves, or an amazing experience that gave us a sense of awe, or ahh.

So don’t let this one (2023) disappear into the pages of history untapped, without finding out what value and gifts it has added to your life!  There are gifts to be found in even the tough places.  And in the mundane ones. Insisting on finding them is what makes any experience worthwhile.    

Here are a three questions you can ask yourself to help you discover the gifts that this past year has left at your door:

• What was the best thing that you experienced in 2023?

• What was the most important lesson that you learned this year?

• What was it that helped you overcome the challenges that you faced this year?

2. Looking Forward

We all have goals we want to achieve in order to feel happy and fulfilled, yet time and energy are often in short supply and distractions are everywhere.   I’ve found that what really helps me use my time and energy wisely is a simple two-prong system:  First, having my big goals in front of me daily, and second, committing to doing my best to ensure that what I choose to use my time and energy on relates in some fashion or form to one of those goals.

This really isn’t as big an undertaking as it may sound.  It is, in fact, a simple thing to do, with disproportionate rewards.  All it takes is a bit of clarity and a bit of intention.  

The Clarity part:  What is most important to me at this point in life? How do I get there?

• Take a few minutes to consider what is important for you to focus on in the coming year.  I’m not talking about making “resolutions” here or setting very specific goals (though it could be) but more about identifying the areas of life you really want to pay more attention to, or create some change in, during the coming year.  Identify and write down the 2-3 most important ones.

• Next to each, list a few examples of what things, activities or experiences would move you in the direction you want to go.  You are not committing to doing any of them, you’re just giving yourself some ideas and giving meaning to those activities or experiences .  Here, for example, are some of mine:  

  Physical health and wellbeing   (exercise, nutrition, water, and sleep)

  Mental peace  (Journal, meditation, relaxing music, creative pursuits)

  Professional development and success (write blogs, offer workshops, share info about what I do, study)

  A full and content heart   (love, relationships, time with friends)

• Knowing what you really want to gain by shooting for the goals you set gives you added motivation. So to charge your list with more motivating power, think of what it is you are ultimately seeking (hint: It’s a feeling or an experience) by setting these goals, and write it down with your list. For example, in my journal I wrote the following:  “These are the things that will make me truly happy, enable me to enjoy my life deeply and feel it has meaning, feel my worth, and feel actualized and fulfilled.”

• Place the list where you will see it every day.  I put mine in the front of my journal where I go to plan my days.   It could be on your desk or desktop, the bathroom mirror or the little table by your favorite perch, anywhere you will encounter it regularly.

The Intention part:  Does this activity move me in some way toward one of my goals? Does it support one of the areas of life I want to focus on?  

The second part of the strategy is the commitment to pay attention and strive to make choices about how you spend your time and energy with those goals and key areas in mind.  I’m not proposing you make an unrealistic (i.e. pointless) commitment to never do anything that doesn’t further your goals!... (eye roll…smile…)  What I’m suggesting is that you do your best to be intentional about it.   Your best will be different from day to day, and that is perfectly fine!  

Whenever you ponder how to allocate your precious time, or whether to do something or not, use your list of goals and key areas as a guide and a reminder of what is worth spending time on and what isn’t.  Just asking ‘will this contribute to, support or promote one of my most important goals?’ will help you instantly see the answer.  Again, you don’t need to be perfect about it to experience the benefits of this sytem.  If you check your list of goals and choose to engage (or not engage) in something that serves (or doesn’t serve) your important goals only some of the time, you will experience very tangible benefits.

I’ve found that doing this not only moves me in real ways toward my goals, it also helps me recognize the value of the small steps I take, and experience a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction every day, way before I reach my ultimate goal.   It helps me appreciate the journey I’m on.  I wrote this prayer or mantra to remind and inspire me, feel free to use it, or better yet write your own, from your heart:

May everything I choose to spend my time on each day contribute in some way to one or more of these areas.    And may I reduce to a minimum the time I spend doing things that do not move me forward toward my most important goals.

I hope you will be inspired to give this strategy a shot as we step into a new year.  

What are your goals and most important areas of life to pay attention to in 2024?  Do you have questions about this, or comments?  I’d love to hear from you via a comment below. If you would like some support in setting up this system to help you start the new year with focus and clarity, I would love to work with you! Please comtact me via the Contact button at the top.

Warmest wishes to you for a healthy, happy, inspired and rewarding new year! May we all find the inspiration, courage and clarity we need to create a beautiful year for ourselves,

Orna.

The Value of Knowing Your Values (and How it Can Change Your Life)

We are all familiar with the idea that “everything is connected to everything else”, but we rarely take time to consider the full meaning of these dynamics of interconnectedness in our lives.  

Why should we bother? Just think of the power to influence and shape something, be it your body, a relationship, or a project you’re involved in, that you get by understanding how it works, as opposed to the feeling of helplessness and discomfort that we feel when we are involved in something that we don’t fully understand.  When we are aware of how things affect each other within our life’s system, we can be more effective in creating change and do it with ease, because we know where the “strategic levers” are, rather than make effort in the wrong places with little result.  

A simple example of this interconnectedness between different elements in our life is that when you’re physically well, you also feel well mentally and emotionally, and this positively affects your relationships, your work, how you choose to spend your time, and your ability to enjoy your life.  When you are unwell physically, a negative impact is felt in most other parts of your life and you are likely to feel mentally and emotionally low as well.

A more interesting example is that when something “snaps into place” in one area of your life, when some new alignment or a “good fit” is created between what is most important to us (our values) and the way we actually live our lives -- how quickly this elevates our experience in other areas of our life, that are seemingly unrelated.  Have you noticed this in your life?

Our values are part of who we are.  When one or more of them is not honored in our life, whether it is blatantly disregarded or simply not expressed enough, we are disregarding a part of ourselves. As a result, we can experience general malaise and discontent, a sense that something is “off” about us and/or in our lives.  We may carry this discontent inside us for years without knowing the exact source of it.  

Not understanding the source of this “off” feeling means not knowing how to shift away from it, which can result in carrying around depression, disappointment and self judgement over the long term, and feeling that we are but passengers in our own life, sitting in the back seat, being carried along, hijacked by circumstances, taken for a ride to places we have not chosen. It makes you feel small and helpless.

When we take the time to explore and become aware of our personal truth -- our core values and priorities, what we really want and why we want it, and how well they are truly expressed in our lives -- we can begin to see how we can bring more alignment and harmony into our lives, wherever it may be lacking.  When we can pinpoint the source of our discontent we can see how to fix it.  

In other words,

answering these questions for ourselves makes it possible to take strategic steps to make our lives more conducive to and supportive of achieving our goals and heart’s desires.  We begin to feel empowered, as we have finally moved into the driver’s seat of our life.   

Once we get ourselves into the driver's seat, by simply choosing to become aware of our truth -- boy, is the view different from this seat!  Boy, is the whole experience of your life journey different, than when you were in the back seat, feeling hijacked by circumstances, reacting to whatever comes your way…

As you begin to make these changes, bringing your life into greater alignment with who you are and with what matters most to you, ensuring that your core values are well respected and well expressed in your life, you experience the ripple effects of these actions radiate into other areas of your life, like the ever widening ripples created by throwing a small pebble into a lake.  

Your level of overall energy increases, your ability to experience joy in anything you do expands, you develop more of a sense that things are “right” in your world, which affects how you feel about yourself and your life… This affects how you relate to others, which affects your relationships, and how willing you are to reach out and take advantage of opportunities that life puts in your path, that would have been too scary to face before.  To give you a personal example from my life, experiencing more alignment with my core values in my work, lately, has made me more willing to try new things and take “risks”, reach out to new friends, have more energy overall, enjoy my down-time much more, and even find readiness to try dating again.  

Becoming clear of our core values and of how they relate to and impact our lives is therefore no theoretical, “personal growth-woo woo” pursuit.  It is in fact a very practical, powerful and empowering strategy for making sure that we can make the most out of life and enjoy it to the fullest. 

My workshop Values as a Compass for Shaping the Next Chapter of Your Life, which will be offered again as part of a Fall Retreat, October 9-12, 2023, is a great opportunity to begin to explore and grow your awareness of your values and their power in your life. In this small group setting, in a safe and supportive environment, surrounded by nature, you can reconnect with what is most important to you at this point in your life, and identify steps to help you get into the driver’s seat and shape your life in a way that will support you in living an authentic, fulfilling life.

There are two remaining spots in this year’s Fall Retreat (as of this writing). JOIN US! Click on the name of the workshop above for more information about the full retreat.

If you’re interested in exploring this issue but unable to make it to WA, you’ve got options!  I hope to make this workshop available online in the coming months. Stay tuned for an announcement on that.

Or, if you rather not wait, I can help you explore this area, from getting clear on your values and priorities to figuring how they are affecting your life, to lining up a plan of action to ensure your core values are well represented in your life, to staying accountable and dealing with what may hold you back, in personal coaching sessions via Zoom.  Contact me to schedule a time for us to discuss the possibilities!

Questions you may want to ask yourself:

• What are my five most important values?

• On a scale of 1 to 10 (with 1 = not at all, and 10= very much so), how well does my life reflect and support my most important values?

Got comments, thoughts or questions on this subject?  I’d love to hear them!

Responsibility vs. Blame: What is the Difference? And Why is it Important?

I’ll start with the story that brought up this topic for me: 

For the past several years, I have been feeling quite hurt by my dear cousin, who, for reasons I could barely guess (though I tried), has not kept in touch with me.  Every time she didn’t call to wish me happy holidays, or sent a generic, tepid birthday wish, my heartache grew deeper.  We have not had a real conversation in years.  I missed her, I was hurt and disappointed, and I blamed and judged her for mistreating me this way.

Then, one day recently, after another such twist of the knife in my heart, I was hit by a realization.  Suddenly I saw that the disconnection between us, which has pained me for so long, was actually, at least in part, my doing!...  I was a bit shocked. I suddenly saw a behavior pattern of mine, which I wasn’t fully aware of previously, and which I have apparently applied to a few other people over the years. It was an unfortunate pattern of distancing myself from people who seemed to have a “perfect version” of something I wanted and haven’t managed to create in my own life at the time… Being in their presence put the painful lack in my own life in the spotlight, and it hurt… So I stayed away from them…  

I was amazed to suddenly see this pattern of behavior so clearly, and felt sad for the wasted opportunities of friendship I have let go of over the years.  I thought about my cousin and her life as I perceived it, and saw that my unfortunate pattern was very much at play there.  Having seen my own responsibility meant there was something I could do about this situation, and I wasn’t about to remain passive and let this painful separation last any more than it already has.  I texted my cousin.   I told her I’ve missed her very much and that I don’t want the disconnection between us to continue.  Could we meet for coffee or a glass of wine?  She invited me over and we met the next day.  I took a deep breath and told her about my discovery, that I was responsible for our disconnection (she insisted that 50% of the responsibility was hers).  We ended up having a wonderful, lengthy conversation and she thanked me for making this happen.  By looking at things differently and taking responsibility I gave myself the power to act and change the situation and got my cousin back!

When we get hurt or upset by something or someone, we tend to immediately direct our attention to finding who or what is to blame.  Finding who to blame for our pain and unhappiness is an understandable first reaction that has several near-term benefits, such as allowing us to feel vindicated, having a place to direct our anger and frustration, affirming our values of fairness and social propriety, inviting support from others, and, having a reason to sit in our hurt and anger.

Focusing on who’s to blame is one of the more common problem thought patterns people share.  

What’s the problem with identifying who’s to blame?  The problem is that we tend to mix blame for what happened with responsibility for our experience of it.  In other words, we assume that the person who did the offending deed is responsible for us feeling the way we do.  This means that along with the blame, we hand over to someone else the power over our own experience, and render ourselves powerless to change both the situation and our experience of it. Thus we perpetuate our own suffering, and remain at the mercy of the offending party...    

When, for example, we hold the perspective that until “they” apologize, “they” change their behavior, or “they” take the first step nothing could change or be remedied, we put complete power in the hands of the other party, and in effect choose to let our pain continue to fester until “they” may decide to do something about it. .  It’s up to “them”.

In contrast, when we take responsibility -- not blame, but responsibility, for our experience of what has happened or what is going on -- we give ourselves the power to act in ways that can change the outcome for us. There may be tangible, practical action we can take, and/or inward action, such as finding a new way to view the situation, that would change our experience of it for the better. 

Assuming responsibility for our experience does not absolve, negate or deny the responsibility of the other party for the actions they took.  It takes US out of the helpless victim position, and empowers us to participate in creating our own experience.

When we take responsibility for our experience, no matter what else happened, we put ourselves back in charge of our life. We can stop wasting emotional energy, cut our losses, maybe even gain a lesson or two, and move on with our lives sooner, and stronger.  

Questions to Ask Yourself:
• What is a situation in your life where you experience angst, anger or emotional pain, where you have put the blame and responsibility with something or someone else, and feel helpless to change the situation?

• What if there was a way to free you from carrying that hurt and anger, that didn’t require the cooperation of anyone else and was totally up to you? What would it feel like if you were able to do that? How interested would you be in exploring it?

• When you think about that situation, what might be, if any, your part in creating or perpetuating it? What might be something you could do to change your experience of it for the better? (hint: There is always something you can do).


Got thoughts, questions or reactions to this post? I’d love to hear them!
If this message about blame vs. responsibility taking reminds you of someone else who you think it would be relevant to, please forward it to them.

Happy Spring everyone!

Stress, the consequences that may surprise you, and one way we can limit its influence in our lives… (there are more!)

On a scale of 1 to 10, how stressed are you typically?  And how frustrated, after the awful year we’ve just had?  

We are flooded and bombarded with reasons, information and situations that generate stress and tension in us on a daily basis, and in the past year more than ever.  One of the more prominent sources of exposure to stress (if not THE prominent), for many of us, is social media and the news.  It may seem “inevitable” in times such as these, but, how true is that?

Each time we succumb to the impulse to engage with stressful information, and scroll through, read and/or respond to posts that evoke anger, frustration, fear, hate, or helplessness in us, we pile on and perpetuate stress and negative energy in our body and mind.  Each angering post, each enraging response, amass inside us more and more tension.  Our bodies, minds and hearts, which never have a chance to calm down and heal, are damaged.

Beyond being pawns and victims of the information managing powers and their systems, which are designed to hook us in and make a profit at our expense, there are a number of interesting reasons for the strong pull so many of us feel to dive in so frequently into the muddy pool of negativity and splash therein with others…  Most often these are irrational motivations that attempt to satisfy unconscious needs, such as the need to belong, the need to define ourselves and express ourselves, the need to release anger and frustration, the need to feel and demonstrate that we are acting in line with our values, and more.   Do you recognize any of these as perhaps being part of your motivation?

But how much and how well does this often obsessive engagement with social media negativity actually serve our important life goals or contribute to the causes we care about? (Not so much).  And what is the price we pay for this questionable indulgence? (It’s quite high indeed).

The constant presence of stress and negative energy in our body and mind has real, adverse effects on both our physical and mental/emotional wellbeing.  In addition to the better known physiological consequences of ongoing stress, such as high blood pressure and heart rate, excessive amounts of adrenaline with its myriad problems, chronic pains, digestion issues and much more, the ongoing presence of stress and negativity also impedes our ability to relax, to get quality sleep, to deal successfully with challenges, and to enjoy our daily lives.

When we expose ourselves again and again to stress and negative emotions such as anger, frustration, fear and helplessness, we also impact the quality of our internal energy, the one that moves us and shapes how we act and react toward the world around us and how we perceive and understand our experiences.  The more negativity we let in, the more we tend toward a generally negative outlook, the more frustration we live with, the less creativity and productivity we have, and the more we tend toward depression and hopelessness.  Our interactions with others suffer as well, and tend to be less generous, less tolerant, and less open.

Granted, life presents us with many challenges and sources of stress that are often hard or impossible to avoid.  Having awareness of this issue can help you recognize that you may have significant choice, perhaps more than you were aware of, in terms of where, when and how much you expose your body and mind to certain sources of stress, be it on social media, TV news, or certain people and situations in your life.

The key takeaway is that the choice whether to open yourself to stress and negativity has dramatic impact on the quality of your internal energy, and through it, on your world and life experiences.  You can choose to foster and nurture in yourself positive, constructive energy, and you can protect it from far-reaching damage by choosing to steer away from sources of stress and negativity, whatever they may be.   

Every day, every hour, is a new opportunity to choose again.

The world will be the same and your heart and mind will thank you.  The positive effects of choosing to avoid stress and negativity are usually immediate...

Ask yourself:

• What sources of frequent stress and negativity do you recognize in your life?  (work situation, social relationships, social media or news, burdening thoughts, your time table/schedule, family)

• In what ways does stress manifest in your life?  (physical, mental-emotional, inter-personal, etc.)

• What would be possible, and how would day to day be different, if there was less stress present in your daily life?

You’ll find lots of great ideas to help you nurture your calm, happy and positive energy in my “Guide to Survival in Tough Times, my gift to you when you sign up for my mailing list below.

Reactions to the above?  Thoughts?  Questions?  Ideas?  I’d love to hear from you!