by Dr. Heléna Kate | Nov 21, 2016 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog
Oxford English Living Dictionaries defines Gratitude: [mass noun] The quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness. In the vein of “paying it forward,” here are a few ways you can show gratitude and kindness through action:
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Team up with all your friends and family this Thursday and donate to help end hunger in the United States. For every dollar donated, the Feeding America network of food banks secures and distributes 22 meals to people facing hunger. Think about what an impact you can make if everyone at your Thanksgiving dinner donates just $5.00 …
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Call your local and state representatives.
Thank your reps for the work they’ve done or plan to do (and if they’re not doing that work, you can always mention that too…). You can find your representatives here.
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Volunteer at your local homeless shelter.
Show compassion and kindness to a community that is often marginalized. Community through humanity.
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Commit to running a canned food, jacket, or toy drive in your community.
We see a lot of these around the holidays, but don’t be afraid to keep it up year round! Hunger and poverty don’t quit, and neither should you! Check out these resources.
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Recycle, even if it means making a trip to the recycling center on your own.
The fish, dolphins, turtles, and the planet thank you.
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Take a stand for veteran care.
Step up to the plate for a group of men and women who stepped up in the biggest way for all of us. Do more than write a thank you letter and take action with this list of helpful steps.
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Register for a fundraising 5K
and raise money for an important cause while treating yourself to a physical challenge. Run with a team to optimize your fundraising impact and your fun!
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Join Translators without Borders
As a translator you will “help non-profits organizations overcome communication barriers, increasing access to critical information and services while fostering a climate of understanding, respect and dignity in times of great need.” More info here.
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Be a big sister or big brother to a child in America.
Big Brothers, Big Sisters has been around for years because they are good at one they do. Join the team as a mentor.
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Love yourself.
Transform your life so you can optimize the change you make in the rest of the world. Hold positivity, light, and love within yourself and it will infuse everything you do. Be thankful to yourself for who you are and show yourself kindness.
by Dr. Heléna Kate | Nov 18, 2016 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog
According to some psychoanalytic and psychological theories there are five personality types. These personality types grow out of the experiences we have during the first seven years of our life, called the imprinting phase. Unmet needs from these early childhood experiences carry into adulthood and shape our personality traits and our defenses. Below, I have outlined the five personality types and their associated unmet needs. By examining ourselves through this structure we can gain insights into our own traits, defenses, and needs.
THE FIVE PERSONALITY TYPES, NEEDS, & DEFENSES
Type One and the Need for Safety
Experiences in infancy shape this personality type’s strong connection to and awareness of the spiritual aspects of life, great capacity to connect with feelings, and profound creativity. This type is also often ungrounded and has a difficult time creating and sustaining relationships, and dealing with the day to day.
An early wound occurring in the womb or around birth, in which the child’s needs for safety were not met, results in a chronic lack of safety. This lack of safety creates a fear of connection and a fundamental lack of groundedness. The adult tries to protect herself from feeling the rage and fear brought on by these early experiences by avoiding contact with others, disassociating, and prioritizing the spiritual.
Type Two and the Need for Security
Experiences in the first year of life shape this personality type’s deeply nurturing nature, capacity for abundance and joy, and deep intuitiveness. This type is also often needy, has difficulty standing on her own two feet, suppresses her emotions, and believes that she must give to get.
The early wound of abandonment by caretakers early in life results in a sense that this type’s needs might never be met, as well as a difficult time using the energy and resources they do have. This type will use depletion, dependency, and compulsive giving to defend against feeling.
Type Three and the Need for Freedom
This type has a high capacity for pleasure, humor, optimism, playfulness, and joy, and a deep desire to be of service to others. This type also believes that she must please others, suppress all negative emotions, and suppress her own will in order to be loved.
Extreme efforts to be nice, kind, and pleasant defend against losing love and a feeling of inferiority. A deep anger rooted in not being allowed to express oneself results in intensely felt emotions that are repressed. This person may have a difficult time knowing what they think or feel and may use passive aggressive methods to communicate.
Type Four and the Need for Control
This type is a natural born leader with strong abilities to guide and inspire others. They are true adventurers and seekers of truth. They can be humble, honest and loyal. They can also have a difficult time being wrong, be skeptical about everything, and have a difficult time with vulnerability.
This type will defend against being wrong , vulnerable, or out of control by getting aggressive or controlling others. They are likely to use divisive tactics to gain the upper hand in situations and protect themselves from feeling controlled and dominated by others.
Type Five and the Need for Wholeness
This type can be incredibly passionate in relationships, competent in life, and have a strong ability to go with the flow. They can have an appreciation for beauty and the capacity to create beauty. This type can also be unwilling to be vulnerable, have a strong need for perfection, and may choose superficial superiority over real connection.
This type will often use an intense focus on superficial perfection to protect from feeling rejected. In relationships they are likely to withhold either sexual or emotional feeling to protect against re-experiencing the rejection they fear from their childhood. This type will also often use overworking as a defense mechanism.
HOW TO USE THIS INFORMATION
Our defense mechanisms can be extremely pervasive and determine much of our existence. The extent that they do so is usually determined by the severity of the wound we experienced and our awareness of it. It is interesting to note that what we defend against is often also our greatest potential asset.Using this five personality model we are able to identify what we are most afraid of, find mature ways of creating what we need, and begin to find the gifts hidden in our wounds.
To explore deeper, take the quiz here on our website and sign up for the extraordinary life series. The quiz will help you determine your core wound and the extraordinary life series will help you find positive ways of working with it so that you become less hampered by your defense mechanisms.
by Dr. Heléna Kate | Oct 27, 2016 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog
What is the mask?
The mask is the outer expression of who you are. It is also called the persona. Your mask makes up much of what you might think about when you think about “you.” How you choose to cut your hair, what you wear, and how you connect socially are all a part of the mask or persona that you choose to put out to the world. Sometimes the mask gets a bad reputation. New age rhetoric and self help books tell us to be authentic and to be our true selves. Some spiritual traditions emphasize dropping the illusion of the self for a deeper connection with the spirit. Let\’s also consider the benefits of the mask.
How is it useful?
The mask is a useful and important part of who we are. At its best, the mask is an outward expression of who we feel ourselves to be on the inside. It can be the creative material of our deeper expression. When our mask is in alignment with our deeper nature, it feels authentic and is fun to play with.
How does it get in the way?
On the other hand, when we overly identify with our mask, and think that it IS who we truly are, we live a life of subtle or not-so-subtle anxiety. We suffer from feelings of emptiness and feel a profound loss of meaning. Our defenses are grounded in our mask. When we live in these defenses, we can find ourselves caught in the drama of life, fighting often, or feeling the victim.
What is the true self?
Our deeper nature exists as the part of the self that is differentiated from the oneness of everything, but fundamentally expresses our essence. This is often called the true self or the core self. This is distinctly different than the no self that is discussed in Buddhism. The no self is when we are able to completely step outside of our personal identity. In this space we are able to connect with the infinite. There is a lot to learn from this experience of the no self. I find it is the true self that helps most people live fully and create a life of meaning.
How do we connect with it?
As I mentioned, we can live our lives believing our mask is our true self. Often times, this illusion only gets dismantled when we have significant crisis that pushes us to question how we have come to see ourselves. As our mask is challenged, we go searching for something else and this search can lead us in the direction of our deeper nature.
So what?
We do not need to wait for crisis to begin our journey. Some of us feel a call to look for something deeper and more significant. Some of us are fortunate to have maintained a strong connection with our deeper nature. Others of us might experience a generalized sense that there is more to our life than what we have previously lived. But regardless of how we start, the way that we get there is by challenging the hold of the mask, dismantling the beliefs and emotions that hold us to experiencing the world through this limited view, and learning how to express our deeper nature through the filter of our mask.
by Dr. Heléna Kate | Oct 20, 2016 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog, Self Awareness
In my LifeWork Community program I teach a number of ways that we can more productively work with our true self and bring its expression through our mask and into the world. The following are some of the areas that I address in my program and questions that you can use to support yourself in moving towards living your true self.
Self Love and Acceptance
People sometimes believe that you do personal development work if you are broken, but that is not really the case. Yes, it is true that hurt people work on themselves to feel better. However, it is also true that the best place to start your work from is a place of total acceptance. When we do our personal development work from a place of more and more appreciation, we gain so much more for our efforts.
What is one thing that you get on your case about that you can start to accept about yourself?
Personal Truth
Personal truth can sound like a lofty concept and like it is detached from everyday life, but this does not need to be the case. Our personal truth can be a felt and lived experience. In fact, it is. When we live our personal truth we feel happier, more loving, and more energized. When we step out of integrity we feel less happy, closed, and like we have lower energy.
When do you feel that you are connected to your personal truth? What does it feel like to you?
Harmony through Forgiveness
Forgiveness is a pathway to healing. Healing is a state of harmony and peace. When we hold onto grievances from the past the pain of these events is carried in us and is reflected in the world around us. We continually activate the pains so that they can be healed. The idea is not for us to suffer through life but to become aware that the pain is there so that it can be transformed.
What are you carrying from your past that needs to be let go of? What needs to happen for you to be ready to let it go?
Creativity and Expression
Our most highly attuned state is a creative state. Creativity and its expression are the result of being able to be in the present moment, spontaneous, and positively focused. Creativity is a form of healing and an aspiration of conscious growth. We cannot create without the willingness to see more than what has previously been.
How can you nurture creativity in your life?
Purpose and Meaning
People crave a sense of meaning and purpose. Without it, we often feel lost at sea. The trials and tribulations of life are hard to weather because we face them with no sense of what to do with them. We may even end up feeling victimized by life and see ourselves transform into a perpetrator. When we have a sense of meaning we create a pathway through the challenges of life and create a sense of inner peace.
What is most important to you? Why is it most important?
by Dr. Heléna Kate | Oct 12, 2016 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog
When it comes to the “true self,” one fixed point for contemplation is the relationship between your ego and your essence. The terms “true self,” “ego,” and “essence” are broad and have many associations attached to them. Let’s take a look at how you can make your ego work for you as a tool to help you fully unearth your true self.
We need to have a working connection with our true self to feel a sense of success and fulfillment. Put another way, it’s only through our connection with our true self that we’re able to feel satisfied by the positive outcomes of our efforts.
Our ego is both an obstacle and an ally. On one hand, if our ego ran amok and ruled every decision we made, it would be impossible to experience our true self. On the other hand, our ability to fully access and express our true self emerges with the help of our ego.
Personal development work requires that you become aware of your ego and your true self. Further, this work teaches you how to use the many aspects of who you are in a productive way.
There are several common problems that people encounter along their path of personal development. The main problem is that once we realize that we’ve previously been totally consumed by our eg, we forget that we’re actually part of something much greater than ourselves.
As Eva Perakkos says:
“Even those of you who have, for years, formed a concept of the real self, of the creative substance that enlivens every human being, forget in ninety-five percent of your daily lives that this creative being lives and moves in you and you live and move in it. You forget its existence. You do not reach for its wisdom. You stake all your reliance on your limited outer ego self. You neglect to open yourself for the deeper self\’s truth and feelings. You go blithely ahead as though there really were nothing else but your conscious mind, your ego self with its immediately accessible thinking processes and will force.”
If she’s right and we do indeed forget to draw on the infinite richness always ever-present outside ourselves, what can we do to change this? How can we live from our true self more fully? How can we connect to our true self so that we can create richer and fuller lives?
I propose that we look at the ego as if it were a tool. Think of it this way: if I can use a hammer, then it can serve me. If I think I’m a hammer, then I will be used by something else to serve some other end (and most likely hit up against something quite hard in the process.) The only way that we can stay conscious of our ego is to employ it.
You can’t get rid of your ego, and you can’t ignore it either. And if you stop using it to help draw out your true self, you’re likely to fall under its illusion. So, how can you make your ego work for you? Well. You can draw on the will of your ego to focus yourself on removing obstacles to your true self. You can also work on strengthening the lived experience of your true self so that it becomes less and less of a concept and more and more of an indelible part of your everyday experience.
Eva:
The intellectual acceptance of the real self as a philosophical precept will not alleviate [the problems] because it cannot give a sense of reality and true experience of the real self. This requires more. It requires an actualization of the faculties of the real self.
What this means is that you’ve got to train your ego to sense and support the expression of your true self. The truth is that you really can feel into your true self. To do this, you need to use your ego to plug into the wants, needs and full expression of your deeper self and remove the obstacles to it along the way. All the while, keep your eye on your ego so that you do not fall under its spell.
Awareness, of all kinds, is not the end of the road. Rather, it’s part of a cycle. Once we have an awareness we need to learn how to apply it, live it, work with it.
by Dr. Heléna Kate | Sep 22, 2016 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog
The most important part of any self-improvement plan is a healthy dose of respect. Very often, I approach this teaching through a discussion of self-love. I talk about how important it is that we love and care for ourselves in a deep way. However, I am going to focus this discussion through the lens of respect.
Respect is a deep acknowledgement and honoring of the totality of who we are. It is a critical component of self-love. Personal development work will not really begin to shift our life until we do the work with a fundamental respect for all of who we are, rather than a desire to fix, improve or change who we are.
Respect for ourselves keeps us on the path of doing our work and helps us to do it in a way that honors our deep nature.
It is too easy to approach personal development work with the mindset that something needs to be fixed. We might be left feeling this way because of the emotional pain or life event that motivated us to start this work. Along the way you will most definitely meet parts of yourself that you do not like and be tempted to go in directions that do not really serve the true you.
But what if instead we were to move forward on our personal development journey with the belief that the process of growth is an honoring of who we are and who we can become. Honoring who we are in every way implies a deep respect -deeper than perhaps you have ever known.
Respect is both respect for the process and respect for each and every aspect of who you are. Additionally, respect for ourselves translates into respect for others. As we learn to treat ourselves with respect we begin to see how we can do this for others.
Two of the central things that keeps us from growing and changing are the limitations and rules that we put on ourselves because of how we think that we should be. How we think we should be is without respect for who we truly are. It negates rather than strengthens. It distorts rather than clarifies.
Respect holds you and cares for you in the cauldron of transformation. The more you can respect yourself and your process, the more you will connect with your deeper nature and unfold into the totality of who you are, achieving a profound sense of fulfillment.
When we approach our work with respect, it brings strength and clarity. It helps us see where to work and where to yield to something greater than us. It makes our transformational process more gentle.
by Dr. Heléna Kate | Sep 15, 2016 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog
It is all too easy to go through large or small chunks of life not really knowing exactly what you want in life. From early on in our lives, many of us learn to prioritize the wants and needs of others. Years go by and we can wake up to discover that we have yet to truly step into our own lives. Facing this reality and finding our way to what is truly meaningful can feel like a daunting task.
Where do we look to find what we truly want? How do we learn this skill of connection to our core when we have only been taught to measure our happiness in terms of material success or the happiness of those around us?
If you have been asking yourself these types of questions , you are not alone and you can learn how to listen to your deeper nature and live it more fully and in a more fulfilling way each day.
There are three practices that, when included in your daily life, will help you open up to what you truly want in your life: Permission, Space, Desire.
- Permission: Honor yourself by giving yourself complete permission to embrace who you are.
- Space: Respect the process that you are inside of and give yourself the time that you need to do the self inquiry and personal development that will really make a difference.
- Desire: Pay attention to your true desires. What you are drawn to holds the key to who you are and how to live a deeply fulfilling life.
Let’s dig a little deeper into what is meant by each of these terms and how you can bring them into your everyday to achieve exactly what you want in life.
Permission is found in each and every moment that we say yes to ourselves and our process. Permission is the deep honoring of who we are and what we need.
Permission is not a one time affair. Permission is something that we need to give to ourselves each and every day, hour, and moment. Too often, we limit ourselves to living by the rules of what we perceive as possible –what we think we can and cannot do. These often arbitrary rules are major obstacles to our happiness.
When we do not give ourselves permission to feel what we feel, act as we see right, and pursue the things that truly make us happy we remain stuck in either large or small ways. The message that we send to our deeper self when we do this is that we do not value ourselves. It is like trying to have a conversation with someone who is distracted. Our deeper self will give up trying to communicate with us because we are not helping the dialogue along.
Conversely, when we step in fully, such as when we join a personal development program, start a hobby that makes us truly happy, or just give voice to our inner experience, we begin to hear the voice of our deeper nature. Permission makes it possible to create the space that we need in our life to do this most essential work.
Space means creating the time to do our work. Both the time to focus on it and the time it takes for it to unfold. We need the space to put ourselves in new situations, the space to not know, and the space to feel more deeply “into” ourselves.
Chances are you have been living without this space in your life. The pressures of work, family, and friends can leave us with too many obligations, too much input or too many rules. We become full with outside agendas and forget the quiet voice of our deeper longing, which requires space, quiet, and time to truly be heard.
Many people finally create space in their life after a crisis. They join a program, take a trip, or just spend some quiet time at home questing after what will make them deeply happy. It is in this space that we can truly hear the rumblings of our deep desires and where we have a chance to follow them in the direction of our bliss.
The truth is that who we are at our very core never leaves us. We cannot lose it or break it. However, the degree to which we respect and honor all that we are is the degree to which we derive a deep sense of fulfillment. And, we can show this respect and honor by acknowledging and following our desire. Knowing exactly what you want in life is just about listening to yourself.
Our desire shows us the way to our own heart. We naturally quest after and have an affinity for what supports our deeper nature, even if what we are seeking seems counter-intuitive or counterproductive. If what we are drawn to seems odd in this way, it is likely that our desire is showing us something that needs to be realized or released in order to be truly happy.
Our desire leads us in the direction that we need to go. It helps us connect with and unfold who we truly are. Feeling our desire and acting on it puts us in the flow of life. It brings energy, connectedness, and a dynamic feeling to each and every moment.
Permission, space, and desire work together to help us create happy, healthy, and more fulfilling lives. When we pay attention to how we are acting and interacting with each of these practices, we automatically begin to open up a deeper connection with who we truly are. We are able to feel the joy of connecting with our true self and we step into the beauty that is a part of each of our existences. The truth is, you always know exactly what you want in life, it is just a question of whether or not you go and get it.
by Dr. Heléna Kate | Sep 8, 2016 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog
It’s a journey not a destination: Think you are going to do a little personal development work, fix yourself, and then go back to life as usual? That is not how it works! Personal development is a lifetime journey! While it can be challenging at the beginning, you will soon notice that the rewards make the effort well worth it.
Let the past be the past: While learning about what shaped you is an important part of personal development, once you understand the past’s influence on creating where you are currently, it is time to let it go. We only heal after we have let the past be the past.
Every day is a new day: Frustrated because you fell off your personal development wagon or forgot for a moment (or many) that you were trying to do things differently? Remember that this is part of the process too! As soon as you can, remember that today is a new day and nothing needs to hold you back from moving forward in the way that you want to.
It is all perfect: Was it not supposed to look like this? Did you think your relationship was your last one, that you would feel more excited now that your kids have left home, or that your career was supposed to really fill you up? Regardless of whether things look like you thought they would, or not, it is all exactly as it should be. What do you have to learn from your situation, and how can you use it to be more, rather than less, of who you are?
It is all for you: Does it seem like some days the world is conspiring to take you down? It might feel that way, but, in truth, every little bit of what happens is helping you in your process of personal development. See if you can see the gift in the challenge and open up to a more generous and benevolent world.
P.S. Feel free to download this handy-dandy reminder of my five tips for personal development.
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by Dr. Heléna Kate | Aug 31, 2016 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog
When the time comes to do some (or some additional) personal development work, it can be challenging to know how to get started. Should you schedule an appointment with a therapist, join a personal development group, or take a weekend workshop? On which aspects of your life should you focus your attention? Do you need to dig into your past, process some emotion, or learn a new skill to help you move forward? Here are some considerations that will help you determine the right people and the right environments needed to help you grow.
Where is the Challenge in your Life? Is your challenge predominantly personal, relational, professional, or organizational? Sometimes, the things we struggle with touch multiple areas of our life. If this is the case, I’d say your challenge fits in the “personal area” of your life because your personal life affects all other parts of your life.
What is the Location of your Challenge? This is the trickiest question to find the answer to. Challenges exist in different parts of a person’s life. Certain therapeutic modalities are suited to certain types of problems. For example, if your challenge has to do with a recurring family issue, then you’ll want to select a method that works with your ancestral line. If you have lots of negative thoughts, then you’ll want to use a modality that helps change your patterns of thinking and process stuck emotions.
What is your Processing Style? There are different strokes for different folks. Not all methods work for all people. What draws you in or repulses you is important to take into the equation. Listening to yourself is always the key to getting the right help.
Here are some different therapeutic approaches and moments when they might be useful for you:
- Core Energetics: Great for understanding defense patterns, clearing emotional baggage, and providing a deeper understanding of how to connect with the true you.
- Shadow Work: Provides a powerful tool for clearing emotional baggage and releasing unhelpful patterns of relating.
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: Essential skills for thinking positively and getting things done.
- Expressive Arts: Helpful for rooting out deep and often subconscious emotional patterns, and expanding possibilities.
- Imago: Great for supporting couples in understanding how to communicate more effectively and be truly present to each other in a relationship.
- Family Constellations: A powerful tool for helping clear ancestral issues and other challenges that may not have been learned directly in our lives.
- Professional Coaching: Offers results-focused support to meet professional goals. Optimal for people seeking professional excellence.
- Hypnosis: Extremely helpful in switching over belief systems and retraining the nervous system.
Are you looking for your next step in your personal development? I do my best in my LifeWork Community program to create a powerful transformational process to help people connect to the core of who they are and live from an alive, heart-centered place. I make a point to integrate different therapeutic approaches and teach core transformational skills. I would love for you to check it out!
by Dr. Heléna Kate | Aug 28, 2016 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog
Here’s a list of the elements I consider essential to living a deeply fulfilling life.
Passion:
Figure out what you love to do. People are happier when they do what they love.
Do it often. Doing what you love makes you feel more fulfilled.
Remove things from your life that are mediocre, beige, flat, or merely tolerable. You only have so much time, attention, and energy. Don’t waste it on what doesn’t matter.
Courage:
Know what’s important to you.
Know why it’s important to you.
Because, “Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear.” F. Roosevelt
Kindness:
Learn to be good to others and do it as much as possible.
Learn to be good to yourself and do it as much as possible.
Go out of your way every day to do something especially nice for a total stranger.
Gratitude:
Pay attention to all the wonderful things that are a part of your life both large and small.
Thank people for what they bring to your life.
Learn to find gratitude even for the things and people that you find difficult.
Contemplation:
Take a few moments each day to sit quietly.
Keep a journal.
Learn to listen fully to what someone is saying. Really take it in before responding.
Forgiveness:
Make a list of everyone in your life that you have an unresolved issue with and find a way to resolve that issue within yourself and (if possible) with them.
Forgive yourself.
Make it a practice to forgive others as quickly as possible.
Play:
Make time to be creative in ways that please you the most.
Laugh as much as possible.
Remember that your life is what you dream it to be.
Does one of these essential elements particularly resonate with you? If so, I suggest that you write it down and put it somewhere you will see it every day. Every little reminder you create for yourself will help you stay on track!
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