Why You Should Learn Your Personal Truth

by | Jan 23, 2017 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog

Living your personal truth is the key to success in your personal development. Knowing what you want is only part of the process of living the life that you dream of. True life transformation begins when you can start to translate what you want into radical honesty in each moment – honesty with yourself and with everyone in your life. In order to harness this radical honesty, we must connect with our deeper self and uncover our personal truth.

When we live an “unconnected life” (that is, unconnected to our deeper self, our core, our personal truth), what we understand to be “our truth” is nothing more than our ego’s petulant desires. When we live a connected life, our deep truth guides us to live an aligned life by providing us with signs and signals along the way. Our job is just to listen to these signals and act accordingly. When we do, our life becomes infinitely more fulfilled.

Our emotional state is one of the best cues that we have about whether or not we are living our personal truth. However, our emotions only reflect a path for our true selves if they are tied to the present moment, independent of any other baggage we might be carrying. When we are aware of the feeling of liking something, we learn it is in alignment with our deeper truth. When we are aware of our feelings of discomfort, we learn that something is off, that we are somehow not in alignment with our deeper truth.

The most important part of connecting with your personal truth is listening – listening to yourself and then adjusting what you are doing to bring yourself into a place of alignment with your truth.

The challenge to trying to live your personal truth occurs when speaking your truth brings loss or pain. Our fearful ego interprets this loss or pain as punishment for a bad or unhealthy choice we have made, and pushes us to revert the change or avoid future ones. The truth is that pain and loss are a natural part of change.

At times, the transformation that comes when you start to live your personal truth includes letting go of the old to make room for things you desire in the here and now. For example, when you speak your needs in a relationship, you risk not having them met. When you are honest with yourself about your work not being satisfying, you may realize that it\’s time to look for new work. Your ego responds to the immediate pain of this sort of situation without taking into account the freedom and growth that come next. If you are able to challenge your ego’s fearful, knee-jerk response to transformation, you will be able to create real change for yourself.

Your truth can change everything around you. Learn how to speak and share your heart with the world, even when it is challenging, and tap into the profound strength that comes from this practice. If you need help learning your truth or practicing it, I can help you. My Personal Breakthrough Intensive is a great way to clear a path to living your truth. Click here to learn more.

6 Ways to Live from Your Core

by | Jan 16, 2017 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog

Connecting with your core is the key to your empowerment through choice. “Make a decision,” is a crippling command for many. When your mind is presenting dozens of different scenarios, how can you know which is the right way to move forward? Learning to connect with your core allows you to tune out the white noise of ego, doubt, and distraction, freeing you to clearly assess your options and make an empowered, conscious choice in any scenario.

When you are more connected to your core, your path forward seems clearer, you feel happier and more at peace, and you are able to have a more positive impact. Think about it this way; would you rather make your decision from a place where you are doing what you think you should do, where you are angry or fearful, or where you are in contact with the highest truest part of yourself? Yep, me too. Below, I have outlined 6 ways to connect with your core.

1. Challenge your Mask

Most of the time we walk around in the superficial part of our selves – the mask. In fact, many people don’t even know that is where they are living from. You can challenge you mask by asking if what you are thinking or feeling is actually true or if it might be able to be viewed from a different perspective. The work of Byron Katie does a wonderful job of challenging the mask and reconnecting people with a deeper part of themselves.

2. Express your Lower Self

We might want to pretend that this part of us is not even there at times. The whole reason it is the lower self is that it was shunned and shut down—deemed socially unacceptable—but it needs to have its time as well. When we learn to connect with and safely express our lower self, we gain a ton of energy and are much less likely to leak out our negativity in unconscious ways.

3. Do things you love

It is a very simple fact that if you do more things you love you feel happier, more fulfilled, and more at peace. The trick is to know if you REALLY love what you are doing or if you have just adopted it because it is socially acceptable. So, pay attention. Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi talks about this in his book Flow. This book states that when we are doing things we truly love we experience things like time “flying” because we are so engrossed in what we are doing.

4. Get inspired

From a beautiful painting to a sublime piece of music, we connect with our core when we are inspired. This effortless way of returning to our core can be used frequently through our days and weeks to nurture this connection.

5. Know your values

When we are in integrity with ourselves, we are more connected to the core of who we are. One of the things that I teach in my programs is that there are no methods or rules that guarantee a person fulfillment and success because each one of us needs to create a life and or business that is in alignment with who we are at a deep level and our values help us do this.

6. Return to love

The most challenging and most profoundly life-changing strategy for connecting with your core is simply returning to love when you have left it behind. This requires that you are experienced enough with feeling deep love and that you are aware enough to switch gears at will. This is also a central teaching in my work. I believe that as people learn to do this their lives becomes infinitely better.

The most important part of this is remembering to pay attention to where you are coming from so that you can apply these tools and reconnect with your core self. You can also download this pretty infographic and place it somewhere you will see it everyday, to help remind you of your focus.

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Clear a Path to Your Core

by | Jan 9, 2017 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog

Marie Kondō, the reigning queen of de-cluttering, says, “The best way to find out what we really need is to get rid of what we don\’t.” The same can be said when we talk about getting in touch with the Core and our Personal Truth. Holding onto things you don’t need weighs down the body, the mind, and the spirit, creating hurdles between you and your goals. If we do not clean things out, whether they are our houses, our bodies, or our businesses, things start to fall apart. So, how can we know if it is time to clean house? Listen!

Listen to your emotions. Our emotions are keys to helping us know what needs to go. Sometimes, things we don’t need fall off in a natural, easy way, like the falling of a leaf. Other times, what we do not let go of becomes like a bad smell in the refrigerator – difficult to find and growing more and more unpleasant each day. The ability to stay tuned into your emotions is a powerful tool that can be used to keep all aspect of our lives clean. Becoming familiar with your emotions allows you to recognize what is an ego-driven response and what is a true, deeper sign from your body, and your core, to you. The following are some examples of emotions we might feel and what they might be telling us about the clutter in our lives.

Grumpy:

Are you feeling frustrated when you come to work, does the idea of picking up the phone and talking to that “friend” make you grumble like an old mountain man with a hound dog and a shotgun? When things are healthy they are also happy. The key is to figure out whether you need to let go completely or just make some kind of change inside yourself so that you feel more in alignment with what you are doing.

Unfocused:

Do you find yourself spacing out while reading that book or unable to complete an essential task? Perhaps you need to pay attention to what you are not doing. What I mean is that sometimes we have a difficult time focusing on something we know we need to do or, under other conditions, might even want to do because we are not attending to other parts of our lives. Have you had fun or spent alone time recently? Doing something you have not been fitting in might balance you out and increase your focus.

Sleepy:

Ok, so, sleepy is really just bored –most of the time. It is time to freshen things up! What is the new way that you can engage whatever is boring you to tears? It could be an aspect of your work, it could be a new program that you started. Find out if there is a fresh way of connecting to what you are doing or let it go.

Overwhelmed:

Are your cupboards a mess, do you have too much to do, are you over stimulated by your life? Feeling overwhelmed is the experience of “too much” or even chaos. You can even have too much of really good stuff. So what can you weed out of your life so that you feel less overwhelmed and more at peace on a daily basis?

Learning to listen to your emotions is a tool that you will be able to apply to every aspect of your personal and professional development. Read your emotions as signs of things it\’s time to cut on your journey to your core, and you’ll travel a much smoother path. No one knows you better than yourself, so start tuning into the things you are telling yourself.

10 Tips for a Fulfilled New Year

by | Jan 2, 2017 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog

1. Embrace all of who you are:

Start your year off right and keep it going right by skipping your resolutions and heading straight for self-acceptance. Sometimes, the bigger changes come when we are willing to first accept who we are right now before trying to change it.

2. Pay attention to when and where you are happy:

If you want more happiness and fulfillment you need to pay attention to where it is in your life. Then deliberately choose more of it.

3. Take time to take care:

Self care is essential to you overall well being. Too often, it falls by the wayside. Make a point of regularly taking the time to take care of yourself. Check out #selfcaresunday on social media for great self care ideas from people all over the web.

4. Challenge yourself to be your best:

Find one thing (yes — just one) that you want to challenge yourself to get better at this year. Make consistent efforts to improve in this area. And remember that progress measured in inches is just as valuable as progress measured in yards!

5. Let go of the baggage:

What is not serving you? Whether it is old emotions or clothes that don’t fit free, yourself from what is no longer serving you.

6. Try something new:

Being a beginner can be scary but it is also where the spark of life resides. Bring in some novelty and expand your horizons.

7. Commit to the change that matters the most:

Is there a habit you have been meaning to change? Maybe there are several. Spend some time thinking about one are you can realistically make a change in right now that will have the most impact on all of your life. Then take action.

8. Check off a dream:

Your dreams are meant to be realized! Make sure that at least one item on your bucket list gets folded into your upcoming year.

9. Care More:

Are people grouchy or are you frustrated by some aspect of humanity? Well, what can you do about it? Make a point of choosing action instead of apathy.

10. Acknowledge those who matter:

Years go by so fast. It is easy to have time slip away and not to send some words of love and appreciation to those who matter. Create a regular schedule around showing your appreciation.

Free Download

Feel free to download this easy reminder to stay on track all year long!

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Three Undesirable Behaviors, Explained

by | Dec 26, 2016 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog

Every time you ignore or repress a part of yourself, you do damage. Sometimes, ignoring and repressing your emotions or undesirable behaviors leads to a flare up or an outburst. What’s more, ignoring and repressing means you aren’t exploring and understanding, so those flare ups can be confusing and disconcerting. If you\’re like most people, you\’ve done or said something and only seconds later asked yourself, “Why the heck did I do that?! I should know better.” But, do you know better? Taking the time to examine the patterns around your undesirable behaviors will help you understand where they come from, why you interact with them the way you do, and how you can make peace with them.

The Patterns

With both the Lower Self and the Shadow, the pattern is to disown. The base level negative emotions that we associate with the Lower Self, like fear and anger, are less championed by society than their counterparts, like bravery and happiness. In fact, society tends to say, “Hey — I don’t want to see that [insert base level negative emotion]! Cover that up with a smile so we can all pretend it isn’t there!” We’re trained to pretend these emotions don’t exist and, when they become too obvious to ignore, to attribute them to something beyond just, you know, being human.

We see ourselves fall into a similar pattern when we interact with the Shadow. We reject those parts of our personality that we don’t like and disown them, often by projecting them onto others. “A procrastinator? Me?! YOU’RE A PROCRASTINATOR!” You know, something along those lines … The rest of us doesn’t want to accept that we have shadowy parts, and we tend to try to pretend that we just don’t have them at all!

Truth Bomb: You cannot live a full life if you deny the existence of any part of yourself.

The Why

There are many different ways we can assess the motivators of our actions. Try examining your behavior through a developmental lens. Maybe try out a situational interpretation. But we all know ignoring your behaviors and emotions certainly isn’t a practical solution. The first step towards accepting and embracing your lower self and the shadow is to begin to understand all parts of them. Let’s take a look at how our behaviors are rooted in our biology. In particular, we’ll take a look at three behaviors that often prompt that “Why did I do that?!” response: shutting down, procrastinating, and tuning out.

Shutting Down

Do you have a hard time staying present when people yell at you? Or do you freeze when you hear certain noises?

In these moments, your body is taking you on an autopilot journey. That weird noise or your friend’s yells are seen by your body as a threat, triggering a takeover by your Autonomic Nervous System (ANS). Your ANS is the part of you that is responsible for the automatic processes of your body. People often \”shut down\” because they are over-loaded with stress or they feel powerless. An ANS-induced shutting down is often the result of extreme or preverbal trauma.

What you can do about it: The first thing to know about \”shutting down\” is that you really can\’t verbally or rationally explain why this behavior shows up. When this behavior presents itself in your life, you might not even have access to the traumatic memories that instilled this reflex. The easiest way to look at \”shutting down\” is to see it as a response initiated by the nervous system and not a response to a memory.

Procrastinating

Can you find anything and everything to do besides what you most need to do? Do you wait until the last minute to begin important tasks?

Evidence shows that procrastination is partly due to a maladaptation in your prefrontal cortex. Your prefrontal cortex is responsible for your executive functioning and governs tasks such as planning. While procrastination has a behavioral component to it – which is the habitual reinforcement of last-minute behavior – telling a procrastinator to just DO what needs to be done is like telling a depressed person just to cheer up. This approach never truly works because procrastination – like depression – has as much to do with one\’s physiology as it does with their psychology.

What you can do about it: One of the easiest things you can do to help counter-act your tendency to procrastinate is to break your task down into small, easily accomplished steps. To support your progress, you can remove all distractions from your work environment, set and keep a consistent schedule, and monitor your mood. Also read this great article from the NY Times about some of the not-so-terrible things about procrastination. Remember folks, love all of yourself.

Tuning out

Do you zone out when your partner is telling you something? Do you have trouble paying attention in meetings?

This is often about more than simple avoidance. It\’s often about an adaptive process by which you tune out unchanging data. This means that if repetitive information keeps coming your way, you\’re going to stop being aware of it. This can also happen if you steadily assume that the information you\’re presented with is going to be repetitive, regardless of whether or not it actually is.

What you can do about it: Sometimes your inability to see the newness around you is more about you than about the unchanging nature of your relationships. My advice here is for you to challenge yourself to approach your life – and all the people in it – with a sense of curiosity. Look for what you have not seen before.

So cut yourself a break and get a little more intimate with your socially unacceptable and less-than-desirable behaviors and emotions. They’re here to stay. You two might as well start getting along.

What\’s ANGER got to do with it? Negative Emotions and the Lower Self

by | Dec 19, 2016 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog

The Lower Self is one-third of your entire Self. It is also the repository for your anger, rage, despair, apathy, and other negative emotions. If you are dealing with irrational, explosive emotions that your rational mind knows are way out of context for the situation, you’re dealing with your Lower Self. When you’re blocked, or find yourself repeating unhelpful patterns, you’re probably also dealing with your Lower Self. It is the ugly stepchild of the psyche, and it will act the part if you shun it.

According to the Core Energetics Model, the self is divided into three parts: The Lower Self, the Mask, and the Higher Self (or, Core Self). Simply put, the Higher Self is the truth of who you are, the Mask is who you want to be perceived as, and the Lower Self is where you hold the pain you experience when the Higher Self and the Mask work against one another. Understanding the Lower Self will unlock valuable information and resources for you.

Exploring your Lower Self is like jumping into a deep swimming pool at night — risky, daunting, and maybe a little creepy. The goal is the contentment you’ll experience as you float on that dark surface, confident in your understanding of the relationship between your body and the water that surrounds it! But know that before you float, you’re going to have to swim, so make sure you know how, and bring a lifeguard.

Here are a few things to remember, as you take the plunge:

Remember that honesty is more important than neatness:

The Lower Self is messy. Rage and despair do not make for good dinner guests. Do not let the honesty of your experience be overshadowed by the havoc that confronting these feelings might cause you. The Lower Self is SO MUCH more honest and real than the Mask.

Find ways to express the Lower Self that are safe and contained:

Dealing with the Lower Self is work to do in an environment of support; inside sessions or a program. These are difficult emotions. As always, acknowledge your own limitations and boundaries, and take care of yourself along the way. Equip yourself for the task at hand, and rely on the resources around you. The point is to transform the Lower Self, not to get lost in it.

Acknowledge the validity and the transience of your emotions:

Know that the chaos you might be feelings is temporary, but important. Acknowledge your emotions and their validity. Without being dismissive, recognize that they are just emotions. If you allow yourself to feel them and be curious about what they are telling you, they may pass even faster and have even more positive benefit.

Your Lower Self is worth getting to know. When you have the strength and courage to descend into the darkness, you will find the pathway to joy and the gift of your vitality.

Claim Your Flaws, Become a Goddess

by | Dec 12, 2016 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog

One of the things that I love about the Greek gods is that they are all incredibly flawed. Zeus was always jealous and (hypocritically) always a cheater. Hera was vengeful. Artemis was impulsive. Poseidon was easily pissed off. Athena lacked compassion. The gods fell far from perfection, but they were worshipped nonetheless. Their power existed because they unapologetically claimed the truth of who they were – flaws, shadowy parts, and all.

When the shadowy parts of who you are — those flawed parts that you try to pretend don’t exist — come flaring up, it’s a knee-jerk reaction to disown them or project them onto someone else. We all have parts of ourselves that we don’t like, that never seem to change at all, and that we can’t imagine learning to love. For example, I can’t spell and I am often late. These are not my favorite traits about myself, but they have proven to be a part of me that I just can’t seem to shake. Years of having them as my steadfast companion have tested me — Do I direct hate or love (or at least acceptance) at this part of myself?

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When we are confronted with parts of ourselves that we just do not like, it is helpful to remember that we are multi-faceted people and that our strengths may actually need our weaknesses to be what they are. Who ever came up with the idea we were supposed to be without flaws anyway? Everyone has them (even the gods) and somehow they are still viewed as something that needs to be fixed.

What would happen in your life if you decided it is ok to have your flaws, weaknesses, and shortcomings? Loving and accepting where you are when you start Personal Development work is usually the best way to move forward. After all, today’s starting point was a desired destination at one point in time, whether or not we were conscious of it. And, where you are headed will one day be a place you are eager to leave behind. Life is flux, and we’ve got to learn to ride it.

The best change we achieve comes from a loving unfolding of who we are in the world and a deep appreciation for the truth of who we are, every last bit of it. Those anthropomorphic gods (yes — made in the design of humans) achieved greatness through their strengths and their flaws (and often times their greatest accomplishments were a direct result of their biggest mistakes). Love your light and your shadows. Claim all of yourself. Be your own god or goddess.

Working with the Shadow

by | Dec 9, 2016 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog

So much of personal development focuses on what we can see and what we know about ourselves, that we might not realize we\’re messing up on those parts that we cannot see and do not know. The Shadow is that unseen, unknown part of ourselves. And unfortunately, out of sight out of mind won’t work here: Our shadow is with us whether we want it to be or not.

The Shadow is the name that Carl Jung gave the parts of ourselves that we have disowned. For example, I might believe that I am good person and that this means I do, and don’t do, specific things. As a good person, I am kind to others, I don’t lie, and I make people feel good about themselves. Also, I get irritated when I see people being unkind, I get angry when people lie, and I get judgmental when people hurt other people’s feelings.

As a third-party reader, you know the likelihood that I have been alive for 42 years and not done those things at least once is pretty low. But, I might not see things so clearly. If someone were to ask me, “Are you ever unkind? Do you ever lie? Do you ever hurt other people’s feelings?” and I were to say, “No,” then we have caught the Shadow.

The process of working with the Shadow makes us more understanding and accepting of both others and ourselves. Incorporating our Shadow into our consciousness gives us access to our full self. These two benefits alone have an incredible impact on our life.

Here are some steps for starting your work with the shadow.

“If you spot, you got it”:

Shadow Workers, people who practice Shadow Work (a modality that helps people work with their Shadow), use this phrase to help clarify when the Shadow is affecting you. The idea is that what irks you in someone else is likely also something that irks you in yourself. When you are triggered by someone else’s action or personality, turn your gaze to yourself and look at how you have also done that thing, or been that way. Try to bring some awareness to different motivators for different behaviors.

Step out of Defense:

We build up our Defenses to preserve and protect our Ego. In order to see our Shadow clearly, we have to understand its intricate, symbiotic relationship with our Defenses. Our Defenses are triggered when we make the “If you spot it, you got it” connection — recognizing that another person’s irksome behavior is reflective of our own. To really get the most out of seeing our Shadow, we need to be ready to step outside of our Defenses that may be clouding our understanding.

Judgment to Compassion:

Seeing and working with our Shadow requires a lot of compassion, both for ourselves and for others. At the heart of it, learning to see our Shadow is changing our default reaction from Judgement to Compassion. We are developing our ability to understand that, even if we do not agree with them, everyone has valid reasons for the way that they are acting and being.

How to shut down your inner critic

by | Nov 28, 2016 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog

We all know that we can sometimes be our own worst enemy. Usually, this is because there is some aspect of yourself that you have restricted, or some part of your life that you have not been willing to fully embrace. There are many reasons why we might hold ourselves back including our early experiences, more recent negative experience, and a lack of experience with more positive potentials. We manifest our holds against ourselves with negative thinking, emotional instability, and a lack of imagination.

Negative inner dialog is sometimes referred to as the “inner critic.” You may not have heard this term before, but I would bet you are familiar with that voice inside your head that says negative things, tells you that you are not good enough, or criticizes your actions. Our inner dialogues are shaped by voices from our past, our thinking habits, our chosen environments, and the effects of the stress and strain of life. Thankfully, there are ways to effectively deal with each of these forces that shape our inner world. Here\’s how:


Voices from the past:

When familiar voices from the past fill up our mind, we can confuse them with our own thoughts. If we listen closely, we can distinguish that these thoughts are not in our own voice, they are in the voices of those people who impressed their views on us. When we bring awareness to what we are hearing/thinking, and we are able to name the person that is speaking to us in the form of our thoughts, it disempowers the thought. It is not what we think. It is what the person who is speaking it thinks.

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Habits of thinking:

Some habits die hard. One habit that is particularly difficult to eliminate is the habit of imagining a negative outcome or assuming the worst. When we engage in this type of thinking, we are both less happy and more closed to alternate outcomes. A reframe, is when you take a situation or a thought and restructure it to be both true and positive. For example, a simple reframe can be removing words like never and always to create more room for a positive experience.

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Our Company:

The company that we keep makes a huge difference to our inner dialogue. The companions of today may become the “voices from the past” that fill your head with negative thoughts. The way the people around us talk, talk to us, and act will all have an effect on the way that we think. If you are trying to overcome some negative inner dialogue, you might want to take a look around you and see what the people around you are saying and doing. Make a choice to be happy and surround yourself with people who are happy.

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Stress and Strain:

The stressors of life can wear us down over time. As we get run down, we tend to get more negative. Our bad habits come to the surface. They can even take over. It is important to take really good care of ourselves so that we can have the strength to be positive. So, if you start seeing more negativity in your thinking, pause and take stock – are you taking care of yourself in the best possible way?

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What next?

If you are feeling held back in your life, if you are wanting more in each moment, check in with what is happening between your ears. If there is a lot of negative thinking, or even a little, take some time to apply the suggestions above to shift to a more positive perspective and liberate yourself to be more of your full, true self. And tell those negative inner voices – buhbye!


Resources

Tune in to this podcast by Dr. Kate on Transforming your Inner Critic. Listen here.

10 Ways to show Gratitude through Action

by | 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:

  1. Take Feeding America\’s Thanksgiving Challenge.

    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 …


  2. 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.


  3. Volunteer at your local homeless shelter.

    Show compassion and kindness to a community that is often marginalized. Community through humanity.


  4. 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.


  5. Recycle, even if it means making a trip to the recycling center on your own.

    The fish, dolphins, turtles, and the planet thank you.


  6. 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.


  7. 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!


  8. 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.


  9. 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.


  10. 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.