by Dr. Heléna Kate | Mar 23, 2016 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog
There are events in which we lose something we never thought we’d lose: our perspective, our health, a loved one. These life-altering events can leave us reeling. In these moments it can seem that the world is an unfair place and we are at its mercy. Or perhaps we fail to judge the fairness of our situation and simply grieve that it’s happening.
In these moments we often grasp at what’s familiar. We try to negotiate a way to have and to hold what we previously held so dear. We fight, we deny, and we pretend that things have not changed. Yet, we can not un-know what we know – things are no longer the same.
These are the least peaceful times in our lives. This is when what we want to be and what is are at odds.
In his very powerful essay, David Whyte describes anger as our response to seeing something we held dear destroyed. This can be an idea, a relationship, or a state of being. Our anger states: “I have loved this and I’m not ready to let it go. I’m not ready to accept its fate. I’m not willing to accept my fate.”
When we approach the gravesite of what we once held dear, we are fraught with anguish. We want justice. We want to hold someone accountable. While others might be involved, they will never hold enough responsibility for the situation to appease our need for retribution.
We can keep fighting or we can be humbled by our humanity, by our intrinsic vulnerability.
We can find within ourselves a bravery that allows us to accept the ebb and flow of life. This kind of bravery sources its sense of peace from the practice of acceptance and not protection.
Protection is a strong and peculiar habit. We believe that we protect ourselves by cloaking our vulnerability and disappointment with anger, sadness, or avoidance. We convince ourselves that donning an outer armor is the only way that we can survive the inevitable heartache that comes with loss. But a shield expects an onslaught. Our protective gestures create the environment for a continual fight.
Conversely, acceptance is the fabric of a durable, permeable peace. It permits us to open to life, to allow for its expansion and contraction. It enfranchises us to give a rightful place to our anger and need to hold only as long as serves us. Most important, acceptance allows us to be remade again and again in the fire of what we believe we cannot bear. And this is where we find our peace.
Want a step-by-step guide to find and live your life purpose? My Morning Mindset Life Purpose is an inspirational daily video series that delivers tips, insights and exercises straight to your inbox for three weeks. Morning Mindset will help you step-in your purpose and live your life to its fullest. Learn more here!
by Dr. Heléna Kate | Mar 13, 2016 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog
All too often, a good relationship downgrades into a ho-hum affair because we fail to keep up the spontaneity and interest that comes with a new love. Worse yet, even the most well-intentioned people get stumped at how to show they care for their loved one after the honeymoon ends. Little acts that once felt so rich with romance – sweet gestures like whispering “I love you,” sharing a nice dinner, or bringing home flowers – begin to lose their potency.
While these are nice gestures that signal our love for our partners, their impact wanes if they\’re the only ways we show our lover how much we care for and desire them.
In a love relationship, the things that seem counter-intuitive to everyday intimacy are the very same things that fuel real romance. Desire requires distance, surprise, vulnerability, adventure, and play. Desire for your partner gets red-hot when you\’re attentive to all the wonderful things that make your loved one different and unique.
On the other hand, things like continuity and familiarity are essential to intimacy and are so important in creating a sense of safety in relationships.
So to create and sustain a great relationship – one that\’s full of passionate, erotic and compassionate connection – you need to flex your creativity and make your partner someone you\’re really curious about. The best part is that when you get curious about your loved one, it\’ll be easy and fun to come up with creative ways to lavish them with love.
Don\’t know where to start? Try these on for size!
1. Get Your Poetic Flow On
Inspiration is within reach most of the time. So, cozy up to your inner-bard and write a poem about your partner. See if you can capture what you love about them in this expressive form. If you brainstorm adjectives, qualities or feeling you associate with this person, you\’ll quickly create phrases that inspire you and tap into the initial wonder you felt when you first fell in love with your partner. If a poem seems too high-stakes, then why not write your partner a love letter that expresses some of the things about them that you find wonderful and desirable.
Then, take a risk! Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right? Share your poem or letter with your paramour and notice how it makes each of you feel. The reality is that vulnerability opens the door to greater emotional intimacy.
2. Shout Out the Tiny, Beautiful Things That Make Your Partner Shine
Okay. Really want to turn your partner on? It\’s time to call attention to the million little things about your partner that no one else knows but you. When we fall in love, we notice all these little details about the other person. We\’re enamored by the way they drink their coffee or the way their hair looks first thing in the morning.
Yet soon into a new relationship, those delicious little details become familiar and so we cease to see them as remarkable.
The thing is that these little wonderful things about your partner did not suddenly become less wonderful – it\’s that you\’ve ceased to be wow\’d by all the things that make your partner them! It\’s so important to look at our beloved with fresh eyes and to delight in all the little idiosyncrasies that increase our feelings of love.
Want bonus points? Lovingly share all the things about your partner that you find captivating and attractive. Let them know how he or she is truly special to you. Trust me, this will make BOTH of you feel great.
3. For One Night, Get Indulgent
If your version of a nice time with your lover is the classic wine and dine scenario, TAKE IT UP A NOTCH!
For one night, design a fantastic, and yes decadent experience for your love. Or, get adventurous and create a totally new experience for the two of you to share based on something your partner loves.
For example, take a bubble bath with candlelight, wine, chocolate, the smell of jasmine and opera music. Or, walk in the woods bundled in soft fabrics and take turns telling each other about the beautiful things you see.
The thing is that little adventures have this way of turning you on and making you feel really alive. And this, my friends, is what passion is all about.
4. Get Busy Giving
Tap into your inspiration and find something – or make something – that will let another person know how special they are to you.
When you think about bringing pleasure to someone else’s life, you naturally think creatively and playfully about what\’s in the world and how to use it. And even better, when you give a gift your heart opens up and you feel satisfied on a deeper level.
It\’s too easy to let days slip by where we\’re distracted from what matters most. So challenge yourself to spend an hour each week doing one of these activities. It won\’t take long before you\’ll feel more connected to your beloved and more passionate about your relationship.
Are you ready to dramatically shift your life in the direction you want and need it to go?
The Group Healing Intensive allows you, in a weekend, to do the amount of personal transformational work that would take years of traditional therapy to accomplish. But that is just the beginning of the benefits.
If you feel it’s time to stop waiting for “some day” and that you’re ready to step fully into a new and vibrant way of being, Group Healing Intensive is for you! To learn more, CLICK HERE.
by Dr. Heléna Kate | Mar 6, 2016 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog
Yesterday I led a workshop for my LifeWork Community Program on the topic of Harmony.
All of my studies and all of my experiences have led me to the understanding that a harmonious life is connected the expression of one’s personal truth. Put another way, you’re in harmony when you’re in your truth.
While “harmony” is a universal idea, each person has their own truth that they live and breathe. With 7 billion people now on the planet, I often wonder how can we take 7 billion unique ways of being and get them to fit together harmoniously?
As we see everyday, our ways of being seldom synch up peacefully. We fight, we war, we oppress others based on the color of their skin, their gender, or their beliefs.
Yet, in the face of this apparent disharmony, I still believe that harmony is ultimately attainable.
What I call harmony is not as lofty as a utopian principal. It’s much more down to earth. It’s something that we can strive for each day.
I like definitions of harmony that refer to it as an agreement or congruity. I see it as an accord between two or more things.
Yet, all too often we block ourselves from perceiving harmony. We cultivate – and give into – mindsets that analyze, deny or set up false dualities.
These mindsets are so common it’s no wonder that people often cry out for peace. When we approach our lives through criticality, we analyze our moments so that we can’t see the proverbial “forest through the trees.”
All of these mindsets contain a common element of “this not that.” This means that we set up dichotomies in which we pit situations against each other. One example of this line of thinking says: if I forgive this person, then they win. Another is: if you want something to work, then you need to figure out all the ways it might not work to prevent failure.
Each of these lines of thinking generates a lack of harmony in our world. And this is important. We’re bold to assume that the universe is or is not harmonious based on our own experience of it.
There are ways we can look at the world through a more harmonious lens. We can choose to accept people and situations with which we struggle. We can try to see and empathize with what’s happening on either side of a scenario. We can look at how things fit together rather than how they conflict.
If you want to build more harmony into your life, here are a few skills you can practice everyday.
Acceptance: Acceptance is the opposite of denial. Yet, it’s not as simple as adopting a belief or idea. Rather, it’s the ability to let go of the struggle, regardless of whether that struggle is rooted in reality or fantasy.
Curiosity: If we inquire into that which we disprove or deconstruct, we can learn how it works rather than how it doesn’t work.
Unity: If we allow many ideas to exist alongside one another rather than thinking in terms of either/or, we open to a new world of possibilities. It’s not about making all ideas line up. Rather, its about allowing them to exist in their multiplicity.
Want a step-by-step guide to find and live your life purpose? My Morning Mindset Life Purpose is an inspirational daily video series that delivers tips, insights and exercises straight to your inbox for three weeks. Morning Mindset will help you step-in your purpose and live your life to its fullest. Learn more here!
by Dr. Heléna Kate | Feb 27, 2016 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog
Creativity is a big buzz word these days, particularly in the business world. I’ve come across a lot of articles that talk about the benefits of cultivating creativity in your personal and professional life. And for the most part, I tend to agree with them.
But what these articles tend to miss is that creativity is a collective process. They tend to perpetuate the myth that creativity is a mysterious, solo act. And this simply isn’t true.
Creativity has as much to do with how you respond to yourself as it does with how you respond to your environment. It requires that you say “yes” to yourself more. “Yes” to daydreaming a new solution to a vexing problem. “Yes” to the fact your “out-of-the-box” idea might actually be the right idea.
But creativity also requires that we say “yes” to others more, especially when it pertains to our passions and life purpose. It requires that we say “yes” more to inviting the input, feedback and support of those we trust most.
All too often, we safeguard against failure and risk as we contemplate acting on our “crazy” dream or goal. This limits our capacity for creativity and innovation and keeps us further from our dreams.
This is where creative thinking is essential. It connects us to a greater sense of possibility. It also connects us to our authentic self. When we tap into our creative self, we quickly realize that the “only one right way” myth really isn’t true. What is true is that there are always limitless options. Yet, we’re conditioned to ignore this limitlessness.
Here are several ways that you can boost your creative energy in your life.
1. Support All Answers: There is a basic tenet behind becoming a more creative thinker: say yes before you say no. Many people think the first step is engaging their logical mind to determine if an idea is good or not. However, bad ideas are often the fodder for really great ideas. When we get all ideas out on the table, the options – and especially the good options – multiply exponentially.
2. Encourage Involvement: Regardless of where you’re at with an idea, this point always applies. When you encourage involvement, you’re open to each and every person who is willing to put in their two cents. Why do you want to do this? Because this helps your idea become as powerful and innovative as possible. This doesn’t mean you take every opinion at equal value. It means you engage as many people as possible so that you can learn about the strengths and weaknesses of your idea while it’s in development.
3. Think Outside the Box: When you do these first two things, you set the stage for the third. The primary ingredient for creativity is a willingness to look where no one has looked before. This is why it’s so important to listen to all ideas. Wacky ideas exist outside of the box and they help us find the good ideas that are also out there. If you feel stuck, you might benefit from seeing what ideas or people you have not been willing to enlist to get you to think more creatively.
Are you looking for a way to help other people transform their lives and have a profound impact in the world or a pathway to strengthening your work with others?
The Master Transformational Coaching program is designed to give you individualized training and top-notch resources to help you become profoundly successful doing what you are meant to do.
To learn more about this opportunity and how it might be right for you, CLICK HERE.
If you are ready to take this next step towards your life purpose, I can\’t wait to meet you.
by Dr. Heléna Kate | Feb 20, 2016 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog
One thing I hear over-and-over again from people is that they’re afraid to fail.
They’re afraid of what others will think about them if they fumble towards their goals. They’re afraid to endure the pain of falling short or failing. And so, they make their fears their reality. They stop short on realizing their goals or don’t take action in the first place.
I certainly have feared failure. And my fear has, at times, paralyzed me.
If you’ve experience this, then you know how much it sucks.
Sometimes fear of failure is rooted in perfectionist tendencies. Perfectionists never feel good enough. When they realize they’ve made a mistake, it’s enough to take them down into a place of self-criticism and self-shame. Often times, this stops perfectionists from doing anything at all.
A perfectionist streak can hurt your health, career and relationships. This is because it exacerbates fears of failure so much so that you don’t reach for your goals at all. Compounding this is the internal judgment and negative dialog that’s part of the perfectionist’s tool box and are used as weapons against themselves for not achieving what they deeply want to achieve.
If you relate to this, there’s hope! You can change your perfectionist tendencies by embracing your limitations and failures. This isn’t an easy thing to do. It takes ongoing patience, but it can be learned.
Here are five things that you can do to become less of a perfectionist.
1. Stop performing: Do you find yourself making everything polished and perfect? Does everyone think you’re amazing – all the time? It can be great to be amazing. But know what’s even better? Being liked for who you really are! Instead of perfection, aim for genuine.
2. Lean into your mistakes: If you’re screwing up, let yourself screw up. It can even be fun. Take it from me – a self-professed serious person. Make a point of not taking YOURSELF to seriously.
3. See your mistakes as opportunities: There is something to be gained from every time we fail. How can you turn the coal of your moment into a diamond?
4. Give credit to and enjoy your strengths and limitations: A funny thing happens when you embrace either your strengths or limitations – you become better able to embrace its opposite. This means you increasingly step into your full self.
5. See it as a gift: When you’re willing to accept your limitations, everyone around you breathes a bit easier. This is because when you accept your shortcomings, you create an environment of love and acceptance that helps helps everyone around you heal themselves.
Want a step-by-step guide to find and live your life purpose? My Morning Mindset Life Purpose is an inspirational daily video series that delivers tips, insights and exercises straight to your inbox for three weeks. Morning Mindset will help you step-in your purpose and live your life to its fullest. Learn more here!
by Dr. Heléna Kate | Feb 13, 2016 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog
I’m an independent and individualistic person. And still, I have woken up some days to realize that I was living a life someone told me to live, and not one I decided I live. At the time, I didn’t know how to make my own choices for my life. And – more to the point – I was concerned that the way I wanted to live was somehow wrong.
I’ve come to learn that the fear and indecision I felt at the time was inevitable. To learn and to grow required that I don’t yet know.
To not know – and the feelings that emerge when you don’t know something – sets the stage for curiosity, exploration and change.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve talked a lot about how to connect with and express your personal truth. In the end, your personal truth comes down to choice! The choice to live your life according to your integrity. The choice to live your live according to your values, aspirations and beliefs. The choice to follow your curiosity and passion.
The truth is that the choices you make have a powerful impact on your life. Yet, your choice to TRULY LIVE YOUR LIFE has a greater net effect on your world.
When you choose to express your full self rather than some compromised version of yourself, you gain many gifts. Here are some of them:
1. You’re more free and able to step into your success
2. You’re healthier
3. You have more to give and yet you don’t give compulsively
4. You feel more fulfilled regardless of your situation
5. You give people permission to be themselves
6. Your life becomes easier
When you chose to express your full self, you inevitably feel happier. In turn, you’re less attached to the outcome of any particular situation. This is because your sense of happiness is your own. It’s not contingent upon what someone else decides to do, or to not do. Instead, you’re more at peace with how situations evolve and morph.
Further, being your full self gives you the opportunity to access your potential. And this frees up parts of you that you might not have previously known about. When you decide to tune into your authentic curiosity, your latent desires and abilities rise to greet you.
It takes a lot of energy to NOT be your self. In one way or another this shows up as stress. The more stressed you are, the harder it is to do the right thing for yourself. This becomes a vicious cycle that continually decreases your vitality and sometimes shows up as illness.
When you choose to be your full self, you’re full of life. You know your strengths and can use them to meet your challenges. This leaves you feeling stronger and not depleted. The choice to be your full self also stops you from giving in ways that hurt you. You can’t hurt your self and be your full self. This is fundamentally because to BE YOU is to LOVE YOU.
Being your full self is its own reward! You feel better all the time. Even when you’re faced with life’s inevitable challenges, you have a sense of solidity and inner-joy that can not be snuffed out. The life-affirming effects of this cannot be overstated!
By being your full selves you naturally give people permission to be their full selves. This is a permission that emerges through setting the right example. Conversely, the more critical you are of yourself, the more you hold yourselves back and the more inhibited people feel around you.
This all adds up to a very simple truth: that your life will be less challenging if you show up to it as your full self (which I’ll add is not always the easiest thing to do). Yet. when you express your full self and make choices that are best for you, living your life gets monumentally easier.
As I mentioned in the beginning of this piece, being your full self is a choice in each and every moment. Most of the time the choices we make are made unconsciously. But the more aware you become, the more conscious you are in each moment, the more you’re able to choose the perfection you already are.
Are you looking for a way to help other people transform their lives and have a profound impact in the world or a pathway to strengthening your work with others?
The Master Transformational Coaching program is designed to give you individualized training and top-notch resources to help you become profoundly successful doing what you are meant to do.
To learn more about this opportunity and how it might be right for you, CLICK HERE.
If you are ready to take this next step towards your life purpose, I can\’t wait to meet you.
