by Dr. Heléna Kate | Oct 23, 2017 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog
It\’s ok if you haven\’t always known how to change your life story, or even what your life story is. At 15 years old, I was a mess. I was exceptionally miserable, smoking, drinking, and dabbling in drugs. Perhaps, some of you can relate? For me, on any particular day I could be sobbing in the bathroom, cutting myself, contemplating suicide, or just being plain reckless. I wish I could say that the despair started at 15, or ended then, but if I go back in my mind I can find it starting in my early childhood, and it lasted years later.
There are many ways that pain like this gets categorized: The histrionics of an adolescence, an uncommon experience of an unfortunate individual, growing pains (*rolls eyes*)… However you define it, my 15 year old self could not cope. For me, my pain became the story that guided the first part of my life. Learning how to change your life story is a skill that takes practice and it\’s something you need to truly want. Here’s what I learned from my own experience of channeling my awareness to wake up and change my story to one of happiness, abundance, and purpose.
How to recognize the problem
The first question is how did it happen in the first place?
What happened to me happens to many people. Repeatedly and systematically, I was told that my instincts were wrong, that my emotional responses were bad, that my way of being was unacceptable. I was told I needed to think a certain way to be smart. I needed to feel a certain way to be good. I needed to talk a certain way to be accepted. My life became a series of acts, transactions, and obligations. I was disconnected from my own truth.
My experience is not unique and this was not done to me out of cruelty. In fact, sometimes it was done by people who were trying their best to be loving and supportive. Collectively, we lack the broad knowledge of essential tools that help people create a personal experience that truly serves them. Instead, we default to a misguided status quo as if every individual would be fulfilled by meeting cookie cutter expectations and norms. It is very rare that anyone tell you, in the midst of your formation, that you can learn how to change your life story.
Unfortunately, by the time most people have reached the end of their childhood they have little idea of who they are, negligible emotional intelligence, and a profoundly deep belief that they need to be another person to be loved. We feel this way at the culmination of our “formative years.” We learn to compensate for what we have come to believe are our shortcomings and weaknesses – we act the part to get by. Most of us forget that there is an alternative.
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How to change your life story
Our limiting story has to be put into place.
Our first step in using awareness to change our life story is to begin to wake up to what is meaningful and enjoyable to us. It starts by pursuing a life where details large and small are things that are meaningful to us. We define what is “meaningful” through a process of personal inquiry into who we truly are. Giving ourselves this approach to life is a sign of love and respect.
As we begin to live in a way that feels right to us, we begin to uncover our own gifts. Often, these gifts have been covered over by the conditioning of our earlier lives. Many times, when we unpack what we thought was our fatal flaw we discover a powerful gift and a major part of our contribution to the world.
Our actions help us become more aware, they shift what we believe about ourselves and what we think is possible.
It is in this way that so much of who we are goes unrealized and our potential power to create our own wellbeing and positive change gets lost. Some of our seemingly meaningless quirks have a productive and positive application, we just need to wake up enough to begin looking for it. When we do, we feel better about ourselves and we begin to make a more positive contribution to the world.
ACCEPTANCE AND FORGIVENESS
Practicing forgiveness and acceptance is the key to changing our story. Acceptance and forgiveness are for both for ourselves and for others. It only takes a few trips to a therapist or an in depth writing exercise to become aware of our story. It takes a little more time to see how we keep ourselves on the hook and to begin the process of giving self-acceptance and self-forgiveness. Many people never develop this foundational respect for themselves and instead mask it with things like accolades, egoism, or bitterness.
Likewise, we cannot truly move forward until we have accepted the events of our lives and forgiven the people who we believe have hurt us. If we can become more aware of where we are holding onto past hurts, we can release them and liberate ourselves to create an entirely different narrative.
SELF-LOVE
The third awareness tool for changing our story is self love. As we become aware of what true self-love looks and feels like and learn to live it more in each moment, we begin to see our story differently and to envision an alternative story that better suits us.
When our self-love is strong enough, we are able to face the painful challenges of life. We are able to learn from what is happening and apply it to our life in a way that makes us stronger and more ourselves. As a result, we change the narrative.
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Next Steps
Apply the wisdom that gets developed when living life from a place of self love and acceptance.
This wisdom can be applied to every moment of our lives. Our developed ability to hold ourselves in a place of love and take affirming action in the face of opposition has the power to transform our world. If we no longer negate ourselves or feel the need to justify and rationalize our pain, if we are able to act constructively when faced with the obstacles of life, if we are able to remember that we are the critical change agent of each moment, then what we can accomplish individually and collectively is without parallel.
Each day holds countless moments in which we can shift things in the direction of the positive, in which we have the opportunity to leave the past and create something powerful and new moving forward. I did it and I can help you if you want to learn how to change your life story. To learn more click here to sign up for my newsletter.
by Dr. Heléna Kate | Jul 24, 2017 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog, Uncategorized
Most of us are aware that being intentional has many benefits for our life, but did you know that the key to really getting results is intention without attachment?
Intention without attachment means creating and holding an intention without becoming attached to a specific manifestation of the outcome of that intention. When we become attached to an outcome looking, or being, a certain way, we activate our fears related to having or not having it. This fear then shows up as a block in our path or draws negativity to it. This is often the reason why some people come to believe that setting intentions does not work.
Attachment is our over-investment in a particular outcome. We become attached because of some pain from the past that still haunts us, or because of an unmet need we have. In short, we become attached because of fear – fear that we might be hurt the way we were or suffer the same disappointment. This fear is potent. It is very often stronger than our new found intention and, because of this, creates chaos where we are trying to create order.
When we begin to notice that we have attachments that do not serve us, we are likely to wonder how we might let them go so that we can have more of what we want and create a happier life. However, we may not know how to let go of them.
One thing that we can do is recognize our unmet needs and begin to meet them in healthier ways. When we do this they cease getting in our way. We get stronger, healthier, and happier.
Another thing that we can do to let go of attachment is to begin to heal the pains of the past. In this case, it means fully mourning what was lost or not attained and coming to terms with the inevitable disappointments of life in a way that allows us to fully embrace a different tomorrow, despite the risks involved.
When we do this, our fear of having events repeat themselves diminishes, and, with it, our attachment to the outcome. We are left with a positive intention for what we want to bring into our life and we know we will be OK regardless of whether or not this need is met. Without the need for any more effort, we are at peace. This peace translates into a deep happiness that we can be both open to what we want and trust enough to know that what we get is what we truly need.
Are you looking for a way to let go of heavy emotional baggage and breakthrough to the next level of your personal development?
The Group Healing Intensive is designed to help you accomplish, in one weekend, the amount of personal transformational work that would take years of traditional therapy to accomplish.
To learn more about this opportunity and how it might be right for you, CLICK HERE.
by Dr. Heléna Kate | Jul 17, 2017 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog
The cure for a really bad day can actually be shifting your focus because where intention goes energy flows. It may seem overly simplistic but many of the things that really work in life are just that simple. The real trick is remembering to do them.
What is intention?
Intention is a focus on what it is that we want to experience in the future. We set an intention to carve a path toward a desired end. We set an intention to help us hold, in the present moment, what is most important to us.
How do we focus it?
When we bring our attention back to our intention (meaning both the words and the feeling of the intention) we are focusing on our intention. It is this remembering to bring our attention back that moves us into the reality of our intention.
What are some ways we can do this?
- Write down our intention in clear and present-tense language.
- Connect with how the intention feels and cultivate that feeling.
- Create an image of our intention to help guide us.
- Look for thoughts, feelings, and experiences that support our intention.
- Spend time each day focusing on our intention.
- When we get off track, refocus on our intention.
What is the result of the focus?
When we clarify, focus, and refocus on our intention we begin to see just how powerful of a tool intention really is. We see that it is perhaps one of the most important tools that we can use on a regular and consistent basis to create the life we truly want to live. We truly understand that where intention goes energy flows.
Are you looking for a way to let go of heavy emotional baggage and breakthrough to the next level of your personal development?
The Group Healing Intensive is designed to help you accomplish, in one weekend, the amount of personal transformational work that would take years of traditional therapy to accomplish.
To learn more about this opportunity and how it might be right for you, CLICK HERE.
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by Dr. Heléna Kate | Jul 11, 2017 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog
Life is continually showing you how to raise your awareness, but do you see it’s instructions?
From my perspective, each and every moment of life is offering us an opportunity to become more aware. We are in a constant state of choice, in all of these moments, to either expand or contract. Expansion brings a richer experience of love, truth, gratitude, forgiveness, and service. Contraction brings limitation. The payoff of learning how to raise your awareness, even if it’s just in a few of these life moments, is exceptional.
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Sometimes we may overlook the choice we have to raise our awareness, and other times we may feel we don’t have the power, in that moment, to make it. The risk here is that, when we do not choose to expand our awareness, we get pulled in the opposite direction. The limitations of whatever we are experiencing start to become the structure of a myopic viewpoint, which makes it that much more difficult to choose something more than we currently have.
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Learning how to raise your awareness does not mean you will get it right every time. It does mean that you will have the toolkit to keep yourself better on track in your personal growth and that you’ll be more aware of your choice in each of life’s moments. If we are vigilant about our intention and willingness to become more aware, we can experience all that life truly has to offer.
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There are many ways to expand our awareness. The following are some tools that we can use to keep ourselves on track, regardless of circumstances. To do so, we only need to focus on the wisdom associated with the following words.
Love: A simple tool for liberating ourselves and returning to our heart. Finding our way back to love. Whether it is a busy morning and bad traffic or a fight with someone that you love, finding a way to return to a place of love provides us with a feeling of wellbeing and a springboard off of which we can launch into new levels of awareness. After all, is it more important to be angry at the other driver on the road or to feel a sense that we are all in it together?
Truth: It is very easy to get caught up in the “he said, she said” situations of the world. We begin arguing about the minutia that really make no difference and we quickly lose touch with our core and with the truth of our situation. When we start looking for the greater truth or speaking our personal truth we begin to open up to new awareness that creates real solutions to our situations.
Gratitude: Sometimes life is just one hard experience after another. There are stretches in time when it seems as if there is no relief. This can begin to wear us down and we can get stuck focusing on what we don’t have or what we have lost. Whether we are in hard times or not, remembering to see what we have, and be truly appreciative of it, is helpful in expanding our awareness. Where intention goes, energy flows – so when we pay attention to what we do have, we feel better and feel like we have more of it.
Forgiveness: Whatever grievances have been done to us, the only person who hurts because of our lack of forgiveness is us. When we hold onto the hurts of the past we pick up a heavy weight that restricts us from moving toward what would really serve us. When we learn this, and we remember to forgive others, we set ourselves free from the pains of the past and welcome in a brighter future.
Service: Our awareness is continually expanded by our willingness to see what we can do to change a situation for the better. This is an act of service. The question is, how can I contribute in a way that creates a better now? And if I can’t make a better now, then how about a better future? Being of service raises the bar on our own empowerment and helps us craft what we truly want.
When you work to expand your awareness, your cares and concerns shift and you feel a greater sense of freedom. Focusing on any of these practices helps us see that our experience of life is the result of our willingness to expand into new and better ways of doing things –to cultivate our awareness.
Are you looking for a way to let go of heavy emotional baggage and breakthrough to the next level of your personal development?
The Group Healing Intensive is designed to help you accomplish, in one weekend, the amount of personal transformational work that would take years of traditional therapy to accomplish.
To learn more about this opportunity and how it might be right for you, CLICK HERE.
by Dr. Heléna Kate | May 15, 2017 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog
As I write the title to this article, I can feel the spirit of Alan Watts frowning. “The point of becoming conscious? There is no “point” to doing a thing,” he might say, “because the activity itself is the reason.” Well hold on Alan Watts, I may not be letting you down after all.
If you are anything like me you have invested a disproportionate amount of time and money into personal development work that has yielded minimal result. When I first started, I was trying to alleviate the intense pain that I was feeling. I was looking for a cure for the human condition. Slowly, but surely, the search for a cure for the human condition led to learning the fundamentals of the practice of life. I began to see that we are not so much looking to fix something, as we are to find ways in each moment to create something that feels good, is positive, and fosters wellbeing.
The point of becoming conscious is to actively practice life. The purpose of therapy is to make us functional, whereas the purpose of consciousness study is to make ourselves, and our world, optimal. In therapy, we want to know how we came to be the way we are. In consciousness exploration, we want to know how to seize our potential. While the path to consciousness can be quite challenging at times (and can leave us wondering why on earth we chose this in the first place), “the point” of it is the lived sense of wellbeing and harmony with the world that we more consistently achieve.
A common misconception about consciousness study is that the point of becoming conscious is to control our lives in order to avoid difficult and painful experiences. This sort of “winning at the game of life” solution is really no solution at all. Regardless of whether we are diligent in our personal development or not, we are guaranteed a fair number of trying events throughout our life. Our years will still have their highs and lows, we will still have misunderstandings, and we will suffer incredible losses.
The point of becoming conscious, the point of personal development work, the point of learning the practice of life – is to learn the techniques that help us identify the pains and lows of life as the beacons of brighter tomorrows. These techniques tear us from the emotional water-wings we have been relying on in our ignorance and highlight the areas of ourselves to which we should turn our attention instead.
The study of consciousness teaches us to listen to and interpret life events differently. As we learn this skill, our reality shifts. What was unbearable, becomes negligible. What was dream-worthy, becomes the foundations for our new reality. We become more resilient, real and kind. The world and it’s meaning opens to us. Our beingness and our life become the point of becoming conscious, the point of everything.
