by Suzy Reading | Jun 11, 2013 | article, blog
Why do people engage a coach? In a nutshell, it’s because everyone deserves to be nurtured and empowered to nurture themselves. Who uses a coach? ANYONE with the one or more of the following…
- a dream, a vision or a goal,
- a feeling of unrealised potential, a desire for a fuller life
- a project, a task or a problem,
- a decision or cross roads to be faced,
- a situation you can’t change but which must be managed
- change, transition or stress to deal with. (more…)
by Suzy Reading | May 27, 2013 | article, blog
When you’re feeling STRESSED – try child’s pose
When you’re feeling SAD – try a handstand
When you’re feeling TIRED – try legs up the wall pose
When you’re feeling STUCK – try a twist
When you need a BOOST – try a gentle back bend
When you need to LET GO – lengthen your exhale
When you need to SLOW DOWN YOUR THOUGHTS – earth your brow… (more…)
by Suzy Reading | Apr 3, 2013 | article, blog
I had an experience this week that totally knocked me off my centre and it served to remind me of just how important it is to have a toolkit of things that can help soothe and calm us.
While I have been writing recently a great deal about happiness strategies I think it is important to acknowledge that I am not saying that we should expect to find ourselves in a state of happiness all the time. There will be moments in our day, sometimes long stretches of time, where we are challenged by life and it is essential that we give ourselves permission to have what I call a ‘normal human reaction’ to life.
At times we will feel sad, angry, frustrated, lost, confused, anxious and all the other emotions that form the full gamut of expressions and this is ok. It is important to be real, to give ourselves time to feel and respond to what happens in our lives. While it is ok to have these feelings, we also need some strategies to help us soothe ourselves, to reconnect with our calm-abiding centre.
I’d like to share mine with you and hope that this might motivate you to articulate yours. If you are in a happy place right now then there is no better time to brainstorm because a positive mood enhances your creativity.
If you are not in a great place at the moment then it might help to sit down with a friend or have a session with a coach to help open your eyes to the calming and uplifting things that are available to you. (more…)
by Suzy Reading | Mar 14, 2013 | article, blog
What is overthinking? We’ve all been there: our thoughts like a hamster on a wheel, running round and round frantically, getting nowhere. Overthinking is thinking too much, consider it as self-focused rumination.
Lyubomirsky* defines it as “thinking needlessly, passively, endlessly and excessively pondering the meanings, causes and consequences of your character, your feelings and your problems”. When we are down, many of us believe that we need to focus our attention inwardly on our feelings and circumstances to find the solutions that might resolve our troubles.
What research is now showing is that quite to the contrary, overthinking causes a cascading of unhelpful effects. Ruminating on our problems and feelings doesn’t normally lead to clarity and insight – it is more likely to lead to distorted, pessimistic thinking and the amplification and prolonging of sadness. It is this combination of rumination with negative mood that can be so toxic.
So in order to boost our happiness and wellbeing we need to know how to shake off overthinking, and to reinterpret and shape negative thoughts into neutral or optimistic ones. Happy people tend to have a greater capacity to absorb themselves in more life-giving activities that distract them from negative, anxious overthinking.
Let’s now take a closer look at those strategies that shake off overthinking and shift your mood so you can be more creative and productive in your problem solving. (more…)
by Suzy Reading | Feb 15, 2013 | article, blog
Self-care can broadly be defined as personal health maintenance undertaken with the intention of improving or restoring health, or treating or preventing disease. I’d like to add the purpose of ‘flourishing’ to this definition and to promote the notion of thinking broader than just nourishing physical health.
When we think about practices to sustain good health and wellbeing, the most common themes are good nutrition, exercise, relaxation, sleep, hygiene, minimizing health hazards like caffeine, alcohol, and all of these are valuable, helpful elements to consider. Less often considered are those things that directly enhance psychological functioning – the things that alter how we perceive the world, our place in it and the quality of our interactions with other people.
In addition to caring for your body and nourishing your insides, I’d like to take an introductory look at some of the self-care tools that make you happier by nurturing your mental, emotional, social and spiritual bodies!
(more…)
