Spring Blossoms in Tennessee

Follow Your Dreams

People will try to force you into a box. You are supposed to fit into one of the pre-made boxes of society. Your family may also expect you to fit into a box that they have assigned to you. 

You only have this life to be free and to experience all that you can and all that you want to. If you are stuck living in someone else’s box , then you cannot spread your wings and fly. 

The boxes are all the same ones that other people have fit into before. It just makes you a cardboard cut-out of other people. But you are unique and unlike anyone who has come before you.

You have can blossom and follow your own dreams. Listen to your true inner voice. Every time you push your true voice down, your authentic self is rejected. This rejection lowers your self esteem and self confidence. 

It is bad enough that other people minimize you, reject your ideas, and try to mold you into something you are not. You do not have to do it to yourself. 

The tendency to undermine yourself, and minimize yourself is something that was programmed into you by other people, when you were young. Any guilt you feel about expressing yourself, is also programmed into you by society and / or your family. 

Beliefs that you hold must be examined carefully , so you can let go of any beliefs that no longer serve you.

Your ideas are valid. They do not have to be perfect.

Ideas are starting places to create your unique path.

Your dreams are there for a purpose.

Don’t let anyone tell you what you can and cannot accomplish. You can figure that out as you follow your heart, your true thoughts and your real values. 

Humanity of Writing

Writers Can Touch The Humanity In Their Readers

Humanity is messy, lonely, complex, sad, magical, mystical and beautiful.  In order to touch your readers in personal way,  pour your real feelings and original thoughts and ideas into your writing. Share your personal reality, and the truth as you perceive it, without trying to go along with the what others tell you that you are supposed to believe. Writing is where you can be real. 

 

What to Live For

Live for yourself. Create your reality. Listen to your inner voice. Nurture your inner child and your emotional wounds.

Live for the connection of all living things and for the value of life and existence.

Live for loving others. Do random acts of kindness. Search out special people to share intimate relationships with.  Passion and sensuality are part of being human and part of spirituality.

Live to love animals and nature. Be kind and mindful. Treat living things with respect and care.

Live for your visions, hopes and dreams. Be creative, inventive and original.

Live to fight against evil and injustice. Be the advocate for those who have no voice.

Teach others to be sometimes still, and other times to roar like a lion.

 

gentlekindnesscoaching.com

 

Life Coaching for People with C-PTSD, PTSD, and Anxiety Disorders

I have cringed watching videos with Life Coaches who yell and are very aggressive with their clients. They are trying to shove them to where they “should be” and push them with covertly  shaming tactics to into their future.

I do understand that most life coaches are trained to be future -oriented with their clients. This is what they learned from their trainers and mentors. Maybe it even works for some people….but not for people with C-PTSD from a background of abuse or trauma.

I understand that it is not the job of the life coach to diagnose mental illness or to identify past trauma in their client….but you cannot minimize or ignore someone’s trauma either.

Many of these loud aggressive methods border on bullying the client. Someone who has already been mistreated by their family, manipulated, or has gone through some kind of trauma, cannot tolerate this kind of “help” from a life coach.

It will further traumatize the client. So if you are a life coach, make sure you do a proper intake assessment of your clients. If it is clear that your approach and methodologies are not a good “fit” for the person, then refer them to a different life coach…one who specializes in helping clients with C-PTSD or PTSD.

If you are looking for a life coach and you have C-PTSD, or PTSD, you need to interview the potential coaches and be sure you feel comfortable wit them, and that their methods will not re-traumatize or trigger your PTSD.F

Find someone who is sensitive to your needs and can be flexible with their techniques and methodologies, to individualize their sessions to benefit you…not re-traumatize you. 

If you are interested in life coaching which specialized in clients with PTSD, C-PTSD and mental illness, feel free to stop by my web site.

gentlekindnesscoaching.com

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Blessings.

Namaste,

Annie -gentlekindnesscoaching.com

 

Light in Darkness

Step lightly and tread a gentle path

You never know what you are walking on

Until you are mindful of it as you go

Listen and see with watchful eyes

Your heart will speak the truth

Be open to seeing more than others

Tell you is around you because

There is always much more than

Your eyes can see if you rush

Breath in your surroundings to perceive

Without biases , without assuming

Things are what you are expecting

If you assume what is there…then

That is what you will see….

Presupposition can murder the senses

And dull your ability to see truth

Sometimes more beautiful than

The others can perceive it to be

And other times darker and more sinister

But see what you are able to see

Never allow others to do your seeing for you

Or give meaning to things without your consent

Your perception becomes your reality for the time you are perceiving it to be

You must see what you need to

And not let others influence you in a way that distorts your truth

Or tarnishes your vision

Walk gently and look freely

Choose your own meaning and feel your emotions

Your spirit is resilient but the mind can be interfered with …

If you are not mindful

Walk gently for you know not where you are walking

Or what you are stepping on

Unless you are aware as you go

Create your own manifestations, and build your own bridges to walk over the water

Until you can walk upon the water with faith…

And without fear

Do not bury your feelings or let others minimize them

Do not allow others to discount what you feel and what you know

Walk softly but speak the truth loudly when it is necessary

And speak the truth gently if it is harsh o

Have compassion when no one around you does

Believe in what is right when others turn their back

Always believe in yourself especially when others shun you

Believe in your intentions when others try to shut you down

What you see and what you feel is yours …and yours to value

Stand up when others have fallen

Stand up when others try to make you stay down

Live with kindness and speak with truth and light

If you let the darkness make you hard to see

The ones who need your light cannot find you

Your light is very important to the ones lost in the dark

Let fear be comforted by truth …

Not the truth of darkness…

But the truth of the light that is within you..

The light that sometimes barely breathes and flickers in the dark

But cannot be extinguished

By anyone

Let your light comfort and inspire

Allow it to flicker like a flame…

Next to fear and sadness

To give them hope

Your light is always within you

Even in the darkest of times

When it is hard to see

No matter how small it may seem at times

Your light has great power and strength

Compassion will flame the fire

 

Dance Like No One’s Watching

Depression C-PTSD and PTSD – How to get Your energy Back

I just finished giving a guitar lesson to my teenage niece. It is nice to spend time with her. I have been giving her lessons for a few months now, about every other week.

Before her father had asked me if I was interested in doing guitar lessons with her, I had not been doing much with guitar at all. 

I used to play all the time. Depression has a way of making you lose interest in the things you once used to love to do. After back to back abusive situations with partners and family members, I lost my will to do anything that I liked to do. 

Since I have started my life coaching business I have been feeling that life force coming back. Once people suck your will out of you, it takes time to be able to self generate that energy again. 

It takes doing something that you are passionate about. Since I have been working with other abuse victim, I have felt a purpose in my life that means something special to me. So this is having the effect of generating some of that will power back again.

I still feel the weight of depression pressing down on me as I try to push it off. I am learning that you cannot push it off at all. It is more a matter of accepting without judgement of yourself. 

Then allowing the feelings to come and sitting with them in a way that is nurturing. Showing yourself compassion when the people closest to you cannot show you any compassion is not easy. But you can do it once you learn that the perceptions others have about you do not have to frame your reality. 

Anyway, I was thinking of putting new strings on my guitar so that it would sound better. The old strings have a very thumpy, dull sound. I know that I would be pleased to hear the sound of new strings and I would be more likely to play for enjoyment. 

I might learn a new song or write one of my own. Baby steps are sometimes the way to make great changes in your perceptions. It is the change in perception that will create change in your behavior. 

Perceptions control your emotions. Emotions are underneath of all behaviors. Once you can begin to change behaviors and have more control over getting some momentum, then you can begin to enjoy your path as you are creating it under your feet. 

Let Your True Passion Guide You

Nurturing Emotional Wounds

Emotions should be treated with kindness and a gentle spirit. When an emotions feels like it is too overwhelming you can console that feeling and care for it. 

Think of your emotions and feelings as children who need to be taken care of and nurtured. If you abandon your feelings they will only grow more. You have to walk with them and hold their hand. 

Emotional wounds

When you feel sadness, grief or anger there is always a reason for it. Sometimes the reason is obvious and other times the emotion is coming from an old emotional wound. 

Emotions are always trying to tell you something. They are trying to protect you from something. 

It can feel like we cannot handle feeling the emotions and so we try to bury and repress them. But this is a way of abandoning ourselves. 

Abandonment

You have already been abandoned by other people in your life. You have been rejected by people and hurt by people. Your emotions are telling you that you need to be cared for.

Self Love

Self love is a powerful thing. It is not selfish , even though you may have been taught that way. Often the people that discourage us from caring about our own feelings, do so for their own agenda. 

In another words, they try to get you to forget about your needs and feelings, because they are protecting their own needs and feelings. This is kind of hypocritical …isn’t it?

Emotional fractures.

Refusal to listen to your emotions will cause you to break down and become fractured. Emotional wounds are often fractures parts of you that were hurt and abandoned at an early age. 

These fractured child parts are trying to get your attention. They want to know that you have not abandoned them. Your inner child needs to know that it has not been abandoned by you too.

Nurture your pain.  

When emotional pain comes up please nurture it as you would a sick child. Care for your feelings and console those wounded parts of yourself. Ask them what they need and have not been getting.

You can find ways to heal the emotions if you listen to them first. It is not selfish to care about your own feelings and the needs of your emotional body. Your emotional health is connected to all of you.

Separation from the emotional body

In order to give of yourself, you have to have something left to give. When we neglect emotional wounds, part of ourselves becomes separated from the whole. 

You need to be whole and your emotions need to be integrated with all of you. Your spiritual health and emotional health are connected. Your physical health is also connected to your emotions. 

Inner Child 

Listen to your inner child and all of your emotions and feelings. Nothing comes up for no reason. There is always a reason if you are feeling something. 

You have much to offer the world. You are a unique person with very special gifts to offer and to explore. 

Acceptance of self

Everything about you will flow better when you nurture your feelings. Do not abandon yourselves by stuffing down your emotions. Allow your feelings to be accepted without judgement. 

You can survive the feelings as you experience them as a caretaker. You may fear that you will be overwhelmed by your emotions but you cannot push them away from you. 

Old emotional wounds

When you nurture and care for your feelings, the pain will release from you. You may find that the root causes are from long ago and the wounds have been re-opened by some person or situation. 

If this happens then the old emotional wounds were never healed from the past. They are coming up in order to ask you to care for them. 

Blessings, 

Annie ❤