Today I just wanted to share a special moment of feedback with you. I always skype my mum and dad every Sunday at 5pm for a couple of hours, and yesterday was no different.
😀 We have a chat and a laugh
📒 We do a crossword together
After the crossword, my dad had a few things he wanted to talk about, one of them being that his feet have been hurting for a while, and it was stopping him going for walks with my mum. The tablets and cream from the doctors weren’t helping either.
After listening to him and asking him a few questions, he started to talk through what he puts inside his slippers and shoes, and (to mine and my mum’s surprise) pulled out not just one insole, but five insoles as well as a half cushioned one for his heel.
The last few months has taught me that when life throws you a curve ball, you just have to catch it and run with it. Then if it sends you another one you have to be ready to do the same with that one.
Just over 3 months ago I was made redundant from my Finance Systems Manager job of 10 years, and around the same time I passed my coaching professional level 5 qualification that I had been studying alongside.
Having already achieved well over the required experience and coaching hours to join the European Mentoring and Coaching Council, I became an associate member.
I started looking for another job, but at the back of my mind, I knew that I needed to take this opportunity to follow my dream of becoming a life coach.
The Company Name…
At the same time I asked friends and family to help me come up with some names and chose one that resonated with me (thank you Francesca and family). I sat with that name for a few weeks to make sure it was the right fit for me, and then took the plunge to start my own life coaching company using the name Solar Coaching… and my limited company was born!
I launched the company last month and already have clients lined up. I am very excited to continue on my journey of entrepreneurship. Further update to follow but if you want to follow my regular updates on LinkedIn, the link is below.
I like the above quote because we usually think about using our muscles to lift things. Our mind can also lift us up when faced with a problem or challenge.
Earl Nightingale in his book Lead the Field, says that even successful people have problems, but they think about them as a ‘a problem only waiting to be solved’. In session 4 of the book he talked a lot about present goals and how to solve them. As I’m currently studying for my coaching qualification, this caught my attention. I love new ways to look at things.
He suggested getting a blank sheet of paper and writing down your present primary goal at the top of the page. I wrote To live in a clutter-free organised house. Then underneath the goal, he suggested writing down ‘as many ideas as you can for improving that what you now do’. He said that if you spend around an hour a day writing down 20 ideas and do this for 5 days a week, you’ll have 100 ideas by the end of the first week.
I have had my new large glass whiteboard on the wall for 24 hours and I haven’t put a single pen mark on it, nor have I magnetised any paper to it. I have been thinking about why, and it’s not because I don’t want to use it, but rather, I’m appreciating the blank space. Other thoughts:
It symbolises a blank page, and it feels quite comforting and calming.
It’s uncluttered and free from anything that needs to be done.
It’s the beginning of an exciting journey where my thoughts can go up there whenever I want, and it can be rubbed off in an instant – they’re not going to pile up and get in my way.
Rubbing things off and bringing the board back to its natural state in the future could help to clear my mind (I’ll probably take a photo first though knowing me, ha ha).
Plans for the whiteboard
I’ll be putting up lists and important messages to myself. I also love to draw diagrams as I read personal development books as it helps me understand things. I can visualise some very detailed interpretations being created on there, which I will of course post here if I think they will inspire my readers.
Whatever I decide to do on it, it will be meaningful to me. I will write on it when the time is right, when I have something to say.
This title of this post popped into my head this morning when I woke up after having a good nights sleep, and I knew that I was meant to turn it into a blog post.
Since sorting and organising my office almost 7 months ago, as seen in Starting the Year With a Clear Calm and Comfortable Office Space, it has got messy and disorganised again even though I feel like I work so hard to keep on top of things around the house. The only way I can try and make sense of this in my head is that I unintentionally got back on the hamster wheel again and have been going round in circles trying to get my office back into a calming place to be.
In February, it became necessary to store some important boxes in my office which meant that the bed had to be put on its side. This blocked a chunk of the room and I lost my place to sit and relax on the bed. That was fine for a while as the room stayed pretty organised, but then life got busy and clutter started creeping back in.
Where do you go when you want to take yourself away from the day’s hustle and bustle? My friend finds that sitting on her stairs is the calmest place to be. I’ve noticed that my daughter does this sometimes too as she said that it’s a nice place to think.
I tried taking a moment in the car today! I popped out after work to run yet another errand for the family – a prescription collection – and was feeling a bit overwhelmed from the stresses of the day. As I was about to buckle up and drive home, I paused and thought… What if I don’t go home right now? I stopped for a moment and everything felt still.
I remember my friend telling me that she’d sat in the car the other day before going back into the house as it felt quiet, she felt happy, and there was no mess. I recall this myself once between getting off the train and rushing to the after school club 10 plus years ago.
I took a few deep breaths and felt the calmness start to kick in. I remembered the recording that another friend had kindly created for me a few months ago and switched it on.
I’m always trying to think of new solutions around the house to ease the chaos and clutter. Just before Christmas, I decided that I was fed up with the mess in the downstairs hallway. The rest of the family (and sometimes me) would literally kick shoes and other footwear towards the half height under-the-stairs cupboard with a tiny chance that at least one shoe would land in there.
I was working on another home project at the time and my coach suggested that it might be a distraction to try and fix the shoe cupboard issue as well. I knew he was right and decided that whilst working on one thing at a time was out of my comfort zone, I could treat the shoe cupboard project as a reward for actually completing something else.
When you are feeling overwhelmed it can be difficult to know what to do. Things feel like they are getting on top of you and it’s not always obvious what to do first.
In my case today, the whole house felt like a mess and I knew I had a lot to tackle to make myself feel better, but I didn’t know where to start and I didn’t particularly feel like doing any of it at that moment in time.
Fortunately I’ve felt like this before and knew that this overwhelm was just my mind playing tricks on me. I sat down with a cup of tea and drew a mind map after asking myself an important question about the clutter: What’s on your mind right now?
Just a short post to say how grateful I was for what my family did for me yesterday. I was led downstairs to banners, balloons, a birthday sash, breakfast and lots of gifts.
I wanted to write this post to remind myself that gratefulness shouldn’t just be for birthdays and Christmas, it should be every day. So here’s an unedited list of things that I’m grateful for today:
My husband helping with the cooking.
My girls helping to clear up.
The cuddles I got without even asking.
The weekly Skype call with my mum and dad.
The beautiful candles that lit up the room during my relaxing bath.
My playlists on Apple Music so that I didn’t need to think about what to listen to.
My new lawnmower which made it easy to cut the grass this afternoon.
The beautiful sunshine.
I’ve kept specific gratefulness journals in the past or randomly written what I’m grateful for in my diary, but that’s not the same as having a practise of doing this mindfully every day without fail.
Gratefulness gives you clarity and reminds you of what’s good in your life at a time when we’re all rushing through life so fast.
I’m going to try and add this back into my life daily even if I say just one thing out loud when I wake up in the morning or before going to sleep, or just tell someone.
A coincidence
I was just about to press send on this blog when my daughter sent me the following message:
My reply was
Gratefulness is simple but so powerful, and it can happen anywhere and at any time.
Beauty is everywhere; you just need to look for it. I have a few days off and went out for a walk a bit later than usual this morning. I took my time as I didn’t need to rush back to log on for work.
The weather was overcast at first and then it began to rain. Just before arriving back home, the grey clouds parted and the sun shone through. Even though it’s March, I felt a bit of warmth on my face and noticed the shadow patterns that the trees had made on the ground. I was grateful for that.
Sun peeping through the clouds
I then returned home and noticed that some tiny orange and yellow flowers had popped up in amongst some weeds in my garden. They’ve probably been there for a few days but I hadn’t taken the time to notice them.
Pretty flowers
As I go through the rest of my day, I’m going to be positive, and more mindful of the beauty around me.
Wishing each and every one of you an enjoyable day.
Sandra Madeira 