6 Habits to Increase Happiness

I was excited to discover a piece of research carried out by the University of California’s ‘Science for the Greater Good Centre’ which actually confirmed much of what I already encourage clients to do. Here are the 6 habits they discovered really do work:

1) Pay attention – Studies show that people who practice mindfulness are less likely to be hostile and anxious and they have stronger immune systems. (I offer all my clients a simple mindfulness technique to use throughout the day – email me if you would like a worksheet or refresher in our next coaching session)

2) Keep friends close – Social connections are key to happiness but it’s quality rather than quantity.  Make time for people who are important to you.

3) Give thanks – Regular expressions of gratitude promote better optimism, health and better satisfaction with life. (I often recommend clients keep a celebration journal where they jot down 3 things they are thankful about each day)

4) Drop Grudges – When we drop grudges, we feel better about ourselves and others, experience more positive emotions and generally experience closer connections.

5) Get moving – Researchers found that just doing something physical is probably the most instant and effective way to increase our happiness. It also decreases stress and anxiety. (this is one of the reasons I incorporate physical movement and Conscious Embodiment in my coaching – it helps clients change their mood and get a different perspective on what they are struggling with.

6) Practice Kindness – Neuroscience shows that being kind lights up the same centres in our brain that sex and food lights up!  Being kind to others makes us feel good!

For more information on the research, go to http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/

In other news, I thought readers of this blog might be interested to know about a few projects I’m currently involved with.

On the weekend of the 21st and 22nd April, I’ll be leading a Conscious Embodiment Level One workshop in London.  As many of you know, I recently certified as a Conscious Embodiment Instructor after 18 months training with Wendy Palmer.  If you are interested in the workshop, you can find out more and book at my website http://consciousembodimentlondon.eventbrite.com/

For those of you who are coaches or practitioners, I’m part of a UK organising group who are bringing over Dave Ellis to deliver a powerful weekend workshop on the 4th & 5th of May where he will explore his unique approach to both being able to make a decent living as a self-employed practitioner through working with high net worth individuals AND giving back through volunteering/pro-bono work.  For more information, go to http://www.attracthighnetworthclients.com/workshop/

My work supporting women (and men too!) around the baby decision continues to attract clients from all over the world.  If you are struggling with the decision or know someone who is, do have a look at my blog at http://www.childrenornot.blogspot.com

One of my intentions for this year was to set up a facebook group for clients, former clients, colleagues and anyone interested in my work to gather and share thoughts.  I just set this up today so if you would like to join, please go to http://www.facebook.com/groups/229839467096195/

Wintering Through – December Ticktock Coaching news

During the run up to the holiday period, it’s easy to get caught up in the crazy, hectic, frantic pace of life. I found myself doing this myself recently when I thinking about all the things I needed to do this month including preparing for the New Year’s Retreat that I’m running at Woodbrooke Quaker Centre.

As I sat in front of the computer, I could feel my mind racing and planning. I felt a familiar ‘must do’ hectic energy. I caught myself and then I did the streamlined centring practice I teach all my clients: 1. Breathe (up and then down) 2.expand (allow my energy to expand to fill the space around me) 3. settle (relax into the space) and 4.invoke my quality (which is ease).

What a relief! I felt more spaciousness, more clarity, and all these tasks didn’t seem so overwhelming.

So, when you are feeling like you are starting to feel the pressure of the season, feeling like the hectic pace is getting too much – just take a minute to breath, expand, settle and invoke your quality (use ease if you don’t have a quality you want to work on). And see how it shifts your perspective on what you are doing AND how you feel!

If you are interested in exploring this more, I’m running two events that you might be interested in.

Over the New Year period, I’m running a retreat entitled ‘Yearning for Wholeness’ at the Woodbrooke Quaker Centre (you don’t have to be a Quaker to attend) from the evening of Friday 30th December noon on Monday 2nd January. To find out more and book your place go to http://www.woodbrooke.org.uk/courses.php?action=course&id=6600

I’m also running a Level One Conscious Embodiment Level One workshop in London on Saturday 3rd March (9 – 5pm) and then Sunday 4th March (9 – 1pm). This workshop is a prerequisite to doing a Level Two workshop or Retreat with Wendy Palmer (Wendy is running a retreat in the UK in May, in Italy in October and in Bhutan at the end of 2012). This March workshop will cost £175 in total (bursary places available for those on lower incomes) To book your place go to: http://consciousembodimentlondon.eventbrite.com/

I’d like to end this post with a thought from my favourite writer Parker Palmer talking about the process of nurturing the dormant seeds with us as we ‘winter through’.

‘The seeds of possibility planted with such hope in the fall must eventually endure winter, when the potentials we carried at birth appear to be dead and gone. As we look out upon the winter landscape of our life, it is clear that whatever was seeded in the fall is now buried deep in the snow, frozen over and winter-killed. Many demoralized people recognise this “dead of winter” metaphor as an all-to-apt description of their bleak inner lives. Yet when we understand winter in the natural world, we realise that what we see out there is not death so much as dormancy. Some life has died, of course. But much of it has gone underground, into hibernation, awaiting a season of renewal and rebirth. So winter invites us to name whatever feels dead in us, to wonder whether it might in fact be dormant – and to ask how we can help it and ourselves, “winter through”.

As in winter itself, there is a certain bleakness in his words and yet at the same time, there is much that is hopeful and warm about the invitation to all of us to identify that which might be dormant in us – and find out how we can help it, nurture it through to the spring. So the question I’d like to offer you all to reflect upon is What is it that is lying dormant in you? How can you help it to winter through to the spring?

Where am I an artist in my life?

Last week, I went to see an exhibition at the British Museum of the work of Grayson Perry.  I didn’t know much about his work – beyond the fact that he seems like a wonderful eccentric spirit.  I enjoyed it very much – particularly how he used artifacts and made references to everyday words/phrases and experiences while also producing work that had a mystical resonance.  I also loved how he described his work and I found myself how much his words also describe the process of coaching.  In this quote, Perry refers to the importance of intuition and the non-rational.

‘Part of my role as an artist is similar to that of a shaman or witch doctor. I dress up, I tell stories, give things meaning and make them a bit more significant. Like religion, this is not a rational process. I use my intuition. Sometimes, our very human desire for meaning can get in the way of having a good experience of the world.’

This quote leads me to ask myself: Where am I an artist in my life? Where do I tell stories? How do I access my intuition? And where does my desire for meaning get in the way of me having a good experience of the world? 

And as a coach, I’m  reminded about the imporance of some of the techniques like mindfulness, creative visualisation and conscious embodiment is because they help to access intuition, the creative, the knowing that is not necessarily a rational knowing.

note: Image above of Grayson Perry Tapestry published in the Guardian newspaper website

Woven by shadow and light

As a child, I loved Halloween for the ritual of dressing up and candy.  Being part of a swarm of kids going house to house and filling up bags of candy was pretty fantastic.  Now I’m a grown up, living in UK where the candy bagging tradition is not very prevalent.  As a Quaker and explorer of polarity/paradox ,one of the things that really fascinates me about Halloween is how interwoven the Christian tradition of All Souls Day is with the pagan Halloween.   The shadow side of All Souls and All Saints  days is never far away from the light.  And I love the polarity inherent in Halloween itself – it is a day where the underworld, the afterlife is supposed to be very close to the surface. The boundaries between the two are blurred ~ as the boundaries between the Christian and Pagan worlds.   The lighting of candles in church and the lighting of candles in a jack o’latern ~ traditions woven  by shadow and light.

 

Graduation

This weekend, at the end of 18 months training and study I finally graduated from the European Conscious Embodiment Teacher Training! (over to the right you’ll see a photo of me with my teacher Wendy Palmer (founder of Conscious Embodiment) What a journey it’s been.  At the beginning of the course, I really questioned what I was doing here.  I’ve always struggled with somatic work, I’m not a natural ‘in-your body’ person, I can’t tell my left from my right half the time.  And I’m going to train to teach other people about embodiment practices?  GET REAL! (said the voice of my inner saboteur)

Fast forward 18 months and through practice, practice, practice, I confidently and successfully  demonstrated the  physical conscious embodiment exercises as well as giving an introduction talk.  I have been reflecting on my key learnings and here they are!

1.  Practice is EVERYTHING!  It took me ages to realise that I really needed to buckle down and put the consistent practice in so that I would know and be able to embody the practices. I wish I had done more of this at the beginning of the teacher training rather than think I could improvise without having the basics down pat.  But the good news is that I did realise this!

2. It didn’t matter that I started off feeling physically awkward and un-used to working with the body.  It might be harder but through practice, I overcame this.

3. Opening up to ‘something bigger than yourself’ is key. Sometimes I thought that we in the class would all get too tightly focussed on the intricate physical technicalities – and while the body is the doorway through which something bigger emerges, I think allowing that energy/spirit in through us can also help to shape the body or the movements too.  During the last weekend,  if I held the visual of one of my archetypal figures (Eleanor Roosevelt) and I could feel myself moving through the space in a different way, powerful, graceful and calm.

4. It’s not enough to have the method – you need to have a wise teacher!  I realised this the day after the teacher training when I attended a conference which had someone who was a Somatic Coaching Expert.  He absolutely didn’t embody what he was teaching  – he sat on his seat, legs crossed , slumped – and there was a barrier between us and him.  A friend who also completed the teacher training was there and he said that this is what happens when you have a method but you do not have a wise teacher to guide you.  It was a very insightful contrast – and of course, we learn through exaggeration and contrast in Conscious Embodiment.

5.  And finally, this work is all about putting yourself out there.  Not hiding behind titles or pretending you are ‘above’ your students – it’s about transparency, honestly and revealing yourself.

So I’m now a certified Conscious Embodiment Teacher! If you would like to experience Conscious Embodiment, drop me an email at beth@ticktockcoaching.co.uk and ask about one-to-one Conscious Embodiment coaching and workshops/in-house training.

Autumn Perspectives

September is a month full of promise and curiosity – it feels very much like the beginning of a new cycle, the cycle of seasons or the academic year perhaps – and I wonder what will the year have in store for me and my clients? What discoveries will be made in the coaching? What breakthroughs? What life changes? What commitments?

In coaching, I always encourage my clients to explore new perspectives, new ways of looking at dilemmas or situations.  What shifts when we imagine ourselves on a mountain top or swimming in the sea? And one of my all time FAVOURITE perspectives is that of the future self.  My future self is called ‘Ruby Red’ – she is wise, calm and also has an eccentric spirit! Her hair is a bit messy but at her heart she is still and anchored.  When I look at worries or dilemmas from her perspective, I always discover new wisdom.

So I was reflecting on this today – and of course, with great synchronicity that I found this poem by Erica Jong, Autumn Perspectives.   There is a certain shadowy-ness that I find appealing about this poem – I love how she captures that state of dreaming about our lives past and future as we ‘look forward and see myself looking back.’

Autumn Perspective by Erica Jong

Now, moving in, cartons on the floor,
the radio playing to bare walls,
picture hooks left stranded
in the unsoiled squares where paintings were,
and something reminding us
this is like all other moving days;
finding the dirty ends of someone else’s life,
hair fallen in the sink, a peach pit,
and burned-out matches in the corner;
things not preserved, yet never swept away
like fragments of disturbing dreams
we stumble on all day. . .
in ordering our lives, we will discard them,
scrub clean the floorboards of this our home
lest refuse from the lives we did not lead
become, in some strange, frightening way, our own.
And we have plans that will not tolerate
our fears– a year laid out like rooms
in a new house–the dusty wine glasses
rinsed off, the vases filled, and bookshelves
sagging with heavy winter books.
Seeing the room always as it will be,
we are content to dust and wait.
We will return here from the dark and silent
streets, arms full of books and food,
anxious as we always are in winter,
and looking for the Good Life we have made.

I see myself then: tense, solemn,
in high-heeled shoes that pinch,
not basking in the light of goals fulfilled,
but looking back to now and seeing
a lazy, sunburned, sandaled girl
in a bare room, full of promise
and feeling envious.

Now we plan, postponing, pushing our lives forward
into the future–as if, when the room
contains us and all our treasured junk
we will have filled whatever gap it is
that makes us wander, discontented
from ourselves.

The room will not change:
a rug, or armchair, or new coat of paint
won’t make much difference;
our eyes are fickle
but we remain the same beneath our suntans,
pale, frightened,
dreaming ourselves backward and forward in time,
dreaming our dreaming selves.

I look forward and see myself looking back.

August Ticktock E-news – Visioning the world we are wanting

As I might have mentioned in a previous e-news, one of the things I now do with my coaching clients is to do a goal setting exercise I learnt from the inspirational Dave Ellis (if you are looking for a good self-help book do check out his book Falling Awake) who was the keynote speaker at a conference I helped to organise in May. He recommends, along with setting goals in our lifetime (i.e. 10 years, 25 years), we all set goals for things we are wanting for the world way past our lifetime – in 1000 years for example! Of course, we won’t be around but if we were all to start articulating what we want the world to look like in 1000 years AND start to set some goals/actions that will contribute to this goal then WOW!

So why not start today?  Get some of index cards and set out some goals (each on a separate index card) that you have for the world for 1000 years. What kind of world would you like to see in 1000 years?  Once you have come up with several 1000 year goals, you can then look at goals for your lifetime – 25,10, 5 and 1 year goals.  And amongst the goals that you set for what you want for your work, relationships, home etc, you can include some goals that will help to achieve your 1000 goals (i.e. if you put that you want clean air and seas in 1000 years, what do you need to do in 5 years to help achieve this.)

Do let me know what you come up with!

In other news, I’ve started to develop my Body Centred Training for Retail/Hospitality Staff. I’ve had a few meetings with HR managers in the retail sector to see how the Body Centred approach could help front line staff and the response has been very positive. If anyone you know is in the retail sector, please pass along this link!

http://www.bodycentredleadership.com/programmes/body-centred-training-for-retail-hospitality-staff/

Enjoy the rest of the summer – and looking forward to connecting to you either in person or via email or my blog!

Polarity, Peckham and the London Riots

This is a photo of a wall in Peckham, scene of the riots, where people are being invited to put post-it’s saying Why they love Peckham. It was taken by Helen Graves who writes the blog Food Stories . The originators of the wall explain why they set up the wall here in the blog post For or Against the Riots?

Arriving back to London on Tuesday morning from two weeks away I found myself landing into a world of un-imaginable riots and looting.   The day before my flight, I watched horrified at news footage of a row of shops in Peckham, 10 minutes from my house, on fire.  I’ve lived and worked in and around Peckham for over 20 years.  I had started by working life in the not-for-profit sector in Peckham – as a volunteer co-ordinator working in the former ‘Five Estates’ area which had been designated as a regeneration area – in need of massive investment.  And I’ve lived in the SE15 Peckham area for most of my adult life.  So images of a neighbourhood I have lived and worked in for over 20 years being at the centre of such devastation was horrible.

I strove to catch up with what was going on, and found myself pondering the way discussions on the issue had often become so polarized. On Facebook & Twitter, friends were often polarised – some argued that there was no context or political dimension, that is was (in the words of one twitter peep) simply a matter of people doing what they did because they could. Others argued that it was an inevitable outcome of broken social policies. But looking at this lens of polarity, the question I’m currently exploring is ‘How to create a polarity solution that doesn’t absolve people of their individual responsibility while also taking into account and addressing the social context which has created the conditions for this to happen?’ I think that there is a complex interaction between personal responsibility where people need to take responsibility for destructive and criminal behaviour and the society which has created the context where many people feel so alienated/dispossessed that they don’t have a sense of personal responsibility.

A beautiful response from my facebook friend Mark Hoelter was this: ‘Social situations drive us and push us around, as though we are not responsible for them or for our actions. We push ourselves as though we are fully responsible for correctly pushing our social situations around and driving them. And my words are failing me almost as soon as I type them. I don’t know what I’m trying to say. But I do know it’s the same issue when I look now at U.S. politics and the economy and the reactions to both of those, including my own reactions.’

Of all the words I read by journalists, Zoe Williams article The Psychology of Looting was the one that most resonated with me.  As she says, no, this was not a political protest and yes, it tells us a lot about ‘the beaten down lives of the participants’.

So what to do?  I don’t really have a lot of answers or solutions.  Mainly questions: How to bridge gaps to young people who are in danger of being so disaffected that they would engage in violent behaviour.  How can we help people feel like they have a stake in society?  How do we communicate values around personal and community responsibility to everyone? How do we hold people to account?  As a coach and Conscious Embodiment teacher (in training) I know that many of us are engaged in personal growth, transformation, meditation and mindfulness – so how can we spread this work outwards so it reaches people everywhere?

Tomorrow I’ll be taking part in a Skype call organised by my friend Morya who started We Dare to Care to explore and look at what we as individuals can do.   And maybe these riots will have an unintended impact – of jolting us all into positive action to co-create a new reality.

Embracing the Gift of Failure

July Ticktock Coaching News – Embracing Failure

One enquiry or question that I often put to my coaching clients is ‘What is the gift of failure?’  So when I saw this quote on Facebook recently, I really wanted to share it with all of you!

“I?ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I?ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times I?ve been trusted to take the winning shot and missed. I?ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” ~ Michael Jordan

If we are afraid of making mistakes, we will never try anything new.  And we will never have the opportunity to become really good at what we do.  That is paradox of failure and making mistakes – it’s only through becoming really good at failing that we become really great at success!  So what can you fail at today? Where can you take a risk? Leap into the unknown? Try something that you aren’t expert at and FAIL!

In other news, I was just awarded my PCC credential which is the second highest credential awarded by the International Coaches Federation (ICF).  Thank you to all my clients – without whom I could not have achieved this milestone!

I’ve offering workshops this summer and autumn in Canada and the Netherlands.  For more information on my workshop offerings, please go to http://www.creatingfrompolarity.com/workshops if you’d like more info.

I’m also due to be featured in Red Magazine again – in an article about making the decision to be childfree or not.  The article is due to be published in their September issue which is out in August so if you are a Red reader, keep your eye out for it.

Anyway, I’m off to Canada for the last week of July/first week of August for a break with family and friends in North America and I wish you all a lovely summer. Do drop me a line to let me know how you are getting on – I always enjoy hearing from people who I’ve worked with!

Magnetic Intentions

I had a one-to-one call with my teacher Wendy Palmer tonight & I was talking about how recently I’ve been feeling stuck around how to bring my work to groups of people on a wider and more consistent basis. She suggested a great Conscious Embodiment exercise to sharpen my intention and magnetize the space around me.  Every day, for 1 minute I’m going to say ‘I intend to bring this work to groups’ & then walk forward with the advocating/forward moving/masculine energy shape in my arms.  I then stop say ‘I don’t know how this is going to unfold yet’  while holding the feminine shape/listening/being/and then step forward again, saying ‘And, I intend to bring this work into groups’. 

 Doing it  I felt more positive, more powerful.  Saying it out loud is important says Wendy because it helps to magnetize the space, so what we want is more likely to be attracted to us.  And we are more likely to sharpen our focus, to give the attention to the project.

In this exercise, we are building our resilience and capacity to be with both poles –  to be with the known AND the unknown, with both power AND love.   Creating generative energy through creating from polarity.

The gift of rain

Raindrops striking against the skylight ~ beautiful sound.  It’s Sunday afternoon and unusually I’m alone in the house, my partner Dave at a gig and my son is out on a playdate, splashing on the water slides of a nearby leisure centre.   .   In May, we had weeks of brilliant sunshine ~ very California, very un-British.  No rain and the gardens grew parched and there has been serious talk of drought.  And now for the last week, it has been raining off and on – sometimes accompanied by thunderstorms.

I don’t miss the sunshine today.   In the polarity of the weather, we need the rain.  We need the nourishment it provides, the life force.  Perhaps I have become too acclimated to the dour English weather ~ to the grey clouds which so often cover the skies but I find myself becoming uncomfortable when there is too much sunshine ~ when weeks have passed without a good downpour.  It feels just right today ~ going out to take my son to the rain, it felt good to cover up in rain gear, to watch him jump in puddles.  I feels comforting to be able to curl up inside, listen to the rain, to feel no pressure to be elsewhere, to just read the Sunday papers, drink tea, potter inside listening to the rain.  What a gift. Ahhh…..

Illustrating the polarity of freedom & responsibility

R.V is one of my coaching clients.  She is also an artist and drew these wonderful illustrations of the polarity of freedom and responsiblity which she has been exploring in our sessions.  I feel they show beautifully the  process of working with polarity and wholeness.  They show the journey we go on to explore the ‘landscapes’ of each pole, to make each pole our own (or embody it) and then to experiment with what it is like to both poles in one landscape. She has given me her permission to use these photos (without her full name attached ) on this blog for which I thank her greatly!    Rather than me try to explain each illustration or write a commentary on them, I think it would be more powerful for you the blog reader to see what speaks to you, what resonates with you, what sparks of your thoughts about this polarity?

Questions to help you include: What do you notice about the drawing of each pole, what speaks to you about the energy of pole?  What seems to be good or not so good about each pole? In the final last where she explores the place of integration, where there is both freedom and responsibility, what is different, what has shifted?  And share your thoughts in the comments section.

A visual recording

Graphic Recording Artist Kate Monkhouse captured the spirit of the European Coactive Community Day!  (Click on each image to see and read the details)

Generosity & connecting with something bigger than ourselves

Wow.  It’s been one crazy, abundant, wonderful, energised week.  For a year, I’ve been part of a group of four volunteers who have been working together to put together a one-day gathering for co-active coaches.  The process has been intense, fun, hard, painful, light and joyful ~ wow, the whole range of human emotions over the course of a year through working on this event! 

When we had our first meeting to organise the day over a year ago, a number of words came into our discussion about the energy we wanted to have in the space at the day ‘Inspiration, buzz, learning, excitement, fun, humour. and generosity ”

It took us more time to work out how we wanted to focus the day. And after much chewing and discussing, we decided we want to focus on the stake of ‘When we connect with something bigger than ourselves, we have a bigger and more authentic impact in the world.’  When we connect with what is needed in the world we are more powerful. We look beyond ourselves and our own interests and we begin to realise we can co-create a vision of the world we all share and want to live in.

After we agreed that this was our focus, this was our stake – well it seemed clear the types of speakers and workshop leaders we needed to have at this day. We wanted people who have made an impact, who are committed to making a difference. We wanted people who will INSPIRE us – who will call us forth to stretch and move into new territory ~ to see the world outside ourselves, to enable us to give ourselves to that world.  One of the people that we enrolled was Dave Ellis.  It was my friend and co-leader Moyra Weston who made initial contact with Dave.  Moyra has had the vision for a movement of pro-bono coaching, of providing pro-bono coaching to people who cannot afford it, within not-for-profit organisations.  And looking around for help and support, she found out about Dave Ellis’s work with The Coaching Project.  She emailed him, got a wonderful response and then Dave agreed to come over waiving his fee to lead a workshop with us. 

This generous spirit infused the day ~ at the pre-conference dinner, we talked about generosity with tipping for waiters, with laughter, with time.  Throughout the Dave’s workshop,  we were inspired about being generous with our visions for the future, with our coaching, with our money. 

So often I think I’ve used the term generosity or being generous so lightly ~ without really thinking about what this means.  And at the day, I started to get a somatic awareness of what generosity feels like.  It feels like lightness, like flowing energy, and I suddenly realised that generosity is a doorway into connecting with ‘that which is bigger than us’.   It’s a spiritual pathway, it’s a pathway to awareness of un-fairness and inequality, it’s a pathway towards conflict resolution.  One word.  generosity.  What would it be like to invoke this quality every day?  In Conscious Embodiment, we take one quality and work with it throughout a year ~ to experience the quality, to listen to the wisdom of the body when we ask ourselves ‘What would it be like if we had a little bit more of our quality right now?’ And to listen to the answer.  I think I will add generosity to my quality of ease that I am working with this year.  And I will really listen deeply to the answer ‘What would it be like if I had just a little bit more generosity right now?’  What doorway will this enquiry lead me through?

Dreams and quest for wholeness

This weekend was the last ever gathering of the dreams group I been a part of for fourteen years.  Twice a year the 10 of us would meet facilitated by Madeline (an ex-nun and student of Jeremy Taylor) for a weekend to explore our dreams.  And now we were ending the journey together.  At one point in the weekend we all created a collage.  Tearing images that caught our eye.  What is important about dreams, why did we gather together throughout the years to share our dreams, discovering the depths beneath the surface?

For me, dreams are a sign posting to my deepest desires, my deepest yearnings, to both my shadow and my light.  They are guiding me towards wholeness.   So often they are pointing me towards what I am needing to re-claim.

Dreams go deep and the point us to look at the shadows ~ what we are unwilling to claim in our lives.   They show us our deepest desires.

*for more reflections on dreams and dreaming go to my friend Fiona Monks blog ~ The dreaming body