Activating Your Personal Power

Personal power is all about having the ability to create and lead the life that you truly desire. According to Psychology Today, “personal power is based on strength, confidence, and competence that individuals gradually acquire in the course of their development. It is self-assertion, and a natural, healthy striving for love, satisfaction, and meaning in one’s interpersonal world.” 

So how do you unlock this power in yourself? How do you harness it and use it to help create the life that you want and the life that you deserve?

The truth is, your personal power is inside of you already, and all you need to do is unlock the doors to it. You simply need to remove the blocks that you have consciously and subconsciously allowed yourself to create. 

Beginning to access your personal power first begins with owning and mastering your personal responsibility. Not responsibility in the sense of the errands you must do and the tasks in life that you are responsible for accomplishing, but personal responsibility in the sense that you are the creator of your life. Only you are responsible for how you choose to show up in life and how you choose to interact with life.

Personal Responsibility is:

  • Choosing how to respond rather than simply reacting
  • Having a high degree of self awareness
  • Owning your own feelings and effectively communicating them
  • Maintaining effective boundaries
  • Embracing conflict and undesirable circumstances as doorways to growth
  • Recognizing that only you can create the life you want for yourself

To begin embracing our personal responsibility, we must begin to embrace and become aware of our inner state of being. We must become aware of how we are truly feeling and stay aware of our inner state. We have to learn to understand our feelings and recognize what kind of things “trigger” us. The more intimately we get to know our inner self, the more personal power we will begin to have access to.

Most of us don’t even know how we feel or how things truly affect us in our inner world. Our fast paced lifestyles don’t really value any time working within this inner space. Embracing your inner space and getting to know yourself is the first step in owning your personal responsibility. When you choose to work within this inner space, and get to intimately know yourself, you can begin to remove the blocks that have kept you from your power.

Beginning the Inner Work to Unlock Your Personal Power

Recognize your feelings; become aware of your reactions to situations

The first step to owning your personal responsibility is to become aware of your feelings. Take time to pause and recognize how things make you feel throughout your day. Pay attention to the way you feel when you’re stressed, or what it feels like to be in a good mood. Slow it all down, and allow yourself to explore your feelings. What do your feelings do to your body? How does your breathing change? What kind of thoughts do you have while feeling different emotions? Simply start to become aware of how you feel on a regular basis. Journaling is a great tool for this and an amazing way to process the day’s events and get in touch with this inner space.

Recognize your “triggers” and become aware of when you are reacting from stress responses or from triggered states of being

Begin to explore what kind of things really get under your skin. What kind of situations make you angry or set you off? What are your pet peeves? What kind of interactions leave you feeling exceptionally overwhelmed or stressed? Can you find correlations between them? Do they maybe relate to anything in your childhood or anything that you’ve been insecure about in your past? Can you identify an underlying emotion behind the triggered responses? Journaling is another great tool for this. Inner child work can also be beneficial when beginning to identify and work with our triggers.

Be honest with yourself about your feelings. Don’t judge yourself for your feelings or reactions 

Once you start to dive into this inner world, you may find things that you don’t understand or things that make you uncomfortable. As uncomfortable as this can be, this is a good sign, as you are becoming more self aware and more deeply connected to yourself, which means you are becoming more deeply connected to your power. Don’t shame yourself for feeling anything. Recognize that all of your feelings are valid, and that your programmed reactions to things have served you in some way in your life, and that is why you react the way you do. 

Before you can begin to change your reactions to things, you must first become aware of how you react to them. By being honest with yourself and allowing yourself to feel whatever you feel, you are becoming more authentic with yourself and in your expression. As you embrace your authenticity, a new level of personal power opens up to you. 

When you start to embrace your personal responsibility, you start to activate your personal power. Diving into the inner space is something that only you can do for yourself, but allowing yourself to have a space to be supported in this can be immensely beneficial to your process and to embracing your power. 1 to 1 coaching sessions are available and you can apply for free today. Groups can also be a great source of support. Talking to a trusted friend is always a great way to process and to move through these changes. Whatever you need, don’t be afraid to seek support, and know that you, my dear, are never alone. 

May you embrace and embody your full potential and power!

The Power of Breath

What if you had unlimited potential to tap into healing, peace, relaxation, and joy? What if, at any moment, you could choose to tap into raw power and improve your life? I’m here to tell you that you DO have that power!

The power of your breath is LIMITLESS, and the more in touch with your body and your breath you become, the more access you have to the inherent power and potential that you possess. By harnessing the power of your breath, you can more easily access your inherent nature as a peaceful, joy-filled, healthy, and amazing human being.

Benefits of Conscious Breath Work

Stress Relief – QUICKLY!

When you tap into your breath, and consciously control it, you have the power to completely change your body’s response to the environment you’re in. When the body is stressed, in fight, flight or freeze mode, the breath quickens and gets more shallow. The amount of oxygen in your blood drops, and your body’s chemistry completely shifts into stress response, producing higher amounts of the stress hormone cortisol. Higher amounts of cortisol are related to decreased cognitive function, suppressed thyroid function and many more detrimental health effects. This state of stress is where most people constantly live, but by harnessing the power of your breath, you can break free of this stress cycle.

You can implement multiple stress reduction techniques, but “if you’re not breathing in a way that tells your nervous system that it’s time to relax, you won’t get there,” clinical psychologist and breath work instructor Belisa Vranich, Ph.D., explains of the breath’s ability to combat stress and anxiety. By simply getting in touch with your breath during moments of stress, you can consciously change your breathing and unlock your inherent power to heal and access the peace and joy that is your true nature.

Improve your Immune System and Increase Your Healing Capacity

By slowing and deepening your breathing, and engaging in regular breath work practices, you can increase the amount of oxygen that your blood cells carry, giving your body abundant energy. By shifting your body into a state of relaxation through conscious breathing, your body can more easily get into parasympathetic nervous system function, the state needed for healing and proper immune function. Some breath work exercises have even been directly linked to influencing your immune response such as the Wim Hoff method, one of my favorite forms of breath work.

Develop a Deeper Connection to Yourself, Increase Self Love

Although it may not be something science can currently measure, having a good relationship with yourself, and practicing self love is key to finding joy and experiencing peace in your life. Self love can look like many things to people, and most of us were never taught how to cultivate it. In fact, we have instead been taught the exact opposite.

The deeper our connection to ourselves, and the more love we show ourselves, the easier it is to identify when we are out of balance and the easier it is for us to get back into balance. The more balance we can cultivate in our lives, the more peace we will feel, the happier we will be, and the more empowered we become. Your breath is the doorway to deeply connecting to yourself and to accessing your raw, inherent power.

Improve Sleep Quality

Day to day life is full of stressors. From our smartphones to the food we eat, to the air we breathe, and the overall state our society is in, the majority of us live in a heightened state of stress and anxiety, which takes a tremendous toll on our well-being. Heightened states of prolonged stress lead to lower quality sleep, and issues such as insomnia. Conscious breathing exercises help us to slow down the fast pace of the world, and allow us to change our body’s reaction to the uncontrollable amount of stress we are all bombarded with every day. By working to calm the nervous system, breath work exercises can help regulate stress responses, allowing the body to more easily drift to sleep, and keep the body in deep sleep states for longer amounts of time.

So how do you access this inherent power?

Simply Become Aware of Your Breath

How can you access this power if you’re not even aware that you’re breathing? The first step to harnessing the power of your breath is simply to become aware of it. This is the easiest practice, and you can do it anytime, anywhere. All you need to do is simply choose to focus on your breath. I invite you to try it right now. Can you feel yourself breathing? How deep is your breath? How fast are you breathing? Is there a gap anywhere in your breath? Do you feel it getting stuck somewhere in your body? Just notice your breath. Notice anything you can about the quality of your breath. Be curious and open to experiencing and becoming aware of your breath. This is the foundation for all breath work and this is the doorway to the inherent power that lies within your breath.

The 1 to 3 Mini Pause

This is a simple, easy practice to start getting in touch with your inherent power of peace and ease that resides in your breath. It simply is 1 – 3 minutes to focus on your breath and then after you are aware of your breath you take at least 3 deep breaths. Practice this 1 to 3 times a day.

Set a timer on your phone or an event in your calendar that tells you to set aside 1 to 3 minutes, 1 to 3 times a day. You will use this 1 to 3 minute “mini pause” to simply become aware of your breath, and shift your system out of stress mode. 1 to 3 minutes can easily be found in any part of your day no matter how busy your life or work may be.

Once you’re in this 1 to 3 mini pause time and space, take the time to stop what you are doing, and simply become aware of your breath. Be curious about how you’re breathing. Ask yourself questions about your breath as we did above. Be open to experiencing your breath in its full richness by devoting your complete, focused awareness to only your breath. If your mind wanders, that is okay. Just bring your attention back to your breath, and explore what it feels like to be present with nothing but yourself and your breath. After you’ve become aware of your breathing, the next step is to slow it down and deepen it. Take about a minute to become aware of your breath, then take at least 3 deep breaths before ending your 1 to 3 mini pause. Notice how much more aware you are after your mini pause, and give yourself gratitude for giving yourself this mini pause.

I assure you that this simple practice will help calm your nervous system, and be beneficial to you, as you will be more aware and more present in whatever you are returning to engage in after this 1 to 3 mini pause. I also warn you that this 1 to 3 mini pause may become addicting, and you may start doing it more than 1 to 3 times a day, and THAT is something to celebrate!

“Box” Breathing or 4-4-4-4 Breathing

Box breathing, is a great way to reduce stress, calm the nervous system, and re-center your entire being so that you can feel more present, more peaceful, and more empowered in your day to day to life. Follow the simple steps below to practice this powerful exercise.

  1. Become aware of your breath, and allow yourself to mindfully take control of your breathing pattern.
  2. Let out all of the air in your lungs to the count of four.
  3. Keep your lungs empty, holding your out breath for a count of four.
  4. Inhale for a count of four.
  5. Keep your lungs full, holding your in breath, for a count of four.
  6. Practice this cycle for 3 to 5 minutes or longer and you will start feeling the calming effects in your body.

That’s it! You can play with the timing and see what works best for you after you’ve experimented with it. I prefer to increase my in breath and out breath to a count of 8, and keep my breath holds between in and out breaths at a count of 4, but you can do whatever works best for you. The key is slowing the breathing down, holding the breath after inhaling, and holding the breath again after exhaling.

Breath is Life! Be grateful for your breath, and be curious to explore!

These are just a few very simple ways to begin to start to harness the power of your breath. If you are interested in moving deeper into breath work and into fully embodying your inherent power and potential, I invite you to apply for my 1 on 1 coaching services. Applying is free, and I would love to be your partner and guide in your evolution and growth!

We are all in this together, and life can be pretty rough sometimes, but with the right tools, the right perspectives, and the right support, we can choose to evolve and bloom together in love. Happy breathing and happy blooming!

Life Balance – What is it and How Can You Achieve More of it?

What is life balance?

Life balance also referred to as Life-Work balance can be a complicated thing to define, as we all have different ideas of what it means when our life is “balanced.” What is balanced for you may not be balanced for another person. Life balance is something that we each have to learn how define for ourselves.

We all know when we’re out of balance. We feel irritated, our health may be challenged, or maybe we feel we’re not doing good enough at work, or perhaps our relationships are feeling troubled. Whatever the case, we can all very easily know when we’re out of balance, but how do we achieve this state of harmony and balance that we all yearn for?

Before we can dive into how to achieve our life balance, we need to define the various pieces that make up the puzzle of life balance.

Defining Life Balance – Picking Apart the Pieces that Create the Puzzle

By breaking down the various puzzle pieces that create life balance, we can start to gauge in what areas we are out of balance so that we know where we need to focus. Kain Ramsay, author, mentor, and life coach educator states that we have 7 main areas of importance when it comes to life balance.

Social and Family Relationships

This area of life balance consists of all of the relationships we have in our lives. Our significant others, our friends, our families, our work relationships and even our acquaintances. This area of life balance entails how we feel about our relationships, how we perceive others feel about us, how satisfied we are in our relationships, and how easily we feel we can connect to others and gain new relationships. By paying attention to our relationships, we can easily identify what we need, what we want and what we may be lacking in this area.

Career and Education Aspirations

This area of life balance consists of how we feel about our current success in our field of work and/or study. We can measure how satisfied we are with where we are in our job, and our past achievements. We can also measure our satisfaction in this area by gauging our daily attitude before work each day. Are we excited every morning, or do we dread going in? By examining our relationship with our work and education aspirations, we can gain insight into where we might be pushing too hard, or where we might need to make a change in our lives to gain more balance.

Money and Personal Finances

Related to work, this area of life balance focuses on how secure or stable you feel with your overall financial situation and how stable or unstable you may feel financially. By looking at finances separately from career/education we can more clearly identify the area/s in which we may be out of balance. Are we satisfied with how much money we make? Are we familiar with where and how we spend our money, or do we not know how we keep overspending? Do we worry about our finances?

Finances can be one of the most challenging areas of life to feel out of balance in, but by becoming more attuned to what our financial situations look like, we can more easily start to seek solutions to find more balance in life.

Health, Recreation and Leisure

Some people may argue that health should be in its own category, and that may be true, however, we add it in with recreation and leisure because without a healthy relationship to fun, we cannot truly be healthy. Fun is an essential ingredient to health and well-being, and that is why these categories are so closely tied to each other. When examining this area of life balance, we measure things such as the amount of “free time” we have and how we feel about that time. We look at what we choose to do with our free time and how satisfied we are with it.

This area of life balance also very closely relates to stress management. When we aren’t able to easily access a space of recreation and leisure, we become overly stressed, and our health and well being suffer as a consequence. We all have that inner child that needs to be tended to, and as adults we often fail to nurture our innate need for fun.

Life’s Routine Responsibilities

This one may not sound like fun with that big word responsibility staring at us, especially after discussing our inner child and need for fun. However, without the routine things to keep life going, we can easily fall out of balance. This category looks at our relationship to our daily tasks such as paying bills on time, buying groceries, keeping a clean house, keeping up with errands, etc. This area also looks at how we feel about these responsibilities and how important they are to us.

“Clean space, clean mind.” We’ve all heard that adage or something like it. Many studies have shown that this is in fact true, and as boring as the day to day responsibilities may be, we can’t get far in life without doing them. When they fall out of balance, so cane the rest of our life.

Contribution and Giving Back to Society

We humans are multi-faceted individuals and we are naturally communal creatures. This area of life balance measures how much we value giving back to others, and how well we think we are performing in our giving back. We can also measure this aspect of our life balance by gauging how we feel we are perceived by those around us in regards to our charitable and selfless acts. Do we feel that others value us for our contributions, or are we not recognized for them? Like every portion of life balance, this can look different for everyone, but addressing this area is important in gaining a more clear picture of how we can improve our life balance.

Mental, Emotional, and Spiritual Health

Another category that perhaps can be broken down further, these are linked as they are all very connected to one another. If we’re feeling out of balance spiritually it is bound to affect both our mental and emotional health, and vice versa with all of these aspects of our lives. When we take time to gauge our mental health, we cannot help but also tune into our emotional state. The spiritual state may not be as important to some as it is to others, but all of these aspects are deeply connected. Do we feel happy in our life? Are we able to deal with the stress at work? Do we feel connected to our inner self, or higher power, or both? Do we feel disconnected from our spiritual energy? By asking ourselves these questions and measuring these aspects of our life balance, we gain a more clear perspective of how we are doing overall.

How to Achieve More Life Balance

Life balance is a complicated subject, just like life itself can be! Achieving balance takes dedicated time, focus, support, and the drive to improve. The first and most important aspect of gaining more balance is possessing the desire to change. Our desire to change has to be greater than our desire to stay the same, or we will not grow and we will continue to be out of balance.

Once we’ve identified that we do in fact desire change, then we need to get very honest. We need to be truly authentic with ourselves, and we must gain a strong sense of responsibility. We have to look closely at all areas of our life and take responsibility for where things may be out of balance. Of course, so much in our lives is out of our control, and this can lead to us falling out of balance, and we have to accept that we cannot control everything. The true power comes from being able to choose how we respond to those things that are out of our control.

After identifying where we are out of balance, we can start to find solutions to gain more balance. Shifting into a solutions-oriented mindset is key to finding more balance and connecting to your inherent power. You have everything you need inside you, and you deserve to lead a happy, fulfilled, empowered life. Working to get more balanced in your life will help you find your inherent power and feel more fulfilled in life.

Sometimes we may not feel ready to navigate the uncharted territory in our lives when we feel out of balance. This is where coaching can be of immense support. Life doesn’t come with a road map, but when we work together, we can gain insight and growth that we may not have gained traveling alone. 1 to 1 coaching can be the light, the guide, and the shift in perspective that you may need to get out of the rut you’re in and to start paving your new road to empowerment and fulfillment in life.

If you feel called, I invite you to apply for 1 to 1 coaching today for free. I would love to be a part of your journey and watch as you blossom and grow into the amazing human you are destined to be. The world needs you, in balance, living out your inherent and unique power, and I am here to help you find and step into that power.