Carmen Nicolau Consultant HRD & Professional NLP Coaching

Reality.
There's no such thing like a true personal reality. Everything is a shared reality, a shared trance, diferent degrees and levels. We should be happy to have it, better make the best of it.
Unless we have a chance to separate in a world of a natural essence, with no material or virtual occupations, no significant others to care of, or to be helped by, no machines, no books, no devices, no jobs, no money, nothing, remove all that strings. Stay pure and simple alone with your senses, with your own thoughts, or with the lack of them. With your daily needs. And the sleep.
Just make a tentative, a little experiment. One day or less.
Try it.
Just a modest separation, a modest time of reflection.
Check the level of your satisfaction with your true personal reality.
Deal with it. Deal with you.
Decide:
How would you like to move on, as a part of a larger reality, the one we share and live in.
What is the best you could give, and have. Have, and give.
Be.
Time to time, revisit that inner state of personal reality.
Refresh your decisions.
Be.

Some unexpected relationships can be delicious.
People are hungry to find a good match, but
when cooking old recipes goes nowhere, is tempting to cherry-pick some of the most adventurous options. It's nuts for tomatoes. Bon Appétit, Love!

From anger to calm, walk on the bridge of melancholy...
When lost in anger, free that particular hope fueling the passion. Deal with the ensuing regret while crossing on the bridge of melancholy. Step unhurt on the other shore, in calm and wisdom.
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Anger is the desire to win, the have, to posses or impose, almost regardless the cost. Anger strikes violently our rational thinking. A civil communication could hardly survive. Understanding and agreement are going far off the reach. Damages inside and outside are likely to happen.
Behind any anger there is always a hope. The hope that victory is at hand. The impatient desire puts our body under pressure, it makes time feel short, words sounds vague, and vision is going hazy... the worrying sign of disorientation is soon to appear.
If the win doesn't happen, we go in despair... Calm is desperately needed.
So hard to manage that on the very moment.
Still, we might save ourselves from anger, and even without the bitter taste of a very personal loss.
A temporary hopeless feeling could be the escape. There is consolation in sharing a very human, impersonal condition of going throughout conflicts, in our inner world as in the outer, physically or mentally...There is consolation in suffering in defeat, we have been all there.
We might give up on a particular hope - even the omnipotent 'everything is possible' has its own two sides.
Let that fading hope release its tears of pity, like an icicle melting in the sun.
A little regret for the vanishing anger could take our steps on the bridge of melancholy. Listening to the rolling steps on a pavement of stones engraved with surrendered hopes, now rhythms without some of the personal passions, without the pain, we can regain control of our calm, and wisdom.
Embracing melancholy at times is not the same of being pessimistic. Melancholy is rather an impersonal sadness, a collectively surrender that protects us from hurting ourselves, or anybody else, when being lost in anger. On the contrary, melancholy is an acknowledged state of reconciliation with the adversity.
When lost in anger, free that particular hope fueling the passion. Deal with the ensuing regret while crossing on the bridge of melancholy. Step unhurt on the other shore, in calm and wisdom.

Self-confidence grows where doubt is appreciated.
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Doubt is one prerequisite to any progress. Questioning the current state of affairs, looking forward for an improvement or refurbishment, and even more, if a novelty is envisioned - doubt would be needed. Doubt better be there. Doubt is the game changer. Especially when old believes, old paradigms, well established rules and customs, all seem to stay there forever. Doubt is the subtle trigger of any new discovery.
However, to set the path leading to success, the other strong prerequisite is to have built a hypothesis to put forward. A bright intention dancing in lock-step with those promising seedlings of self-confidence. A sign of trust: the new tracks are those that matter.
Self-confidence grows where doubt is appreciated.

Emotions through Dreaming, Arts, and Rituals.
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There are three important strategies to train and enhance our ability of dealing with emotions: the first one we are born with, and that is dreaming; the second is a matter of education, and that is to immerse ourselves in arts; the third is the power of will, and that is the incremental improvement through building and keeping up with rituals - habits of our body, mind, and spirit.
The first one, unfortunately we cannot control much. The second, fortunately we access quite often, even involuntary, as it happens when looking to a natural beauty, or simply listening to a bird song. The third, hopefully makes possible for us to set an intention, then make it happen.
We never cease to grow.

Curious attention can be used to build happiness.
Beyond the present moment.
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There is so much beauty, and a sense of happiness, in many little things around us.
Did you find any today?! any how do you use it, in order to repeat the pleasant experience?
When we look intentionally with curious attention around us, we can discover such an object, a plant or any other entity, even a sound, or a written message, any of which could put us in a better mood.
If we are doing this discovery as an experiment, several times, we could observe then which are the particular shapes, colours, volumes, movements, details or content, bringing that bit of joy.
When some particulars are repeating, or are like echoing from a thing to another, or it happens to be present together most of the times like in a "chorus", we might found them forming patterns.
We may become knowledgeable of our own happiness triggers, and use them consciously to build an internal "satisfaction zone": from a daily short emotion of joy, to a more often achieved disposition, a more stable state, growing toward happiness.
Do not always admire or enjoy something in, and only for the moment... sometimes, with a curious mind and attention, learn about how little things can make you happy.

Stay in the Comfort Zone.
Keep Improving your Life from Within.
Be Willing to make Effort.
Expand the Comfort Zone.

For me there is a sense of disbelief about leaving abruptly the Comfort Zone as a first step of the change for the better. The famous slogan "Magic happens outside your comfort zone" is nothing but "magic": a willing suspension of disbelief, a pause of our critical thinking, while accepting that risk and safety are the same. This could be really dangerous, because we cannot afford such confusion when action is the key.
It is too often persuaded that the Comfort is something wrong, a form of laziness, or even worse, a failure to progress. As we would have to mandatory expose ourselves to some harm in order to achieve that "best version".

Is anyone really interested in feeling uncomfortable?! Should we surrender to a masochistic culture, pushing ourselves into an enterprise of foolish acts of deliberate frustration?!
Instead, we might consider Comfort as an expression of feeling Safe. The Comfort Zone could be as well the source of our strength, the solid premise of self-confidence, and any personal development.

A good knowledge of life shows that the Risk is part of everything, so our Comfort Zone actually contains enough Risk already, it is in our responsibility to see that.
What is really important though, is to be willing to make the appropriate Effort.
Making Effort is necessary, from a small to a significant one, for incremental improvements to big transformations.
Effort is required, still that is not an enemy to Comfort!
Making Effort toward an useful endeavor means spending energy for good reason, when the purpose is well defined.
Making Effort keeps motivation up, and that is truly needed.
I do believe one could still feel comfortable when dealing with risk, and making efforts.
I would rather prepare with such strategy instead of breaking from the Comfort Zone, to just be running into unknown like a headless chicken.

Rest and Be Thankful.
When writen on a bench, it is easy to know what we are grateful for, but...
What if this "R~e~s~s~s~t..." would be said in a soft voice, your voice, no voice, deep voice, just in your mind, inside your chest, like in a secret chest, a treasure rests, and waits for you... what would you take from the treasure of your past, to bring in the present, and walk in the future, and Be Thankful for?

Focus.
Focus is a dynamic state. A state is a temporary sum of capacities and abilities, and it happens in a sequence. Focus has a duration, and it may have variations of intensity. We need to train a state of self control while building focus.
I invite you to practice through a visual metaphor, looking to the picture.
Aim. Clear cut. Hold steady. Keep silence of thoughts. Breath calmly, and with the intention to gently bring the mind and feelings of the heart, together. Center the attention on what you see. Zoom in, and out, to clarity. Observe. Make a simple sentence about the information received from the image. Process to a meaning. Conclude. Relax.
Thank you.

We might need to climb steep steps, to reach to an open window.

As many teardrops all over the world, so many hopes may be.

How a Vision might arise from the
Power of Simplicity, like in Sumi-e, the Art of brush painting.
There's the cliché about "Less is more".
What that "more" could be? Or maybe less could be just enough?!
The "more" doesn't stay always in the abundance of detail, but also in the fact that the simplicity of expression is actually giving permission to one's imagination, for further creative work.
Take the Sume-e painting, for example: is this image about a moment, or several moments, that happened in that past? Or it is something that the author would like to happen in the future? Does it suggest just a daydreaming moment, is it a desire, or is it a nostalgic memory, perhaps?... It is whatever one would like to imagine, and would eventually fill in with one's own details, creating one's own story.
The symbols, and any symbolic representation, are quintessentially useful in at least two ways:
- one, by summing up some previous experiences by simplifying to what they do have had in common, and which was important, and
- second, by anticipating a future, desired experience by planting the very element of importance into a projection.
Let's just stay with the second, and think how to use it when preparing (for) something great to happen in the future. Some people are just good at "making" bright, accurate, clear images, while others might struggle on deciding about details.
It is all fine.
One can start building toward future with a full HD Vision, and a relevant state of mind and feeling. Another can start with a blurry one, still within a productive state, and the secret is to plant the symbol, or a simple sketch of what's truly important into the picture: a focal point in a certain context, and some supporting elements that would call for smart meanings...
Sometimes the HD vision is so clear that it is really easy to jump on seting the objectives, and strategies of achievement. Or, on a less fortunate case, it tends to be more like a frozen sight... Meanwhile, the more shallow, the blurry vision, might invite a dynamic adaptation, a natural change that activates the internal attention to details, then objectives are discovered alongside this process.
Coaching can help both ways. Or, you have just got the idea, and you're on you way to clarify your path toward future, already.
Because less could be more, but also, it could be fair enough.