Be Mythical

This is the second time that we get to be a fly on the wall to a coaching session between certified transformative coach John El-Mokadem and his new client Kate who wants coaching around issues in her relationship.

Kate believed that past trauma had set her on the course for her current relationship issues but she discovered in this session that the past isn't always how it appears.

This episode was a wisdom-bomb-a-minute but here were my absolute faves!

  • Kate's big insight! "I realised that there was never anything wrong. I was always OK, I just thought I wasn't"
    This is a huge realisation that her past self wasn't broken and that means that the past can't dictate her life in the present or the choices she makes going forward. Yesssss!
  • How do we meet our partner's needs without subjugating our own  needs?
    John described how the more of his beliefs about needs have dropped away, the less he seems to need on the outside and the more he sees that his needs are already met on the inside. Life doesn't need to be a certain way for him to feel happy.
  • How do we get into a quiet space?
    John explained how the very act of noticing an icky feeling and realising where it comes from [thought], the more he seem to settle down and start to look into the direction that fresh thought and insight comes from.

  • How do we stop just drifting along in life?
    Kate's concern is that she needs agency - she needs control over her life and circumstances, John described how he's seen that his happiness doesn't come from illusory control, and his previous attempts at control were making him less happy. The destination that we're all working towards, it's all here in this moment.

  • What about dealing with real life issues like a shortage of money?
    The more we're coming from insecure thought (life has to be like x, I need to be like y, i need to earn z) all get in the way of allowing success and happiness to flow through us. Life is already being handled, we don't need to make it happen. The more we let go of insecure thought, the more ideas, answers and opportunities that we notice.

Direct download: John_El-Mokadem_2_Final_01.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:53am EDT

Amazing relationships are natural

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I was thrilled to speak to the wonderful Rudi and Jenny about how it's so natural for us to have amazing relationships very naturally as we see the role of Thought in our relationships. Rudi and Judy are Three Principles Facilitators and film-makers who have been travelling the world, interviewing other facilitators, teachers and people who have had their lives transformed through understanding the principles.

They were as fabulous as ever, these were my best bits:

  • It can seem that we're a type of person, e.g. a jealous person or a person with a temper
    Jenny talks having a blind spot when it came to her jealousy - she could see that her feelings were coming from her thinking in every area except her jealousy. She described it as thinking she must just be a jealous person and that was fixed. Over time she began to see that her jealousy was just a thought too. That's the case with pretty much any trait you can think of.
  • The biggest relationship change is the one we have to our own thinking
    Jenny described how the biggest change in their relationship, has actually been the relationship that each of them have with their own thinking. Sometimes we can be wrapped up in thought and thinking it looks and feels real, and other times we see that our feeling are coming from thought. The more we see through the illusion of thought, the less worried we get about the content of our thinking and the more we see it's just thought.
  • We can't have a relationship without thought being included
    I loved Rudi's phone metaphor - just how we can't have a phone conversation without the intermediary of the phone, we can't have a relationship, conversation or any kind of interaction without the intermediary of our own thoughts. The more we recognise the intermediary of thought is always present, the less seriously we take the thoughts which are getting in the way with connecting with the other person.

  • What about when we have different goals or values to our partner?
    Jenny spoke beautifully about the conversations they'd had over the years about big decisions such as whether to have children. They've been able to have some very honest, open conversations from a neutral place which has allowed them to move forward through life without needing the other person to have the same opinion.

     

Direct download: Rudi_and_Jen_Interview_mixdown_Final.mp3
Category:Interview -- posted at: 9:59am EDT

This week we get to be a fly on the wall to a coaching session between certified transformative coach John El-Mokadem and his new client Kate. Kate would like coaching around some issues in her relationship.

There were so many gems here about handling relationship issues, here were my favourites:

  • Does the past create our relationship problems in the present?
    Kate feels angry that she's made decisions in her relationship because of trauma in her past and maybe she would have chosen a different life, if it hadn't been for her past. John explained that the anger would make sense if it was being caused by Kate's circumstances and not by Kate's 'noisy thinking' about her circumstances.
  • That laundry list of things that need to happen before we'll feel OK
    We can believe there's a whole load of things that we need to happen in our relationship (or life in general) before we'll be OK. As we recognise that the laundry list is just more noisy thinking we see that we already have everything we need to be OK.
  • How do we cope with a noisy mind?
    We don't need to quieten our minds, ignore our thinking or try to change it, when we recognise that the noise is simply just thinking.
  • What about when we want different things?
    The more we see that our wellbeing always comes from inside, the more freedom we have to watch how life unfolds without getting so caught up in our thoughts about needing life to be a certain way so we can be happy.
Direct download: Kate_Smith_John_El_Mokadem_Interview_Final.mp3
Category:Interview -- posted at: 1:27pm EDT

I'm talking to Sheela Masand and Mark Jones (aka Yoga Mark!) about what creates a happy relationship. Sheela's a business coach and Mark's founder of Ice cream For The Soul, a brilliant blog talk radio show about the three principles.

They've been together for 11 years, and they talk very honestly and openly here about how their relationship has transformed over the 5 years since they've discovered the principles. And how your relationship problems are not about the sponge in the sink - it's about your thoughts about the sponge in the sink. ;)

Here were my best bits:

  • We're all looking for connection - but misunderstand where it comes from
    Sheela talked about how the connection that creates a happy relationship is something that's very natural to us - once we understand the nature of thought and how it can create the illusion of disconnection
  • How our insecure thinking gets in the way of listening
    When we're caught up in thoughts of trying to fix an issue or come up with a solution for our partner - that's often behaviour driven from insecure thoughts. When we can let go of those thoughts and simply listen to our partner, we stand a far better chance of connecting to them.
  • Our feelings are our guide
    When we notice that we're feeling irritated or angry that it's simply pointing to our thoughts in that moment, and that means it's probably not a great idea to act on them!
Direct download: Sheela_Masand_Interview_Final.mp3
Category:Interview -- posted at: 1:34pm EDT

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