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Better Life Today

Fear of change? Here is how to have an easier transition.

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It’s so funny how when there are changes on Facebook, we feel weird.  Some people complain saying things like: “I do not like it this change. I want the old way back. I was so used to it.”  However, we all quickly adjust to the new settings, the new look and we no longer question the change, we no longer experience any difference. It feels normal again rather quickly. We go on with our lives as if Facebook had not changed at all.

The same happens when Yahoo or other internet commodity changes their look or settings.  Yet, when a change happens in our personal lives. this process does not go as smooth.  We are still experiencing the discomfort of having to see, feel and or do something differently than what we were used to. We are moving away from our known or comfort zone.

Whether we move homes, towns, schools, jobs, get divorce, get married or need to eat differently because of health issues, we go through the process of “The Fear Of Change”

For some people this process does not feel so difficult and for others it does. Yet, understanding the mechanics of how change affects me will be greatly beneficial for all future changes; as we would have reacquired awareness.

I believe the difference between getting used to changes outside of ourselves and the changes have take place from the inside out, is that one is non-personal, maybe masses of people go through that change at the same time and the change is non-invasive to our daily lives as a personal change would.

I would like to draw from this example a question. If you can get adjusted to a general change social media makes, why don’t you use the same thoughts, understanding and actions to adjust to change in your personal life?

The thoughts or language we use for specific happenings in our lives are dictated by our belief system, thought process and expectations about it.

Examples:

1- Non-personal change: A new social media icon shows up, you sigh up and learn how to use it. It can get frustrating because it is new to you and you are not used to it.

2– Personal change: A new employee is hired and he seats on a desk next to you. You need to get to know this new person, interact and help him through the training process.

They are both adjustments you need to make in your life. However, large or small, if you want to use the new social media page, you will have to get used to their system. As well, if you want to keep your job, you need to get used to a new person sharing your space 8 hours a day.

Again, the difference between them is that example#1 is not personal and example#2 it is.

“Your Belief System Dictates Your Expectations”

The way you see, believe, perceive and understand your surroundings and your what you experience, creates a belief system and most certainly an expectation. According to these expectations you will react or consciously act. In every instance of your life you have preset expectations.

You may experience joy when your expectation is joyful, sad, angry or fearful when that particular expectation is set. This is for the most part, the reason why a person experiences fear of change. SInce the expectation is already set to a tone that says: ” I have done this before and I experienced discomfort, anxiety or even fear as I transitioned into a new surrounding, new job, new people or new way of doing things.

Once you understand what you are experiencing and why, you will find that you have more open options to make conscious decisions that will make transition easier.

It is important to mention that the decisions we make which pursue actions are very important. However, the thoughts that you harbor all day every day are of utmost importance since they shape every belief system and therefore, decisions.  Therefore, paying attention to your thoughts and correcting the fearful thought with a peaceful or courageous thought, the anxious thought with a peaceful one or the hapless thought with a hopeful one. In short you can achieve inner change by paying attention to your thoughts and changing the negative for positive ones.

For examples:

Negative thought: I can’t start over at another job. I am afraid of what kind of people I will find.  Positive thought: I can do this. I have done it before. I am sure i will find interesting people in my new experience.

“Your new normal. Embrace it!”

There are some things you just cannot change, however, there are things that only you can change. You might not have the opportunity to quit your job before you have a new one, but you have the power to take daily walks and relax.  You might not have the power to heal someone, but you do have the power to make a difference in their lives with your love.

 

With much love,
Alicia Yombalakian

 

 

 

 

 

Sometimes we feel as if all is lost, but it is not.

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In life, we go through cycles.

Just like the world goes through seasons, so do we. At times, we reach that place where everything seems to go downhill. We feel as if all is lost.

We reach that bottom line, where it feels as though we cannot get out of the hole. Our emotions are all over the place, therefore, everything in our lives suffer. Have you ever been there?  Are you there right now? I have been there countless times throughout my life.  Not easy, but possible. I got out every single time. I became stronger with every experience of resilience

Every time we are in the downhill part of a season, we somehow rise up again and start over. Yes, we grow resilient! There could be several reasons why we go to that ugly, painful, and sometimes emotionally torturing pit.

Whether a difficult cycle starts because someone close to us gets sick or dies, or whether we lose a job, get divorced, or sick, we will find emotional difficulties.

Our thinking will change. In many instances, we will feel shaken. Depending on the happening you are going through, the balancing and healing process will take different amounts of time. Yet, it is important to know that no matter where you are, if you are still breathing, you have an opportunity to heal, to overcome and start again.

I don’t have all the answers, but I believe in developing a plan of action for those special times in life. If you do not have a plan, you might feel lost and hopeless.

Here is a small plan for you. Use it as is, modify it to your personality and circumstances, or research a plan that tackles your specific needs.

It is also important to check with your doctor if you suffer from hormonal imbalance due to a disorder.

  1. Accept that what happened, happened.
  2. Acknowledge that this is a process and you cannot hurry it up if you want long term success.
  3. Do not waste your time finding blame. It will not prosper you. Instead, work on healing yourself.
  4. If there is someone you need to forgive, do let it go for your own good.
  5. Do not keep it to yourself. Share your pain with someone. Do not dwell on the issue, but get it off of your chest.
  6. If you can, find a support group. It can be in a church, a group of friends, or family that you can count on.
  7. Give your emotions a workout. Journal, draw, sing, or use whatever form of expression that will allow these emotions to come out in a healthy way.
  8. Design a plan of action by choosing what you want to achieve and making a list of priorities to follow.
  9. Visualize yourself, healed and happy. Do this often.
  10. Whenever possible, volunteer. Help someone else in need. This will make your problems smaller, and it will take your attention away from you.

 

Remember that so long as you are on this earth, you can always find a way to overcome, to start again, to find a purpose, or to take on something new. It is never too late. We do not have to be what we feel. We can rise above our feelings and create a great life for ourselves. Our feelings will adjust to the new person we have become.

 

With much love,
Alicia Yombalakian

 

Sometimes My Heart Is Just Filled With Sadness…

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Yes! That is part of life for us all. Sometimes, my heart is filled with sadness. There is nothing I can do to avoid the pain. What I do with this pain is what will give direction to my day, week, month, or even life.

What I am about to share with you did not come from a book I read, but from my own pain. This is what I have learned and how I deal with it. I trust that this information and guide will help you deal with your pain in a healthy way, where it will not swallow your life, but instead you will grow from it, increasing awareness, balance and joy as you practice these principles.

We are belief-system, pattern-following, discerning beings.

We human beings need each other and either lead or are lead, but we affect each other in every possible way. I know this is a very strong and broad thought, however, this is, in short, who we are. It is great to have a foundational understanding of who we are and how we function in order to make conscious decisions to direct our lives in the best possible way.

Emotional pain can come from so many different places, whether it is the loss of a loved one, sickness, abandonment, discrimination, joblessness, fear, loneliness, being misunderstood, or any other happening in your life. This will sometimes create weakness in your emotional and mental state.

Can anyone avoid it? No, but…

Pain is part of the set of emotions a human being has. There is no way around it. We can experience it in a diversity of forms, for a vast variety of reason. Yet, we can find a system in which, when applied, these emotions will catapult us into a better us, into a game changer, or even a great example for others to follow.

Though this is something I can help you overcome one on one as a Life Coach, I want to give you tools so that you can work on yourself, starting now.

Pain does not have to take your joy and life away forever. Pain does not have to live inside of you for long periods of time.

Mourning does have a process of its own. I will write about it in another segment.

It is important to mindfully go through this period to come out on the other side of this tunnel and enjoy again. However, for most causes of pain in life, we can come out on the other side of the tunnel rather fast, when we see the light that will guide our steps there. Pain can make you feel blinded, but when you understand what is happening to you and its process, this pain will have a purpose and not swallow your life.

 The “little big” formula to quit being stuck on pain

1- Stop asking “why?”. This will only stunt your walk into freedom from this emotion. This question will not change the fact that something has happened that caused you pain.

2- Take a moment to take a deep breath and think about what you actually feel. Write it down, say it out loud, sing it or draw it. This is the beginning of healing.

3- Make the conscious decision that you want to get over this emotion.

4- Every time you start thinking of this pain, “Why me?”, “How?”, “It’s unfair”, or any negative thought that will keep you trapped in this experience, take quick action. Change the thought for a positive one, like: “Can I learn anything from this happening or pain?”, “Let me change my perspective and evaluate this again.”, or ” I choose not to be stuck on pain. I will do something positive for myself.”

5- Change scenery, if you can. Go for a walk, dance, put music on, or use your imagination where you visualize yourself experiencing joy and freedom.

6- Do something pro-active that will help you feel good with yourself. If you believe in God or pursue a faith or religion, seek God with this pain, pray for strength to overcome it, and pray for others too. Read the Bible for hope and insight.

7- Help someone. When we help someone else in need, you remove yourself from your situation and mental state. It is a blessing for others, and a great tool for you.

8- Remember your value, which is the same value I have and everyone else has. This value is not based on your mistakes, your strengths or weaknesses, but on the fact that you are a living, breathing human being with a world of opportunities for change and growth.

I hope and pray these tools will work for you as well as they work for me and my clients.

With much love,
Alicia Yombalakian

Can’t keep goals? Here’s how to change that.

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 Can’t keep goals? Here’s how to change that.

Having a goal-oriented mind frame is the key to being able to produce change until you get the desired results. Most people have a hard time keeping up with a new behavior for a long period of time.  This hardship only occurs when the new habit wasn’t formed and you experience struggle. Your inner understanding and self talk will be something like this: ” I am making myself do this”,  ” It does not feel natural or second nature”, “I cannot do this anymore”, “I am ready to give up”.

What is happening is that your already formed and often used neuro-pathway (brain connector with encoded information) is doing it’s job and telling you that you are safe as you are now. “Please keep on doing what you know. This is safe. I am afraid. Do not store me away.” In short, you are missing your old behavior, the one you are comfortable with. Therefore, you are not really acquainted with the new behavior pattern you are trying to create a neuro-pathway for.

If your goal is to lose weight, for example, which is my very life’s lived example, you will find that you can stick with that diet for a while.Yet, that old behavior that is common to you will knock the door of your thought-life, and give you a lot of excuses for which it is OK to give up or to cheat on a non-cheat day. You will dialog with those excuses and accept them, feeling comfort in that food or drink, thinking something like: “I’ll start again tomorrow”. Every thought is a seed, and it evolves (no way around it my friend), so you will most likely grow that thought larger and larger until you actually give up.  Soon you will start experiencing guilt, failure and, many times, your overall self-esteem decreases.

Awareness, key ingredient in any change we pursue 

We keep on finding new ways of dealing with life, and we share it with each other.  This is my very passion, and so I love sharing what I discover and/or understand, with you. Why? Because it is key to understand something new and apply it in your practical life in order to achieve something new. Doing what you know and repeating what you have done before will only give you the same result you have had before. Adding a new behavior to what we did before, due to a new awareness or doing something totally new, will give us different results.

When you can see tomorrow, you can find the strength to carry on with today’s hardships

I find it especially helpful to practice awareness on a daily basis, and staying focused on the end result. There are a lot of practices nowadays to stay focused.

  • Create a vision board with pictures and quotes that remind you of where you have decided to go with your life.
  • Journal your experience.
  • Visualize the end product.
  • Speak as though you are already enjoying the new fruit of your labor.

The most important thing is to find a way in which you can stimulate hope into that cause. Whichever method you use, remember to ignite the fire as you journey through the achievement of this goal.

The method I would like to add to the previously mentioned ones is this: “Pay special attention to your self talk”. I emphasize on this often, because you can be your own best friend or your worse one. The way you speak to yourself will let you see yourself in your inner mirror as a valued, loved and deserving person, or it will let you see yourself as a not enough, unloved, non-deserving person. Funny enough, we act and react upon how we see ourselves inside.

Just like you correct a child when he or she does something wrong, you will need to correct the unhealthy thought and replace it with a healthy one for as long as it keeps on resurfacing in your mind, until your brain creates a new neuro-pathway. This in turn will create a belief system that will replace the unhealthy one. At this point, your inner mirror would have changed to see the amazing you that you are.

You can do this!

With much love,
Alicia Yombalakian

 

 

 

The Freedom of True Forgiveness

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I was pondering about something that for most people is very hard to deal with, Forgiveness. There are so many types of different things one can easily forgive, and yet there are others that are hard. You can forgive a stranger for stepping on your foot on the train. You can easily forgive a friend who is late to pick you up to attend an event. However, when you need to forgive a family member, husband wife, son, daughter, mother or father, it is not as easy.

You most likely experience some friction in your relationship with the person who has hurt you in any way, whether it was recently or in the past.  In such a situation is when you need to exercise your “Forgiveness Muscle”.

I will share a few perspectives to help you in the journey to true forgiveness.

1- Please notice that the person who has hurt your feelings has most probably had a different experience growing up than you did. Therefore, their thought process isn’t the same as yours.

2- Recognize that the forgiveness you are about to grant is not for them, but for you. People will go about their business, yet the unforgiveness will not allow them to experience true happiness. It might as well stunt their inner growth.

3- Really, forgiving is about letting the go, though you might feel hurt.  You can recognize that this is something that you need to work on by yourself or with the help of therapy, if necessary. Yet, you no longer hold the person who hurt you as the continuous responsible party. You do let them go. Doing this will help you heal that pain. It will allow the other person to heal and grow as well. In most cases, both parties are hurt and both parties have to deal with letting go and moving on.

4- Sometimes, we get to understand what actually happened, and sometimes we do not. Sometimes, we can see eye to eye with the other person’s point of view which lead to the fight or disagreement, sometimes we won’t. Sometimes, he or she will ask you to forgive them and sometimes they won’t.

As well, sometimes the person who hurt you or even traumatized you passed away or moved away and you will never get them to say “I am sorry”.  However, for your sake and for your healing, it is imperative that you say, “I forgive you”. It is impossible to heal until you take this step.

You might not think about the issue much, you might hide the pain or even run away from the whole experience. Yet, at some point, you will realize that the hurt leads you to be reactive to certain triggers, that you face difficulties in your relationships, because we tend to defend ourselves so that we do not get hurt again. Therefore, truly letting go is the only way to begin to heal yourself so that the particular hurt will not resonate in your relationships and take your peace.

5- You will find that in many cases you think you have forgiven, but in the presence of a trigger you will feel the hurt all over again. Know that this is a journey, a process, and you may need to speak to yourself in a way that allows you to continue to stay firm with the decision you have made of forgiving him, her or them. It is very important that you remind yourself how important this is for your peace and happiness, for your future and progress as often as needed.  You deserve good things.  You deserve to overcome that painful moment or period in your life.

This information can help you with mostly anything you need to forgive. If you cannot do this on your own, and you believe in God, I encourage you to seek Him.

Sometimes, certain hurts can turn into traumas, and at this point you might benefit from some form of therapy. It can be a Therapist, Psychologist or a Life Coach.

I wish you the very best in your forgiveness journey.

 

With much love,
Alicia Yombalakian

How to Break the Chain and Find the Partner You Are Looking For.

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If you have realized that you keep on dating potential partners with the same traits and it fails, this is for you.

I am speaking out of my own experience. The first sentence in this piece was me. Why? Well, I didn’t know what I was really looking for.  I did not know my actual value. I sold myself short. I was also looking for my dad without knowing it. Why? Because he was my only role model to follow. I also wanted to feel protected. My dad was a hurt, angry man who put me down and was unable to show me love in a healthy way. He just didn’t know how.  Somehow, I found myself getting partners that fit the shape of my negative self image. I somehow found guys who wanted to use me, who did not value me the way I deserved and who in a way or the other put me down.

At the time, I didn’t know what I was doing. I know. It was before Google and at a time when psychology and the understanding of human behavior was not for everyone.

In any case, I have learned my lessons. I have grown and gave myself the value I deserve. If what I am saying resonates with you, please read on. I will give you a short guideline on how to break the chains of undervaluing, how to know and love yourself and search for the partner you actually want to find.

“Value and love yourself”

The truth is that if you do not pursue loving and giving yourself the proper value you deserve, nobody will. Your behavior towards yourself and others shows your partner how you want to be treated. You are your own example. One of the ways you value yourself is by making healthy, conscious decisions for your life and setting up boundaries. What is your value? You are as valuable as any other human being. Not more and not less. However, that is a very high value. You are alive and are part of this amazing ecosystem called life. Give yourself the gift of love by not devaluing what you deserve.

What do you deserve? Most certainly, honesty, pure and true love, hope, fair partnership, care, kindness, growth, laughter, fun, respect. You deserve the same things your partner deserves from you.  The point is that you need to find value within you to expect others to value you.

What are you looking for?

It would be ideal to make a list of traits you are looking for in a partner. For example, you desire to share sports with him or her. He or she must like movies, romance, action, etc. You need to express and receive physical affection. You have goals to travel the world, etc.

What you can live with? What is deal breaker?

“He or she must have this particular trait”, “He or she cannot have this particular trait. It’s a deal breaker”. It is important to make a list of things you can stand or handle. Things where you can compromise and things that are a deal breaker.

All these parameters need to be established before you begin your search or accept someone’s feelings.

Key questions to ask yourself:

What are my most important expectations of my partner? In regards to love, life, communication, respect, outside activities, fun, etc.

What is a must for me? In regards to career and goals, expressing love, communication, etc.

What can I live with, but I don’t like? For example, smoking, drinking, type of outings.

What is a deal breaker? For example, I cannot handle a person who is not clean under my standards of clean or a neat person. I cannot handle a smoker, etc.

Conclusion:  How do I break the chain of finding the wrong partner and find the right one for me? By knowing myself. Asking myself questions, meditating on the answers and writing them down. Setting expectations for myself and for that potential partner. Also, by being clear with him or her on what you are looking for, what is a must, what can be compromised and what is a deal breaker. 

I wish you the very best in your search for love.

With much love,
Alicia Yombalakian