To go with the flow is also accepting that there are times in life when things don’t seem to move forward – it is how life works. Just make use of those times to prepare yourself, gain energy and don’t forget to enjoy them. So that, when life (and this means yourself) is again ready to move forward you feel energized and prepared to flow with it. Our life is like the weather seasons and it feels so good to enjoy the Spring after the Winter or enter into the Fall after one of those hot Summers. It is very important to understand and to accept that life is made of duality and not succeed is such an important part of the path as succeeding. Every time that we not succeed we can learn something that makes us more able to move forward and thrive more consciously in the next step. People who are considered more successful in live have failed much more times than those who are not so successful and it is because they take much more risk and action.
The winds of grace are always blowing, but you have to raise the sail. Ramakrishna
Coaching Application
Shift The Belief
Most of the times, people hold the belief that life is about struggle. As much as the person thinks like this, as much as life will turn like this – our beliefs do affect how we behave and so how our lives will be. The fun aspect of it is that we can really choose in what we believe in. In coaching, an important process to follow with the client is to help him become aware of his belief and support him in shifting the belief through assuming new behaviors. Ask your client if he would like to replace this belief with a more empowering one and, if so, what would it be. It could be, for example, “Life is fun” or “Life is a wonderful opportunity to experience”. And since life is fun, ask the client what could he be missing when he doesn’t feel like that? How can he change his attitude in order to enjoy what he is doing? Most of the times he just needs to take what he is doing in a more mindful way.
Enjoying things is much more about your inner state than your outer circumstances. He can ask himself these questions whenever he perceives himself behaving and feeling what he doesn’t want to experience anymore.
Be Grateful
Being grateful is one of the states in which we can feel more joy and happiness in our life. So that your client can understand what the effect of being grateful is, the best way is to practice it. Invite your client to, during a day, be focused in what he could be grateful for and write it. There are so many reasons we could be grateful for, but since they are there all the time, we don’t even notice them. If he could share this activity with another person it could be even more empowering.
Accept What Life Is Giving
If you can’t change it, is better to accept it. Imagine that your client is living a situation where he is experiencing struggle and that it is no longer possible, for him, to change it. First, explore all the possibilities, with the client. If he gets into the conclusion that all the solutions that came up are worst than the present situation it means that, the current situation is the best one, is the chosen one. This conclusion takes away the feeling of victimization and makes the client see that he is responsible for his life according to the choices he makes. As so, the best thing to do is to accept it which means to look into the positive side of it, to look at the reasons why this is the chosen situation. Our life can really change when our way of looking into it shifts. In fact, our perspectives make our lives.
Bibliography
International Coach Academy, Module Gratitude, Learning Level 5
Buckingham, Marcus & O. Clifton, Donald, (2001), Now, Discover your Strengths, The Free Press, New York, USA
Tolle, Eckhart, (2009), A New Earth, Create a Better Life, Penguin Books, London, UK