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ARE YOU WHERE YOU WANT TO BE IN LIFE? (Part 1)

ARE YOU WHERE YOU WANT TO BE IN LIFE? (Part 1)

by | May 6, 2019 | Blog, Transformative Coaching

Discovering Your Purpose in Life

DISCOVERING YOUR PURPOSE IN LIFE

Have you ever woken up feeling like you’re simply going through the motions—existing rather than truly living? I have. I realized that instead of directing my life where I wanted it to go, I was being dragged along without intention.

What did I do?

First, I acknowledged that I needed help—with accountability, taking the right first steps, and goal-setting. It felt like starting AA all over again. In many ways, I was. The 12-Steps of AA held me accountable, provided a structured path, and helped me reach the goals I set for myself.

Simple, but not easy. Just like life.

To begin discovering your purpose in life, here are a few essential actions you can take to shift from being pulled along at the back of the train (the caboose) to stepping into your power as the engine that drives your own life.

The First Step to Discovering Your Purpose in Life: Quiet Your Mind

The most critical first action is quieting your mind. Whether through meditation, a walk in nature, or simply sitting in stillness, this practice is essential. It allows you to open your consciousness, be present, and connect with your higher purpose.

Try this:
🧘 Reflect on one question each morning, such as, “What is important for me to notice today?”

🌟 Set a daily intention that focuses on where you want to be in life. Soon, you’ll notice your reality shifting to align with your vision.

Clearing Limiting Beliefs

As you move forward in discovering your purpose in life, take time to examine and clear limiting beliefs that hold you back. There are many ways to do this, but one effective method is The BeliefCloset Process (which I’ll explore in a future post).

Once you eliminate beliefs that no longer serve you, you create space for new possibilities and greater alignment with your true calling.

How to Discover Your Purpose in Life

Discovering your purpose in life is a deeply personal journey, but these steps can help:

✔ Ask Yourself: “What do I love to do?” – Your purpose should feel natural and energizing, like flowing downstream, not struggling like a salmon swimming upstream.

✔ Look to Your Past: Identify moments when you felt most alive and connected with your higher self. What experiences brought you joy and fulfillment?

✔ Recognize Patterns: Analyze these meaningful moments and look for common qualities that define your true passions.

✔ Find Your Purpose Category: Does your passion involve teaching, supporting others, leading, creating, working with nature, or something else? Identifying your purpose’s theme can provide clarity.

✔ Create a Vision: Write down your ideal life or use a vision board to visualize what truly resonates with you.

Branded Quote Stay Focused on Your Vision

What’s Next? Communicating Your Vision

Once you’ve taken the first steps in discovering your purpose in life, the next phase is communicating your vision to bring it to life. We’ll explore that in Part 2 of this series.

💡 “LIFE PURPOSE: Your purpose is not what you do to bring home a paycheck. Your purpose is what you were put on this earth to do with such intensity and passion that it becomes a SPIRITUAL CALLING.”~ The Spiritual Compass

For more guidance on discovering your purpose in life, please schedule a 15-minute virtual coffee to chat.

Mindfulness Habits: Simple Steps to Reduce Stress & Anxiety

Mindfulness Habits: Simple Steps to Reduce Stress & Anxiety

by | Feb 28, 2019 | Blog, Transformative Coaching

Mindfulness habits - Mindfulness quote

Mindfulness Habits: Simple Steps to Reduce Stress & Anxiety

What Are Mindfulness Habits?

Mindfulness is the practice of being fully present—directing your attention to what you’re doing and your surroundings rather than dwelling on the past or worrying about the future. Mindfulness habits are simple, daily practices that help cultivate awareness, reduce stress, and enhance overall well-being.

If you’re looking for a deeper transformation, mindfulness plays a key role in transformative coaching—a powerful approach that helps you break through limiting beliefs and create lasting change in your life.

As Jon Kabat-Zinn defines it, mindfulness involves:
✅ Paying attention on purpose
✅ Staying rooted in the present moment
✅ Observing without judgment

Breaking Down Mindfulness Habits

🔹 On Purpose – Practicing mindfulness means intentionally directing your focus. When we live more consciously, we stay awake and engaged in the moment.

🔹 In the Present Moment – Letting go of tension caused by wishing things were different helps us accept and embrace what is happening right now.

🔹 Non-Judgmentally – Practicing mindfulness doesn’t mean stopping thoughts—it means observing them without judgment and allowing experiences to unfold naturally.

Mindfulness habits - cartoon

Why Are Mindfulness Habits Important?

You might be wondering: What does living in the present even mean?

Have you ever driven somewhere, arrived, and realized you don’t remember the journey? Or walked into a room but forgot why you went there?

These are signs of mindlessness—being stuck on autopilot rather than truly engaging with your experiences. Mindfulness habits break this cycle, bringing you back to awareness so you can fully experience life.

Mindfulness in Daily Life

One of the best ways to integrate mindfulness habits is by engaging in daily activities with full awareness.

For example, in yoga practice, rather than focusing on how a pose should look, I encourage students to focus on how it feels. This shift allows them to experience the present moment rather than getting caught up in expectations.

Mindfulness habits - Worrier Pose or Warrior Pose

The same applies to daily life—when you live in the past, you carry guilt and regret. When you live in the future, you carry stress and anxiety.

By practicing mindfulness habits, you shift from being a spectator of life to being an active participant.

6 Quick & Easy Mindfulness Habits

If you’re new to mindfulness, here are six simple mindfulness habits you can start today—each takes one minute or less!

1. Count Your Breaths

  • Inhale, count 1, exhale 2.
  • Continue counting up to 10, then repeat three times.
  • This helps reset your mind and bring awareness to your breath.

2. Yawn & Stretch Every Hour

  • Fake a yawn to trigger a real one.
  • Stretch your arms slowly for 10 seconds, noticing any tension.
  • Take another 20 seconds to check in with your body.

3. Mindful Touch Exercise

  • Close your eyes and stroke your fingers gently with the opposite hand.
  • Focus on sensation and texture as you repeat on both hands.

4. Do a Quick Body Scan

  • Start at the top of your head and move your awareness down to your toes.
  • Relax each body part as you bring attention to it.

5. Mindful Eating

  • Choose a raisin or piece of chocolate.
  • Observe it with all five senses before eating slowly.
  • Appreciate its texture, taste, and aroma with each bite.

6. One-Minute Breathing Exercise

  • Place a hand on your stomach and focus on the rise and fall of your breath.
  • If your mind wanders, gently bring your attention back to your breathing.

The Power of Mindfulness Habits

Just like weightlifting builds muscle, mindfulness strengthens your ability to stay present. The more consistently you practice, the more time you’ll spend living in the moment rather than lost in distractions.

Mindfulness is also a foundational part of transformative coaching—helping individuals release limiting thoughts and embrace a mindset of growth and self-awareness.

So, wouldn’t NOW be the perfect time to start your mindfulness practice?

💡 Ready to transform your mindset?
Schedule your FREE 15-minute Virtual Coffee today to explore how mindfulness habits can improve your life.

THE WOUNDED CHILD ARCHETYPE

THE WOUNDED CHILD ARCHETYPE

by | Jan 29, 2019 | Blog

Branded Quote The Wounded Child 1200x800

THE WOUNDED CHILD ARCHETYPE

The Wounded Child archetype is one of several aspects of the Child archetype. The others include the Magical Child, The Nature Child, the Abandoned child, the Divine Child, the Invisible Child, and the Eternal Child. Everyone shares the Child archetype as well as its variations to some extent or another.

The Wounded Child is an archetype that contains negative emotional patterns children experienced. The wounds could have been abuse, neglect, or trauma, but they usually occur before seven. There is permanent damage that is haunting them.

The pain from their childhood wound will repeatedly replay in their adult life until the trauma or wound is healed.

Anger is a pattern of behavior that manifests. The pattern remains Webp.net resizeimage 96 with them and erupts as they grow older. There’s a continual eruption that plays out throughout their adult life. It’s destructive because the wounded child acts out the wounds of his childhood and feels justified doing that. That’s the child part—the temper tantrum.

One thing to remember when you are dealing with a Wounded Child, whether it’s someone else or yourself—it’s a pattern of behavior, and it’s not personal. When the Child archetype comes out, it is in the Shadow aspect. It is a time when the Wounded Child can feel misunderstood, such as reliving an event where they were accused or punished for something they didn’t do. Or perhaps they are reminded of a time when they were abandoned.

Whatever it is, the wound can only be healed by first recognizing the behavior pattern and that it’s not personal. Webp.net resizeimage 95 All Wounded Children erupt in anger; that’s just the pattern; it’s not personal. The Shadow aspect may manifest in self-pity, with a tendency to blame their parents for the reason why they are in their current position. It also blocks the path to forgiveness.

However, the painful experiences of the Wounded Child archetype can often awaken a deep sense of compassion, where there is a call to being of service to help other Wounded Children. From this spiritual enlightenment, a path of forgiveness is opened.

Do you have the Wounded Child archetype?

If you have the Wounded Child archetype, you may relate to one of the following behavior patterns.

The Wounded Child shows itself when:

  • you don’t get what you want
  • you need your wound to be validated
  • your wound is more significant than anyone else’s
  • you always look for someone to take responsibility for what happened to you
  • you frequently need to be loved and valued

How does one move from the shadow to the light?

All the Child archetype variations have a presence in the subconscious that is universal, as do the other three Survival Archetypes, and it is crippling in their adverse effects. Through becoming self-aware, it is through recognizing and identifying repeated patterns of behavior throughout our lives that have had authority over our choices. You embark on the Journey of Life where you move from the caboose of your train—where life drags you—to the engine—where you have the power to direct it.

The Journey of Life is a process and not something that is done quickly. Learning why you do the things you do will enable you to make better decisions and identify the actions you need to take to start down the path of personal evolution and transformation.

Schedule your free 15-minute Assessment today to begin your Journey of Empowerment.

DO YOU RECOGNIZE YOUR SABOTEUR?

DO YOU RECOGNIZE YOUR SABOTEUR?

by | Dec 10, 2018 | Blog

Branded Quote Saboteur Joseph Campbell

DO YOU RECOGNIZE YOUR SABOTEUR?

We all have archetypes—universal patterns of mythical power— within our psyche, and the Saboteur archetype may be the most difficult to understand because its name is associated with betrayal. Caroline Myss calls it the Guardian of Choice because its purpose is to help you identify when you are about to make a decision that weakens you.

When an opportunity arises that helps you grow by stretching your comfort zone, have you ever heard a whispering voice beneath you that says, “You’re not good enough. You’ll never make that achievement?” If you have, what you’re hearing is the internal Saboteur raising the possibility of failure, which is a decidedly fearsome prospect.

Another example is when you fear success. You call upon the Saboteur to destroy the foundation of that success because the responsibility seems overwhelming: What if I let people down?  What if I’m not able to sustain the position?

The Saboteur operates in the shadows of our subconscious.

HOW TO BECOME AWARE OF THE SABOTEUR

The Saboteur’s fears and issues are all related to low self-esteem that causes you to make choices that block your empowerment and success.

The Saboteur’s core issue is fear of initiating change into your life, change that rearranges your entire reality and requires you to respond in a positive way to opportunities that shape and deepen your self-esteem and empowerment. Ignore it, and the shadow Saboteur will manifest in the form of destructive behavior or the desire to undermine others.

It typically makes its presence known through a feeling or a thought that is rooted in fear. It may be a feeling of anxiety, doubt, of looking stupid, lack of confidence, or being afraid of failing. The Saboteur can guard your heart and push away any people or opportunities that bring you joy or success.  saboteur

Only when we become aware of the Saboteur and recognize it can we make it our ally. The first way you can explore the shadow aspect of the Saboteur is to observe your behavior. You can effectively do this by creating a journal where you recorded the times or events when you realized you’d sabotaged yourself.

The keyword here is OBSERVE. The Saboteur needs to be recognized for it to be integrated.

You don’t want to analyze. You want to observe, and through the power of observation, you will garner the capacity to see things from a higher perspective, which will lead to positive behavioral change.

QUESTIONS TO ASK OF YOURSELF

Acknowledging the Saboteur requires us to take responsibility as we must look at our failures and missed opportunities and find how we contributed to the situation. A few questions to ask yourself to learn how to become aware of the action of the Saboteur within are:

  • In what areas of my life do I fear change?
  • What fears have the most authority over me? List three.
  • How have I thwarted my success in the past?
  • What am I protecting myself or someone else from by sabotaging my success?
  • What happens when fear overtakes me? Does it make me silent?
  • Have I let creative opportunities pass me by?
  • How conscious am I in the moment that I am sabotaging myself?

When we make the Saboteur our friend and ally, we can then make decisions based on our highest purpose in life, as we stand firm in our center with unwavering self-esteem rather than giving in to our fears egos.

 

 

 

AWAKENING FROM A PROGRAMMED LIFE – PART 2

AWAKENING FROM A PROGRAMMED LIFE – PART 2

by | Nov 15, 2018 | Blog

Branded Quote Awakening Deepak Chopra 1 1

AWAKENING FROM A PROGRAMMED LIFE – PART 2

In Part 1, you realized the beliefs you learned and agreed to early on in life are limiting you, and that those beliefs became your truth. In order to awaken from a programmed life, you must first become aware of the authority they hold over you and what you want to change in your reality.

Changing your beliefs change your reality.

WHAT IS YOUR CURRENT REALITY?

Reality is subjective to an individual; it is what you believe it to be. There are social realities with certain customs, moral values, and societal rules with which we agree with. In spiritual circles, it is said that we ‘create our own reality.’

Looking further into this concept, one thing necessary to deepen our understanding of reality is learning to observe yourself within your reality. You are in effect, viewing yourself as the main character in a play and those that surround you are supporting actors.

When you begin to see how you operate in life, you activate your greatest tool—your soul! Your soul has the ability to observe yourself through a wide lens, Webp.net resizeimage 83 offering you a perspective of a camera that can pull back or zoom in to see your actions in daily life. The resulting benefit is you’re able to see yourself more clearly and discover how you create the reality you live in.

As you begin to observe yourself, you’ll see what your beliefs have created; your emotional pain, your joy, your hardened heart, your open manner, your lack of connection with yourself and others—the list of how your beliefs create the reality you operate within is endless.

When you are able to honestly see what motivates you to do what you do, the next step of creating your reality is possible—you can begin to change the things you want to. Only you can change what you believe your reality is. And you can change it.

You may feel you’re doing everything to change your reality, but nothing is changing. When this happens, there is something stuck within you. You have what is called an inner blockage. For example, you may struggle with a pattern of self-sabotage, even finding it difficult to help yourself when you know you need to.

You subconsciousness mind might be nitish meena 58136 unsplash blocking you to be and do your best through your limiting beliefs. One reason this happens is that, at some level, you have an inner conflict about succeeding. This type of inner conflict occurs when one part of us wants to change, but the other part (often the subconscious) does not because of the fear of success. Simply put, it the Saboteur archetype at work.

HOW WE LEARN BELIEFS

Early childhood experiences are the first way we get ideas or beliefs about life and gave you a sense of who you are as a person. The messages you received from your parents, siblings, teachers, and peers taught you something about yourself. As we grow up, we move through life creating experiences to match our beliefs.

We also learn beliefs through school, movies, books, advertisements, and life experiences, to name a few. Beliefs are important because they shape your world—first internally, then externally. If you have not invested in yourself to change a belief and see how it’s affected your life, you will not fully understand this concept.

Beliefs can prevent us from seeing accurately and they can cause pain. Or they can strengthen us.

Write down in your journal the beliefs you have today that you feel are holding you back or limiting you in some way. Keep them at your disposal as you’ll want to revisit them when you are given the steps to change them in the next post.

Here are a few examples that may resonate with you:

“I’m not good enough.”

“I’m afraid to________.”

“I don’t deserve (money, recognition, success).”

“People will judge me.”

“If I succeed, I won’t be able to sustain it.” (This was me.)

“I’m happy with how things are now.”

“I don’t/wouldn’t know where to start.”

Take some time and reflect on what are the major beliefs you have that have an impact on your life. Sit and let yourself be open and honest about where you are in life today and what your current state of reality is. Be ready to take the steps to change. Dig deep inside—go within and muster the courage. It’s there, I know it is.

Until next time,

Debbie

Contact me today for your complimentary 30-minute Discovery Session to begin your new life!

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