by Elly van Laar | Sep 9, 2016 | Personal Growth
I love lists.
I love writing down what I want to get done, how much time it will take me to get it done, and especially crossing it off when it’s done. Hell, yeah, I’ll even write down a chore I have already finished. Just for the sake of crossing it off.
Since three weeks I include my daily routine of self-care on my to-do list. I consider self-care the most important investment in my work, so it is a high priority. I wanted to know how long those commitments actually take. Guess what the first item on this list is?
Getting up.
Just getting out of bed, getting dressed, making green tea.
Guess how I feel after three weeks crossing it off my list?
Delighted. Excited. Amused. Even if I didn’t succeed in getting everything done I wanted to get done, I did get one thing done, every day: getting up.
I giggle.
I am a winner, just by getting out of bed and getting dressed.
I also feel a bit embarrassed about my delight. Since when do I care about crossing off ‘getting up’? Aren’t there more important things in the world?
There are. No doubt about that.
And after I listen to Simon Sinek I get it.
It is not because it is so important. It is because of Dopamine.
Dopamine is the hormone that gets produced when we set goals and achieve them. The more visual the goal, the greater the satisfaction. As visual beings, we like to see what we are striving for, even if only in our imagination. Writing our commitments done is a visual act. That’s why it is such a happy feeling of relief and satisfaction, when we can cross things off. We accomplished our goal and the dopamine shot inspires us to get more things done.
Now I have scientific proof that to-do lists work.
And in that blissful knowledge, I update my list.
by Elly van Laar | Jun 25, 2016 | Compassion, Personal Growth, Self-compassion
“I feel frustrated with my marriage. I am done with it! I don’t want to deal with his anger and resentment anymore…”
“What would the absence of his anger and resentment bring you?”
“A sense of peace. Someone who is available to me, someone who is willing and able to listen and support me. Maybe just enjoying life… You know, I am 43 and I don’t want to spend the second half of my life with someone who is constantly dissatisfied with life. That was not my vision when I married him.”
When you are married to someone who struggles to hold his unmet needs in a way that respects your needs, you might take it personally. You might start losing your self-respect and self-worth, and think you are at least partly responsible for his anger and resentment.
If so, Steven Stosny suggests four choices to reconnect to your own basic goodness, your core value as a human being:
- Appreciate. When you appreciate what brings you joy, a sunset, the flowers of the plant you carefully nurtured, the smile of delight of your baby, you reinforce your values, your sense of self. You reinforce your inner goodness by appreciating outer goodness.
- Connect. When you connect to people who stand by your side no matter what, you realize you are lovable enough to receive love, acceptance and belonging. Even if your husband doesn’t meet those needs. It doesn’t really matter whether your friend is a human being, your pet, the nurturing part within yourself, God or nature. Any connection with someone who has an unconditional, positive regard for you helps you connect to the place of positive regard within yourself.
- Improve. When you improve your life, you restore your sense of self-agency. You are not in control of how your husband feels, thinks or acts. You are in control of improving your own life, whatever he does. It might be cleaning up your room, finishing chores, weightlifting, taking a class in ceramics: anything that makes your life a bit better. It doesn’t need to be perfect, it just needs to get better.
- Protect. Protecting what you care for, something that is vulnerable and precious, calls upon your inner warrior. The one that protects and defends. Not against anyone, but for someone. It is not reactionary, it is pro-active: “This is important to me and I won’t let you contribute to harm, because I care for this and for you.” You appeal to the compassionate core value of your husband. You call upon him to be more than his unmet needs and act from the place within himself that wants to contribute and protect.
Try these strategies out and see if they help. I also suggest you read “Love without Hurt” by Steven Stosny. I find it highly valuable to maintain your core value.
by Elly van Laar | Jun 10, 2016 | NVC, Personal Growth
I am born and raised in the Netherlands. As a child I saw my dad suffering deeply from his experience as a child in WW II, an experience that he never talked about till a few years ago.
Every May 4 the Dutch people commemorate those who died in WW II and the aftermath of WW II’s devastation, with 2-minutes of silence. We as a family sat together at 8:00 pm and watched the solemn national ceremony on television.
As a child the night before, every May 3, when everyone was asleep, I would sneak down to the living room, take out a book of war heroes and look at the picture of my dad’s dad. He had been part of the resistance movement that smuggled Allied pilots into safety during Nazi occupation. In September 1944, right before my dad’s 11th birthday, the Nazis arrested my grandfather. He died in prison 10 days later. My grandfather left behind his wife and 10 children.
My dad recently told me that my grandfather “stood up for compassion, inclusion and care for those who are vulnerable” and that “he died for his principles.”
As a child, I didn’t have the words to describe the inheritance my dad had passed down to me, even though my lifelong connection to compassion shows I was strongly impacted by it. As a small child, I spent hours rescuing hedgehogs and blackbirds caught in the nets around my father’s raspberry bushes. At 12, I inspired my class to “adopt” Diego, a boy in Colombia, through Plan International, and collected our monthly donations for him and his village. At 30, I joined Pax Christi to bring refugee children in Croatian refugee camps to the Netherlands for 3-weeks of peace and safety.
At 51, I now have a special dedication to bring compassion, empathy and mindfulness to couples in divorce. I specialize in helping them maintain mutual respect.
This is my contribution to transform conflict into respectful understanding, right here, right now.
I hope I can leave the world a better place, and honor the legacy of my granddad.
by Elly van Laar | May 28, 2016 | Acceptance, Mindfulness, Personal Growth
When is the last time you saw someone talk to the chair on their porch and say, “You shouldn’t be here”? Or, “What’s wrong with you?” Or, “You should be ashamed being here”?
I’ve never seen it. And if I had, I probably would have thought them a bit crazy.
Most people see and accept the fact that there is a chair on the porch wherever it is. They don’t argue with reality.
And if they like where it is, they leave it. If they they don’t, they do something about it. Like give it to someone else, put it at the curb, or bring it to Goodwill.
We can probably agree that that makes sense.
When it comes to our thoughts, though, we act like a crazy lady: “This thought shouldn’t be here!” “This thought should feel ashamed being here!”
We argue with reality. We challenge what we are thinking, even though it is right there in front of us being a thought.
If we fight reality, we can’t spend our energy doing something that might actually be more productive.
I think our lives are easier when we start from the beginning. Accept what is here, whether a chair or a thought. It is. Just that: there is a thought. Then choose what to do about it. Maybe work around it. Maybe change it. Maybe accept it.
One of my favorite clients told me that when her thoughts are too distracting, she writes them on a piece of paper. I think this is brilliant. By writing it down, we manifest in the external world what we experience internally. In writing our thoughts on paper, we create distance between ourselves and our thoughts: here’s what I am thinking, there is the thought.
We can become an observer of our thoughts. Literally: “There is a thought.”
Now we can soften our identification with our thought. And in that softening, we can stop arguing with reality and get on with what we want to do about it.
What do you do when your thoughts come up?
Safe travels David. Thanks for editing!
by Elly van Laar | Apr 22, 2016 | Empathy, Personal Growth
I want to enter a ICF-coach certification program. To support my sense of integrity, trust, community, growth and learning. I look into all kinds of coaching certification programs:
- “Openness to feedback, capacity for self-examination, willingness to challenge one’s own beliefs.” That’s it, that’s exactly me!
- “The only program that fully integrates positive psychology and neuroscience with advanced coaching skills.” Wow, that’s awesome!
- “Sponsorship with the Institute of Coaching, at McLean Hospital, Harvard Medical School.” Oh, my god, associated with Harvard!
- “NLP is a cutting-edge modality in the coaching field, backed by research on neuroscience and cognitive therapy.” NLP, I must have that.
And those are just some of the things on the websites of the first four ICF-approved coaching certification programs I’m looking at. I am looking at six more.
I feel overwhelmed. How am I gonna choose between all those fantastic websites, the one snazzier than the other? They all look the same, although they have a different appeal to me, based on academic rigor, methodology, faculty and areas of focus.
I decide to simplify my choices by using Richard Bolles prioritizing grid. (His student Beverly Ryle made an online version that you can personalize based on how many items you want to choose from). I start by numbering the different schools 1-10. Then I chose between two at a time and circle the number of my preference in the box. When I am done choosing, I count how many times I circled each number. I then put the schools in the order of their final ranking. The one that is highest is apparently my preference.
I feel super relieved. It is not much work. I am done in 15 minutes. I guess that I have a subconscious preference for academics, inclusion of different modalities, peer coaching, self-reflection and -transformation.
Now that I am clear about my first two choices I can go interview staff and alumni, to see if it is indeed a good fit. If not, I go for number 3 and do interviews, till I found a program of my liking.
For now I am choosing between The Executive and Professional Certificate Program at the Naveen Jindal School of Management, UT Dallas and the School of Coaching Mastery to be a Certified Positive Psychology Coach. You have experience with these schools? I would love to hear from you! (512-589-0482)
by Elly van Laar | Apr 15, 2016 | Compassion, Empathy, Personal Growth, Self-compassion
Have you ever met your inner child?
I have.
At the Mindfulness Retreat I attended with my Thich Nhat Hanh Sangha last weekend.
I was enthralled by the workshop Gale and Curt organized for us. I valued the support for deep self-connection, the safety of our group, the sharing in our circle, the individual and pair work it offered.
I cried a lot.
And yet, I was not suffering. I was not even sad. I was just touched to spend time with my inner child.
My inner child has a sense of innocence, happiness and excitement about life. She is curious and eager to learn and contribute. She is satisfied with where she’s at and doesn’t need much.
She certainly doesn’t need the forcefulness of a protector — a protector who lives in the fear and responses she created when I was around eight years old. A protector who still thinks it is 1973 – who believes she has to scramble to get a pancake before they are eaten by her siblings. A protector who still carries the fear that her siblings will start to talk over her as soon as she starts to tell about her day and stutters.
My inner child knows better.
She knows that was then and now is now. She doesn’t fear that there isn’t enough, or afraid that she doesn’t matter. She simply trusts that we share our basic goodness and that the world is a fantastic place – waiting to be explored and enjoyed. My inner child engages people and life with openness, authenticity and vulnerability.
I am so moved to meet her.
As I look at her, I understand Thich Nhat Hanh’s Second Mindfulness Training in a whole new way:
True Happiness: “…I can live happily in the present moment, simply by remembering that I already have more than enough conditions to be happy…”
I always thought that those conditions referred to my material well-being, my physical health, my marriage and friendships. This weekend I learned they do not. The conditions of my happiness are the unconditional acceptance and love I receive from my inner child. With her I can relax. With her I can manifest my true self and realize my dreams.
Contact me 512-589-0482 to understand and nourish the conditions of your happiness.
Thank you, David Nayer, for editing this blog at such a late notice. My life is richer by your support.
