SIMPLY MPOWERING®

I would like to share with you a bit more about the magic of healthy boundaries. 

You might wonder how healthy boundaries can have anything to do with magic? 

Let me elaborate here a little. Many things in my life changed for the better once I had clear boundaries in place. 

When you are able to say "no" to a situation or a person, it will open up a space where you can create more magic for yourself and ultimately others.

I have to admit though that it was at times a turbulent journey to learn how to set healthy boundaries. 

Let me briefly share an example.

The short version: After my dog and I had been attacked for the third time by the same dog and I had ended up with a torn jacket and bite marks on my arm I really had enough. 

I was so angry that I filed a police report, which for me was a very big step to take. My anger was not irrational or abusive. My anger was a very clear emotion that was saying: "Enough of allowing others to harm me...

I would like to share with you a bit more about the magic of one small step.  

Life never ceases to surprise me. Sometimes those surprises bring a lot of challenges and other times they are magical. 

Some challenges can lead to magic further down the road. 

What do I do when I come across challenging situations in my life?

I like to keep it simple. One of my favourite resources is a very simple but powerful question that is rooted in Gestalt Therapy: "What is the smallest possible step that I can take now?" 

As crazy as it might sound but more or less immediately, almost magically, the energy changes and possibilities open up or ideas appear.

It is a matter of first of all accepting that I am somehow stuck and maybe even feel overwhelmed with a situation. This is a very crucial step especially on any healing journey or when you are going through challenges.

If you can name it you can tame it.

Through that acceptance you start opening another door, which is...

First of all "Happy New Year"! May it be filled with health, joy, creativity, magic, abundance and most of all love and light! 

I live in the "land of dragons". Mt Pilatus in Luzern holds a lot of legends and myths around those majestic and powerful creatures. Dragons connect heaven (flying) and earth (walking).

I am a capricorn and old pictures of the astrological capricorn figure looked much more like a dragon. It is much easier to climb the steepest mountain if you fly up... 

Today's blog is about reminding us of the "dragon power" that we all hold and an internal fire that burns for a passion but tends to be trapped for various reasons. As we enter a new year once again, we set intentions and decide to change something in our lives. Very few last beyond a few weeks and months at most. 

Yet, I believe that we all have an internal fire that keeps us going and it is important to re-connected to it again. When we observe children we witness a natural...

Can we find the courage to change career paths and trust that "re-birth" is always possible?

We do not need to physically die and be re-born again to experience a new life, a new family, a new career path etc. We can choose to start something new or follow our neglected passion in any moment in time. 

This week I had the opportunity to talk to 10th graders at a career forum. My career path has not been a linear one and continues to change. I am humbled by teachers and facilitators that I have trained with and they were still sharing their wisdom at age 98, late 80ies and late 70ies. 

When we are young we try to figure out what we want to do in life, which courses to choose, what university to go to. My generation would have done the "sensible thing" and studied something that is "solid", you know what I mean. Very few would have gone into the arts or drama or similar. 

Today's youth is different. While many don't know what courses or studies to choose and are still...

Learning to access "infinite possibilities"..., re-learning to trust our "gut feeling" (= intuition) and creating from "no mind"...

Recently I watched an interview about "fear and courage" with Gerald Hüther, a neuroscientist who emphasises the need for a natural development of a child's innate potential as well as creation of new schools. He explained how "fear does not need courage but it needs trust".

Let us explore more about how fear overshadows our innate feelings of trust and how we create with "no thoughts and no mind" when we trust. 

I am sure you have heard that "thoughts create reality". 

Do you know though that "no thoughts" also create reality? Research in quantum physics has shown us that the observer influences the behaviour of the particle. Therefore mere observation creates reality. We can debate now whether mere observation also contains thoughts or not. 

What about the 95% of our behaviour that is based on unconscious thoughts? Well, we...

Do you know that our sun is getting hotter and that in some hundreds of millions of years our Earth will disappear? I know it is a long time away and we don’t have to think about it in our lifetime. Yet, it made me wonder what would happen if Earth was going to be extinct now.

Our planet is an incredibly rich planet in terms of diversity and species. The tiniest ant walks on our Earth as well as the biggest elephants.

A long time ago dinosaurs inhabited our planet. They were extinct. Maybe they had to be extinct in order for our human species to settle here? Imagine what our lives would look like if we had a T-rex roaming through the streets!

For a long time my world was so small that I couldn’t have possibly believed that life existed beyond Earth’s borders. When I visited the science museum in London it hit me as I looked at the pictures from the Hubble telescope: the vastness of the universe. It is infinite.

How could I have possibly believed...

Every year we return to a beautiful horse riding lodge in Tuscany called Il Paretaio. It is fairly unique in many ways. Besides its amazing picturesque setting, beautiful horses and skilled teachers, it offers breakfast and dinner at a long table where all the guests sit together. The table outside, which is used during the summer, offers an incredible view over the valley. Over the years I have met people from all over the world and enjoyed some lighthearted as well as some deep conversations. 

What I learned in particular over the last few years: the horses mirror me so much just like my dog. Admittedly I have a completely different level of awareness now. Years of self-development and self-reflection allow me to  recognise the mirroring and "messages" much faster. 

I had so many insightful experiences and learnings from those big, powerful but also very sensitive and gentle animals. There are people who probably believe that we can't learn anything from animals....

My heartfelt intention is to co-create a new world, no matter how small that might be within the vastness of the universe. We start our own journey with one cell and yet a fully grown human exists of 30 - 40 trillion cells. Amazing isn't it? 

Throughout that co-creative process I would like to give impulses and food for thought. The more we ask questions and the more we become aware of how our current and "old world" works the more will we be able to do things differently in our "new world". Maybe you don't want a new world. Maybe you are absolutely happy with what your current world looks like and that's fine too. 

If you are more like me, somebody who wants to co-create and share a more compassionate and balanced world with the current and next generations, then you might enjoy different impulses, questions and a new level of awareness and consciousness. It might lead you to co-create your own new world. Who knows? 

Maybe this article might give you...

Over the past weeks I had the opportunities to realise how far I have come on my own healing and "feeling whole" journey. By no means was it an easy ride, on the contrary, but it was well worth it! I am sure more is to (over)come and we never know what lies ahead of us. However, there comes a moment in life when clarity (head) and courage (heart) guide us in co-creative collaboration. 

Where would our world be without determined as well as creative visionaries? Richard Branson left school at age 17 with dyslexia. Steve Jobs quit university and spent a lot of his time in his garage. Maybe you or your children have visions or ideas that others feel are too far fetched? Don't give up on them! The world needs new fresh visions and ideas. 

Here I would like to also remind you of a nice exercise especially with your child: replace the word "stubborn" with "determined", replace "bossy" with "leadership skills", replace "daydreamer" with "creative mind" etc. Google pays...

Today I would like to share with you some of the resources that I use to gain clarity when the mind seems "clouded", the body restless and the path unclear. You can also apply those resources if you have bad sleep patterns, feel anxious and worry a lot, are grieving or just feel the need to gain some clarity in life, business, relationships etc and most of all want to relax. 

Before I list all the resources, you can also scroll down to them, that I use and share with my clients I would like to note some observations.

There is something fascinating about our behaviours. The majority of us are avoiding stillness. Have you ever noticed that? Why do we keep ourselves busy and distracted instead of sitting in stillness or merely observing our thoughts? How many of us allow ourselves to also physically move our emotions and let ourselves be moved by what comes from deep inside? 

Sometimes when I observe people I notice that they are permanently "running" - usually away from...