Author: Elisa Balabram (Page 4 of 21)

What comes first? How to move forward from stuckness and resistance into creativity and joy.

What comes first?

What comes first? I’ve been thinking about these questions for the last couple of months, while dealing with being stuck:

 

  • The will to change or the change itself?
  • Happiness that leads to action or action that leads to happiness?
  • Despair or the unwillingness to do something about one’s current state?
  • Trust that things will be different or things actually turning out differently than expected lead to trust?
  • Procrastination or depression?
  • Healthy eating habits just because or thanks to a health scare?
  • Unstuckness by itself or the movement towards changing the status quo?
  • An unexpected insight or an openness to inspiration?
  • Do you get yourself stuck by not taking action or by taking action and failing? Or both? Or is stuckness related to lack of action or resistance to simply allowing?

What comes first?

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A Blank Page – Allowing the Creative Mind to Flow with ease (or not)

blankI haven’t posted anything in several weeks. It’s not that I haven’t written anything. I’ve worked on a few blogs, and wrote two full articles. The two articles I wrote and haven’t posted are: “I’m a writer” and a week later I wrote “Failure”. I wrote the article “I’m a writer” and explained why it’s been hard for me to say that. I also challenged myself at the end of the article, to introduce myself as a writer at a networking event I was attending that evening. I totally forgot about it, and introduced myself as a coach and lecturer. Perhaps that’s why I haven’t posted it, as I haven’t done what I said I would.

The other one called “Failure” I wrote because a campaign I ran with synchronized third party tweets, group sharing on Facebook, and other strategies to promote “Mending a Broken Heart: Lili’s Magic Journey” failed. In the article I included the definition of the word, and also how it feels. Then, there were a few dilemmas: which post do I share first? How can I post an article calling myself a writer, when a book promotion failed? Perhaps that’s the real reason why I haven’t posted either article.

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The Sand Poem – Clearing Internal Pipes

Sand PoemI spent a weekend in a healing workshop in Cape May. During the weekend, I was able to notice how I was experiencing it all. How at times I felt confused, while other times I felt as clear as ever. I also made a decision beforehand that I would find joy in the little things, and I took the time to enjoy the paintings around the house where we were staying, and to be present with the group.

On Saturday evening I saw a warning note on the bathroom door (this blog post’s image) that started with Sand… I thought the note was a poem about sand, and I decided to read it carefully, imagining I’d be inspired with a cool message, perhaps something like:

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A Labor of Love

heartrakuWriting and publishing my new ebook has been quite an experience. I wrote the first draft not long after I experienced a heartbreak a few years ago. I wrote about the heartbreak here. Writing “Mending a Broken Heart: Lili’s Magic Journey” was a healing tool for myself.

I consider the ebook a labor of love, my way of going through my feelings, my way of making sense of what had happened, my way of potentially giving light to someone else who could be having similar experiences. Publishing it also had a deep meaning, the ability to transform something that once was so painful, into something that could become a source of inspiration for others to focus on self-love as they heal.

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How to transform “dog poop” (or mind chatter) into a fertilizer for your business

Dog Poop/Mind Chatter

I have been writing my dreams as soon as I wake up, and asking about the meaning of it, and one of them made me keep thinking of its meaning. The dream was of me going outside, and seeing that the top of my car was filled with dog poop. At first I thought: who could have done it and why? but soon I shifted into thinking what I could do about it. I got in the car, accelerated into a field, and then hit the brakes, so that the poop would fall, and go into the soil (this was a dream after all). The idea I had within the dream was that this way, the poop could be used as a fertilizer, and something good would come out of it. Then I proceeded to wash the car.

When I woke up, I wrote the dream, and the question: What does it mean? And the answer I got was clear and simple. Nobody had put the dog poop on my car; the poop was a symbol of my own stuff, a cloud of negative thoughts, fears, challenges, and the feeling of stuckness I had been caring; and the fact that I used it as a fertilizer showed my readiness to move forward.

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How to Allow Miracles to Happen

Sun1On the last day of Hanukah I received three or more miracles.

The first one was a change to my flight back home. I bought the tickets with mileage, and I was scheduled to travel from New York to Cincinnati, to Miami and then to my hometown. A couple of weeks later American Airlines changed the flight, now I was going to Norfolk, Virginia Beach, then Miami, then my hometown. Because that happened, I thought: wouldn´t it be nice if the flight was changed again, and I would only have to travel from New York to Miami, instead of the extra stop? And the day before my trip, I received an email from them that the flight had indeed changed. Instead of having to leave my home at 11am, I could now leave at 3:30pm with plenty of time to catch my flight. It was a double blessing, as the final flight was delayed from that night to 8am the next morning.

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Honoring the Creative Process

CoversWhat’s your creative process? Do you allow yourself to create without any fears or self-talk? Do you ask for help? Do you trust yourself above all else?

The process of creating the cover design of my new novelette fiction story ebook was very interesting. On the one hand, I thought of the conventional wisdom that it’s best to hire a professional to design an ebook cover. On the other hand, as writing the story was a healing tool for me, and since I also love drawing and painting, I felt that expressing myself through the cover design was more important than having a professionally drawn cover. As a coach, I usually advise my clients who are about to self-publish their books, not to use stock photos on their cover, and to hire someone to at least create an image for it. I ended up compromising, I drew the image, and asked a friend to create the format and add the title and my name to the cover.

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Shopping for Your Purpose

Finding your purposeIn case you keep asking yourself what’s your purpose, you are not alone. I've been told by a few clients, friends, and students that they don't know what to do next, what their purpose is, or which career to pursue.

My first encouragement is to be fine with not knowing. I have changed careers a few times in my life, and I’m still growing, learning, and stepping more into my purpose each day. Then, I recommend that you consider meditating, and doing a writing exercise of your ideal day, highlighting what stands out to you from it.

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Side Effect of Self-Love

loveyouI launched the 30-day Self-Love challenge on November 5th 2013, and over a hundred people joined me on this journey of focusing on self-love at least once daily.

My personal self-love practice did not end after the 30 or 45 days the challenge lasted last year – and I’m still committed to self-love, although sometimes I need a little reminders. I created a reminder on my cell phone, and I also got a little white board magnet (seen on this post’s image) for my fridge, and wrote to myself: “I love you”.

It made sense to have a daily reminder that I’m loved, especially by me. Pretty soon, as in many things in life, I stopped reading it or paying attention to it. Until one of my sisters visited this summer, and she wrote “I love you too”.  A few weeks ago, a friend spent the weekend at my house, and although she didn’t know the board's story, she also wrote “I love you too”. When I saw it I smiled, and told her who had written the previous messages. Now, my little reminder got even more special.

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Keeping it Cool in the Midst of Chaos

Trees rootedI went to the Rubin Museum with a friend, and we spent time enjoying the exhibition “The All Knowing Buddha : A Secret Guide”. The exhibition includes 54 detailed paintings, which provide step-by-step guidance to visualization of the Buddha Sarvavid Vairochana, and it offers unique insight into the meditation and rituals of Tibetan Buddhism. Both of us chose to stop in front of each painting, take it in, and have our own interpretations of it. Maybe we had stared at five of those paintings, when someone opened the emergency exit door, and the alarm was really loud. I started laughing… it was really as life is, we are all centered, focused, enjoying a quiet moment, and then, bam! something happens. It is up to us to keep our cool. I think we waited until silence was restored to keep enjoying the paintings, and to me, the whole episode was a reminder to practice keeping it cool in the midst of chaos.

Then, I was invited to share a few coaching strategies for a new app project in a video format. We spent all day filming, and the street noises, the honking, the sirens, or even someone walking upstairs would disturb the sound, and I had to record whatever message I was saying, again, and again and again. And again. I encouraged the team a few times, to set an intention together that the noise would stop. It did stop for a while, and then, maybe we let go of our guards and it started again. It was an all day ordeal, and I believe that if we had not set the intention, it would probably have gone through the night.

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