Articles, workshops

The frozen dream

by Mihaela StancuLeave a Comment on The frozen dream

Is been a while since I experience a feeling of stillness.

It is nice on the one hand, but scary on the other. It seems that everything around me is still. Like an icy rain shower that keeps everything cold and ice-covered. No move, no sound, no nothing. Just silence, immovability and coldness. Is not that everything else is gone and now we enjoy a moment of peace. Everything else is blocked, chained in a motionless picture.

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Behind the stillness is frustration of being caught, trapped in a frozen dream. Behind the icy glass of the cage there is fury and haziness. There is desire and passion. There is excitement and hope. There is joy and happiness. The imagination yet is fixed in the cold pitfall. No clue about how I can get out or where should I go. No clue about what comes first, second. No clue about any other categorization of things to wish for, to do, to feel, to become or to solve.

The only available choice is waiting, an endless waiting as if life itself is contained in a cold numbness. As time passes, the fear starts to build shelter beneath the ice. And it grows: what should I do? Where should I go? Is even bringing feelings of guilt with it: “is not here where I should be right now”, “you were not supposed to do this”, “this brings me no joy”, “I need to run, to change something”.

The time is the gift for action. At one point, the colder mind starts awakening. The sleep is ending. The light and the warmness are melting the blocking ice. I know you. I know your face. I know these feelings. I recognize these thoughts…

  • What is my dream?
  • Where should we go this year?
  • Where should we leave the frozen feelings?
  • What is the most important thing for me right now?
  • How can I get where I want?

Slowly, with an imperceptible movement, the mind starts to open and connect with my soul, and my body. I know now how  can I answer all the above questions.

Step 1: Dream

Step 2: Envision the path

Step 3: Define the goals

Step 4: Clarify the needed actions

Step 5: Start

I created this simple process 7 years ago for myself. I needed it to get me out of impassiveness and help me to get clarity on what I want. I practice and perfect it every year since 2012. And I get better results each time.

During this practice, I learned to honor my stillness moments, to weight the timing and to start creating clarity around me and this helped me to be in equilibrium with myself, to know what matters to me and to feel enough.

I combined these practices in a workshop called Envision 2019! and I am gladly sharing the information in 1-1 sessions.

Have a good week!

Photo by Michael Skok on Unsplash

Articles

Vision is the path’s light.

by Mihaela StancuLeave a Comment on Vision is the path’s light.

john-towner-117317-unsplashI studied and practiced many years the best method of goal setting. I tried and adapted my own style in many situations and with many other players: with myself, with my teams, on my projects. I experienced  great achievements and amazing surprises while I was learning and perfecting this process.

My truth related to this subject and others from the same category like law of attraction, visualization, dream management and many other different names for this activity is the following: vision is vital. It is the foundation. If people want to live their dream, they have to dream it at first.

Vision is the spark lightning the dark road, it gives you safety that you are on the right path and courage to keep going. It brings your motivation out to surface and keeps your dreams alive. It makes you feel worthy and gives you a reason to live and keep going even when you are tired, or sad, or when you feel you don’t want anything else.

It took me a while to discover what is the best way to envision the future. I tried vision boards hand made, drawn, written goals, pictures. I even modeled some of my vision boards, or meditate around them. Now, I live the dream most of the times. My secret starts to reveal.

Here are my five tips to create a great vision:

  1. Dream big
  2. Use to be verbs instead of action verbs like to have or to do
  3. Clarify visually how will be when you reach the ideal state
  4. Visit it often
  5. Re-validate at least once a year your desired state and priorities and change it if it is needed.

Here there is more about Vision and Envisioning process.

Have a good week!

Photo by JOHN TOWNER on Unsplash

Uncategorized

The challenges of a leader

by Mihaela StancuLeave a Comment on The challenges of a leader

Today I am writing about the challenges leaders face in today’s world. I made a short survey among several people and one of the main points resulted in the survey was motivation both of the leader and of their employees. Employees of today demand leaders with solutions of today’s problems. And one of the major companies problem is employee engagement. According to HRSM publication, manager is one the key persons and assets of a company that can directly influence the employee engagement. The employees today demand personal growth, attention and emotion in the management process. They are asking to be seen as people, to be trusted and guided in the work and work life process. And this can be done by a well prepared leader. Forbes gives some hints on how employee engagement can be increased.

Classical solutions to motivation are formed by training and books, that are accessible to part of the management cohort in today’s world. And it highly dependent on the facilitator or author equally as on the person who is in the development process. There are consulting companies that offer online or offline versions of different solutions in regards development. As training solutions we name Gallup, Hacket Group or local vendors in each country. There are authors like Simon Sinek who researched the inspiration great leaders can do to their employees. Here is a sample of his speak about inspiration and leadership.

Development games also started to become an interesting way of learning and I name few of them: Better Me or a Romanian market player: Insidehero. There are also platforms that facilitate play learn experience mainly for kids.

The product I am designing combines some of the existing solutions: offers same experience of inner discovery and team collaboration as the above mentioned board games do, with a plaza similar to play learn, and with an alternative of classical training programs that big companies do today. And this makes it an alternative for small businesses and middle managers not only that work for corporations. It is a combination of a coaching game that will come as an answer of the main needs of today leaders: motivation, overwhelm and need for prioritization, and effective communication. These can be addressed by taking one step in development at a time, or the complete solution as a board game.

 

 

 

 

Articles

My journey back HOME.

by Mihaela StancuLeave a Comment on My journey back HOME.

I felt teared apart many times and in many ways. I felt I live in the same time in million universes and went in as many directions. I roamed all these years in the pursuit of something undefined, unspecified, unknown or not even thought. It felt like a hard walk through a stormy desert. Tasting like sand. Smelling like stormy wind. Wherever I turned there was emptiness, aridity or loneliness. The desert was full of pain and grief, of guild and shame, of sin and there was no sign of salvation.

And I kept looking for something I did not knew. Sometimes I waited there and stood still in the storm, sometimes I walked trying to keep standing on my feet and not let storm put me down. I was guided by a feeling of knowing that there is something outside the desert. While advancing through the empty desert I first met STRENGTH. It was there with the impulse of keep walking, of getting up.

And I said:

– Welcome, where are we going?  She said:

-We go where is love and light.

And I kept walking with an ally that  knew there is always something out there.

 

When I felt I was searching for too long, I started to wonder if there is anybody else there. It felt like I could not go anywhere from there. And I found SELF-ESTEEM. Again I said:

– Welcome. Do you know where are we going?

annie-spratt-1074427-unsplash– Sure, she said. Here. All of a sudden the desert transformed into a jungle. It was wet, and a bit cold but full of green and million bird and animal sounds, tasting like water, and smelling like the grass after the rain. I felt a lot of presences. I felt I am part of every piece of it, and I was containing them all.

It was scary and empowering in the same time. I then met CONNECTION.

And I said:

-Welcome! I welcome you all HOME again. With such amazing guests back HOME, I can only breathe the earth beat nurturing all of my needs and wants so easy just like universe nurtures us all.

A metaphor, of course. But this metaphor is what keeps me going. I found it in the Generative Coaching Process lead by Stephen Gilligan last week. And I started to feel complete and HOME again since then.

All of what I learned I integrated in my workshops. As one of my colleagues said to me, after this week, as of now, nothing will be the same again.

Have an inspired week.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Articles

Self-esteem is only about US… inside-out.

by Mihaela StancuLeave a Comment on Self-esteem is only about US… inside-out.

In the last week self esteem workshop, we looked to ourselves inside-out in the attempt to observe the self esteem. The reality is that we see ourselves in different ways:

  • We see ourselves through the glasses of social norms and rules and etiquette: how vidar-nordli-mathisen-667388-unsplashwe should be. We learn these rules in early childhood from our parents, grandparents or teachers, easily or hard way. They tell us how we are supposed to behave, how are we supposed to get dressed, what we should say or do. And if we don’t do, it means we are bad persons. Doing all these things, is not always aligned to our truth, to our direction or want. So we start making up rules that transform in beliefs and limit our life when we become adults. This is the first step of invalidation of self. We ignore who we are, how we feel, and we do what we must do.
  •  We see ourselves through the glasses of our ideal projection. These are presented to us by media.  Today’s the society model have with perfect body, perfect skin, are always happy, rich people, travelling, spending qualitative family time or raising genius kids, do sport, eat healthy. And we are imperfect. We struggle accepting our body, we put enormous effort to gain money so we can buy dreams materialized in cosmetics to make our skin closer to the one the model in the commercial had, to buy one week vacation in a nice destination so we can post on social networks and draw people’s attention, to fight with our kids who do not want to behave like the etiquette and they do not smile all times but contrary, we feel guilty because we don’t exercise as much as the athletes, or we ate that perfect meal. We sell our time and health cheap so we can be accepted by the society and have the feeling of belonging. And then, we promise ourselves that as of tomorrow we start to do things that will bring us closer to that ideal image we imagined. This is the big proof that we are not good enough, that we are not OK, that we need to change, to have, to be something different than what we are. This is when self esteem is damaged. This is when we doubt, and because tomorrow never comes, we break our dreams and give up.
  • We see ourselves through the filters of fear. There the fear that is preventing us to act to the full self-esteem capacity. Apart the fear of rejection we talked about in the previous two points, there is also the fear of being judged, or laughed at, or invalidated collectively by the people close to us. It is now when we decide to keep a side of us just for us, and show the people a slightly different image easier to fit in their norms. It is when we tear apart our being. It is when we put a hard separator between us and…. us. And self-esteem begins to descent fast. We feel empty, exposed, and we don’t know who we are anymore.

This is exactly how we looked to ourselves in the self-esteem workshops. In this week’s session we will make a journey into the fairy tales world with the aim to stop negative self talk and change the paradigm of looking at us.

Photo by Vidar Nordli-Mathisen on Unsplash

Articles

MY DECLARATION OF SELF-ESTEEM

by Mihaela StancuLeave a Comment on MY DECLARATION OF SELF-ESTEEM

I received a gift the other day. I feel grateful and blessed to have people around me who support me with these amazing resources.

I was writing my new article on self esteem. I received a recommendation of Virginia Satir’s self esteem declaration. I read it once, and then again, and again, even though I knew it from before, I could not help reading it few times again now. It melt my heart and healed my soul. It felt like it is about me again. Never said better than here. And I decided to share that with you. Virginia Satir was one of the well known american authors and therapists of last century. Her practices were modeled and teach by psychologists, and sit at the foundation of NLP techniques.

nadi-whatisdelirium-313214-unsplashBY VIRGINIA SATIR

“In all the world, there is no one else exactly like me. Everything that comes out of me is authentically me. Because I alone chose it – I own everything about me. My body, my feelings, my mouth, my voice, all my actions, whether they be to others or to myself.
I own my fantasies, my dreams, my hopes, my fears. I own all my triumphs and successes, all my failures and mistakes. Because I own all of me, I can become intimately acquainted with me.
By so doing I can love me and be friendly with me in all my parts.
I know there are aspects about myself that puzzle me, and other aspects that I do not know, but as long as I am friendly and loving to myself, I can courageously and hopefully look for solutions to the puzzles, and for ways to find out more about me.
However I look and sound, whatever I say and do, and whatever I think and feel at a given moment in time, is authentically me.
If later some parts of how I looked, sounded, thought and felt turn out to be unfitting, I can discard that which is unfitting, keep the rest, and invent something new for that which I discarded.
I can see, hear, feel, think, say, and do. I have the tools to survive, to be close to others, to be productive to make sense and order out of the world of people and things outside of me. I own me, and therefore I can engineer me.
I am me and… I AM OKAY.”

© VIRGINIA SATIR, 1975.
Found in Virginia Satir, Self Esteem, Celestial Arts: California, 1975. and retrieved on Oct 19th from this website.

Next week we start a new series of workshops on Self Esteem. Looking forward to meet you there!

Photo by Nadi Whatisdelirium on Unsplash

Articles

The link between self-esteem and ego.

by Mihaela StancuLeave a Comment on The link between self-esteem and ego.

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Did ever occurred to you to receive a compliment that you thought is not true?

Or did you ever relied mainly on other people to make you compliments while in your silence you just criticize yourself over and over again?

Often we have two parts. One part that we show to the people in outer world and another one that we only see ourselves. These two sides of us, when we  try becoming someone else, or to adhere to an etiquette that is not aligned to our true self, breaks us apart. We lose energy. We lose the motivation. We lose the purpose. We lose the sense of belonging. We lose the possibility to achieve a goal just because these two parts are different, they want different things, they manifest different behaviors.

Have you ever asked yourself what do you show to the world? And what do you keep only for yourself?

We often call “ego” the part we show to the people. “Ego” knows our inner desires and is doing reality checks to tell us how we can fulfill our dreams. Its way to fulfill our desires is not always leading us to the imagined result; but for sure we keep doing certain behaviors with the intention to satisfy an important need. If we do not recognize the intention of our behaviors, we may find ourselves acting in a way that prevent us reaching our goals. We call that self-sabotage. Nevertheless those actions are there for a very important cause. They fulfill a vital necessity. Until we know it, we cannot move on. And while we do not move on, everything we cannot do drops our self-esteem. We start to perceive ourselves as helpless persons, that we are not good enough or even that we do not deserve the things we aim for.

Some people give up, some others keep fighting; some people start searching inside the resources, some others blame whoever they can for their mistakes or failures; some people eventually make it, but most of them fail and the only thing remaining for them is that they cannot do it, they are not good enough or they don’t deserve it.

For this last category and for the people who hardly accept compliments, for the ones who keep fighting or searching their resources, I created a series of 4 workshops on self-esteem.

In the first workshop, we will explore our inner vision about ourselves and the external projection and perception. We identify the saboteur and reconcile the wants and resources so we bring into line our objectives. When we achieve this state, we give ourselves a calm and warm sense of home for our self-esteem, an encouragement that sometimes welcomes the silence.

Photo by Yeshi Kangrang