Ottawa Women's Coach

Are you doing what you were put on this earth to do? If not, why not? Are you making the world a better place using not only your formal training but your whole life experience? You are unique. Nobody has your unique talents, experience and ability to touch people.
No, you don't have to quit your job today (although this may be tempting). You can start making changes through volunteer work, or a business of your own part-time. Or you can use your talent as a writer or a public speaker to make a difference.

Coaching challenge: If you feel even a twinge of excitement (and fear)at the thought of doing something different, start today by taking fifteen minutes a day to imagine what it could be. Imagine yourself doing it. Really see it in your mind. Do this every day for a month and see what happens.

Marguerite Tennier, M.A.
http://www.canadascoach.com

http://www.probonocoachingcanada.com

"The man who has no imagination has no wings." Muhamed Ali

Do you use your imagination to make tomorrow different or do you live according to your past history?

Independently of what happened in the past, it is your use of imagination to make different choices today that will make tomorrow different. Let your imagination soar. Remove the limits. What can you imagine? Make it real. See it, hear it, smell it, taste it. Walt Disney went bankrupt five times and he never gave up on his dream because he could see it in his imagination.

Marguerite Tennier, M.A.
http://www.canadascoach.com

It's Monday morning and once more, you decide that this is the week you will make some change in your lifestyle. Maybe you decide you will start eating healthier this week. You will bring your lunch to work and some fruit and V-8 for snacks. But, you forgot the most important! You did not stock your fridge and cupboards with what's needed to eat healthy.

Whatever change you choose to make has to be planned.

Coaching challenge: Sit down with pen and paper and write down exactly the change you want to make. Then use the skills you use in other areas of your life and apply them to this challenge. Need help? Ask a friend who has succeeded doing what you want to achieve, whether it is to eat better or exercise more or anything. What she/he has used to succeed may not fit you exactly, but chances are you can get some good tips.

Marguerite Tennier, M.A.,
http://www.canadascoach.comVisit and send send your friends, colleagues to:
http://www.probonocoachingcanada.com

One of the surest way to under-achieve is to use the appropriate words.

If you read this blog, you already have attained success in some areas of your life. Maybe you have obtained a graduate degree, or obtained the job you wanted. I am fairly certain that your language concerning your success was not : "I am trying to get a degree" or "I am thinking about maybe some day applying for..."

Where ever you got success, you went for it.

Where in your life are you wanting something different? Is it the same place you have been using "trying to" and "kinda' some day, maybe" without a clear plan?

You've got your answer. Look at your areas of success and apply the same principles in the "not so successful" places.

Marguerite Tennier
http://www.canadascoach.com

Jennifer Lawrence my webmaster has done a great job. The website is up. Check it out at http://www.canadascoach.com

Marguerite Tennier
http://www.canadascoach.com

Do you feel bored? Does your life revolve around sleep, work, eat, tv, sleep, work..... One of the surest ways to get out of boredom is to find a cause you really believe in and get involved. Even if you already give money to support a charity, getting involved with your time will make a greater difference in your life, not to mention the lives of others.

So whether your cause is the environment, putting an end to violence, gay rights, put your skills to work. Become vocal. Your passion plus your skills have a lot of power. Use it to make the world and your life a better place.

I know some of the readers of this blog are from countries where freedom is not complete. But if like me you live in a country where we can speak up,like Nike says: just do it.

Marguerite Tennier, M.A.
http://www.canadascoach.com

P.S. If you know a CEO, President, VP, HR or other offier of large company, university, government department, please refer them to: http:///www.probonocoachingcanada.com

"If the only vision we have of ourselves comes from the social mirror, ... from the opinions, perceptions and paradigms of the people around us, our view of ourselves is like the reflection in the crazy mirror room at the carnival."
Stephen Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

Today is my birthday and I love birthdays. (Thank you to you who sent your wishes). Always did like birthdays. As I "mature", I use the occasion to eat chocolate for breakfast and also to evaluate if I am happy with my life. I also use it as a time to look at my dreams, my goals. I firmly believe that when birthdays are a source of pain, they simply serve as a reminder that we are not living the life we want. They are our own mirror. Not of who we are but of how we let ourself shrink. When I turned 39 and working in the Federal Government, that birthday was a launching pad to leave, go to university full time and write my future history.

How do you feel about "another birthday"? Whether your birthday is November 11 or February 12, now is the time to change the year ahead. Are you scared? What changes do you need to make to feel excited about the coming year? Are you letting your "social mirror" limit what you think you are or can be?

Marguerite Tennier
http://www.canadascoach.com

"...self-love as a process by which we gradually enfranchise all of (our) subpersonalities and invite them into the commonwealth of consciousness." Sam Keen, To Love and be Loved.

All of us have parts of our make-up that we are less proud of. Self-love means loving ourself including what we deem imperfect, but which is in fact just human.

Marguerite Tennier, M.A.
http://www.canadascoach.com

The new website is taking shape and looking quite wonderful, thanks to my webmaster, Jennifer lawrence (http://www.jenniferlawrence.ca) I will make an announcement when it is up.
In the meantime, please visit http:///www.probonocoachingcanada.com and help me to publicize it - to corporations, government, HR, etc.

thanks

"Interdependence is a choice that only independent people can make." Stephen R. Cover, The 6 Habits of Highly Effective People.

Love is never enough, except between a parent and a new born. Between two mature adults, it takes a capacity for both to have grown up emotionally. Why? Sustaining a good relationship requires some effort. After the high of the first 3 months, come the inevitable differences. For a relationship to not only survive but thrive, both participants need to be capable and willing to find solutions that respect the needs of both. And this exercise requires a high level self-knowledge and the capacity to admit not owning The Truth, which requires a healthy dose of self-esteem and self-acceptance. Defensiveness and refusal to discuss issues is a sure sign that more work needs to be done on the self.

Marguerite Tennier, M.A.
http://www.canadascoach.com
P.S. Stay tuned for a brand new look on my website soon.

Internationally known psychologist Martin Seligman (http://www.authentichappiness.org) is devoting his life to understanding what makes people happy. Three components of happiness stand out: pleasure, engagement and meaning.
We all know pleasure: anything that gratifies our senses, from sex to food, nice things, clothes, nice restaurants, travel, etc.

Engagement refers to the depth of our relationships. How emotionally satisfying our involvements are: with friends, family, co-worker and romantic partner and even people we meet socially. Engagement is about the quality of the relationships. It's about being able to be present, caring, respectful and interested, in the other person. The more we value the relationship, the more important it is to be caring, interested, caring and respectful and of course, that our partner, friend or co-worker treat us in the same way. It's called reciprocity.

Meaning is how we use our strengths to be of service, for a purpose larger than our own benefit or the benefit of our circle of friends and family. Service can be through volunteering or it can be about making others benefit from your experience through our work. Dave Pelzer, the author of A Boy Called It, is an example of someone who survived hell and has devoted his life to help change the life of others. He uses public speaking and his writing to inspire others and to prevent that what happened to him will happen to others.

How do you fare in those three categories? If you have high quality relationships and your life has meaning, there is a good chance that you will not be an easy prey for the commercialism that surrounds the various "special days" of the year and is especially strong around Valentine's Day. If on the other hand you feel you are consistently "less happy" than "more happy", and you have enough money and stuff, the solution is to look at the categories of engagement and meaning and take action to improve those scores, instead of making the pleasure category "the whole cake" with more stuff. It's like taking an overdose of Vitamin B when what you need is Vitamin A. It will not solve the deficiency.

Is your main relationship strong and healthy? If it is, you may want to do something for your Sweetheart, as the icing on the cake. The card you will choose will express what you feel in your heart and you may want to read the card looking into her/his eyes expressing how you feel cherished and how much you value the relationship. If your relationship is healthy, you will celebrate and the celebration will add to your love, not substitute for it.

If on the other hand your relationship is not strong and healthy, you may simply ignore the occasion and just pretend that "you don't believe in those things" or you may do like many do, and compensate with expensive gifts and outings what's missing in depth and quality, because you are afraid to look deeper, you don't want to know the truth, you are afraid of being alone, etc.

Or this year, you may want to address what's not working in the relationship and vow to see what can be done to repair it (unless there is abuse of any kind, in which case I urge you to get out first and then get help).

Marguerite Tennier, M.A.
http://www.canadascoach.com

February is my birthday month and I usually treat myself to a day off. This year, I increased it to a full week of vacation just before my birthday. It's not just a week off. It's a week off without any specific plans. No have-to, must, need-to or should.

When is the last time you gave yourself this kind of gift. A week of free time to do just what you may not have taken the time to do. Here are some examples of indulging yourself:

- a massage
- a full day reading the stack of magazines or a great book
- a mid-week afternoon movie
- going swimming when everybody is still at work
- taking your watch off
- no alarm clock for a full week
- mid-day walks if the sun is shining
- lingering in the coffee shop after lunch
- mid-day snooze if the skies are grey
- hours checking the books at Chapters
- reminding yourself that it's ok not to "do" all the time
- speaking only with people who are kind hearted
- practicing meditation or yoga
- inviting a dear friend for dinner
- calling someone who you know cherishes you
- eating healthy 80% of the time and splurging 20%

Have a great week

Marguerite Tennier, M.A.,
http://www.canadascoach.com

Want to know more about the movie? Visit: http://www.whatthebleep.com

Marguerite

"Within each and everyone of us lies a source of wisdom also known as our Spirit."
Jennifer Louben, The Woman's Comfort Book.

Spirit is the opposite of Inner Critic or Gremlin. These last two are based in fear and while fear can protect us, it mostly shuts us down emotionally and we operate on "automatic" vs conscious. It makes us go back to familiar if not-very-good-for-us paths. Listening to your Spirit, your soul can be quite scary when you've avoided it all your life. How do you know Spirit? It's the voice that just won't be shut. It will tug at your sleeve until you listen.

P.S. I had the pleasure to be on a call last week where Cheryl Richardson interviewed Mark Vincente the producer of "What the Bleep do we know?" about the world of possibilities that most of us can only imagine. If you are in the Ottawa area, it's playing at the ByTowne on Tuesday, the 8th, at 4:15 p.m. Meet you there.

Marguerite Tennier
http://www.canadascoach.com

"If love does not know how to give and take without restrictions, it is not love but a transaction that never fails to lay stress on a plus and a minus."
Emma Goldman

"From nom on, let every action, every reaction, every thought and every emotion be based on love. Increase your self-love until the entire dream of your life is transformed from fear and drama to love and joy." Don Miguel Ruiz, author of The Four Agreements, and The Mastery of Love.

We get used to things and ways of being. We adapt. And adaptation is not good when we let ourselves get used to sub-standard love. Start practicing another way of being. Increase your self-love so you become used to a higher standard. Practice for at least six months, daily. It takes time to create new neural pathways in the brain. Then evaluate how far you've come and practice for another six months.

Marguerite Tennier, M.A.
http://www.canadascoach.com

P.S. I sent out a Press Release today about the new www.probonocoachingcanada.com If you have access to large organizations, associations in Canada and are willing to distribute it, let me know and I will send you a copy. Thanks

"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within u." W. Morrow

I was speaking with a client this morning about being the "Screener" in her life as opposed to being the "Screenee" as a way to get more true love into her life.
I gave her the example of when we shop at the grocery store. We wouldn't think of taking home a produce, chicken or a piece of meat because it was the only one left on the shelf. We normally take the time to inspect and look at the expiry date. That is unless we are starving and this is the only store around and our fride is empty. And if you have ever been sick with some kind of food, you know how long it takes to risk eating that food again, if ever.

However, when it comes to relationships, if our emotional fridge is empty, we often act as though this is the only "love" we will ever find. We don't inspect to evaluate whether this is the same kind of "love" that got us sick before, or if it shows signs of toxic mould (people who criticize you, your appearance, put you down, make off-hand jokes, use you, laugh at you, how you look, what you are trying to accomplish, etc., etc., etc.)

In this month of Love, is your emotional frideg empty? What would fill it? Loving friends and family are good staples along with love for yourself and creative pursuits. Being involved in your community as a volunteer will also help fill your fridge. If you don't have enough of those, what can you do this week to stock up?
Re-connect with "good stock" people, call a family member who loves and supports you, find a creative pursuit, buy and read an inspiring book?

Mostly, be aware when you are about to "buy" because of fear.

Marguerite Tennier
http://www.canadascoach.com

Only say "I love you" when you mean it and when you mean it, say it a lot.
Author unknown

Marguerite Tennier, M.A.
http://www.canadascoach.com

Visit: http://www.ordinarywords.com/love/index.html for a short What is Love? movie

Marguerite
http://www.canadascoach.com