Coaching for Life

I am a writer, speaker, stress buster, life coach, problem solver, people empowerer, laughter lover, dedicated saboteur disarmer, hypnotherapist, inspiration generator, insight seeker and genius finder! But it wasn’t always this way. There was a time in my life when I could have written a thesis on ‘101 Ways to Shoot Yourself in the Foot Effortlessly!’ My life needed a drastic make-over.

So I enrolled with the School of Natural Health Sciences (SNHS Ltd), and began a journey that would completely transform my life. After qualifying in Corporate and Professional Stress Management, I was hooked. Hypnotherapy and Life Coaching followed.

Collaborating with The School has not only enriched my own life beyond measure but equipped me to facilitate profound insights and healing in the many, many people I have worked with, and readers of my books, articles and blogs.

You see, being severely stressed and out of control can be good for a laugh as a TV sitcom, but constant hyperactivity (as the statistics for stress related illness testify) does not work as sustainable lifestyle choice! Yet for many it is a way of life. We just assume stress is inevitable.

It is not. Our minds, bodies and emotions weren’t designed with perpetual motion in mind. Sustained stress eventually ruins relationships, plays havoc with our health, sabotages parenting skills, derails careers and seriously handicaps our potential for success and prosperity.

Sadly, many of us have become so divorced from our DNA that we no longer read the warning signs—until disaster strikes. Becoming too technologically dependent can severely twist our expectations and time frames too. We expect everything to happen at the speed of software—immediate gratification and instant manifestation. If it doesn’t happen, we throw our hands in the air and sink into an abyss of despair. We’re relating better to our PCs than to people. Our emotional intelligence skills are becoming obsolete.

But stress is a necessary messenger. It delivers a valuable warning—that our life is out of whack! Anxiety, pain, confrontation or illness is our body’s way of attracting our attention in a world that bombards us with a constant barrage of information and expectation.

But wait! Today’s stressors aren’t exactly up there with living in a cave, eking out a living through hard labour in sub zero temperatures wearing animal skins, with ten hungry mouths to feed and dinosaurs to dodge, like our ancestors is it? So wouldn’t you think that our relatively safe and luxurious lifestyles would make stress obsolete?

The trouble is that our unconscious minds are still standing at the entrance to that cave planning how to outwit dinosaurs, evade fatal outbreaks of disease, and survive wars and starvation. Thanks to technology (wonderful tool that it is) we can now tune into the whole planet’s stress—and we do—every day, constantly triggering the stress arousal buttons in our brains—imagining worst case scenarios and instinctively over reacting to stimuli without question.

Given what many of us feed our senses on a daily basis, a low grade (and sometimes not so low grade) state of anxiety is becoming a socially accepted norm. We’re constantly on the alert—expecting disaster. Judging by the frequency with which we obsessively trigger the stress arousal buttons in our brains, it seems that this bowel loosening buzz is not only becoming normal, but even a socially desirable dysfunction. Anxiety is becoming the recreational drug of choice!

The anticipatory foreplay of fear induced by your imagination visualizing Forthcoming Attractions of catastrophic outcomes (not actual events) eventually takes on a life of its own— generating higher and higher levels of anxiety, over which you eventually have no control.

Most of our assumptions of impending doom are way over exaggerated. Life is not inherently more stressful these days. It’s our inability to unplug, gain perspective, evaluate our reactions and understand how the stress mechanism works that makes it seem that way. Our lives are being dictated by everyone except us.

But we can choose how we interpret and interact with the world around us. Once you know how it works, stress can no longer enslave you and squeeze the joy out of life. When you enlist professional help to shine a light on your psychological blind spots (you know those unproductive belief and behavior patterns that are as visible as an elephant at five meters to everyone—except you) the clarity, power and potential that was there all along is unleashed. Those belief viruses are all that’s stopping you. The unhealthy habits, lack of knowledge or confidence, laziness or lethargy, fears and excuses and dependency on pay-offs. Your own voice saying you’re not worthy or it’s impossible; your instinctive resistance to change.

There’s no need to constantly be on full alert. With all the expertise available to guide us through the rapids of life, we can afford to relax and reach out. I can’t tell you how often clients say “I wish I had known there was a way out of the darkness and confusion, I wish I had asked for help earlier, what you’ve shown me has totally transformed my life!” You don’t have to do this alone. Together we can reach a place of balance and safety. Together we can put the fun and excitement back into your life!

Pamina Mullins

Pamina has the following holistic therapy qualifications from The School of Natural Health Sciences (SNHS Ltd): SNHS Dip. (Hypnotherapy) & SNHS Dip. (Life Coaching).
SNHS Website: http://naturalhealthcourses.com/