Coaching

“I feel like I’m on auto pilot – unconsciously going through the motions of my work and my life”.

“I have nothing left to give when I come home to my family. I am always rushing, I am always falling short and I loose my temper so easily and then spend the rest of the night feeling guilty”.

“I want to start my own business but I’m so burnt out from my current work that I never make the time”.

“I used to love my job but now I keep getting caught up in negative office politics and feel like I’m lost in a toxic workplace”.

“I’ve lost confidence in my ability to help others and have lost hope in people’s ability to change”.

“I hate my job but feel trapped and too exhausted to try anything new”.

“How can I help others if I feel so lost myself”

If you recognize yourself in any of the statements above you may be suffering from complications of burnout, which are a result of unrelenting and continual stress. If you are in the helping professions you may have the added dimension of compassion fatigue and/or vicarious trauma.

We spend a great deal of our time at work. Once you include commuting time, and the proliferation of electronic means of contact, such as blackberry’s, pagers, cell phones, email, we rarely “turn off” our work mode and consequently have much less down time.

Speaking of down time, we even work while on vacation. While the numbers vary, as many as 1 in 2 workers check their work voice mail and email while on vacation. Lay offs, downsizing, fewer federal dollars, all add up to more work being done by fewer people. Nearly 1 in 3 Canadians have reported most workdays to be “quite” or “extremely stressful”. MOST workdays! So what does that mean?

Work related stress, career strain, work/life imbalance, compassion fatigue, occupational hazards, occupational pressures, vicarious trauma, burnout; no matter what you call it there are serious side effects if left untreated. Chronic stress leads to physical, emotional and psychological symptoms. (See Coaching page for a list of symptoms).

I work with my clients to reduce current stress inputs, to implement realistic stress relief strategies and to enhance their stress resiliency in order to make them more resistant to future occurrences of burnout.

The time to relax is when you don’t have time for it. ~Attributed to both Jim Goodwin and Sydney J. Harris

My family on Long Beach, BC

Have you heard the saying “A change is as good as a rest?”.  This weekend I found that to be totally true.  We spent a lovely night in Peterborough, Ontario.  Our daughter was able to spend the night with her grandparents which is pretty much akin to a spa visit for her, she comes back clean, well rested and happy, and we had a glorious night out, enjoying great food, fine wine and 54-40.  Yes you got it, come on, you remember, “Every time I look at you I go blind”.

If I could have tweeted and added a picture you would have seen yours truly dancing on stage like it was 1992!  Seriously, it was too much fun, but sadly it isn’t 1992, so that meant we made it back to our lovely bed and breakfast in time to fall asleep in front of Saturday night live, the shame!

Even one night away, walking unfamiliar city blocks, enjoying new restaurants and sleeping in a new place (and of course not walking up early to the demands of an enthusiastic toddler, was a very restorative experience.

Highlights:

The 2004 Rioja and the tapas at Elements on King

The catfish at Hot Belly Mama’s on George street

All the seeing and being seen at Kubo Lounge (and I got to try a Lebanese red, very nice)

The King Bethune Guest House and Spa

Throw in a free zoo, complete with great play areas, splash park and monkeys and I’m thinking this city at the base of the Kawartha’s is a total gem.

The term balance is getting a lot of play these days.  Attaining the perfect balance has practically become an Olympic event and about as attainable too.  I remember a time when you could admit you were stressed an people would be sympathetic, now I find that there is a subtle or not too subtle lecture that emerges, “you’re doing too much” or “you need to find better balance”.  So what’s the deal?

It is April and at the University and to put it mildly it’s a big month, it is not the time of the year when I recommend “striking a healthy balance” to my clients.  They are job seeking, saying goodbye to friends, dealing with family pressures, completing huge projects and trying to prepare for exams.  My motto for April is “Eat, Sleep, Breath”  (Thank you to Brenda M for this life line).

Balance is a relationship between our lives and our health, in order for the relationship to be healthy and fulfilling it needs attention and respect but can not require constant nurturing, if you can do that, excellent but for most of us it just isn’t practical to tell your child that this is not her week to get sick. So how can we attract a better balance?  Here are a few ideas.

1.  Do your best.  What absolutely needs to be attended to today, this week, this month? Prioritize one personal goal, make it small and manageable.  (10 minute walk 3 times this week, buy a bag of apples and eat one every day on the way to work, say no to one thing that you don’t want to do, read one chapter of a book you have been eager to read). [click to continue...]

Since 1999 I have been working with University students, helping them deal with various issues including; school/life balance, 1/4 life crisis, managing stress and anxiety, dealing with body and mood related issues and helping them find their first jobs.

The amount of stress faced by a college/university student these days is unbelievable.  This stress compared to the cultural idea that being a student is a breeze means that students often feel like their problems are not taken very seriously which can lead to further feelings of isolation and despair.

While my clients at the University are all different, there are themes that come up again and again, and I thought I would try to create a resource of articles and strategies in a section of this blog for students who are feeling like something needs to change.  If there is something you would like me to post about please send an email with your question to robin@lifeinspired.ca and I’ll do my best to either write about it myself or refer you to a good resource.

Wishing you much joy and a fulfilling life beyond school.

This is my most cherished hope for my clients, that through our work they will believe in the impossible again.  Most of my clients are in the helping professions and begun their work with a version of this dream “to make the world a better place”.  Coping with economic downturns, dealing with clients in grip of hopelessness and chronic crisis, and facing their own disillusionment with the helping field, has pushed many of them further from this dream. 

Becoming inspired again is often the goal they bring to our sessions.  This inspired me this morning and I wanted to share it with you. 

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/hans_rosling_reveals_new_insights_on_poverty.html

Do you ever find that time away from home is as much a vacation from yourself as it is a vacation from your work?  On a recent vacation to the mountains of Alberta I found myself reading more and thinking less. 

Three things that I love about being away from home. 

1.  I don’t watch tv

2.  I pay close attention to nature

3.  I check my email and cell once a day at the most

These are all things that I could bring home with me.  I’m going to use this picture as inspiration.  What three things do you like best about yourself on vacation?  How could you bring those home with you? 

Celebrate what you want to see more of.  Thomas J. Peters

The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate.  Oprah Winfrey

I can’t believe it’s over.  We did it, 21 days. 

I keep sitting down to post this last blog and I realize that as hard as these 21 days have been I’m unconsciously putting off letting it go. So today I just decided to let it be, to continue to come back to my unfinished post, to spend some time in rest and spend some time reading, some time with my daughter and see what grabs me. I ran across this blog ( http://www.thechangeblog.com/celebrating-your-success/#more-1022) and was inspired by Peter’s honesty and ideas.

I found him because it was my intention to post on the importance of celebrating. My clients are impressive people and most of them don’t realize it. It’s like they created an idea of themselves at a low point in their lives and stuck with it. They haven’t updated their life resume so to speak. Part of our work is to help them update their perception of themselves, see their accomplishments and recognize their strengths.  One of the ways to do this is to celebrate, like when you were young, you celebrated learning to walk, talk, add, subtract, etc.  When a child does something new and people say WOW, the child doesn’t usually say, it was nothing, she/he grins and claps along with everyone else. 

I was moved by Peter’s idea of taking 10 minutes each month to list his accomplishments, things he is proud of. I began to keep a “portfolio” when I started my consulting business, in the beginning it was only because many organizations asked for a cv and mine was never up to date. I finally dug out a three hole punch and some plastic sleeves and started dumping all the workshops and training certificates I accumulated so they would be in one place. From time to time I have to look through the binder for something and can’t believe how much I have done in the past few years; how many workshops I have written and run, how many others I have attended.  Thank you for hanging in for the 21 days with me.  As always, I learned more than I taught.  I think that I’ll write a “beyond the 21 days” post, but I won’t promise to do it tomorrow.  Tomorrow I’m going to celebrate by taking a day off, counting my blessings and hanging with my daughter. 

If there was a topic that you were hoping I would write about but didn’t feel free to send me a note and I’ll try to put it up for you. 

A conclusion is simply the place where someone got tired of thinking.  Arthur Block

 Simplify, simplify.  Henry David Thoreau

Is there a way that you can simplify your own goal on a day that you need rest?  Break up your 30 minute walk into 10 minute segments, do yoga with your little one, take time out to watch a funny movie. 

It has been such a busy week and I have been surprisingly successful with some of my goals so I decided to give myself permission to “phone in” today’s blog.  Basically to cheat a little today, take the easy way out, you know, make it really simple.  I thought I would just send you to my friend Francoise’s blog, check her out at http://compassionfatiguesolutions.blogspot.com/  [click to continue...]

If you can’t feed a hundred people, then feed just one. Mother Theresa
Being inspired to give back is a timely subject today as the holiday season approaches and Monday December 1st is World Aids Day.  Charities such as The Stephen Lewis Foundation ask people to consider donating a day’s wages to the cause.
Today’s question is How can we make a contribution inspires us, serves others and doesn’t exacerbate our day to day stress.  People who are happy tend to do volunteer work, people who are burnt out tend to do volunteer work. So what gives? Giving back offers immeasurable benefits but it can also be an added source of stress for people who spend too much of their time helping others. An imbalance occurs that the body tries to rectify, often the body redresses this imbalance by creating a serious health concern which can hamper a person’s ability to work at all (stress leaves are dramatically on the rise).

Most of my coaching clients are in the helping industry (including nurses, counsellors/counselors, social workers, family lawyers, or students in these professions).  Helping others seems to be built into their DNA and most of them strongly value volunteer work.

When a helper wants to journey toward healing the wounds of vicarious trauma, compassion fatigue or burnout we look closely at all the areas of his/her life where trauma is the subject.  Many helpers volunteer in the same area that they do their paid work, for example, consider the shelter worker who volunteers for a sexual assualt crisis line on the weekends.  She also cares for young children and aging parents.  As part of the work we do together I might ask a client in this position to consider scaling back volunteer efforts in the short term so the healing can begin and she can regain her sense of hope and contribution.

This doesn’t mean that your efforts to change the world need to cease, perhaps just re-directed.  How about finding a new and interesting way to contribute?  There are so many possibilities, what about doing something completely different then what you do for paid work.  How about helping out in a classroom like my friend Elspeth does with www.seedsofempathy.org or become a “whoofer” and work on an organic farm www.wwoof.org or adopt a child through an organization like www.worldvision.ca, join the food drive once or twice a year and take your family with you rather than spending your evenings volunteering all year.  I make a charitable donation each time I take on a new client and for holiday gifts ask for donations to a cause we believe in.

The message is about balance and wellness, take care of yourself and then take care of others.  Yes just like the oxygen mask on the airplane, it is an overused analogy but a good one.  If you are travelling with a child and the oxygen masks need to be used you must put yours on first so that you have the energy to help your small companion.

In what ways are you inspired to give back?  How can you celebrate the contributions you have already made to making this world a better place?  Don’t forget about the love and support you offer in your own small circle, every act of kindness is a charitable act.

If you want to read more about what research shows makes people happy try this fantastic book by Martin Seligman. All proceeds from any book sales generated from my site or my blog are donated to www.stephenlewisfoundation.org

Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment