Fostering Flow: Part 1 of 3

When I talk of experiencing Flow, what exactly do I mean?

Flow is anchored in fueling my core energy with Love, Respect, Curiosity, Compassion and Gratitude. For myself, every being, every encounter, every experience. When I live that way, even for just a moment, Flow is my word for the effort-less, stress-less, joy-filled result.

My life becomes a fluid Journey to Wholeness grounded in Who I am Being NOT What I am Doing.

Sound cool but a bit too woo-woo? A delightful goal but impossible to attain? Flow doesn’t have to remain a mystery. It’s completely attainable with the help of some simple, practical tools.

Here are the first five tools to boost your ability to minimize stress and foster Flow:

1: Pay Attention – If you don’t recognize you’re feeling stressed, you can’t change it. Practice mindfulness by noticing what you’re feeling and figuring out why.

2: Breathe – Next time things start getting a little crazy, stop, take three deep breaths, become fully present, restore sanity and realize you have options. Your brain needs oxygen to function effectively. Try setting a timer on your phone or pc to remind you periodically to stop, close your eyes for a minute and just breathe.

3: Be Here Now – Forget rehashing the past and agonizing over the future. This moment is your only real opportunity to make a difference. Just you, just here, just now, just be.

4: Opportunity Knocks – While life won’t always follow your plans and expectations, everything in life is an opportunity. An opportunity to understand yourself better and open your heart wider — to develop greater compassion for yourself and others. While the details of our lives differ, we all experience the same range of emotions from fear, frustration and loneliness to joy, contentment and peace. With yourself firmly planted in the present moment, it’s your ability to respond creatively and constructively that makes the difference.

5: Get Curious – If everything’s an opportunity, where might the opportunity be in this situation. The Universe is far more creative than we can imagine. So assume the best and look for the silver lining in even the darkest cloud.

About djwlifecoach

I am retired from 40+ years of helping individuals and teams build lives and organizations they love. One of the great joys of my retirement from professional practice is having greater bandwidth to donate my professional and creative talents to support and promote animal and social welfare charities. During my 30 years as an organization transformation consultant, I served as a senior partner in four of the world’s largest, most prestigious global professional services firms. In 2005, I took a five-year sabbatical to find healing and peace because non-stop work had taken its toll. My recovery from burnout led to finding my purpose guiding others on their journeys. As a board-certified coach, author, consultant, radio host, Reiki Master and EFT/tapping practitioner, I share hope, possibilities and empowerment with the world. 111419 DJW Sid CH Pet Corner Photo ShootI help clients achieve rapid, extraordinary, sustainable results by connecting who they are with what they do, a connection often lost through stress and the sheer busy-ness of daily life. Courageous self-awareness and unconditional self-love lead to honest choices based on priorities that nurture you and those around you on a journey to wholeness. Decades in coaching, consulting, change management, organization development, human resources and mixed media artistic expression honed my business sense, professionalism, creativity, intuition, leadership and communication skills. The result? Practical tools that help you become more insightful, creative, committed, productive and fulfilled. Even the most dedicated and hard-working individuals can shift from frustration to a sense of futility when their values, passion, work, and lives become disconnected. One of the problems with not taking care of our health is that the effects of ignoring it are often slow to show up. We continue to juggle family responsibilities, work and finances until we lose ourselves, waking up one day 50 pounds heavier in body and soul—no good to ourselves or anyone else. I love working with people who are ready to take life-changing action to make their dreams a reality. At each moment, you have inside you all the wisdom you seek to choose your life and your way of showing up. Limiting thoughts, beliefs and feelings can block you from moving forward. An absence of love and concern for yourself can result in negative head talk that holds you back with discouraging messages about who you are and what you can do. By listening and caring deeply, I guide you in connecting with your own inner wisdom. We identify the way you’d like to live. We determine what’s blocking you and release you from the hold those blocks have over you—unleashing the positive energy that will fuel you forward. Together we develop a plan to move you closer to your heart’s desire. My books, blog, radio show and signature coaching programs help individuals and organizations harness the transformative energy of love to turn unexplored possibilities into fulfilling realities and step into their greatness. What’s love got to do with it? Everything! My book, Choose Your Energy: Change Your Life! (Hay House/ Balboa Press 2013) shares my story and the stories of 10 of my clients along with my signature Discovery Framework. For fun, I love reading, sewing, knitting, yin yoga, afternoon tea, opera and movies. I live in Williamsburg, Virginia with my spouse, Wilson Abney, and the cat who runs our life, Maisy Jane.

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