Personal Growth
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Power of Gratitude: A Path to Personal Growth

You feel happy when you are appreciative of what you have. It feels wonderful on the inside to find joy in the small things in life. Having gratitude makes difficult situations easier to handle. It enables you to perceive the good rather than concentrate on the bad. Being appreciative makes you value your loved ones more, which deepens your relationship with them. It also strengthens your work ethic, allowing you to concentrate on moving forward rather than worrying about doing everything to the highest standard. Keeping a gratitude notebook where you record all the things you have to be grateful for is a terrific way to take a moment to reflect on all the beautiful things in your life. Although cultivating thankfulness requires effort, it has tremendous personal growth benefits. Begin the process of being grateful.

How gratitude helps you in personal growth

Role of Emotional Intelligence in Personal Growth

Embracing the Present: 

It’s simple to fall into the trap of in the cycle of striving for more. But being grateful makes us stop and notice how beautiful the moment is right now. By emphasising our possessions over our shortcomings, we build a sense of fulfilment and contentment that is the cornerstone for our personal growth. Gratitude is a practice that helps us expand what we can receive. Sometimes, we collect lots of things without really appreciating them. For example, how many people do you know who have everything they have dreamt of and yet are always unhappy or feel that they need more to feel happy? That is a sign that even though they have acquired a lot, they never really learned how to have it! Gratitude helps us digest what we have so that we can finally receive it. Without gratitude, it is all just empty calories.

Once we had a client at Nibana who sold his business for £1 million+. Throughout his life, he had been striving for success, and finally, he had achieved it. As soon as he sold his business, he started worrying about how to protect his million pounds. So, first, he was worried about making that money, and once he had made it, he was worried about keeping it. He couldn’t enjoy his success until he learned to be grateful for what he had.  Embracing our present not only makes our days more enjoyable but also helps us own who we truly are, and connect with others and ourselves on a more profound level, resulting in the development of lasting connections and personal growth.

Overcoming Obstacles to Gratitude:

Being grateful is amazing, but it’s not always easy. Our minds can get in the way and make it hard to feel thankful. Sometimes we have negative thoughts that bring us down. Other times we compare ourselves to others and feel jealous or like we don’t have enough. Feeling like we deserve more can also block us from being grateful. We can get past these challenges, despite their difficulty. Self-discovery is powerful too. It shifts how we see things. Being kind and understanding towards ourselves, instead of beating ourselves up, stops us from feeling inadequate or entitled. We can also practice shifting our focus away from what we don’t have and toward all the good things in our lives, even little things. It helps to write a gratitude diary in which we express our thanks for many things. Expressing our gratitude to family and friends also helps. We can feel grateful by pausing to breathe deeply and savour the here and now. Gratitude is a journey, though it’s not always easy. There will be fluctuations. We may teach our thoughts to be more thankful by utilising these techniques and confronting the challenges head-on. We’ll gradually discover just how powerful thankfulness is for our development.

Practising Gratitude in Daily Life

It’s important to include gratitude in our everyday routines regularly if we want to experience its transformational powers. To become second nature, thankfulness demands deliberate work and repetition, just like any other effective discipline. Maintaining a thankfulness diary is one effective practice. Expressing gratitude to others for their good influence on our lives, whether through a sincere message of appreciation, honest praise, or a kind deed, not only reshapes our relationships but also reaffirms our sense of thankfulness. Throughout the day, we can also cultivate gratitude through mindful moments. Rather than rushing through our routines, we can consciously pause and savor the present experience – the warmth of our morning coffee, the intricate patterns in nature, or the laughter shared with loved ones. We can enjoy the beauty and richness of each moment when we take these deliberate pauses that centre us in the present. People at Nibana experienced that, adopting thankfulness practices has changed everything. Spending a few minutes journaling or thanking a loved one immediately helps us in stress managment. Their burdens seem lighter when they remind themselves of all the many tiny and large blessings in my life.

Gratitude and Personal Growth:

Actively practising gratitude has the power to change our perspective on both the outside world and ourselves. First of all, thankfulness is a powerful tool for perspective-shifting. Even in difficult circumstances, we may teach our minds to perceive possibilities rather than barriers by emphasising the positive aspects of our lives. This mental adjustment strengthens our resilience, allowing us to overcome obstacles with hope and tenacity. A growth mentality, or the conviction that commitment and diligence can enhance our skills and intelligence, is also fostered by thankfulness. Gratitude also helps us develop Emotional Intelligence and and encourages a more profound sense of connection in relationships. Gratitude improves productivity, job happiness, and teamwork in the workplace. All things considered, practising thankfulness leads to personal growth and a more contented existence. For those who wish to learn how to be more appreciative in their lives, speaking with a life coach can be quite helpful. A life coach can provide personalised methods, accountability, and support to help clients start and maintain a consistent practice of gratitude. With their skills, people can use the transforming power of appreciation to reach their greatest potential and live more fulfilling lives.

Start Your Gratitude Journey Today

Are you ready to make your life better by being grateful? Its time to take some action! Writing and practicing gratitude is a skill in itself. Quite often, when we are practicing gratitude we stay in the superficial. Eg. I am grateful for food, air, my life etc etc., or we say ‘I am grateful to a person’, but we shy away from the specificity of what about that person has us feel grateful. What was their impact on us. A skilful way to practice gratitude is to write gratitudes in a way that you express what or whom you are grateful for, and also how did that person or thing impacted you. Let yourself remember the exact impact they have had on you. When you specific in feeling grateful, you transmit that into the world. You embody that sense of gratitude. If you want help with practising gratitude, book a session at Nibana. We will give you tips and support to make gratitude a habit.

Thanks for reading! Let’s make our lives happier by practicing gratitude together.

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Key Differences: Life Coaching vs. Therapy

Seeking personal growth or healing? Those facing obstacles often pursue life coaching or therapy. It might seem like they are interchangeable—merely branding differences. Some assume therapy connotes you’re broken, while coaching implies potential. Yet looking closer at those who have tried both reveals meaningful differences in focus, techniques, accountability, and outcomes. Essentially, life coaching employs tools and accountability through action plans to manifest goals and ambitions. It is like a personal trainer for your whole life. Therapy involves more processing of emotional wounds and the past as a healing guide. Both can catalyse growth, but they take distinct paths. Understanding the key variations allows for matching the process to individual needs. While coaching and therapy both aim to help overcome challenges, they diverge significantly in approach. Recognising distinctions assists in evaluating which serves best.

Key Distinctions Between Life Coaching and Therapy

Goal Orientation

The contrast emerges in orientation: life coaching fixates on the future while therapy dissects the past. Coaching rallies people to realise untapped potential through envisioning goals and then systematically building skills to achieve them. The coach cheers on the client’s ambitions without judgment. Therapy tends to diagnose and treat dysfunctional patterns that cause emotional suffering. The therapist helps confront pain buried in the past so the client can become unencumbered. While both aid in moving forward, coaching charges ahead fueled by visions of what is possible, while therapy reconciles what went wrong before.

Structure and Techniques

Life coaching employs an eclectic toolkit of exercises and assignments tailored to client goals, like improving time management or communication skills. More freeform than clinical approaches, coaching builds motivation along with capabilities. Therapy relies on established frameworks like assessments, diagnosis, and the formulation of treatment plans. Strict ethics codes govern the therapeutic relationship, while coaching allows more leeway. This enables coaching to flexibly respond to client needs, but therapy provides a grounded methodology.

Accountability and Action Plans

Coaches provide extensive accountability through action plans that map goals into achievable steps. Consistent tracking of progress is required to sustain momentum, leveraging the client’s strengths. Therapists also make recommendations, but emotional processing is the priority rather than the completion of tasks. Accountability looks different when the focus is on regulating mood versus manifesting ambitions. Coaching’s task orientation lights a fire under personal agency, while therapy seeks to stabilise before leaping boldly outward.

Developing Skills

Coaching builds concrete life skills such as optimising productivity, financial planning, communicating assertively, or delivering impactful presentations. By establishing new habits and competencies, clients achieve ambitious aims. Therapy hones the regulation of emotions, stress, and distortions about oneself or others. The focus is on coping versus external capability-building. Clients stabilise dysfunctional patterns that impact their quality of life. Life Coaching in London thus enhances performance, while therapy fosters functioning first.

Duration of Services

Coaching remains short-term, ceasing when clients integrate skills and accomplish deliberately outlined goals. Therapy persists, with no defined endpoint. Symptom fluctuations and new challenges emerge over time. Coaching sprints towards milestones contrasts with therapy’s marathon, which is dependent on evolving needs. Hence, duration diverges—coaching as intensive skill-building bursts or therapy’s open-ended processing.

Relationship

Coaching fosters a peer-like collaborative partnership. Therapy observes boundaries befitting the clinician-client relationship. Coaches afford more flexibility in discussing matters apart from advancements, while therapists ethically avoid dual relationships. Thus, coaches become more familiar while the therapists carefully safeguard professionalism. For some, befriending conveys care, while for others, distance denotes respect.

Outcomes

Coaching targets enhanced performance—whether career productivity, financial freedom, healthy relationships, or purpose alignment. Therapy seeks improved functioning via reduced symptoms like lessened anxiety or depression. Hence, coaching facilitates a life well lived through goal achievement, while therapy establishes preconditions for stability.

Choosing Between Life Coaching and Therapy

The decision to seek additional support for your personal growth is an important one. Both life coaches and therapists can provide immense value, but their fundamental approaches differ. Consider what you hope to achieve before deciding which professional is the best fit. 

Life coaches empower you to manifest the life you envision through goal-setting and strategic action plans. They motivate you to actualize your highest potential. If you know your destination but struggle with the roadmap, a coach may be ideal. 

Therapists illuminate self-awareness and support you through deep emotional work. They support you in overcoming mental challenges, processing difficult emotions, and healing from unhelpful past experiences. A therapist’s caring direction can put you on the road to inner peace, whether you’re dealing with trauma, loss, marital problems, or mental health concerns.

Choose the professional whose approach aligns with your personal growth goals. With an open heart and the right support, you can move forward into your brightest future.

Conclusion

The key takeaway is that life coaches and therapists both provide value but have different approaches. Life coaches empower you to set goals and take action to create the life you want. Coaching includes processing emotions, overcoming obstacles, and healing from past experiences, but the key difference between coaching and therapy is quite often that coaching is always forward looking and the aim is to get from A to B. It’s like when you take a taxi, you have to know where you are going and need to be able to tell your taxi driver your final destination. In therapy, you don’t need that. Therapists help you process emotions, overcome inner obstacles, and heal from past experiences. Before seeking support, reflect on your personal growth goals. Do you want to manifest an envisioned life? Or do you need to process complex feelings and heal from emotional wounds? Once you know what you hope to achieve, you can determine which professional is the best fit for your journey.

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How Self-worth Reshapes Our Relationship

All of us desire the joy of feeling good about ourselves. However, what happens when our belief in our worth is undermined? Can low self-worth affect our relationships with ourselves and with others?

Understanding Self-Worth

Self-worth isn’t just about feeling good; emotions, thoughts, and a sense of spiritual connectedness are all important components of self-worth. It is molded by our fundamental self-beliefs and life experiences. It’s similar to assembling a puzzle in which every piece completes the exquisite picture of the person you are.

It plays a big role in how satisfied we are in a relationship.

Relationship Dynamics

Despite their apparent differences, relationships and self-worth are closely intertwined. The quality of our connections is an indicator of our self-worth.

Not only romantic relationships but also those with family and friends influence how we feel about ourselves.

Each relationship aims to make the other person feel respected, protected, and supported. In closer relationships, like the romantic kind, there’s an extra layer. We all want emotional care—to feel wanted, accepted just as we are, and loved without conditions. Being part of something special makes us feel connected and not alone. 

Doesn’t everyone want that? 

When our connections make us feel seen, understood, and valued, our sense of self-worth benefits.  So, you see, relationships and self-worth do go hand in hand.

Impact of Self-Worth on Relationships

Our relationships can be significantly impacted by our sense of self-worth, or how much we respect and believe in ourselves. 

Poor self-esteem often impacts relationships. 

Let’s look at some of the common impacts of low self-worth on relationships:

Low self-worth breeds insecurity in relationships. We may constantly seek validation from our partner, needing constant reassurance that we are loved.

We may also become jealous more easily and anxious about our partner leaving us for someone better.

A lack of self-worth damages open and assertive communication. We may avoid expressing our true needs or feelings out of fear of rocking the boat. Or we may become passive-aggressive rather than discuss issues.

With low self-esteem, we compromise our values and boundaries too much to appease our partner. We minimise our own needs because we don’t feel worthy of having them met.

It’s been observed that people with poor self-worth are more likely to remain in unhappy relationships for a longer period of time than others.

In trying to win our partner’s approval and love, we lose touch with our passions and interests. We mold ourselves to what they want rather than being true to ourselves.

Low self-worth can cause us to idealise partners and ignore red flags. You may stay in bad relationships longer, thinking you can’t do better.

Lower self-esteem makes us more emotionally reactive with partners. Small issues trigger oversized reactions.

On the flip side, a strong sense of self-worth allows us to communicate assertively, set boundaries, maintain identity in relationships, and recognize when a dynamic is unhealthy. The value we place on ourselves is reflected in our connections. 

Boosting our self-esteem can profoundly improve our relationships.

Why self-worth important?

Experts say healthy self-esteem provides a foundation for emotional well-being and productive lives. People who esteem themselves are better equipped to cope with hardships, express their needs, realize their full potential, and build meaningful connections.

Psychologists emphasise self-worth because how we judge our worth permeates nearly everything we do.

It filters our perceptions, priorities, motivations, compassion, resiliency, and vision for what we deserve. When self-worth is skewed negatively, we operate from a place of insecurity, self-criticism, and fear. 

But when self-worth is healthy, we act with greater confidence, emotional intelligence, and belief in ourselves and others.

Though shaped in childhood, self-esteem can be improved through self-care practices, therapy, Relationship Coach, building self-awareness, cultivating empathy, correcting distorted thoughts, practicing self-love and gratitude, taking risks, and surrounding ourselves with supportive people. 

Making this inner work a priority gives us the foundation to create the relationships, well-being, and lives we truly want.

How can we improve our Relationships and self-worth?

Now we know all about how low self-esteem can drag down our connections, while healthy self-worth enhances them. 

I hope hearing what the expert says motivates you to start cultivating more self-love and positive beliefs about yourself. I know it’s not always easy! But you are worth the effort. 

Your inner critic is lying; you are intelligent, attractive, and interesting enough. Speak to yourself with the kindness and respect you’ve shown to someone else.

You deserve it!

Remember to appreciate all of the wonderful traits that make us who we are! List the qualities, abilities, values, and characteristics that define you. Reflect on your hopes and dreams. What do you appreciate about yourself? How have you overcome challenges? Hold onto all of this proof of your inherent worth.

The goal is not just any relationship, but one where we feel seen, appreciated, and able to grow. 
When our self-worth shines from within, we’ll attract people who respect our light. And we’ll have so much more to give them in return.

This cycle of love feeds itself when it starts from a place of valuing YOU.

Practice
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Why it is important that we redefine “Integrity”

Components of Integrity

  • Integrity is a big part of what emotional adulthood is about.

  • Integrity with ourselves and Integrity with others

  • Integrity to our words

  • Integrity to our desires, feelings, and emotions

  • Integrity to our impact on the world around us

     

Conditioned Masculine & Feminine

Far too often, we either use our feelings and desires and skip responsibility to our word i.e. we don’t take into account our impact on people and the world around us if we don’t follow through on our commitments. This is our propensity towards the conditioned feminine.

OR

We cling to our word aka commitments in such a way that we ignore our feelings and emotions and then torture ourselves in the process i.e. we do not practice self-love. This is our propensity towards the conditioned masculine.

In both cases, however, we are coming from a lack and acting out as an emotionally underdeveloped teenager while trying to act like an adult.

To be an emotionally mature and healthy adult means we need to be able to do both i.e. love ourselves & be true to our feelings, and be true to our word and commitment, and take responsibility for the impact of our actions on the world;

AND

When we make mistakes, clean up the mess we create.

AND

When we don’t know what we are doing, ask for help!

Every action and inaction has consequences and has an impact.

When we promise that friend that we will be there and then we don’t show up because we didn’t feel like it. It has an impact.

When we go against what our heart really wants and we do things just because we had committed, we have an impact.

It could feel like being stuck between a rock and a hard place.

What we often do, is, we either abandon ourselves and do things anyway because we have been conditioned (or trained) to be true to our word (This is pretty much how a lot of mindset coaching is about – “You are your word!”), or we abandon the idea of any kind of commitment because we believe any kind of structure is equivalent to a cage for our desire which needs to always feel free!

 

So, what is the answer?

I believe the answer is in the integration of the two.

A path that is an ongoing practice to live our lives in a way that we can stay true to our word and our heart simultaneously. When a situation arises that we can’t be true to one or the other, we use active communication and connection – both with people who are impacted by the change and with ourselves.

So, using the example above, if we promise a friend we will be there and we can no longer show up, then rather than just avoiding it we communicate and have an open and honest conversation about it. This also means that we own up to any impact we are going to have by changing the agreement. That is the courageous thing to do.

And, if we go meet that same friend because we made a commitment and even though what we truly desire is something else, then it’s our responsibility to have that conversation with ourselves and make sure that we don’t just abandon ourselves and our heart.

In the end, there is always an impact.

To be in integrity as an emotional adult is to be true to both our word and our feelings and emotions, to take ownership of the impact on others and on ourselves, and do whatever is needed to clean it up…..and also to be able to ask for help when you have no idea what you are doing 🙂

Mental Health
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Desire as your compass

In a conversation with a coaching client, we talked about how easy it is to fall into comfort.

The people we connect with, the jobs we do, our bland relationships, how we live our lives, our relationship to money – once we start getting habituated to our environment we can find comfort literally anywhere.

I remember 8 years ago when I moved from Edinburgh to London. I had rented a room in a shared flat for a short term online and when I first saw the room I was hugely disappointed. I thought I had made a terrible mistake by moving to London leaving behind 11 years of my life in Edinburgh.

However, within a few weeks of living there, I became very comfortable. In fact, I really enjoyed living there.

As humans, I feel that this applies to pretty much any area of our life. Once we become habituated to anything or anyone we find comfort in it.

“So, how do we break this cycle and move forward”, my client asked.

My experience is that the answer lies in a very simple and yet very powerful question. And that question is:

“What do I want?”

OR

“What kind of experience I would like to have?”

These questions may not seem very powerful, but they are huge pattern disrupters!

Here’s an important part though. At this stage, do not worry about HOW you will get what you want. Do not dwell on how difficult it is to get what you want, or how you are not capable enough or good enough to get it or become that person who can have it.

No!

Shush!!

Zip!!

Tell that part of your brain to shut up for a while! And only focus on WHAT, not the HOW! For now anyway!

As soon as you ask yourself this question, you get to realise whether you are aligned to who you are and how you want to live your life.

When you do that you align your being to your desire and desire becomes your compass for growth, excitement and new adventures!

And you get to break the pattern or the vicious habituated cycle of mediocrity!

The role of Archetypes in understanding ourselves
Practice
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The role of Archetypes in understanding ourselves

I have always been a big fan of learning about Archetypes ever since I started my own personal growth journey.

Archetypes really helped understand different facets of my own unconscious behaviours that I wasn’t in approval of and didn’t want to even acknowledge or see.

In her book – ‘Sacred Contracts’, Caroline Myss proposes that all of us have agreed to play out an energetic contract even before we are born, and the way we play out these contracts is based on how we live our lives.

The roles we play in our lives and how we relate to others and the world around us.

It is as if that in every connection we make we are playing out an already existing contract.

The way I have related to archetypes in my own journey is that there are all of these places that I was unconscious of, or didn’t approve of, within myself.

I understood them as my subconscious patterns or my shadow. I was (and am) confronted (or triggered) by these parts when I discovered them or someone pointed them out to me.

I had to investigate these behaviour and patterns and understand what was happening. I learnt about the shadow aspect of it and their exalted forms. For example, where do I play the role of a victim, or when I am at work I have to play the role of a good employee or a manager or a businessman. At home, I am in the role of a husband, a partner, a lover etc. And then in terms of shadow what am i ashamed of, what is my relationship with submission/domination etc.

A lot of people have covered the idea of Archetypes – there’s the 4 divine masculine archetypes: King, Warrior, Magician, Lover. Jung talks about 12 different archetypes based on our own unconscious and the collective unconscious. The Archetypes of the Enneagram. There are also different types of personality tests.

However, all of these, I believe, are a way of understanding:

  • Our own unconscious relationship to self

  • Our unconscious behaviour in relation to other people and the world

  • A collective unconscious that is being lived through us

So, the work becomes about understanding what is in our subconscious or unconscious mind and why are we not in approval of that part of us. The more we shine light on those parts the more we have to figure out how to be in approval of them.

What I really find interesting in Caroline Myss’ work is that there is a sense that in the collective energy these archetypal patterns already exist, and, we as humans, are the manifestation of these archetypal patterns. Through our lives and our interactions we are bringing something that was in the unconscious into the conscious.

There is also a sense that the transmutation and the alchemical process of bringing the collective unconsciousness into consciousness is part of some grand energetic unfolding, and we are all connected to each other and in our unique way solving the small size of the puzzle by bringing parts of collective unconscious into conscious.

When we look at life from this lens our lives become a journey of living our sacred contract via understanding of our own archetypes; and the reward for our soul – for doing our part and executing our sacred contract – is Eternal Bliss i.e. Nibana 🙂

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