I have been pushing past my point of comfort for a long time now. It doesn’t come easy to me but somehow I need to keep doing it.
Two parts live in me: The Unstoppable Go-Getter and The Rocking Chair Woman.
The Unstoppable Go-Getter is the one who dreams the dreams and carries them out. ... Views: 1242
A caregiver is:
“someone who is involved in helping someone else manage the tasks of living” (A. H. Zimmer)
Parents care for young children, and adult children are often caregivers for their elders, who have become frail and more dependent.
There’s a wide range of what constitutes caregiving. ... Views: 1174
I’ll love you forever,
I’ll like you for always,
as long as I’m living
my baby you’ll be.” by Robert Munsch
The Sunday before last I was pushing my mother along the sidewalk in her wheelchair to Starbucks where we often go for tea. She can walk, but not quite that ... Views: 1025
A caregiver is:
“someone who is involved in helping someone else manage the tasks of living” (A. H. Zimmer)
Parents care for young children, and adult children are often caregivers for their elders, who have become frail and more dependent.
There’s a wide range of what ... Views: 1046
According to the popular ideal, a “feminine” woman controls or contains her emotions, body size, shape and reproductive system. And this particular control is particularly threatened, or at least in question, during menopause. Not surprisingly, one of the most common feelings ... Views: 1358
Friday morning I was privileged to be part of a teleconference with Martha Beck. We talked about many things but with all the energetic changes going on right now, I’d like to address that subject.
I’m always recommending to everyone, (including myself) that we take the time to ... Views: 1050
In the Vancouver Sun this past Friday there was an article on bodysnarking, a term I was unfamiliar with. I knew women were cruel to other women about bodies and body image, I just didn’t know it was this formallized, I guess I could say.
According to the article,
“bodysnarking ... Views: 1146
This article was prompted by a conversation I had with a woman seeking coaching earlier this week. She feels ready to move ahead in her life. However something serious is holding her back. She feels there’s lots of positive happening in her life and also is aware of quite a bit of anguish ... Views: 979
“If a woman understood that ‘what I create has nothing to do with what anybody else is creating’, then she wouldn’t be so afraid of what others are doing” Abraham
Do you have a tendency to compare yourself to others to see if you match up? I do. When the money ... Views: 1002
You know the expression ‘we’re creatures of habit’? It’s believed that change is difficult, perhaps even impossible, as we keep on with our old ways of operating in the world. But it’s important for many good reasons (such as changing what makes us miserable and ... Views: 1214
Most of us say we want to change our lives, and I think we all mean it, to varying degrees, but are we actually willing to do the work necessary to make significant, permanent change?
Everyone has hear of paradigm shifts. A paradigm shift is a complete change in thinking or belief system that ... Views: 835
Have you seen the tv commercial that focuses on a woman stuck in bumper-to-bumper highway traffic with her partner and kids? She squirms and looks very uncomfortable, embarrassed and maybe even in pain. Suddenly a porta-potty floats gently down from the sky! The woman relaxes and smiles, and a ... Views: 859
Did you know that when we’re old our kids, doctors, pharmacist, grocery delivery guy, etc., etc. may be able to watch us in our home? It’s true, with the robots that are being tested now, amazing things can happen by the time we’re old.
Not only will the robots be able to ... Views: 1432
When we are simply being we are in the flow. When I was in group therapy in the 80’s in the Toronto area,The flow of life on the Ganges River, Varanasi, India - the city of living & dying the facilitator told us about different stages of development, including ‘being’ and ... Views: 2097
In the May 2008 issue of Oprah there was an article that asked many well-known individuals from all walks of life: What’s a Moment That Defined Spirituality for You?
Edward Espe Brown, author of The Tassajara Bread Book, was quoted as saying:
“When I cut open a red pepper and a ... Views: 816
“One person caring about another represents life’s greatest value.”
Jim Rohn
My mother never wanted to be dependent on anyone, but by age 76 the demands of caring for herself amidst her growing confusion became overwhelming. She left her beloved apartment on the beautiful ... Views: 1176
“The woman who survives intact and happy must be at once tender and tough. She must… be in the unending process of convincing herself, that she, her values, and her choices are important…The pressure upon women to yield their rights-of-way is tremendous. And it is under those ... Views: 876
Many of us are dealing with health issues and/or aging issues nowadays - our own, our family members’ and our friends. It’s tough to take care of ourselves when we have to take care of others, when we feel scared and anxious. The first things to go are our routines.
I’ve ... Views: 1064
I was going to title this Loving Our Bodies, but decided that might be going a bit too far! Since most of us have issues with various parts of our bodies, I reckon that liking is probably as good as it gets, and that’s okay. Anyway, the Love your body slogan has been overused for ... Views: 847
Are you someone who likes to hold onto things? By this I mean your emotional hurts, slights, wounds, upsets? I am. Certainly I’ve improved a lot over the years, but I’m not there yet - not even close I’d say. Lately things have been coming up in various ways to help me dissolve ... Views: 899
Recently I read one of Anita Rau Badami’s novels, set both in India and Vancouver, BC. In the book she writes a passage about Indra, the Goddess of Heaven. In it Badami describes how Indra flung a net over the world. Here’s a quote from the story:
“Its shining strands ... Views: 1068
If you wear blue glasses, everything you see looks bluish. If you wear scarce or limited glasses, the world seems that way to you and you think, emote and act that way.” Frederick Mann
This works the same way in reverse: When we wear abundance glasses, we view the world as a place where ... Views: 1024
Life doesn’t have to be a struggle. Life doesn’t have to be a race down the fast lane.
I know, you’ve probably heard that before, but that doesn’t negate it. By cutting here, pasting there, snipping here, you can cobble together a life that uplifts you more.
Please take ... Views: 1062
My family and I have watched our mother slowly slide into an Alzheimer’s decline over the past 12 years. She (and we) are lucky though. She is still surprisingly present and engaged with life, even though she can seldom string a proper sentence together. It’s been a surprisingly slow ... Views: 1117
Every year on March 10th, the anniversary of the initial Chinese invasion of Tibet, there are protests by Tibetans all around the world. This year things are different. The protests are bigger and bolder in China, perhaps because of the coming of the Olympics.
China’s profile is higher in ... Views: 891
Now that we’ve made the decision to modify our lives so we can travel more and work in different parts of the world, my partner and I have ramped up our financial discussions. As part of the non-pension- holding baby boomer set, we’ve often felt over the past few years that if we ... Views: 782
"How might your life have been different if there had been a place for you?...A place of women to help you find and trust the ancient flow already there within yourself...waiting to be released..."
- Judith Duerk
Lately I have been thinking about centering a lot. The maze of midlife can be ... Views: 931
Today at brunch we ran into my dear friend Jean who is 88 years old. We met singing in a church choir several years ago; she’s still there, I left. Jean is one of the strongest and most positive people I have ever known.
I actually had a note in my appointment book to call her and visit ... Views: 998
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The Quick Fix - by Ellen Besso - Coach for Women navigating the midlife maze
It’s easy to want and expect a quick fix for our problems when we live in a results-oriented, concrete society such as ours. But there is no quick fix.
This doesn’t mean we need years of therapy; it simply means we must pay attention to our internal lives, not just the externals. We ... Views: 769
At first this book didn’t seem to speak to me. I thought it was for younger women (Elizabeth Gilbert was in her early 30’s when she wrote it). But as I got further into the Italy section, I realized that her appeal is actually much broader. Gilbert understands and articulates a basic ... Views: 949
“The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.”
Ayn Rand
My Vision Statement is:
* To coach by telephone or in-person from anywhere in the world, offering both volunteer and paid services to help women empower themselves ... Views: 824
"Most people are so completely identified with the voice in the head - the incessant stream of involuntary and compulsive thinking and the emotions that accompany it - that we may describe them as being possessed by their mind. As long as you are completely unaware of this, you take the thinker ... Views: 2147
Most of us want to be happy. We want a life we can feel excited about on an ongoing basis. We want to manifest our dreams and become our true selves. In order to live the life we were meant to live, we need to “get in the flow” and stay in it as much as we can.
This requires that we ... Views: 893
We are the sandwich generation…caught between our aging parents and young adult children often. How to be everything to everyone? It’s simple - we can’t be! And the person who falls through the cracks is usually the one who’s doing the parenting of both the elders and the ... Views: 885
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Slow Down... - by Ellen Besso - Coach for women navigating the midlife maze
Today the snow covers the roads and the trees. The local public school is open, but the school bus couldn’t come down the hill to lower Gibsons. So the kids on our street stayed home and made a great snowman, complete with scarf, hat and a carrot nose. The snow was just right for ... Views: 1148
This year I missed planting my bulbs in the fall as I was away on my India trip. The re-entry to home life took time, then holidays intervened. So I bought the tulip bulbs last weekend. Some people say you can plant them up to the end of January here on the west coast. But Diana at the nursery ... Views: 894
The above quote is Charla Krupp’s message to all women from her new book How Not to Look Old. The sad thing is there’s some truth in this! We do live in a superficial society where snap judgements are made according to appearance.
But does this mean we have to buy into the trend and ... Views: 908
This one’s for the women who don’t really feel like doing anything! Well, not any of their normal activities anyway.
At the workshop I gave last Saturday I asked women to write down everything they had to do, including social activities, over the next few days, then rate them very ... Views: 771
The women I speak to and read about often say that they feel overwhelmed with their lives. Career, kids, partner, home. Where is the time for me they ask? But is this question really a call for change or is it a rhetorical question?
Could it be similar to the way many women respond to ... Views: 883
"There can be no peace as long as there is grinding poverty, social injustice, inequality, environmental degradation, and as long as the weak and small continue to be trodden by the mighty and powerful."
Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama
As I view the poverty of India ... Views: 1006
Women fight or attempt to avoid perimenopause and menopause because our culture offers us no context from which to consider what is happening to us body, mind and soul. Our mothers’ generation didn’t really have a frame of reference for it either. But many years ago, some cultures ... Views: 1968
How do we balance our bodies, our minds and our spirits? You know those wheels that help us delineate the ‘slice’ of time we spend on various activities such as work, social, kids and partners etc. Well perhaps we could divide the pie into body, mind and spirit segments and track the ... Views: 1118
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Life Purpose - by Ellen Besso - Life Coach for Women
Who will I be when I grow up? Many of us kind of bumble along in life, going with the flow, without firm plans or goals. Others have a clearly delineated pathway from an early age. There’s no right or wrong way to do this. We need to find the right balance for us between being totally ... Views: 831
“Our dreams can help us at this time more than ever. They are indicators of deep desires, of where we want to take our lives.” Ellen Besso
It is time to visit my women’s cavern. I haven’t been there in a ... Views: 889
“ Most of us have two lives. The life we live and the unlived life within us.” – Steve Pressfield
You know that feeling we all get sometimes…that niggling urge to do something new and different? Or perhaps it’s a scream, a loud and urgent demand for change. ... Views: 861
When I took my coaching training, I had spent many years on my own self-growth as I simultaneously assisted others with life challenges. I thought I was pretty self-actualized. I gave myself permission to do most everything that appealed to me, including moving across the country at age 40 and ... Views: 933
Gratitude is about living in the present moment. When we’re not noticing all the good that’s in our lives, we often keep striving to achieve more, be more, get more. Or sometimes we’re locked into the past, into what didn’t work for us then. Holding onto wounds and ... Views: 892
“In an open, trusting environment people seek clarification and replace assumptions with understanding. Tragically, most workplaces are the converse.”
Erle Wheatley - “Structured Communication Builds Trust”
Some people seem to have an innate ability to connect ... Views: 9713
Women are by nature and training nurturers. But we often carry this too far. We think of everyone else’s needs, but forget our own. How far can one woman stretch? Who will care for us if we don’t care for ourselves? What are the underlying beliefs that drive us to give and give until ... Views: 865
"Menopause is a metamorphosis, like a caterpillar becoming a butterfly…One of the most important things you can do during menopause is to take time for you. Go into your cave, go into your cocoon, go into your room and shut the door." Susun ... Views: 1146