Louise Gillespie Smith

Care For Your Needs First 1

 in Guest Post  tagged inspiration / inspire / Louise Gillespie Smith / love / Self care / wisdom

In this weeks guest post Louise Gillespie-Smith focuses upon the coach as an individual:

Care For Your Needs First

by Louise Gillespie-Smith

"Care For Your Needs First" by Louise Gillespie-Smith

I am making a big assumption that most of us want to help others, we care about others and some of us thrive on being of service to others. This is all lovely, the world needs more people like us. What happens though when we give too much?

The helper/carer/nurturer personality type can have a tendency to put others before themselves, even when they know full well that in doing so they will deplete their own energy.

How can we best help others when we are feeling drained ourselves. Here are a few signs that I have learned to notice when I have been giving too much:

  • I don’t feel inspired and excited to teach/ coach
  • I am hoping the client will cancel (funnily enough on those days they often do…..the law of attraction is amazing!)
  • When I get a phone call from someone I know who will be wanting to chat about their problems I want to ignore the call
  • When someone is talking about their problems to me I am not fully actively listening
  • I just want to sleep or watch rubbish TV
  • I start to resent having to do things, like the volunteer work I do

Now this is all hard to admit. I really am not this person above…..but if I am not careful I can get like that!

I could write a list of suggestions now of how to care for your needs, but they would be based on my own. Only you know what you need, and that is the question to ask yourself. Sometimes I just need to go out and have some fun with my friends, sometimes going to a conscious dance session that gets me out of my head, into my body and shakes it all out really helps and other times I just need to do a digital detox.

By digital detox I mean just switching off from the outside world. Turning my phone and laptop off. Taking time for myself to do yoga, meditate, walk by the sea, cook yummy food, read and sleep.It is ok to say no to people. It is ok for people to give to you and you not give back. It is ok do just do something for you.

I know you know all of this. I know it all myself but still sometimes I fall down that rabbit hole of over giving, and that’s OK. As long as I then recognise it and take care of myself I know I can then have the best energy to help others.

Above all how can we inspire others to love themselves and do what is best for them, when we are not doing it ourselves? That’s something I love about being a life coach and yoga teacher, it constantly keeps me in check to practice what I teach!

About Louise Gillespie-Smith

Louise Gillespie-Smith is a life coach and yoga teacher based in Brighton. Her websites are: Create Yourself and Yogaclassesinbrighton

Is it Wrong Not to Have a Goal? 1

 in Guest Post  tagged action / focus / goals / intention / Louise Gillespie Smith

In today’s guest post Louise Gillespie-Smith asks a question about goals:

"Is it Wrong Not to Have a Goal?" By Louise Gillespie-Smith

Is it Wrong Not to Have a Goal?

By Louise Gillespie-Smith

Since becoming a life coach 7 years ago I always had a goal that I was working towards. Some I achieved, some I changed along the way and some just didn’t happen but that was ok, I learnt valuable lessons.

I was focused, I challenged myself and I achieved a lot.

Last year I tried something a bit different. I set intentions rather than specific goals. For me an intention is being the goal now, rather than putting off what I want to experience until after something has happened.

To clarify my intentions I began by setting goals, to get an idea of what I really wanted to create in my life. Then I asked myself, how will I be being once I have achieved this? A year ago it was Love, Divine Health and Abundance.

I then set off throughout the year just focusing on being that in everything I did. Rather than planning what had to happen for me to feel it.

What I discovered was that I was still in action, I was still creating but it wasn’t completely fixed. I was open to the unimaginable. There wasn’t one specific thing to achieve but I was open to exploring different ways of being what I wanted most in my life. I paid attention to my inner guidance to lead me to what was the next action to take, rather than what was planned on a milestone list.

The results; I had a relationship, I deepened my sense of love for myself and everyone in my life, I did volunteer work, I am very close to curing my asthma for good, I lost weight, I didn’t get ill all year and my business continued to evolve nicely.

Now don’t get me wrong. I still like goals and there are always specific things I’d like to achieve and using the goal technique of putting that in writing then planning what has to happen to make it a reality is powerful. I wouldn’t be where I am now if I hadn’t of done that. I am just enquiring if goals are always necessary for everything?

Since exploring this I have actually attracted a few coaching clients who have started off setting goals then once achieving them they have preferred to experiment with intention. Once their specifics were attained they have found intentions have really shifted how they are being each day, and sometimes it’s been the other way around.

I have one client for example who is focusing on being kind and being joy each day. He had started off with a specific goal around writing but it wasn’t until he started just focusing on his intentions that his creativity really started to flow.

I think there is value in having both, a goal and an intention of how you are being in the moment around achieving the goal. Especially when someone is new to personal development and goal setting.

I suggest to clients effective ways of keeping the intention in mind are post it notes around their home and reminders in their phones. It’s also great to have a few moments in stillness when you get up to repeat an affirmation of the intention and consider what you may do today to be it. You can even create your daily to do list based around it.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.

About Louise Gillespie-Smith

Louise Gillespie-Smith runs a business called Create Yourself which empowers and supports people in making positive change in their life. She has a holistic toolkit of resources, life coaching/NLP/ yoga/ reiki/ image consultancy, to create individually tailored packages based on what each client needs. Lo****@***************co.uk /07779 150886.

Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/CREATEYOURSELF

Twitter: https://twitter.com/LouiseatCreate

 

Lessons from movement 1

 in Guest Post  tagged business coach / business coaching / charging / client / clients / coach / coaches / coaching / coaching courses / coaching qualifications / coaching skills / coaching techniques / coaching training / Create Yourself / executive coach / leadership coaching / life coach / life coaches / life coaching / Louise Gillespie Smith / Mark Walsh / movement / nlp coach / performance coaching / personal coach / personal development / self-awareness / yoga

In today’s guest post Louise Gillespie-Smith shares a little about how she combines her skills and knowledge when coaching.

"Lessons from movement" A guest post by Louise Gillespie-Smith

Lessons from movement

by Louise Gillespie-Smith

Yoga teachers will often say to their students during a class something like “how you are on your yoga mat is a reflection of how you are in life”. I remember hearing for the first time when I began to practice years ago and it always stuck with me. I found it fascinating to pay attention to how I was being in a class and then to observe where I was like that in other areas of my day to day life.

Whether it was comparing myself to others, trying to force myself in to poses when my body was not ready, my mind chatter being so busy it would throw me off balance, breathing shallow and fast, the list of observations was endless. I could then stop, try something new and experience the results before experimenting with the same outside of the yoga studio.

This is something that led me to fall in love with yoga, how it wasn’t just exercise but a personal development and self-awareness tool for my whole life. In 2012 I became a yoga teacher and now combine my life coaching with yoga to help my clients heal themselves and become self-aware through how they are on their mat.

There is something powerful about getting out of the mind and learning from how we move our bodies instead. Our movements are instinctual, our self-talk does not come into play so much, we just move. Sometimes it can be easy to over analyse what is going on in the mind, going round in circles, that’s when paying attention to the body can provide us with numerous insights.

Yoga is not the only way to learn from how we move our bodies, simply looking at how we walk can teach us a huge amount. Earlier on this year, I enjoyed an Embodiment course with Mark Walsh, which was great to dive deeper into this type of coaching which plays around with movement.

One powerful technique I learnt with Mark was how to effectively centre yourself which helps you to deal with anything that is thrown your way in a calm, steady, clear manner. The 3 steps Mark gave to centring are:

  1. Bring your mind into present moment awareness by using the five senses for example feeling where your feet/body connects with the ground and becoming aware of your breath.
  2. Become aware of your balance, noticing both feet evenly on the ground.
  3. Relax the middle line, the point between your eyebrows, your nose, your lips, your tongue, your chin, your throat and your belly.

Simply moving through these 3 stages helps you to feel grounded and connected in the moment. A tool that is very useful in times of stress and chaos.

A great way to demonstrate the power of this to a client is to first stand to the side of them and grab their arm. Their fight or flight response will generally cause them to jump.

Next go through the 3 centring steps and then grab their arm again. The response is usually very different, completely reduced in fact.

Often with a client I will ask them to start to walk around the room and then start to think about the issue they are dealing with, then notice how their movement and body language changes. After going through the centring process I ask them to walk and think about it again. The difference is often very noticeable.

Movement is a powerful way to learn about ourselves, to experiment with dealing with situations in a different way and it makes a coaching session fun.

About the author

Louise Gillespie-Smith runs a business called Create Yourself which empowers and supports people in making positive change in their life. She has a holistic toolkit of resources, life coaching/NLP/ yoga/ reiki/ image consultancy, to create individually tailored packages based on what each client needs. lo****@***************co.uk/07779 150886.

Find Louise and Create Yourself on Facebook at www.facebook.com/CREATEYOURSELF and follow Louise on Twitter at www.twitter.com/LouiseatCreate

Acting from Fear vs Love 1

 in Guest Post  tagged business coach / business coaching / charging / client / clients / coach / coaches / coaching / coaching courses / coaching qualifications / coaching skills / coaching techniques / coaching training / connection / Create Yourself / empower / executive coach / fear / leadership coaching / life coach / life coaches / life coaching / Louise Gillespie Smith / love / nlp coach / performance coaching / personal coach / personal development

Coach Louise Gillespie-Smith shares her thoughts and experience in today’s guest post:

"Acting from Fear vs Love" A guest post by Louise Gillespie-Smith

Acting from Fear vs Love

By Louise Gillespie-Smith

Most of the time as a life coach I am really living my dream; I am inspired, I am enjoying doing the things I love and I am empowering people to live a life they love too. Then there are other times when I find myself behaving from a totally different place, from fear.

I can recognise it now, it’s like I have had a double espresso even though I don’t drink caffeine anymore. An anxious feeling starts to burn in my heart, my actions are frenzied and I am not connected to who I really am at all.

Surely a life coach doesn’t feel fear?! GASP!

Coaches are seen as such positive inspirational people that it can be hard to admit to feeling like this to others and even to myself sometimes. However we are all human and sometimes it’s natural to get a bit scared, it’s what you do with the fear that matters. What you resist does indeed persist so acknowledging the signals that you are in the fear zone is the first step to turning it in to love, which is our true nature.

At the core of our being is love, this is who we are and this is what we have to share with the world. We have chosen to walk down the path of being coaches to support and empower people to be who they truly are. So it’s important that we do the same for ourselves!

Following are a few things I have found that work for me to bring myself out of the fear zone and into acting from a place of love;

  • Go outside and connect with the earth. Fear is in our minds, when we are caught up with self-talk we are not grounded or in our bodies at all. If I notice myself tensing up, thoughts spinning round and round I’ll stop what I am doing and go outside. Even if it’s just for 10 minutes I will feel the earth beneath my feet, I’ll listen to the birds, I’ll watch the sun sparkling on the sea, where ever I am I will take a few moments to bring myself back to the present moment right here right now.
  • Remind yourself “there is only ever this moment and right now I have a choice of who I am being, which parts of my personality I wish to draw upon”.
  • Meditate, I find this one particularly works:

Sit in silence for a few minutes paying attention to the rise and fall breath

Start to think about all the things you are grateful for

Start to bring to mind your fear and then release it to God/ The Universe

Pay attention to your heart beating, feel every sensation, consciously use your intention to slow it down.

Send your intention to feel your heart beating in your hands and to feel the warmth grow in them.

Finally repeat an affirmation that works for you. For example “I am safe and totally protected by the Universe/ God, all is well”.

  • Get into your body by doing some exercise, I teach yoga and find this perfect for calming my mind down. Dance also really connects me with my body. Do something that works for you.
  • Ask what will bring me joy? Then do that. For us to be able to help others we need to be taking care of ourselves. Self-love is crucial for us to have the energy and inspiration to help others.

I’ve got to admit I find writing a blog for other coaches slightly daunting as I am sure you will already know lots of this stuff already but I also know that sometimes we just need a little reminder! Being kind and loving to yourself is what is going to help you be able to share your love and support with everyone else you come into contact with.

About the Author/Further Resources

Louise Gillespie-Smith runs a business called Create Yourself which empowers and supports people in making positive change in their life. She has a holistic toolkit of resources, life coaching/NLP/ yoga/ reiki/ image consultancy, to create individually tailored packages based on what each client needs. lo****@***************co.uk /07779 150886.

Find Louise and Create Yourself on Facebook at www.facebook.com/CREATEYOURSELF and follow Louise on Twitter at www.twitter.com/LouiseatCreate

 

The Power of Living with Intention 1

 in Guest Post  tagged action / business coach / business coaching / challenge / charging / client / clients / coach / coaches / coaching / coaching courses / coaching qualifications / coaching skills / coaching techniques / coaching training / confidence intention / Create Yourself / creative / different / executive coach / kindness / leadership coaching / life coach / life coaches / life coaching / Louise Gillespie Smith / love / nlp coach / peace / performance coaching / personal coach / personal development / play / Thought

In today’s guest post coach Louise Gillespie Smith shares a personal experiment that she now uses with her own clients.

The Power of Living with Intention

by Louise Gillespie Smith

Six months ago I began an experiment to see what would happen if I fully lived with intention for a whole year. The idea is to set a different intention every month and to fully immerse myself, by directing my thoughts and action in alignment with each one.

I am in the middle of the experiment now and it’s been quite amazing how the different intentions I quite flippantly set for each month at the beginning have all flowed into each other perfectly. The timing has been right for all of them.

Why am I doing this?

Setting my intention for a yoga class or situation has always worked for me. I have found it quite a fun and empowering way to choose how I want to be and act around anything I do. So I thought, what if I was to expand this and see what would happen if I lived with a different focus each month.

I have always dreamed of travelling around India for 6 months and this is going to be part of the journey, I leave in January. As a coach I also believe it’s good to step outside your boundaries and challenge yourself. I find I am more a more effective coach when I am developing and stretching myself as well as my clients.

The intentions so far….

I began with “being creative”, I had not done any art for well over twelve years, it was always something I had loved at school but ever since have just become stuck with. My intention lead me to drawing again, visiting different art galleries each week, going on a graffiti hunt, and watching a street dance show.

It was amazing, I found just sitting down with the intention of being creative with no expectations just helped me to start doing art again. I was drawing nearly every day and I discovered that art is a great meditation, once you are immersed in a picture you think of nothing else.

What has been interesting since I have moved on to new intentions, I have not done any more art which just proved to me the power of having an intention.

My next intention for June was to “do things differently”, now this was a challenge. I literally aimed to shake everything up; I ate different food, I walked different routes, I listened to different music, I gave up TV for a week, I went to new places basically anything that was routine was changed.

I had no idea how much mental effort this would take as most of what we humans do is habit. Luckily my creative juices were already flowing from the previous month so they were put to good use.

Since then I have focused on kindness, love, play and now peace. Kindness and love opened my heart, I felt extremely connected with people and an intense feeling of love, play bought out my spontaneous side which had lain dormant for a year or so and I had an unbelievable about of fun. My intention this month is being peaceful, this is perfect timing as I have just moved from London down to the seaside.

What I have learnt

  • Living with intention creates how you want to be in your life.
  • It doesn’t have to be for a whole month, it could even just be for a particular task you need to complete. When I have to do something that I really don’t want to do I’ll set an intention that will support me to make it easier for example being powerful or playful always creates a shift.
  • Setting an intention around what you want to create in your life can help your focus on making it happen.
  • Sticking my intention on post it notes and posting them in obvious places helps to keep my intention in mind.
  • I use this when coaching my clients now too, they create their own intentions around what they would like to achieve. We create mini challenges for them to do to stretch them with in their goals and build their self-confidence.
  • Setting an intention for each session also is a powerful tool to make each session unique and have the right energy for what is needed that day.

Have fun with it, it can open all sorts of experiences that you would never imagine!

You can read about my Journey of Intention here; http://ajourneyofintention.com/ or follow me on Twitter LouiseatCreate.

About the Author/Further Resources

Louise is a confidence coach and image consultant, she runs a business called Create Yourself supporting people to create lives they love.