Blog

I had a client this week who felt like his intellectual side, not his emotional side, was leading his day-to-day life. He had a burden on his shoulders, trying to understand why he couldn’t express his emotions. How could he maintain healthy relationships if he felt apathetic and lacked feelings?

After I asked him a lot of questions to understand the outcome he desired, I shared some tools to empower him. He walked away from our session very slowly, deep in thought. He was probably thinking, “I have a lot of work to do.”

In my follow-up call less than a week later, we talked about how he digested the information and applied it to life. One of the biggest take-aways is that he realized that his emotions are just information. They are neither good nor bad.

Brené Brown stated that “human emotions and experiences are layers of biology, biography, behavior, and backstory.”

Labeling our Emotions

Emotions help us manage ourselves, understand our surroundings, and respond to others. Being able to distinguish between a range of emotions helps us manage these emotions better. The ability to label emotions is referred to as having emotional granularity. If our vocabulary to describe our emotions is lacking, it is more difficult to communicate what we need from others and accept their support.

Understanding our Emotions

To help my client, I used the metaphor of passengers on bus. If you’re driving a bus, you will feel empowered by knowing the kids’ names and personalities and your bus route. The passengers are like your emotions, thoughts and experiences.

Emotions are temporary. Just because you drive a busload of children, it doesn’t mean the kids are with you permanently. For example, they are not going to accompany you home and eat dinner with you. The same goes for emotions. Emotions do not last forever.

Emotions are information, and turning the information into a knowledge is power. The more you recognize and feel the sensations in your body, the more you can understand how they communicate a message to you.

Accepting our Emotions

Accept your emotions. Our job is to get curious about emotions– and judgment is the opposite of curiosity. Back to the bus metaphor, if a child is loud, you can judge the child and label him or her as a bad kid. You can react to their noise and be upset. You might even be so upset that you crash the bus and hurt other people. Or you can address the needs of that child, not judge the child. You can tell yourself that their loud behavior is neither good nor bad. It is just is. By being curious about their needs and addressing them, you’ll reduce your angriness and stress.

Similarly, you can address your emotions by naming them, knowing their needs, and taking them where they are intended.

Example

If you felt discomfort in your body and you recognize that you are feeling envy, you might name it as a bad emotion. Maybe you feel disappointment in yourself for not being able to have what the other person has, then judge yourself for experiencing this feeling as you might think it is bad of me to envy others.

However, If you name these emotions and consider their message by having a curious mind, you would learn how this shows up in your body. Moreover, you will realize you feel this way because you admire what they have. So, you will understand the backstory, your behavior, and respond to this message accordingly. You have an opportunity to try to improve yourself in this area. You could possibly feel happy for the person and happy that you have a talented person that you can learn from.Judging our emotions as good or bad could lead us to resistance, while getting curious about emotions can help us understand ourselves.

Struggling with Emotions

I repeat, emotions are just information trying to tell us that something is going on. Here’s what I tell clients who are struggling with countless emotions or a lack of emotion:

• Realize that emotions are temporally showing up to communicate something.

• Take the power from the emotions by naming them and accepting the way they are.

• Feel the emotions in your body and understand how they show up in your body. What biological change happens to you?

• Acknowledge the emotions by thanking them for coming to help you.

• Do not shoot the messenger. Emotions are just coming to you as physiological changes to tell you something.

• Know that the intensity of emotions will fade, emotions are not you, watch it leaving you.
• You are not your emotions. Use the phrase “I feel” vs. “I am.”

• Allow your higher self to respond accordingly.
• Practice self compassion. Celebrate and be gentle with yourself if it took you longer than you wished.

Learning from Emotions

Encountering emotion is a learning opportunity. Learn behaviors that are associated with this emotion, and learn to stop the unwanted behaviors. Emotions make you pause and say to yourself, “I care about this information, and this is relevant to me right now. This is how I want to respond.”

This is called “relevance realization.” We’re aware of the emotions and their relevance. Instead of cold calculation, relevance realization is thoughtful understanding.

Think about a scenario in which you’re angry. When you respond in anger, you might assume the identity of someone who’s a victim facing a villain or a hero facing a monster. Think about the same scenario, but this time instead of feeling angry, you’re sad. You might assume the identity of someone who feels abandoned or unloved. In both scenarios, it’s best to identify the feeling you have, acknowledge it’s there, experience the sensations it’s causing in your body, and then respond.

Numbing Your Emotions

When we stop numbing our emotions, we have a chance to re-evaluate our lives. We can learn how to love ourselves and not just behave in ways that make other people feel comfortable. If we turn to food, alcohol, work, or something else to numb ourvulnerability and escape our emotions, our lives will be marked by pain and suffering. If instead, we lean in and deal with our feelings, we’ll understand ourselves, our self-worth, and our feelings better.

Ruminating Over Emotions

While feeling our emotions is healthy, overthinking and overanalyzing emotions can be unhealthy. The fastest tip I can give you is this: If you paused and felt worst, stop and do something else. It means you are ruminating. The goal is not to feel worse, but to feel better and empower ourselves.

Emotions are tricky, whether you see yourself as overly emotional or not emotional enough. Sometimes, it helps to sit down with a coach like me to help you sort through these emotions and move from Point A to Point B in your life. Contact me to get started.

November is a month of gratitude. It is the time of the year when we close our businesses, take off our professional hats, and spend time with our loved ones. It is a time to be thankful for all of the blessings that we experienced, including the professional ones.

Yesterday I completed a coaching program with a client. At the end of the session, the client said that going through the coaching program was the best decision he ever made. Wow! What an impactful statement! What an honor to celebrate and appreciate. As I reflect back on my life, I realize one of the best decisions I ever made was to start my coaching business.

Wait! What? That was 5 years ago. In November 2016, I sat down with my boss in the Process and IT Department where I worked. I talked with him about starting my own business while still working full time. My start-up business was called Achievers Living Abroad (ALA). My goal was to coach executives through the cultural transitions of working in a foreign country. I believed in this business model, and I was ready to start something new. I was willing to take a risk.

That was 5 years ago. Success is not a straight line, but I would rather take a risk and fall forward than get stuck in fear and not go anywhere. Fast forward to today. I am a Business Coach and Life Coach. I help many executives, but in a different way than I initially envisioned. My coaching helps them through the ups and downs of their businesses and their lives.

Having a successful mindset is the first step to being successful in business. Anyone can want to do something more with their lives, but those who are successful are not afraid to make mistakes, get their hands dirty, and be vulnerable. They are flexible, take an unconventional approach to challenges, are willing to pivot, face unknowns, step outside of their comfortable zone, trust themselves and their ideas, and take risks.

The only voice to hear is the voice that believes in you. I have heard many times that I am woman and international. I do not have a mom and dad who can connect me with key businesses. All of these limiting beliefs are noise. They are excuses for people who do not try because they are afraid to fail. Yes, it is challenging, and these challenges make me a better coach and successful business owner. I am confident in my own ideas and strengths. It is not all rainbows and roses, but there are joys and rewards, despite the obstacles.

Owning a business is like having a baby. At first, the baby cries nonstop. You lose sleep. You question yourself. But you love the baby, and you can’t even explain the joy that the baby brings to your life. You see the baby grow, and the baby’s success is somehow your success, too. You can’t stop talking about your baby. You show him off to strangers, and talk about him to anyone who will listen. Having a babysitter is not easy, but as the baby grows, you need to delegate tasks. You remember your baby’s first word, first step, first fall. You see that your baby’s clothes no longer fit, because the baby is growing! 

Every stage is joy. I have not reached the teenage years of my business yet, but I am sure these years will have their own rewards and challenges. Let’s not worry about the future and just focus on the present. Let’s celebrate the success of Aspire. LIVE. Achieve.

I believe my determination and my futurist mindset five years ago led me to the success I’m experiencing now. This Thanksgiving, I am thankful to be around my loved ones and thankful for the impact I made for businesses and personal lives. I am thankful for reaching my 5-year business anniversary and thankful to everyone who contributed to its success. Starting my own business was the best decision I ever made. 

Hello,

I’m Ala, a certified professional coach who loves to inspire people to become better versions of themselves. I help entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs identify their goals, overcome their struggles, and make things happen.

My favorite time of the day is early morning. Each day presents a new opportunity. I invite you to start your day inspired by joining Mindfully Positive, a virtual cohort of like-minded individuals who want to find fulfillment in life. Mindfully Positive opens a world of mindful living and positivity that impacts every aspect of your life. Together, we will develop a morning routine rooted in mental, physical, and spiritual habits that lead to happiness.

Start your day empowered with:

• Guided medication
• Journaling
• Guided Movement
• Prayer/contemplation
• Intention setting
• Visualization
• Challenging your self-saboteur

Mindfully Positive is divided into three-month segments. The first session begins in January and ends in April 2024.

Mindfully Positive Framework:

• One discovery session – Five hours of introductory, one-on-one meeting(s) in which Ala gets to know you and what you value in life. By the end of this session, you will establish achievable goals, have a higher awareness of your limiting beliefs with a plan to challenge them and create actions to work toward during this program.
  • Location: virtual via zoom or in person, based on each individual preference 
  • Period:  During the month of January 2021, based on each individual schedule 
• Morning group sessions – One-hour virtual meetings held twice a week.
  • Location: virtual via zoom 
  • Time: 5:30 am-6:30 am 
  • Days: Monday and Thursday 
  • Period: February, March, April
• Three Individual coaching sessions – One hour monthly individual coaching session with Ala.
  • Location: virtual via zoom or in person, based on each individual preference 
  • Frequency:  One session per month during  February, March, April
  • Time and date: Based on each individual schedule during the month

Many of us struggle to maintain a life balance that brings us joy. We have trouble sticking to healthy routines, like working out, eating well, and spending enough time with the people we love. You don’t have to live with regrets. For an affordable fee, you will have two mornings per week to learn, develop, and nurture the habits that lead to happiness – not regret. Mindfully Positive develops positive habits that result in a good day, a good week, and a good life.

The registration deadline is January 3, 2024

Only 10 seats available

For more information, simply use this link to schedule a meeting to lean more and register! Or click here to fill out the form to request a time.

Coaching can be a catalyst for growth and change in professional and personal lives.  Listed to several of my clients share how coaching has made positive outcomes in every area of their lives.  If you are looking to be a better leader, produce more results and have a more rewarding professional life while you are present with your personal life, then my coaching might be right for you.  Contact me today to schedule your own discovery session.