I am sharing self-inquiry questions for you to create more mermaid flow in your work life. You will also get to know my 35 personal lessons as I am turning 35 years old this month.
I like using the mid-time of the year to reflect a bit on the last months. I know, I cannot believe it’s been 6 months since 2022 started!
If we take the time to step back from our day-to-day and see ourselves and our journey from more distance, we are able to acknowledge how much we have changed. Acknowledge everything. The whole story. The disappointments and challenges. The ways you showed up for yourself and others. Your courage and adventures.
Through reflective self-inquiry, we can rewire our brains and create meaning through our own storytelling. If we create meaning we are also able to learn from our experiences.
Reflection requires us to slow down and get curious about our own thoughts and interpretations. Can we be really honest with ourselves and take personal responsibility for what is playing out in our lives?
Peter Drucker said: “Follow effective action with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection, will come even more effective action.”
Here are some guiding questions for your personal mid-year reflection:
How did you begin 2022?
Who are you today?
What has changed? What did you keep?
How have you embodied your truth? What was the most courageous thing you did?
What have you been avoiding? Where are you still playing small?
We all have been through a lot in the last few years. We have been confronted with our deepest fears and called to follow the truest expression. This is not an easy path. We continue to be challenged and get tested on how seriously we take our promise to stay true to our hearts and believe in ourselves.
At the beginning of the year, I was going through a very difficult after-match of a break-up and had just moved to a new apartment. I stood up more for myself in this first half-year. I stopped spending time with people who drain my energy, don't help themselves and expect me to fix their problems.
I did a lot of "letting go" in terms of past experiences, expectations and the need to control people and events in my life. I keep embodying my word for 2022 which is “liberdade”, aka freedom. Feeling more and more liberated and in flow. New habits and routines I started in January, like dancing regularly, are still part of my life.
The most courageous thing for me was leading my first in-person retreat in Portugal. I never expected the MARvellous Retreat to be filled with so much flow and simply blissful moments. I was really able to be myself, fully present and create a space for vulnerability, self-discovery and creating deep connections.
I think there are still some steps I am avoiding in my business for example. Creating more of my own products and workshops that are aligned with my mission.
How about you? What was your intention for this year? Has it changed as you did, too?
From there, you can reflect on how you would like to evolve in the second half of the year.
What do you want to celebrate, reflect on, and experience in six months?
In what specific areas do you still want to grow?
What and who will support you in living your own truth?
What do you need to let go of from the last six months in order to move forward?
As I am turning 35 this month, why not share 35 lessons that are dear to my heart with you? Some of it will probably resonate with you if you are also facing similar challenges as a highly sensitive and empathic woman.
Here they are:
Let go of resisting your life where it is right now. You will feel much more ease and lightness to create from this state, instead of “all the things I need to achieve” to be finally satisfied.
If you get underestimated a lot (maybe like me, because I am tiny), instead of feeling sorry for yourself, use it to your advantage. Surprise your naysayers.
My favorite quote is from Eckart Tolle: “Life is the dancer and you are the dance.” Let go of controlling everything and everyone around you. Let life dance you. Be open to adventure and the unknown.
The more you live your truth, the more you will feel alive.
If you have a headache, don’t just take a pill. Investigate what your body needs. Treat the causes, not just the symptoms.
Placebo works. So choose wisely what you believe in.
I expand everything and everyone around me when I am on fire about what I am doing.
During one of my travels, a woman gave me a card that said: “Doing what you love is freedom. Loving what you do is happiness.” (Lana Del Rey)
Build a work life where you don’t need the weekend to recharge and your only goal is retirement.
Your inner work is as important as learning (business) skills, maybe even more important! I have been incorporating daily meditation practices for 7 years now and it has definitely been a big part of my development.
Believe in what you feel. In your intuition. When you respond from your inner knowing, you have the capacity to find a wonderful flow in all of life.
Use “life quakes” (like earthquakes) to get to know yourself better. Face setbacks, failures, and your uncomfortable emotions.
Vulnerability and the ability to feel so much are my biggest superpowers. It is the willingness to show up, take emotional risks and be seen when you can’t control the outcome. There is nothing more courageous than true vulnerability.
Empaths did not come into this world to be victims. We came to be worriers. Be Brave. Stay strong. We need all hands on deck (Anthon St. Maarten).
If you feel like a headless chicken running from one thing to the next, or unable to make any decisions, turn off the outside noise and come back to your inner world.
Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. Invite challenges into your life. They fuel your breakthroughs.
Once you realize your challenges are purposeful, they need no longer be painful.
You know who your friends are when things go really well in your life. My best friends are my biggest cheerleaders.
You don’t need to learn the rules of the game (like how to be more masculine to be successful at work). Invent your own game. The right people will join you.
Invest in relationships with people who take responsibility for their work life. People who want to help themselves and not just depend on blaming others for their state of being. Build a tribe of people, a network where you can show up as your whole self, where you feel uplifted.
Every time you're given a choice between disappointing someone else and disappointing yourself, your duty is to disappoint that someone else. Your job throughout your entire life, is to disappoint as many people as it takes to avoid disappointing yourself (from one of my favorite authors, Glennon Doyle)
You may think working and living in a different way is not possible for you. Look out for “Expanders”. People who already live what you are aspiring to. Instead of envying their relationships, business success or freedom, see them as an invitation to grow into those aspects of yourself that you have yet to integrate.
Creating a healthy relationship with your parents means letting go of resentment and judging them. Parents, like all human beings, have their own hearts, dreams, flaws, and fears. Without forgiving and letting go you just repeat the same patterns over and over again. No forgiveness means no real future just living in the past.
Choose your career/work to please you and your clients. Not to please your parents or peers from school.
Relationship advice I can give is to rather be happy than right. Apologize first.
If the world seems chaotic, it may be because you are.
Don’t follow the conventional or “common sense” path just because everyone else does. Stop comparing yourself to your friends, colleagues or social media. You are never fully in someone’s shoes. All choices come with a price. Which price are you willing to pay?
Everyday, you can make new choices and start over.
If you want to move forward, you have to let go of your inner movie from your past, otherwise, nothing ever changes.
When you do something for the first time, like starting a new role or business, it will feel uncomfortable and strange. Change can trigger our inner survival mechanism. It’s OK to feel bad. Just don’t let it stop you.
Everything outside our comfort zone will feel inauthentic until you master it.
My godfather always used to say the Saint Augustine quote: Learn to dance, so when you get to heaven the angels know what to do with you.” — Dancing has been one of my greatest pleasures in life.
Being a mermaid is my new lifestyle, the more I am able to let go of control, the more I am able to receive and ride the wave.
Traveling and living abroad helped me to experience myself and the world with new lenses. I can see more clearly now. Do yourself a favor and travel on your own at least once in your lifetime.
Home is not a place. I create my home as a state of consciousness.
As we are arriving at this middle point in the year, I challenge you to take time to reflect and make your own personal lessons list. Acknowledge the power in writing your own story.
If you would like to work on a more freeing mermaid (work) life but don’t know where to start, book a complimentary chat with me.
With love,
Eva
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