Conscious Life Coaching LA

“Grief is the price we pay for love” ~Elizabeth II

While the holidays are a time of family, friendship, and cheer for many, it is also a time of grief for some. Many people more acutely feel the loss of a loved one or the loneliness of a break up over the holidays.

I’m no stranger to grief. My mother lost a hard fought battle with lung cancer on the night I graduated high school. Within 6 months, I had left behind the only town I had ever knew, and entire community of friends I had grown up with, and was in a city where I knew virtually no one with little emotional support from my family.  By the time I was 25, my father said I had been to more funerals than anyone he knew. By the time I was 28, I had lost all four grandparents, several other older relatives, a best friend to a drug related car accident, and two other dear high school friends. Prior to meeting my husband, I also experienced several break ups of relationships I thought were going somewhere.

As a life coach who utilizes many therapeutic tools  in my practice, I am often called upon to help people through transitory periods in their lives.

Here are 7 of my top tips to cope with grief: 

1. Allow yourself to feel the grief. There is a saying which goes “what you resist persists”. Trying to ignore or stuffing down uncomfortable feelings down will simply make you ultimately feel worse. Find a way that feels authentic to you to express your true feelings (keep reading if you need some ideas).
2. Practice self-care. In this time of too much too do and not enough time, its easy to forget all about your lovely self. Take yourself on a nature walk, go to the movies, or book a massage. It just might help take the edge off.
3. Write your feelings out in a  journal. I did this all the time the first few years after my mother transitioned, and I recently took it back up to process some more recent grief-inducing experiences. I personally find writing melodramatic poetry to be especially therapeutic. Just don’t ask me to read it to you 😉
4. Stay present. There is a yogic saying which states “depression is caused by looking at the past, anxiety is caused by looking at the future, and happiness, happiness is always in the present moment”. While to can be very easy to be consumed by thoughts of the past over the holidays, it can be very grounding to stay in the present moment, and enjoy whatever is there to be enjoyed, even it is as simple a a drop of rain on a leaf or the taste of pumpkin pie. Meditation can help teach you to simply sit and be present (particularly mindfulness meditation techniques).
5. Start a gratitude journal. Oprah Winfrey said “if you write down 3 things a day you are grateful for, your life will transform”. I did this every day for about 2 years; and I am going to have to agree: practicing gratitude will change your life, your mindset, and even your brain. it’s hard to be consumed with grief when you are focusing on gratitude. Try it!
6. Get Support. While it can be tempting to hole up alone from before Thanksgiving until January 2nd (especially if you are an introvert) now is not the time to have “lone wolf” syndrome. Tell your friends and family how you are feeling. If you don’t have supportive friends and family, or, if you want the to expedite the process, it might not be a bad idea to get professional support – there is no shame in that. I often say “we all need someone sometimes”. Many modalities, such as EFT, NLP, Psych-K and hypnosis, can help you more easily process and bring the charge down on some of the grief.
7. Realize death isn’t the end. One of the most startling and awe-inspiring aspects of the work I do is how frequently people’s deceased loved ones “come through” during their healing sessions (particularly during hypnosis sessions).  I am always amazed at the startling accuracy at which details are able to come forth that reassure the loved one that the occurrence is not, in fact, a product of their imagination (or mine). I have started to be less surprised at the therapeutic effect this has on my clients, though. Personally,  I feel my mother has communicated with me in many ways over the years, whether it be in a dream, a feather where there shouldn’t be one, or that still small voice I often hear when I get still and quiet. Occasionally she will send a message though one of my friends. It’s a great reminder that in some we are always connected, and it’s always comforting. You may be surprised at the eagerness with which your transition loved ones will leave “signs” for you too, if you invite them in.

You will be OK.

Jennifer Gaynor-Yaker is a Los Angeles Life, Relationship  and Performance Coach, NLP, Psych-K, & Master EFT with Source Technique™ practitioner. Jennifer helps people get clarity on their ideal life, breakthrough obstacles and blocks, and create a life they will love. For inquires about private or group coaching sessions with Jennifer or one of our other coaches, please see our “Get Started” page or email support@conscious-life-coaching.com. You can also call (818)288-6358. 

I’d like to dispel the myth that the path to enlightenment is one that must be paved with mala beads, incense, and Birkenstocks.

I’m not saying you can’t ascend spiritually with these things, simply, that they are not a requirement of spiritual growth; it can be done just as easily in a suit and tie or in Manolo Blahniks with an iPhone in hand.

What is required is a willingness to look at our darkness, our wounds. If love is the true essence of who we are, then the only thing holding us back from being fully in awareness of our true loving essence are our unhealed wounds and contradictory, limiting beliefs we might hold.

The path to higher consciousness requires us to be willing to stare our shit in the face with so much love and courage that it melts, like the wicked witch of the West from the Wizard of Oz.

The path to higher consciousness means being willing to look at the imagined  darkness within ourselves, so that we may shed light upon it.

Sometimes, this can take a few years. More often, this can take a lifetime to clear out the crap of our unhealed thoughts, so that we can be in the full essence of the love that we are.It’s not for the faint of heart. However, the rewards, far outweigh the benefits. The reward for staring down our demons with love is immeasurable for we attract what we are.

When we remember our trues essence of love, the Universe will reward in a multitude of ways, though remembering who we are is the greatest reward in and of itself.

And that my friends, is worth being courageous for.

Jennifer Gaynor-Yaker is a Los Angeles Life Coach and Dating Coach who specializes in helping people get what they want in life in the most conscious, joyous, and effective way possible.

Insomnia affects many Americans today; one could say we even have an epidemic of sleep deprivation in this country.

Consider these statistics:

• People today sleep 20% less than they did 100 years ago.
• More than 30% of the population suffers from insomnia.
• One in three people suffer from some form of insomnia during their lifetime.
• More than half of Americans lose sleep due to stress and/or anxiety.
• Women are up to twice as likely to suffer from insomnia than men.
• People who suffer from sleep deprivation are 27% more likely to become overweight or obese.

Here are some ways you can beat insomnia and get a better night’s rest:

1) Have a nightly ritual. The human body likes routines. Therefore, one thing you can do to regulate sleep behaviors is pick a regular bedtime and stick with it.

In order to prime you body to accept this hour as it’s regular time to sleep, a couple of hours before your scheduled bedtime, begin to take these steps:

Do a digital sundown – this means turn off your computer and other digital appliances no less than 2 hours before you intend to turn in. Why do this? Well, consider that before electricity was used by virtually everyone, we only had candle light and lanterns and began to retire once the sun went down. One way you can help regulate your circadian rhythm is to shut off any apparatus  that will register as sunlight to the human brain, which is anything with a digital screen. Two hours before bedtime is ideal, but even an hour before will help.

2) Do a mind dump and organize your to-do list – often what keeps us up are worries and concerns about the future. To remedy this, begin by dumping everything out you feel you need to do onto a piece of paper (if it’s past your digital sundown, do this in long hand). Then, schedule a time to do the most important, pressing tasks. Your mind will be able to relax easier knowing that a) you’ve recorded the important things somewhere OUTSIDE your head b) you’ve scheduled a time for the really important things. c) You are “off the hook” to do anything else right at that moment and are now free to relax.

3) Take time to relax your nervous system. The ideal time to do this is between when you have done you digital sundown and before hitting the hay. Most of us living in industrialized “civilized” societies have overstimulated nervous systems, from everything from overbooked schedules to noise pollution. Taking some time to relax your nervous system will go far to help you to actually be able to sleep once your scheduled bedtime comes.

Here are some ways  you can encourage your nervous system to relax before bedtime, helping you to get sleep more easily:

• Avoid caffeine (even chocolate) or spicy food after 2 pm. These stimulate our nervous system and can keep you awake into the wee hours of the night especially if you re sensitive to them.
• Make yourself a cup of soothing, herbal, non-caffeinated tea. Personally, I love  peppermint tea. You can also add powdered magnesium to the tea. That also helps with relaxation of the body.
• Avoid violent, action or horror films or books before bed. These can send the body into fight-or-flight response and send a flood of chemicals into your body that will keep you awake past when you want to. Try listening to soothing music or media of a spiritual and/or uplifting nature instead.
• Often a shower, a warm bath with Epsom or sea salts, jacuzzi, or a reflexology massage can do wonders for an overstressed system.
• If resources allow, reflexology and other types of massage that help you relax not only your external  muscles but your internal organs can be wonderful sleep aids. I  have a $20 reflexology place walking distance from my  home and have become a regular. I am a bit embarrassed to say how much I go, but I also live a medication-free life and am in pretty good health so maybe I shouldn’t be.
• A regular meditation and yoga practice can do wonders to decrease the overall stress in you life, quite possibly contributing to better sleep.
• Play soothing music. I have a CD of 100 hours of sleep music I love and sometimes I play that. I ALWAYS travel with it on my smart phone and also bring my noise cancellation headphones  in case I encounter a noisy hotel or airplane.
• Stress management tools, like EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) with Source Technique™, can help you deal with the root cause of the stress and anxiety in your life and eliminate them. EFT also encourages the release of endorphins (feel-good hormones) as well as calming down the amygdala, which is the part of the brain which controls worry. My clients usually report feeling “lighter” and more relaxed at the end of  a session, since they have dealt with underlying emotions that can cause stress.
• Try a guided meditation recording to help you sleep. I make custom versions of these (set to appropriate sound healing music) for my clients all the time.

Hope this helps. Here’s to your restful, regular, restorative sleep! 

Jennifer Gaynor-Yaker, Cht, is a certified life and relationship coach living in Los Angeles, CA. She is also certified at the Mastery level in EFT, NLP, and Hypnosis.

Life. No one get out alive (at least in the physical sense), PLUS, most of us have to deal with challenges and contrast while we’re on this beautiful, but unstable,  spinning rock in the sky. What do you do when you have a tough circumstance? How can you overcome it?

The following is a mindset shift that came to me while eating breakfast at Whole Foods this morning:

What if it’s all ok? What if everything that’s happening in this moment is exactly as it’s supposed to be, even though there is a tough or contrasting situation?

The reality is, it is often through contrast that we learn our most profound lessons. It is through our challenges  that we are given the the opportunity to step into even greater clarity of what we want.

Success comes from taking the “bounce”. To illustrate what I mean, imagine stepping onto a trampoline. The further and harder you go down, the higher you will bounce back up, if you allow the down period to be your fuel to lift you up.

When we use these periods for inner reflection to focus on what we do have that we are grateful for and focus our energy on what we want, and then align our thoughts, feelings, words, and actions to come into alignment with that which we have clarified, we have now taken the bounce, and are back on the path to success.

Remember,  there’s no such thing as failure, only feedback. When we can distill out the positive learnings the circumstances in our lives bring, and then  let go of the negative emotions surrounding the learning, then use our energy to co-create that which we want, we are now on our way to co-creating what we want, and  living a kick-ass life!

Jennifer Gaynor-Yaker, CHt, is a certified life and relationship coach, author, speaker, and EFT and NLP Master. She works with successful people who are feelings stuck. She helps them get past their blocks  and  find focus and alignment in mind. body, and spirit so they can live the kick-ass life they were meant to.Want to work with Jennifer? Learn more here.

This morning I awoke before I was supposed to, at about 3:30 am.

As I often do when I wake up at random times, I went to check my iPhone 6.

I could have sworn I brought it home last night; but after 15 minutes of frantic searching,  I could only conclude that my iPhone was nowhere in our home.

A little while later, my husband awoke, asked me what was up, and started helping me search.

“Where did you have it last?” he asked.

I know for sure I had it last night at Baja Fresh, where I had indulged a bean burrito craving after a long day of work. (I am after all, a born, bred, and raised Southern Californian…Mexican food is simply a  part of our existence even if you’re not Mexican).

“I hope I didn’t throw it away” I mused, because I remember I had it sitting…right by my tray at the restaurant.

At this point, I started thinking about what I would be missing if I had, in fact, lost my iPhone.

As I voiced this to my husband, he said “it will all be ok. It’s just money”

It’s not the money I was concerned about, because as we all know, money comes and goes. What I was concerned about is the fact that not only is my phone my calendar and business central for me, but awhile ago, I also start annotating many of my ideas creative projects onto the notepad it has. There are pages and pages of notes on my current project on that phone.

We checked the cloud, and I had not in fact, synced my phone with  it (Note taken for next time).

I voiced this to my husband as well. He said” if the notes are important, you will cognize them again. Freaking out about this isn’t going to help you”.

Point taken.

At this point I felt my attachment to my phone lessening. I saw a broader perspective, that everything will be ok ultimately.

Before he left for work I asked him “Will you see me as having my phone with me”? “Of course” he said.

To explain why I asked him this, I should explain that for awhile now we have practiced holding visions for each other. For example, if my husband feels like he is coming down with a cold, I’ll say to him ”  I am seeing you as healthy and happy”. I don’t allow myself to indulge in any fear thoughts about it. Instead, I hold a vision of him flourishing in perfect health. I notice it usually goes away at that point. I do it for myself too: when I feel like I might be coming down with something or feel dis-ease in any way, I tell myself: “I love that my immune system is so strong. I love that my cells know how to perfectly rejuvenate themselves. Thank you body, for all you do, and thank you Universe for keeping me so healthy!”. At this point, the illness usually dissipates. (if you want to know why I do this, look up epigenetics, and in particular, Bruce Lipton).

But I am digressing. Back to the lost iPhone story: On my way to the restaurant to pick up my phone, I said a  prayer. “Thank you God/Universe for restoring my phone to me. I dedicate this situation to peace”.

I arrived at Baja Fresh right when they opened at 11 today. Luckily there was no line and I walked up to the counter. After a minute the same man who took my order last night asked me what I wanted and I said ” I am pretty sure I left my iPhone here last night”. He looked confused for a minute then said “what color is it?” “Silver and white” I said. “I have it” ha said. “Yay!” I said. “Where was it?”I asked. “Somebody found it while taking out the trash last night. You had thrown it away”.

The he handed my iPhone, in perfect condition. It was perfectly clean.

Let’s recap. Me in a moment of fatigue induced unconsciousness accidentally placed a $600 iPhone on a tray and threw it away. Not only did it get found, but the person was honest enough to return it. I didn’t have to buy a new iPhone, and I didn’t have to dig through the trash, nor did I even have to clean my phone, except to disinfect it with some rubbing alcohol when I got home.

It is now happily charging in the other room.

Would all this have happened had I not practiced visualization and prayer? God only knows, but I can tell you this much: Before I used to utilize them as a tool, my life did not run nearly so smoothly.

I texted my husband the news. “Want to hear my  fun miracle story for today? I asked him, then told him the good news.

“You are manifesting situations which shore up your beliefs” he texted back.

Yes, my love. That’s exactly what this is.

It was actually exactly what I needed to have happen this week.

JG-Y

Jennifer Gaynor-Yaker is a certified life & relationship coach, hypnotherapist, and NLP and EFT Practitioner certified a the Mastery Level. She lives in Los Angeles with Master Law of Attraction Coach, Richard Yaker. Together, they own Conscious Life Coaching and Conscious Dating and Relating. They specialize in helping people get past what is holding them back so they can consciously, effectively, and joyously co-create the life they truly desire.

Lately I have come across many people, both inside and outside of my coaching practice, that have a similar complaint.  The complaint is: “But I have done SO much work on myself. Why am I still going through this S**T?

Oh, my brothers and my sisters, I feel you, for I had the same battle cry. I understand feeling like you have worked so hard…and yet your dreams and goals are still so far away.

What I feel called to tell you today, is that you can do it. You can stay the course. I know it just sucks that sometimes it feels like you are giving, giving, giving and working, working, working, yet still not seeing the  rewards, but IT WILL HAPPEN.

You are closer than you think. Everything you want is just on the other side of an invisible door. It is right there, for you to soon touch, taste, feel, and behold. You can’t prevent it from happening, but you can delay it. You delay it with worry, fear, and doubt. You delay it by not loving yourself in every moment. You delay it by not forgiving yourself and others. You delay it with your grievances. You delay it with you judgments of yourself and others. But you could let all that go by being willing to forgive yourself and others.

If you could do these things, everything would flood in so fast, you would have a new set of problems, which would be how to handle all of the love, all of the abundance, and all of the joy that is flowing into your life. It would then become all about expanding your capacity to take it all in.

And that, my friends, is a good problem to have.

Don’t quit. Stay the course. Everything you want is on the other side of an invisible door.

You got this.

Love and Blessings,

Jennifer Gaynor-Yaker