antonia@projectself.co.uk
0759 110 4080
Project Self Life Coaching

Acceptance

Sometimes acceptance is more empowering than struggling with what we can’t change or influence and enables us to move forwards with a sense of inner peace, without getting caught up unnecessarily.

On Struggling - Project Self Life Coaching

On Struggling

Project Self
It’s often said we don’t know what someone is struggling with, or battling with and that everyone has their own personal struggle of some kind. Clients often bring something, an issue or problem they are ‘struggling’ with. What do we mean when we say we are struggling with something? That something is hard, challenging or difficult to resolve? That we are coping with a sense of inability to do something ‘well’? That we are trying to make something happen and it’s not? That we are tangled in something and can’t find a way through because we don’t know what to…
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On Not Thinking Negatively - Project Self Life Coaching

On Not Thinking Negatively

Project Self
Many people are feeling various low and negative moods at the moment. We can’t do much about how we feel in response to difficult circumstances but we can be aware of how our thinking may be affecting us. The brain has a negativity bias. As Rick Hanson describes it, teflon for good news, velcro for bad news. This is because our system is wired to look for and hook into any perceived risk and threat. Our brains tend to scan for bad news, overly focus on it, overly react to it, over remember it, and become sensitised to it over…
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ON LIVING IN A TROUBLING TIME - Project Self Life Coaching

On Living in a Troubling Time

Project Self
We all feel the uncertainty; we are living within something that is unpredictable and indefinite in terms of the impact on our lives. It’s important that we take care of ourselves by acknowledging how we are affected by the culture that surrounds us. As we approach the season of drawing into the home, we are already challenged with our world perhaps feeling smaller or limited. Of life feeling flat. We are living through a period of constriction and lack of connection and isolation which has altered the felt experience of everyday life.  Not just in restricted freedom of movement and…
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ON BEING KIND TO YOURSELF - Project Self Life Coaching

On Being Kind to Yourself

Project Self
Our innate human quality is compassion and kindness. In our natural, relaxed state we are warm and caring. Our self is inclusive and allowing. Such qualities expand us towards consideration, generosity and understanding, trust and forgiveness. We have sympathy for suffering.  We like. We are kind. We are love. When we are unhappy or upset we can become tight and sometimes ‘mean’ spirited. Our capacity towards generosity and openness diminishes. We shrink in as our heart suffers; we may close off, down and up. We contract our care as we take on negative or challenging thoughts and feelings. We may…
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WHEN THINGS SEEM TO STAY THE SAME - Project Self Life Coaching

When Things Seem To Stay The Same

Project Self
Many of us seem to aspire to an alternative life, almost without our current self, as we are, within it. We have an idea of how it could look If Only we aren’t the way we are.  The life we’ll have When we’ve done all the work on ourselves. When we’ve addressed all the habits we want to change and When we’ve created new ones. When we’ve found the right thing. A different life Without sabotaging ourselves, reacting to others or getting triggered. Without criticising ourselves, thinking about what’s wrong with us or ruminating on what we should have done…
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ON NOT FEELING BAD - Project Self Life Coaching

On Not Feeling Bad

Project Self
We often feel bad about ourselves, conflating how we can behave with who we are. We can also feel a dislike for who we are and also feel deep down, a sense that we lack worth as a human being. And so we tread heavily on the earth, comparing our weighty lack of substance to the seemingly Sorted & Successful Ariel figures around us.  Welcome to the walk of shame. The walking dead. The human experience of walking around feeling like there’s a cloud, a shadow, hanging over you; a weight on your chest; a restriction in your throat or an emptiness…
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ON NOT BEING A BETTER PERSON - Project Self Life Coaching

On Not Being A Better Person

Project Self
“All of us think we are a little better than we really are. All of us think we are a little worse than we really are”. Michael Yapko I’m beginning to rebel against the concept of Being a Better Person. You might think what’s wrong with wanting to be better person? Within the dictionary definition of ‘better’, I found that it does relate to increasing good qualities, but more prevalently, it describes surpassing, superiority, preferability, acceptability. Bettering oneself speaks historically of status. Being a better person suggests we need to improve. Sure, we could all be nicer, kinder people with healthier,…
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ON SADNESS, PAIN AND LOVE - Project Self Life Coaching

On Sadness, Pain and Love

Project Self
It’s very rare that a client does not express a pain or sadness that they carry within them. Change Coaching for me is a balance between compassion and challenge. We all need to be met compassionately in our pain by another. The challenge is allowing ourselves and our pain to be seen and expressed. To not be fearful of experiencing our own sadness. To be compassionate towards that we cannot change. Life is not about being happy. Life is about feeling, being alive to and accepting all our emotions; the great spectrum and tide of the human experience; not editing…
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ON RESILIENCE AND EMOTIONAL DRAIN - Project Self Life Coaching

On Resilience and Emotional Drain

Project Self
What does it mean to be resilient? Resilience is commonly described as being able to withstand and bounce back from negative experiences. Resilience is not the capacity to not feel, like a teflon skinned human; unaffected. It’s not the capacity to carry on regardless in the face of adversity. It’s not endurance. It’s the capacity to experience; sometimes extreme emotional difficulties, and recover; with the emphasis on recover. To bow but not break. To stay calm even in the bow. To adapt and not hit out, or in. For me, resilience is that our value and attitude towards our self…
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ON FEELING LOST AND NOT KNOWING - Project Self Life Coaching

On Feeling Lost and Not Knowing

Project Self
What does it mean to feel lost? To feel lost is to be stalled, to feel a loss of onward motion. When the wind leaves our sails, often without warning, the trajectory we were on is no longer viable; we can’t proceed. We have lost power, momentum, and with it inclination. We have no driving force, we are no longer a driver. Lost one’s way? Lost a sense of purpose? To be lost is to not know. To feel we don’t know where we are heading, to not know where to look, what to look for or how to find our way…
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