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Nathalie Himmelrich

Inspiring Hope | Finding healthy ways of Grieving | Writer

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coaching

9 Steps On How To Get Things Done

July 9, 2014 By Nathalie Himmelrich Leave a Comment

diary

Have you ever experienced that some of your tasks never seem to get done, even though they might be important and some even urgent? It is because they trigger some aversion, fear, worry, insecurity or boredom. Here is how you can get them done.

1. Make a list

Put aside 20 minutes and a take a fresh notebook. Start by making a list of all those things that you want to get done. This will create some free mental space and release some of the worries around forgetting them or the repercussions of not completing them.

2. Sort your list

Go through your list and sort your items into four categories:
a) urgent and important,
b) urgent but not important,
c) important but not urgent,
d) neither urgent not important 

3. One off tasks or recurring jobs

One-off tasks may repeat themselves once in a while, like cleaning the garage, shopping for a winter jacket or creating a photo book.

Recurring jobs repeat themselves daily, weekly or monthly, like washing laundry, grocery shopping, paying bills or ironing.

Sort each of the categories a) to d) into one off tasks or recurring jobs.

4. Done automatically or not

Some of the things you’ve written done will get done automatically so you don’t need to spend time on them. Even though you might not necessarily like doing those things, they do not have an aversion big enough attached to them for you to avoid them at all cost.

Those which do not get done automatically need to be scheduled.

5. Scheduling

The tool I prefer to use is the Google calendar. It synchronizes with your smartphone and sends you a pop-up reminder if you set them accordingly.

– One-off tasks: Schedule them according to their urgency and importance into your calendar. Sit down, look over your timing for the coming week, or month and make an appointment with yourself to do one at the time.

– Recurring jobs: Create calendar entries and set them to repeat daily, weekly or monthly. Allow enough time and re-adjust if needed.

6. Pop-up reminders

If you use Google calendar you can add pop-up reminders from minutes to hours and days prior to the appointment you’ve set. Pick as many or few as you need to remind yourself, without annoying yourself with too many.

7. Reminders

I also use the reminders app on the computer and have a weekly schedule list with my recurring jobs. This works well if you feel good about ticking off items you’ve done.

These reminders also have the option to not only remind you of a specific time and date but also at a location. If you need to remember to buy something in a specific shop when you’re next there, set up a location reminder.

8. Dealing with aversion

If you notice aversion and avoidance with certain specific things after you’ve organized them, it is time to seek help in clearing those patterns. There are ways to get rid of them so you will be able to do your tax with much less time spent worrying and avoiding the issue!

9. Plan, plan and re-plan

Many times people stop after their first trial. Remember that 99% of the time the NASA flies to the moon they reprogram their route. If whatever you’ve sorted, scheduled, planned didn’t work out, start by changing and adapting to better suit your needs.

Maybe you need to

  • set more reminders?
  • allow more time?
  • Ask for someone’s help?

Remember:

  • If you work better with rewards, plan them in as well.
  • Do not over-schedule your diary. If you don’t plan time to eat, relax and sleep you will easily feel overwhelmed.
  • If you didn’t do what’s in the diary, re-plan it for the following day or week.

As Marie Forleo says: If it’s not planned in your diary, it’s not real.

Filed Under: coaching, listicle, self development/motivation Tagged With: getting organised, organise, organize, plan time, time planning

The Secret Is In the Words – Choose Them Wisely

June 23, 2014 By Nathalie Himmelrich Leave a Comment

word quote
Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

As adults, we create meaning by the words we put onto experiences. “This was the worst day of my life” or “at least you have other children” are just examples of what we either say to ourselves, to others, either out loud or in our thoughts. The more we think about something, the more we believe it, the more it affects us emotionally, the more it creates our emotional, physical and mental state.

Listen to yourself

Once you start to listen to yourself and become sensitized to the verbal flow, you start to wonder whether what you hear is actually what you want to listen to. “This won’t get any better” and “I’m such a loser” often go unnoticed as part of our mind chatter.

Listen to others

When however we hear others speak to us in less than favourable terms, we notice it often more quickly and feel it stronger. Derogatory statement hurt. Comments delivered without grace, even though they are meant well, leave their painful scar. When others continuously speak to us in a way that leaves us feeling unsatisfied, we question or leave the relationship.

The relationship to yourself

You’ve got no choice: you’re stuck in relationship with yourself. The upside: if you decide to change, you only need to negotiate with yourself.

During the writing of my forthcoming book, I have been thoroughly thinking about the words bereaved parents use and the impact it has on their healing. This applies to all of us. What you think and say to yourself is responsible for your state, physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.

Explain, please

The tendency of human beings to favour information that confirms their beliefs is referred to as confirmation bias. This effect is stronger for emotionally charged issues and for deeply entrenched beliefs. We habitually interpret ambiguous evidence as supporting our existing beliefs.

Examples

In the example of the parental bereavement community, you may hear statements like “He lost his battle with cancer” or “My daughter was taken from me”. Looking at the first statement, it presumes that a) dealing with cancer is a battle (sounds a bit like war) and b) death equals losing the battle and c) the situation was him against cancer. To soften or question the words chosen, ask yourself: What else could it be, rather than a battle? What other word would make you feel better, or less defeated? What if the situation was him and the condition side by side, what would that be like? What else could death equate to?

For the second statement, it presumes that a) my daughter is mine and b) death equals taken away. To change the sentiment around those words you can ask yourself: Are my children really mine or just lent to me? Does her death mean that I cannot have a relationship with her, not even in my thoughts?

Let me be clear: All those questions only need to be asked if you want to change something and it feels better afterwards. If this is not the case, simply stay with the thought patterns that serve you.

Something needs to change

That is usually the time my clients start counselling and coaching. They have made the decision that something needs to change. Sometimes it is because something in the outside world leaves them unhappy. For some (or most) it’s easier to see the ‘fault’ in someone else than finding what they can change within themselves that creates change. The truth is, we can only ever work on ourselves.

Filed Under: coaching, counselling, self development/motivation Tagged With: belief, change, change your meaning, change your thinking, change yourself, choose your words

Healing And Re-Parenting Your Inner Child

May 2, 2014 By Nathalie Himmelrich Leave a Comment

child
Photo by Bekah Russom on Unsplash

Sitting across from my husband and our daughter, while he was reading a bedtime story to her, I was reminded that my dad was not available to me in this way when I was a child. I distinctly remember a sentence he uttered when I was nineteen: “Your mother was responsible for the love in the house and I was responsible for bringing the money into the house.”

Parents are human too

Parents do the best they can with the resources they have at the time. They are not superman or superwoman. As I experience now, parenting is not an easy task, filled with challenges no matter how much I adore my daughter. I have an appreciation for what my parents offered us and I also have to deal with the shortcomings I experienced. One of those was my father’s absence.

Re-parent Yourself

Once you become an adult, it’s up to you to rewrite history. It’s never too late. Even though you can’t change the childhood you’ve experienced, you do have the potential to change what and how you like to imagine it could have been. Having children is a step in re-parenting yourself and healing your inner child if you choose to.

Rewire your brain

As I was watching my husband interact with our daughter, I found myself imagining being the little girl. I was smiling as I imagined being read to, having the attention, getting the story explained with patience and having the total focus on me. I didn’t move nor followed any complicated process. I simply smiled at the process of re-imprinting what childhood could have looked like for me, would I have had a father with more conscious awareness.

Forgiveness

In no moment there was sadness at lost potential or upset at my father. I had dealt with that prior and forgiven my father for his shortcomings. He was unaware and non-intentional. What happened in the past, happened then. Now I was attending to my inner child, re-parenting it from the inside.

Take responsibility

You have the choice in every moment to reminisce the good moments of the past, curse those moments that were not good or start taking responsibility in the present. Every time you remember something you slightly alter the memory. Why not consciously changing them to your advantage?

I am the parent now

If you want to take that responsibility now, start by taking an active role in parenting yourself as an adult. You do this by addressing your needs in a healthy, conscious way, looking after your wishes and self-reflect on what is supporting you now.

What if you could have the childhood you already dreamt of now as an adult?

Filed Under: coaching, counselling, emotions/feelings, family of origin, parenting, self development/motivation Tagged With: inner child, nurturing, reparenting

Drama Triangle And How To Avoid It

April 16, 2014 By Nathalie Himmelrich Leave a Comment

Drama and winners triangle
Image by Nathalie Himmelrich

Getting hooked into a drama happens quickly, especially in close relationships. The following article will help you understand the different roles played and how to step out of the cycle altogether.

What Drama?

Stephen Karpman has first described the drama triangle in an article in 1968.  The model shows the three positions people have often taken in interactions: the victim, the persecutor and the rescuer.

The situation usually starts with a person taking the role of a victim or a persecutor. Once the bait is out, other people are lured into playing the game and take on other roles. The game then continues by the two (or three) players switching roles: the victim turns into the rescuer, the rescuer switches to persecutor or the rescuer becomes a victim exclaiming: I just wanted to help!

See what you made me do?

Recently a client described an interaction between her father and herself.

He found her folding boxes and said: “You can take my cardboard to the recycling as you’re just doing yours.”
She responded in an assertive way by saying: “If it all fits into the car, that will be fine.”
He added: “But otherwise I have to take it all the way to…”

She said: “The recycling place is open tomorrow morning, you can take it on your way.”
He, in an annoyed, angry tone of voice: “Oh well, just forget it. If you don’t want to help me then I’ll just take it all the way to…”

As the example shows, the father switches between the victim (poor me) and the persecutor (passive-aggressive tone of voice). The daughter answered assertively, which is the way out of the drama cycle. At a later stage, however, she became really annoyed at him and his reaction and noticed that he was able to pull her into his game. It didn’t verbally come out but she felt the effect while discussing it in our session.

Let me out of here!

Get over to the Winner’s Triangle! The same triangle has three winner’s positions: The vulnerable one also seen as a creator, aware of their own needs and being able to state them; the challenger, who assertively makes their point without becoming dominating or aggressive; and the coach or nurturer, someone who sees the individual as capable of making their choices or solving their own problems.

Awareness and a conscious shift to the positions mentioned will interrupt the drama cycle and allow you to make informed choices and focus on outcomes instead of problems. This dynamic is much more empowering and will leave you feeling satisfied.

Filed Under: coaching, communication, counselling, love/relationship/marriage Tagged With: conflict, drama triangle, karpman, persecutor, rescuer, victim

Relationship Wisdom – 6 Steps To Take When In Relationship Conflict

February 19, 2014 By Nathalie Himmelrich Leave a Comment

couple reflecting in a puddle
Photo by The HK Photo Company on Unsplash

Conflict in a relationship is often the pivotal point that leads to unhappiness and dissatisfaction of the relationship. Let’s have a look at conflict from a different point of view to turn it into an opportunity to grow and learn instead of an ‘I win – you loose’ scenario.

Relationship purpose

The ultimate purpose of every relationship, whether it is an intimate one or not, is to enable both of you to grow personally and interpersonally. Whenever we enter into a relationship there is this meeting place of two human beings finding out something new about themselves and each other. It really is the evolution of your own consciousness as well as the consciousness of interaction at large.

Avoiding conflict

Conflict is often seen as the opposite of intimacy. The reality of “me-against-you conflict” is that it reduces the feeling of safety, ability and willingness to be vulnerable. Avoiding conflict therefore is what seems like the most logical solution.

Conflict can also be seen as the opportunity to know more about yourself and the other person; to know about your likes and dislikes, what you are made of, your boundaries, your needs and wants and the same things in the other person.

Misunderstanding

When we start to see conflict in a different way, we can stay connected while having a different opinion to your partner.  Rather than imagining a fight, conflict or argument as a “me-against-you” scenario, we can visualize it being a fight against a common misunderstanding.

Every conflict is really engaging in a misunderstanding, which the two people in it don’t yet realize or understand. It is not about the money spent or the mother-in-law. It basically boils down to not having your needs and wants met around “being loved”:

  • Not loved (enough)
  • Not respected (enough)
  • Not seen (enough)
  • Not feeling important (enough)

Conflict as part of a real loving relationship is only a temporary misunderstanding, which, if analyzed, will allow you to understand yourself and your partner better.

Emotionality in conflict

Your anger (or other emotional expression) during the conflict is always a cover for hurt. Behind that hurt there is an important and sacred need or value that has been trespassed. If, instead of attacking or defending, you start investigating and inquiring into what is really behind, you will learn from conflict, rather than being tired out by it.

Start being curious

This might mean putting your own hurt aside and asking your partner: “I can see you’re really angry and hurt, there must be something really important here for you that I do not yet fully understand, what was that?” This curiosity, spoken with true empathy rather than sarcasm, will bring you back into an intimate and vulnerable space from which you can then learn to turn this conflict around.

You need to be in love, to alchemize conflict, because in conflict your darkest parts come out.

What do to when in conflict?

  1. Take a couple of deep breaths and ground yourself
  2. Take a time-out if needed, with an agreed time and place to return and finish the conversation
  3. Reach out and touch your partner, touch helps to feel safe and continuously loving even though we have different opinions
  4. Asking yourself: What is it that I need right now that I’m not getting. Give it yourself = re-parent yourself
  5. Take responsibility for your part in the conflict
  6. Show leadership in offering steps to resolve the conflict

Filed Under: coaching, counselling, gender/sexuality, love/relationship/marriage Tagged With: conflict, conflict resolution, relationship conflict

How To Save Time By Planning

February 12, 2014 By Nathalie Himmelrich Leave a Comment

making a list
Photo by STIL on Unsplash

One of the key habits that successful people have is planning.  It is often what unsuccessful people refuse to do. In specific, they develop written plans, which has to do with working smart rather than working hard.

Why plan?

According to time management experts, every hour spent developing a written plan saves anywhere from two to forty hours of carrying the plan out. Imagine the gain in productivity.

Adjusting plans

From the NASA engineers who do their amazing jobs in successfully landing vehicles on the moon, we can learn that 99% of the time they need to adjust their plans. In other words, be prepared to hit challenges or unforeseen circumstances which will affect your planning. You can either get frustrated that it did not work out as planned or, as the NASA engineers, adjust and re-plan.

Trial & learning

Another habit we can learn from successful people is the way in which we see the concept of success and failure or trial and error. Thomas Edison who invented the light bulb had failed a thousand times before he finally found the way it worked. According to history, Edison responded to a reporter asking him about his thousand failures: “I just learned a thousand different ways in which it did not work.” In the same way as NASA engineers, we can learn to see it as trial and learning, instead of trial and error.

Weekly planning

Daily and weekly planning for your tasks and mire will free up our energy for our goals. So what exactly form part of tasks and mire?

TASKS: actions we need to take to keep our lives running smoothly – such as paying the bills, cleaning, servicing the car, or weeding the garden – but which generally do not lead directly to fulfilling our purpose or deepest desires (goals).
MIRE: delayed actions we put off that consume or choke our energy, making it difficult to achieve our genuine goals.

How to plan:
1. Make first a list of any repeating tasks and a second list for mire.

2. Prioritise items on both lists according to urgent & important, urgent, important, neither urgent nor important.

3. Note how regularly they need to be performed for tasks and how much time you would need for both tasks and mire.

4. Scheduling:

Tasks: Schedule them into your diary, the best would be electronically with a reminder set at appropriate intervals or on the iPhone’s reminders App.

Mire: Take the top 3-5 items (or more depending on their time requirement) and map them out on a monthly planner according to your other plans.

For more details and examples please contact me.

Filed Under: coaching, counselling, self development/motivation Tagged With: adjusting plans, planing, trial and learning

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    Nathalie Himmelrich

    I accompany people therapeutically as a holistic counsellor and coach.

    I walk alongside people dealing with the challenges presented by life and death.

    I’m also a writer and published author of multiple grief resource books and the founder of the Grieving Parents Support Network.

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