Life Appraisal
Spend some quiet time contemplating the following areas of your life in relation to the five questions below. Write down your responses as fully as you like. Write for yourself, uninhibitedly, and afterwards decide how much you would like to share with your coach. Send a copy of what you are happy to share in advance of your coaching session along with your life map.
1. Health, diet and fitness
a. Who or what is important to you when you consider this area of your life?
b. In what way are your needs met or not met in this area?
c. Roughly how much time per week do you spend on this area of your life?
d. How would you rate this area of your life on a scale of 1 to 10 (where 10 is ideal)?
e. Do you have future aims in this area? If so, what are they?
2 Home, environment, location
a. Who or what is important to you when you consider this area of your life?
b. In what way are your needs met or not met in this area?
c. Roughly how much time per week do you spend on this area of your life?
d. How would you rate this area of your life on a scale of 1 to 10 (where 10 is ideal)?
e. Do you have future aims in this area? If so, what are they?
3 Family, relations, children
a. Who or what is important to you when you consider this area of your life?
b. In what way are your needs met or not met in this area?
c. Roughly how much time per week do you spend on this area of your life?
d. How would you rate this area of your life on a scale of 1 to 10 (where 10 is ideal)?
e. Do you have future aims in this area? If so, what are they?
4 Friends and social life
a. Who or what is important to you when you consider this area of your life?
b. In what way are your needs met or not met in this area?
c. Roughly how much time per week do you spend on this area of your life?
d. How would you rate this area of your life on a scale of 1 to 10 (where 10 is ideal)?
e. Do you have future aims in this area? If so, what are they?
5 Love, sex and relationships
a. Who or what is important to you when you consider this area of your life?
b. In what way are your needs met or not met in this area?
c. Roughly how much time per week do you spend on this area of your life?
d. How would you rate this area of your life on a scale of 1 to 10 (where 10 is ideal)?
e. Do you have future aims in this area? If so, what are they?
6 Work, career or creative endeavour
a. Who or what is important to you when you consider this area of your life?
b. In what way are your needs met or not met in this area?
c. Roughly how much time per week do you spend on this area of your life?
d. How would you rate this area of your life on a scale of 1 to 10 (where 10 is ideal)?
e. Do you have future aims in this area? If so, what are they?
7 Finances, wealth, money
a. Who or what is important to you when you consider this area of your life?
b. In what way are your needs met or not met in this area?
c. Roughly how much time per week do you spend on this area of your life?
d. How would you rate this area of your life on a scale of 1 to 10 (where 10 is ideal)?
e. Do you have future aims in this area? If so, what are they?
8 Leisure, fun and relaxation
a. Who or what is important to you when you consider this area of your life?
b. In what way are your needs met or not met in this area?
c. Roughly how much time per week do you spend on this area of your life?
d. How would you rate this area of your life on a scale of 1 to 10 (where 10 is ideal)?
e. Do you have future aims in this area? If so, what are they?
9 Social contribution, voluntary work, special concerns and interests
a. Who or what is important to you when you consider this area of your life?
b. In what way are your needs met or not met in this area?
c. Roughly how much time per week do you spend on this area of your life?
d. How would you rate this area of your life on a scale of 1 to 10 (where 10 is ideal)?
e. Do you have future aims in this area? If so, what are they?
10 Spiritual or religious interests, personal development
a. Who or what is important to you when you consider this area of your life?
b. In what way are your needs met or not met in this area?
c. Roughly how much time per week do you spend on this area of your life?
d. How would you rate this area of your life on a scale of 1 to 10 (where 10 is ideal)?
e. Do you have future aims in this area? If so, what are they?
11 Any other area of lack or dissatisfaction
a. Who or what is important to you when you consider this area of your life?
b. In what way are your needs met or not met in this area?
c. Roughly how much time per week do you spend on this area of your life?
d. How would you rate this area of your life on a scale of 1 to 10 (where 10 is ideal)?
e. Do you have future aims in this area? If so, what are they?
Life Map
Sketch out a map of your life with dates and significant events, moves, relationships etc. This can be a list or chronology (with dates next to events) or a fuller life story if you want to write in more detail.
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Your Ideal Life
‘We are who and where we are because we have first imagined it’ - Donald Curtis
Somewhere inside we know what kind of life we long for. We have flickers of an ideal life – a wonderful partner, meaningful vocation, plenty of money, excellent health, a great home, lots of free time – and it’s almost too painfully absent to contemplate. So we don’t. We don’t think it’s possible or that we’re good enough for such things. So we shelve our fantasy fragments and settle for what we have, never believing it could be much different.
But in doing so, we may be missing an opportunity. Our natural ability to imagine and fantasise gives us the potential to make great things happen. Imagination leads the way in how we create our life. Where else does a work of art or a feat of engineering begin but in our imagination? Indeed, ‘we are who and where we are because we have first imagined it’. If we can’t even imagine where we want to go, we go nowhere, or get blindly swept up with someone else’s imperatives. Worse still, we drift into a painful netherworld based on our unconscious negative beliefs and imaginings.
To harness the positive creative power of our imagination, we need to be aware of our beliefs about our self and the world. Our beliefs are only ideas picked up and reinforced throughout our lives, a pattern of thinking that helps us feel comfortable. Beliefs have no real substance and yet they strongly influence the creation of our reality.
That’s why it’s possible to suspend our habitual beliefs and reach somewhere else in our imagination. We can loosen our beliefs about what is possible, and strengthen our positive tone. It’s excellent practise to give our beliefs a good stretch every now and then. We can play with them, see them for what they are, show them who is boss.
The Ideal Life Exercise uses these principles. It’s a chance to play at stretching our ideas about how our life could be towards something utterly amazing. We suspend disbelief and allow ourselves to reach way into perfection. It doesn’t matter if we don’t think we can ever achieve this kind of life. In the process of the exercise we free ourselves up and reveal what really moves us.
Later exercises deal with making things real. For now, forget being practical and shoot for the stars.
The Ideal Life Exercise
Take a leap of imagination into a life that is totally wonderful and ideal for you. What would your life be like if everything about it was totally fantastic and in line with your deepest values? How would you live? How would you be spending your time? Where would you be? Who would be with you? What kind of relationships would you have? How would you express yourself?
Look back over your Life Appraisal to remind yourself of the areas of your life you can include. Check on the aspirations you noted in each area. Can you make them bigger and better? Be bold.
Allow all those fantasy fragments to come together into a stunning scenario of personal perfection. Let rip. Let your soul sing. It’s so exhilarating to just give yourself permission, to have a real stretch. This is about what you would love to be true, not what you believe is achievable. Suspend all ideas about what’s possible and go for it.
Describe your ideal life vividly using all your senses. How would you feel? How would you look, your home look? How would your environment sound and taste and smell? Make it as luscious and colourful and as over the top as you like.
Use entirely positive language. Describe what you want, not what you don’t want.
Write in the present tense as though it’s all actually happening now. Create a reality and step inside it. Enjoy.
A bit stuck?
1. Try doing a picture or collage of your ideal life. Use big paper, words, colour, cut up magazines, anything that moves you.
2. Ask yourself what you would do with your life if you won the lottery, or only had a year left to live, or what you would do if you knew you couldn’t fail.
3. If you have a lot of resistance, objections and cynical comments in your head, write them down. Leave them aside to deal with later. (If these objections still prevent you from getting on, write a contradicting positive affirmation beside each objection. It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not, just blatantly contradict the objection with something positive. Try on the opposite, positive view for size.)
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Ah and Om Meditation
The Ah and Om meditation is a manifestation practice created by contemporary sage, Dr Pillai, and popularised by western spiritual teacher Dr Wayne Dyer. The practice is used to open up and energise the metaphysical power of asking for and receiving that which we wish to draw into our life.
For video instruction/guidance on the Ah Meditation click here
http://srimati.com/2011/10/05/ah-meditation-and-wayne-dyer/
The meditation combines the power of the mind, the body and the voice into a singular, intentional energy. We ‘put out’ this energy, and then we allow ourselves to receive that which we wish for.
It can be used to draw to us physical things (like cars, houses), positive relationships, states of emotional and mental well being, as well as health, money, clients and jobs.
We can choose to energise the same request over and over again each time we do it, or we can change our request each time we do it as appropriate.
It can be done collectively as well as on our own. It is very powerful to join with others on a collective purpose using this meditation.
It is a short (10 minutes) and powerful practice that can be done as part of a daily routine, and/or employed for specific projects. It can also be done to open and close group meetings and ceremonies.
The Ah part of the meditation is best done earlier, e.g. in the morning, and the OM part later, e.g. in the evening. Both parts are important, the asking and the receiving.
The Ah is a seed syllable that represents the out breath – birth, life, bliss, and awakening. It sends energy out to the universe.
The Om is a seed syllable that represents the in breath – receptivity, gratitude and surrender. It receives energy from the universe.
How to practice
1. First choose one thing to focus on – e.g. the need or desire to find a new house.
2. Being as specific as you can, turn this need or desire into a positive affirmation, asserting that you already have this thing – e.g. I have a beautiful, affordable house.
3. Repeat this silently in your mind, over and over again – e.g. ‘I have a beautiful, affordable house’ ‘I have a beautiful, affordable house’.
4. Imagine / visualise / feel / get a sense of the energy in your root chakra (at the perineum). Get a sense of drawing up this energy, up through your sacral chakra (below the belly button), up through your solar plexis chakra, up through your heart chakra, up through your throat chakra, and up to your 3rd eye chapter (in the middle of the forehead just above the eyes).
5. Imagine the energy you are drawing up from your root chakra, through the other charkas, is gushing out of your 3rd eye chakra. It gushes out of the 3rd eye chakra, out into the universe, powerfully and unreservedly. All your body energy is gushing out this chakra, the visioning chakra. It rolls on and on endlessly.
6. Keep mentally reciting the affirmation. At the same time, keep rolling the energy up through your chakras and out through the 3rd eye chakra. Now add the 3rd element, your voice chanting ‘Ah’.
7. Chant the syllable ‘Ah’ out loud with the out breath. Pause during the in breath, the chant ‘Ah’ again at the same pitch. Keep repeating the ‘Ah’ with the out breath. Keep the chanting going for 10 minutes or so, allowing the voice to come and go in force as feels appropriate. Keep reciting the affirmation and gushing out the energy from the charkas as you do so.
8. Later on, perhaps at the other end of the day (or the other end of the meeting) gather yourself again. Remember what you ‘put out for’ earlier.
9. Chant ‘OM’ for a few minutes with the out breath. As you chant, open yourself to receiving that which you asked for earlier. Allow this thing, experience or relationship to really ‘land’ on you. Allow yourself to feel gratitude and thanks that it’s coming your way.
