In Celebration of Life, the Universe and Everything

Since I started my professional Life Coach Training with ICA I have learnt so many new and valuable things one of which is the importance of learning to celebrate our achievements. We live in a world( particularly the world of work) where we are motivated by fear and worry. It is rare to get praise for doing the ordinary day to day stuff which we may be doing exceptionally well. This climate has a knock- on effect in that we find that we motivating ourselves by self criticism and loathing.

At ICA I have learnt the value of celebrating. I remember my first teleclass on the subject of celebration and it just seemed so foreign to be saying well, how am I going to reward myself for my hard work? By going through to process of choosing to celebrate it makes it special and exciting.

By making a conscious commitment to reward ourselves it produces a lightness and optimism within us.

It really is amazing what a difference it makes to the task in hand if we build in mile stones of celebration and reward.

My Celebration

Is to be alive! Today in the longest day of the year and apart from being a spiritually special day, twenty- two years ago I had a terrible riding accident which involved my mare collapsing on the road, my hat falling off, and me falling off her backwards .I landed on the concrete road directly on my head and fractured my skull and had a brain hemorrhage.

Such a fall would ordinarily be fatal. For me, however, I was being looked after by the universe or God or a higher power, which put in place for me a nurse, who was traveling to work on the same road and she was literally right behind me. How lucky was that? I’m sure we could spend time discussing whether indeed it was luck, divine intervention, karma or chance, but whatever it was, I am eternally grateful.

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger – Neitzsche – German philosopher (1844 -1900)

One of the many valuable things I have learnt during my training has been that our antagonists are indeed angels in disguise. My accident left me with brain damage for five long years and initially I lost my ability to coordinate my hands. The experience taught me so may things and started my life-long journey of self discovery. Up until this point my life, apart from always loving the countryside, was dominated by politics. Although after my accident I realised that no amount of politics was going to help me now.

I started to look for the answers within and this was the gift for me. I started in my mid twenties and continued to read books to improve my emotional- intelligence and self- development so that I can best serve my fellow human kind.

I went on to train as a Yoga Teacher and returned to University and completed a Masters Degree in Social Work.

So today is special and I celebrate all that is good in my life.

May I challenge you to think of something or somebody who at the time caused you pain and sorrow but now, when you look back, you are able to see that the challenge enabled you to grow and get stronger.