Finding Joy & Gifts

Welcome to the Embody Podcast, today I am chatting with Bara, a transformational life coach. We discuss key topics like finding one’s purpose and passion, gaining confidence, tools for mindfulness, and finding joy & gifts within difficult situations. The discussion focuses on personal growth, self-discovery, and living a more mindful, fulfilled life. Have a listen!

Questions & Answers

Q: What made you go from engineering into coaching?

A: Wanted to help engineers feel good about themselves and their jobs. Questioned why I was working in the oil industry as an environmentalist. Got an opportunity to rethink my career during a company transition.

Q: Can you talk a little bit about, I want to gain confidence, but they’re like, I don’t even know what that means. What does that mean? What does confidence mean?

A: Confidence means having a sense of knowing you’re safe to show up as yourself without worrying what others think. It allows us to take more risks and put ourselves out there.

Q: How do we start to get out of that practice of negative thoughts?

A: Can’t completely stop negative thoughts but we can train our brains to notice them quickly and shift out of them. Tools like positive intelligence, mindfulness, and checking in with our thoughts throughout the day can help.

What is Good or Bad?

Q: When you talk about gifts and contentment and finding those transitional pieces of going from something that might be irritating or something that’s just not going their way. From that negative kind of feedback and that negative voice that comes up in their head, and then shifting to contentment and joy. What was your experience with that?

A: I learned it from a story; this farmer who had this stallion that ran away. And so the whole village comes to this farmer and they’re like, oh, that’s so terrible that your stallion ran away. And he was like, well, who’s to know that it’s what’s good or bad? The villagers were like, all right, dude, kind of a weird response. Then a few days later, his son is out and finds the stallion in a meadow with all of these other stallions and brings home all of these horses.

Suddenly this farmer has all of these horses and it seems really cool and the villagers come and they’re like, wow, that’s so amazing. Good for you that now you have all of these horses. He’s like, well, who’s to say what’s good or bad? They’re like, all right. His son is training one of the new horses and he falls off and he breaks his leg. So the villagers come back and they’re like, oh, this is terrible.

How sad your son broke his leg. Again, he’s like, who’s to know what’s good or bad? Then a week later, his country goes to war. All the young men are recruited to go off to war, but they can’t take his son because he has a broken leg.

Hmm. I just thought that story was so cool because it’s true. Who’s to know if something is bad? And I don’t take their mindset of like, let’s not say if something’s good. Personally, I think, I love looking for the positive in anything and I think there’s so much value in that.

But this story got me thinking about my own life and some of the situations that I thought were the worst things that ever happened to me or just felt so painful in the moment. Those moments, one of them led me to discovering compassion which changed my entire life for the better.

Q: If you could give anybody, so like some golden nuggets, whether it’s tools, maybe it’s a quote, whatever it is, whatever feels good to you. If somebody could take away something from this episode, what would that be?

A: You have the power to turn every moment into a gift, whether big or small. Choose something positive and joyous because you deserve it.

For a full listen to: Finding Joy & Gifts click the link here!