It is a feeling I am familiar with, I have been there myself. At that time it felt hard and scary, I just couldn’t get a grip on my life. So I was in a state like that when I met Gabi, my coach. At our first session she told me to take a seat, gave me a pack of sticky notes, a pen and asked a question: What’s alive in you? I didn’t get it. What does this question mean? Alive in me? When? Where? At my workplace? In my life? But I didn’t get any further instructions. Only the question “What’s alive in you?” was posed, and that was it. 1 sticky note – 1 word or thought. I became very annoyed. However, as I have always felt a compulsion to conform, I started to write: 2.00 p.m. Monday afternoon, September…
And then I was left there with that question for 40 minutes. Once I had run out of all the shallow phrases and empty words, and had noted down a complete list of all the pieces of furniture in the room, I had only myself to look at. And suddenly, all my feelings, all the bitterness, pain and anger I had inside just burst out. After I had managed to let out all these negative feelings, the nice experiences also emerged. Finally, I had about 50–60 Post-its in front of me, all covered with handwritten notes.
My next task was to sort the notes according to a system of my choice. Afterwards, we took a look at the proportion of positive and negative thoughts. There was a lot of laughing and crying, and finally I felt that I am not drifting anymore, there was no falling, I managed to hold my world together which had been falling apart before. I had a well-rounded view of my world, I could reorganise or transform it.
Yes, sometimes we feel that nothing is working. But the important thing is that we do not get stuck in this feeling. Just remember: energy flows where attention goes. Channel your energy into finding the way out. Focus and connect to yourself!