Have you found your Ikigai yet?

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A new year has started and the first month has almost past. Did you decide and resolve at the end of 2020 to make changes and start to live a more passionate and meaningful life in 2021? Did you decide to make 2021 the year when you take your life to the next step? And, maybe you still feel a sense of confusion and wondering what steps to take and in what order?

Have you yet identified your Ikigai? Your reason for waking up in the morning?

The Japanese concept that means “a reason for being.” The word refers to having a meaningful direction or purpose in life, constituting the sense of one’s life being made worthwhile, with actions (spontaneous and willing) taken toward achieving one’s Iikigai resulting in satisfaction and a sense of meaning in to life.

Regardless of where you are at, if you have found your Ikigai, your “thing”, “your juice” in life, the reason for waking up in the morning or not, you may need support along the way. If you still are searching, you may need someone to nudge you and support you to get going?

Going back to my life and my own experience, I know I would not have made it this far without support, an accountability partner.

Do you need support?

Can help you? Can I be your accountability partner?

Book your “get to know your coach session” below ⬇️ and find out for your self.

https://calendly.com/hello-jessicaschultz/30min

Do you still wonder what I am talking about… what is Ikigai? Let me share the concept in short with you. I am not claiming to be a specialist at Ikigai, at all. All I know is that for me, life changed in the process of figure it out.

What is Ikigai?

I came across the Japanese word Ikigai a few years ago and I thought of it as a beautiful word. At first not knowing the full meaning of it, then I realized it is more than a word, that it’s a concept and a philosophy, a way of life, I got compelled to find out more.

Once you do:

  • what you love, including your passion & vision
  • what you are good at, that is your profession & vocation
  • what you can be paid for
  • what the world needs

The above formula is the Ikigai way. When you on a daily basis involve all four points above, when they simultaneously come into play, it is means that you are in your Ikigai.

If you do something that involve all the four points mentioned, this is where you can live a life worth waking up every day for, a life with purpose. This is when you are in the zone, when you live in your Ikigai. This is where you find the true meaning of life and when you have found it, you are never going to work another day. Imagine that you can be paid for to what you love to do, that what you love to do is in demand, but also contributes to more than just the world economy, it’s fulfilling and meaningful. Each person’s Ikigai differs from the other and is as individual as you are. My Ikigai is made of different ingredients than yours, but I think I can help you find yours.

Book a session with me, but before you go ahead click below to read about me ⬇️

https://www.jessicaschultz.one/om-mig/

Book your “get to know your coach session” below

https://calendly.com/hello-jessicaschultz/30min

The healing power of writing & storytelling

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Like most girls, I wrote a diary, and like most girls, I started each day with a “dear diary” before entrusting the book with my feelings and thoughts. I wrote for a few years, until I was a 12-13 years old. Then I quit. Not sure why, maybe it was when I had to lock the book in order to write about my innermost feelings? Maybe when the fear of being “caught” took over? I do not really know, and for a long time I read other people’s texts where biographies, stories about other people’s lives and events have always been the books I have preferred.

The power of a language

Both the need for, and the ability to express myself in speech and writing, I have carried with me in my life. It has enriched my life and created opportunities for me. A hug thanks goes to my parents who always kept full bookshelves, which meant that books always have been very present in my life. I started writing again three years ago when I became ill with stress fatigue and depression. I used writing as a process to understand myself and log why some days and weeks worked better than others. It was part of my process to heal and eventually feel better. I have been writing ever since , almost every day and I use the written word as a log of how I really feel, how balanced I am and as method to process my emotions.

Writing is a great tool

To write is a great tool, but to share my inner thoughts, feelings and my inner world with other’s is adding one extra dimension to life. I would like to share something from Bo Ahrenfelt, psychiatrist and author who really say it in a way that resonate with me (free translation).

“Sharing our inner processes with others makes us feel good, and helps us to develop and deal with difficult phases in life. What is most personal is paradoxically also most generalizable. And by sharing  and to be a part of others personal experiences, I become more whole as a human being”.

The healing power of writing and storytelling is in its simplicity enriching and make the difficulties in life easier to bear. 

Neuroleadership/NLP

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Healthy Mind Platter

I think most of us have past experiences about a food pyramid or recommendations on how a healthy and nutritious meal should look like. But how many of us have heard about the healthy mind platter*? This was completely new for me until I discovered the concept/framework a few years ago. And what a discovery! I use this on a daily basis in my life.

It helps you to optimize your brain matter and create well-being. Initially you can use it as a gap analysis, do you get enough of the seven essential mental activities in your life?

*developed by Dan Siegel and David Rock.

The essential areas are:

  1. Focus time – When we closely focus on tasks in a goal-oriented way, we take on challenges that make deep connections in the brain.
  2. Play Time – When we allow ourselves to be spontaneous or creative, playfully enjoying novel experiences, we help make new connections in the brain.
  3. Connecting Time – When we connect with other people, ideally in person, and when we take time to appreciate our connection to the natural world around us, we activate and reinforce the brain’s relational circuitry
  4. Physical Time – When we move our bodies, aerobically if medically possible, we strengthen the brain in many ways.
  5. Time In – When we quietly reflect internally, focusing on sensations, images, feelings and thoughts, we help to better integrate the brain.
  6. Down Time – When we are non-focused, without any specific goal, and let our mind wander or simply relax, we help the brain recharge.
  7. Sleep Time –
When we give the brain the rest it needs, we consolidate learning and recover from the experiences of the day.

When I introduced this framework into my life, I realized that I did not allow myself any play time. I had totally forgotten how to have fun, to be spontaneous. Everything had become way too serious. Another thing that was missing in my platter was the down time. The time with no specific goal, where I just let my brain wander and relax. For me, introducing this framework has changed my life. It is so easy yet so powerful

The magic and messiness of life

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The circle of life is the same for all of us; we are born and eventually we die. The difference is what we do with the time in between. The average age- span differs from country to country and it is not the same for men and women. In Sweden where I live, women are “given” in average 85 years and men 81 years.

To be given life is magic and should be treated with grace and gratitude. But for some reason many people take life for granted and forget how blessed they really are. I belive that we all have a purpose in life, a reason for being here. I wake up every morning and feeling blessed that I  have been given 85 years of the messy and magic life, and I am trying hard to live according to my purpose.

This is not always easy and some days this takes more effort than other. And life has seasons, just as nature does. Summer and spring are for most of us the easier life while winter and autumn normally takes a bit more effort, a bit more hard work.

If I have been given 85 years of life, then I am undoubetly going to experience many seasons. I will go through autumn, winter, spring and summer. This is natural, and we cannot change the seasons. What we can do, is to change how we react to the seasons. We do not have to give away our power to the outside events, and we can choose what meaning we are giving the event.

In March 2020 Swedish winter was coming to its end and spring was about to knock on our door.

And as we know, March 2020 had other plans for all of us and it managed to throw us back into a very cold winter. The magic and beauty of life turned into a messy and stressful time. When unexpected events occur, we need time to understand the meaning of it. We need to find our balance and time to figure out what to do next. We need to understand what we can control and what we can change. This is where we need to be, in the land of possibilities, where we have to power within our control. Because if we focus on the things we cannot control and what we cannot change then we give away our power. And this is a source of passivity and does not have positive impact of our health and wellbeing.

This gigantic change that is happening in the world now is calling for action and we have to do our part. It is now time to farm the land in order to reap a beautiful seed in the future. This too shall pass, everything is changing, so will this. And the opportuinity is given to us to be co-creaters of the world we want to live in. I am taking this task seriously and realise it was part of my purpose in my life to be a part of the necessary change.

I was never enough – the stress collapse was inevitable.

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The sun was shining and I heard my mother´s words from when I was a little girl ringing in my head, “Jessica, the sun is shining, out you go”  But no matter how much I tried my body did not move and my legs did not carry me. July of 2017 was one of the warmest summer months in Sweden for a long time but that did not matter, I could not force myself to do anything. I was 46 years old and had lost control of it all. My body, my mind and my being were totally drained. My battery was totally and completely empty. I had worked so hard for years and this by itself was enough to drain anyone, but I was determined to make things happen. And in addition to this I had gone through some difficult personal things – got divorced, my son had gotten himself into some difficulties and had gotten myself into a conflict with my father, all of which just tipped the scales. It was too much to handle.

The breakdown was the result of the high levels of stress that I had exposed myself to for such a long time, finally leading to exhaustion, depression and anxiety. I had no other choice that to start over. I had no idea of how, I had lost contact with me, what I liked, what I enjoyed doing and I was stuck in just doing things without any connection with me. I had forgotten how to look after me, to do things for me. I had to reset and start all over again. I was a beginner and had no idea how to live life. I started to do nothing, to drink coffee holding the cup with two hands, I was being in stillness, walking slowly in nature, meditating and training on being mindful. To be present in the moment. One thing I found relaxing and mindful was doing the ironing. This was something I had hated before, but now I found stillness in it. The steam from the iron, the smell of the detergent and wrinkles in the clothes becoming smooth.

The recovery and rediscovery of myself and a new balanced life took time. I worked daily with journaling, meditation, yoga and I also had a coach that helped me. My coach, Mandy she is still crucial in my life and three years later I am so grateful that I made that investment in me!

Do I need to tell you that I believe that everyone needs a coach? We all have everything we need within us and sometimes we just need someone else to help us to see this. And for me the time to recover and get well was so much quicker and healthier with a coach by my side.

Thanks to the coaching process I have done some deep work with my belief system, including my limiting beliefs, my habits and behaviors that “took me down the ditch”. Do you need someone to help you get out of the ditch? Please reach out and book your free exploration session with me. Email: hello@jessicaschultz.one or send me a message via my contact form on the web site

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