Day 194: Allowing myself to be pushed to push myself to push others

In January 2020 I took a certified Life Coaching course. I became very excited about how powerful the coaching approach is in terms of assisting coachees in a relatively short time period to reach very high awareness of their life situation, to identify the obstacles, and to find solutions to overcome them. I found coaching to be something that I can deeply impact others by while allowing me not to activate my past selfish character of wanting to feel good by impressing others with the amount of advanced knowledge that I acquired. The fact that coaches are not supposed to be people who give advice, consult or teach and that their main purpose is to only mirror coachees, felt very liberating to me. However, there are some aspects of the coaching business that I do not like.

I learned from one of the coaches who is teaching his Natural Enrollment Method that establishing trust is an important part of the process to get clients. And it takes a lot of time to build rapport to the level where others become comfortable with opening themselves to you as a coach. So while coaching is very powerful it also requires readiness from the coachees to be vulnerable and courageous for them to get the most out of the coaching process. There must be a willingness to change and investment of time and money from their side in order for the coaching process to begin. And for that to happen there is a requirement from me to initially invest a lot my time and money in order to present the power of the coaching process to them and also to present myself as someone who is highly qualified for effective execution of such services and that I am also someone who they can trust with absolute certainty in terms that I will keep whatever they share with me to myself.

In recent months due to the Coronavirus or Covid-19 global event, I found it hard to get enough clients for my coaching business. One factor was my own fears about how far the changes within society will go and how that might influence me personally in a negative way. So all the media information that portrayed the virus as something very dangerous and the quarantine and economy shutdown as something justified definitely distracted my ability to focus on running a coaching business. Instead of investing my time in promoting my services, I spent many hours in research what is actually going on behind the scene of supposed global virus pandemic. And I have been occupied a lot by sharing interesting discoveries about what is the most probable truth all over the social media networks. I also had doubts that I would actually be effective with my coaching services to assist others since the global situation has been changing very fast and has impacted everyone extensively.

What I also noticed is that with the coaching business I definitely am pushing myself out of my comfort zone and consequently I have been experiencing a resistance. A point that I find most challenging is the energetic addition to feeling good. A great number of my past activities have been driven by wanting to prove to others that I am better than them in terms of my knowledge and skills. Consequently, in order for me to maintain my status as a superior being, I did not allow others to reach my level of excellence. That manifested in the form of being envious towards others, analyzing their activities and exposing any of their imperfections, and bullying them for that. So while I am now pushing myself to genuinely assist others to become the best version of themselves, I sometimes experience energy lows due to the persistence of the previous wiring of my mind.

Coaching has also introduced a new dynamic to my life in terms of scheduling. Previously I have been working on projects where I did not have to be so strict with time. For example, when I was doing a creative job and someone ordered me to produce some design or a photo, those were projects that took days, weeks or even months to complete. So just one client kept me occupied for a long time and I had the freedom to work on the project whenever I felt inspired during the day and thus not having to look at the clock very often. And in regards to working for my father, I fit his needs the most if I am available for him as soon as he calls me and to work as long until what he needs from me has been completed. Thus I find it more comfortable if there are others who contact me and give me work because they know what to expect from me and I can take all the time that is needed for me to complete the works to a level that I am satisfied with. And I preferred to have as much free time as possible after executing my creative work until I would be given the next order.

At the business of coaching, there must be people who order the coaching services in order for themselves to be pushed out of their comfort zone. In order for this to happen something has to happen for them to motivate them into desiring to be pushed out of the comfort zone by the method of coaching. And for me to sell the coaching method in general and then me as the coach that others would want to hire, I have to initially push myself out of my comfort zone. So I am also pushing myself to be in groups of people like Destonians that push me to increasingly push myself to push others and thus we have become many who are pushing each other out of our comfort zones in order to break free from of our limitations and to expand ourselves as much as possible. Consequently, we would in time not push each other down anymore due to desire to be more than others but push others up to the level where we can coexist as equals and live our utmost potentials.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to define my father as someone that I must maintain my relationship with my whole life since I owe him for raising me and that I have to take care for him when he will be older and less capable similar than he took care for me when I was a todler and also less capable of taking care for myself. I realize that my relationship with him is based on him wanting me to feel like I owe him by him telling me many times that I have not repayed yet even for the milk that he purchased for me in my childhood years. I commit myself whenever my father wants me to do something and my mind produces thoughts like: “I have to serve him fast and well since I owe him my life.” to stop and breathe. I then with gratefulness for what he has done for me consider how I can fulfil his current needs however without allowing him to extort things from me by diminshing me and making me feel bad since that is just his projection of his own lack of self-trust and feeling of inferiority as the consequence of his childhood experiences that include loosing his father at a very young age.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to consider opinion of my father as more important that opinions of others and consequently doing mostly things which I can impress him with. I realize that by me wanting to impress my father I am equally diminishing myself like he is diminishing himself by wanting to impress others and consequently I am responsible for this limiting pattern of selfish interest and energetic addiction to continue in our bloodline. I commit myself when and as am deciding what to do, and my mind produces thoughts like: “Do something that you will be able to impress your father positively as much as possible with so that he will be proud of you.” to stop and breathe. Instead of that I decide for activities where I consider all life as equal and that have a long-term consequence outflow that are best for all being in this world.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that I would not be able to handle big projects since I get exhausted alreday by doing small projects, especially when I do design activities for my father. I realize that feeling of exhaustion comes from the negative energy of feeling heavy as the polarity of my desire for the positive energy of upliftment that is generated when I feel proud and as someone more after I have done something for my father and he then praises my work, especially in front of other people. I commit myself when and as I do things for other people, especially for my father and my mind it producting thougths like: “Do things in such a way that you will be able to feel good about yourself since positive feelings are what life is all about.” to stop and breathe. Within the realization of how any energetic experience, regardless if being negative or positive, is exhausting my physical body and eventually creating the feeling of polarity oposite, I decide for my starting point for doing anything to be creation of something paractical and tangible, that contributes to making this world a better place for all.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to present my advanced knowledge and computer skills to my father with intention to impress him and intimidate him in order to maintain my superiority towards him instead of realizing that I am by such attitude being the same kind of bully that he has been many times towards me in the past. I commit myself when and as I communicate to my father and my mind is producing thought like: “Show him that he is not able to grasp everthing that you are capable of knowing and doing so that he will be able to admire you.” to stop and breathe. Instead of that I decide when and as I communicate with him to become one and equal with him in terms of using vocabulary that he is able to understand and to also take time to teach him computers skills so that he can increase his capability of independently using the latest gadgets and devices. 

Some additional related Eqafe supportive audios:

Pushing and Pulling Time
Moods Ruled My Life
Daddy Issues
Despite My Best Intentions
My Life of Absolutism
Inequality and Separation in Your Mind
Pride
Discovering self Pride
Losing Self Value Through Validation
Asking for & Accepting Help

Day 175: Taking the first steps in a restarted photography business

Recently I decided to restart my own professional services. After contemplation of what I am able to offer to others, I narrowed down the options to photography services. I purchased basic photo equipment and started to experiment with creating animal and human portraits. For that, I used cats of my neighbors and the neighbors and their friends themselves as the models. The location was the back yard of our apartment building where I hoped that would be also able to shoot other commercial sessions since there is enough space there. Yesterday I asked the landlord if he will allow me to do photoshoots there and he granted me permission. But then one of the neighbors complained that such activity would be too much of disturbance for her. I hoped that this place will enable me to at least make some business before an additional room will become available in the building that I could equip for a photo studio. Now I will due to additional constriction have to change my plans.

I feel disappointed because I hoped that by being allowed to shoot in the backyard I will be able to start offering professional photo services knowing that I have a proper location at a hand. Especially because I planned to start earning money with portraits for which I need a more intimate location. I also planned to offer wedding photography but usually, this kind of jobs are being negotiated at least one year in advance. If I am to rent an additional room for my photo studio I need to somehow get an additional several hundred euros by the end of this month or maybe even sooner since the payments are being collected by our landlord around 22nd day of each month for one month in advance. And what also prevents me from fully engaging in the photography business is a delay at a district court due to holidays where I filed the papers to change the name and services of my private institute as the legal entity that I plan to use to charge my clients. Usually, the applications are being resolved within one week however now I have been waiting for their response for over one month and they say that only in 4 days they will restart with sending the written responses to all applicants.

Despite all these downsides, I am at this time able to sell my services and issue invoices however I would need to do jobs at different locations and to use my current educational institute to be the legal entity which is not ideal. The question here is only how to get first jobs as soon as possible in order to generate income so that I could invest it in renting the studio and then to also purchase additional photo equipment. My plan was to visit other local businesses where a lot of people mingle and to place stands with my business cards so that people would be informed about my wedding and portrait photography. And to also visit other companies in surrounding to potentially get product and business portraiture jobs. I could also shoot events and stock photos however I am not sure how fast I could generate income from these services. There is also potential to get hired from online searches however I would need to invest a lot more time in the redesign of my website and search engine optimization. The other thing that prevented me from visiting local businesses already is the current high summer temperature that reached up to 40ºC in past weeks. However, since it is expected to drop to around 25ºC in a couple of days, that will enable me to distribute the stands with my business cards a lot easier very soon.

Then I need need to decide how to price my services. Years ago when I first started with photography I have been charging quite a lot however I lived in a different area, before the period of the financial crisis and I had much better equipment. I have been for the past 6 years living in the second largest city in our country that is considered to be much poorer than our capital city where I also lived before for some time. So I will have to research what the local prices are in order to be competitive and to also see how photography business has changed in the last decade of me not doing any professional photoshoots. What I am also not sure is if it would be best for me to stay in the current city or to move somewhere else. The reason why I moved here was due to predictions that I would be much more successful with the selling of educational software that I have been a national distributor of for several years. Since I then quit the software business there is nothing much that is holding me in my current city. Also, two of my best friends have moved out of the city to a farm and I have also been thinking of joining them there soon. On the other hand, a large city could offer more photo business opportunities and I have also quite settled down here and established a lot of new friendship connections.

There are many options to earn a lot of money by doing professional photography and many are not connected to my current location at all. For example, I could do much more profitable photoshoots for the nearby Austria residents where the economic situation is much better than in our country and I live very close to the border. However, I would need to become more skilled in speaking and writing in the German language. Then there are other international jobs available like becoming a destination wedding photographer but I do not see me just ready for such kind of demanding jobs yet. And of course, as I mentioned I could do many kinds of stock photography in order to generate a residual income. So what I find the most challenging at this moment is in which direction to turn, what kind of services, to whom and in what way to offer in order to start earning money. And even if I should besides photography also be offering graphic design services as I already did before when first established my own business and to even possibly add video services for which I also have sufficient technical equipment to produce some commercial videos.

And within all this, I also wonder if I should specialize in a specific field of photography and to develop my own style and genre of photos. One reason for this is for me to be able to stand out from the crowd of other photographers and the other reason is to have a mission that would be adding more value to my work. Because for the past 15 years I have strived to make an impact in this world by participating at many different international NGO projects. So I am thinking about how to use the photography to in a way also contribute to making this world the best place for all. Many photographers are focused on beauty and artistic aspects of the photos which definitely have their own market however I am not very excited about only creating something that is attractive to the human eye just from the perspective of esthetics. What I am not also very fun of is the discomfort of my physical body that I am feeling during the process of photography especially when using the computer. Doing photoshoots is much more dynamic however sitting long hours to process and manipulate the photos can be much more painful. Thus ideally I am looking at how to earn enough money by expressing myself creatively, to have as much positive impact on this world as possible and also to feel physically enough comfortable while doing it. Now I will be correcting my subconscious believes in order to become more stable and grounded:

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel resentment towards my neighbor due to believing that she made the execution of my photography services and earning money harder than necessary by not allowing me to shoot at the back yard of our apartment building. I realize that due to her past traumatic experiences she has become very sensitive to disturbances in her surrounding and that she needs to have a quiet end stress-free home environment. Thus I commit myself to understand the current state of her mind and to execute my business projects so that I will not create too big disturbances for her. 

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to treat our communal back yard as a place that is mostly unused and that each of us who share it can do anything that we desire there at any time. I realize that doing photoshoots with my clients there is an activity that would intrude into the lives of my neighbors too much and would disturb their inner peace. So I commit myself to when and as I plan any activity that is out of the ordinary in the space that also effects my neighbors to not only ask the landlord for permission but to also ask my neighbors if that would be something they are able and willing to tolerate.  

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel pressure in regards to my restarted photography business by believing that I need to rent an additional room in order to be able to execute specific studio photo jobs as the quickest and most reliable source of income. I realize that in any situation that I find myself in there are always many different solutions available to deal with any challenge and that I never need to feel any internal unrest about anything. Thus I commit myself to when and as I see that situation has become different than how I imagined initially, to breathe, slow myself down and see what other solutions are available as the best alternatives for me to be able to move forward.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to compare myself with the younger generation of photographers and to be threatened by them. I realize that I have been defining myself as a youthful person that looks in the eyes of others at least 10 years younger. That shows that I have not fully embraced the fact that I am getting older and will be very old and also look different someday. Thus I commit myself to when and as someone asks me about my age to not reply with me asking them to guess my age based on my outer appearance and then to be proud about them giving me about 10 years less than how I actually look. And also to treat other people, especially young ones as equal with the understanding that we all transition through different age periods however we can at any time find a place for anyone in this existence for all of us to collaborate and express ourselves equally.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel left out due to a past decade not working as a professional photographer. I realize that I have changed my business path many times in the past and that also in the future I might decide to do something very different if I find enough motivation for that. Thus I commit myself not to treat starting something new at any age as a defeat and having the same business for a long time s a victory but to rather treat all situations equally. What matters the most is how each of us within what we do is expanding our awareness and improving relationship towards self and others in order to practically live the principle of oneness and equality.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to see myself as an outcast due to living for the past 6 years in an area of our country with a different dialect and economic situation. I realize that nationalism and local patriotism are tendencies throughout every country on this planet besides many other acts of separation like race, gender, and religious conflicts. So I commit myself to treat everyone equally regardless of their original place of birth and differences of their looks or mental states. And to also treat any attempt of others to create separation between them and me individually within understanding how any expression of hate is actually a projection of bad self-image and traumatic experiences in the past.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel depressed due to discovering how easy is now to acquire the professional knowledge for any profession and how many people are sharing behind the scenes videos that display their excellency in what they do. I realize that me feeling low is the polarity state of my behavior pattern of wanting to feel elevated due to the perception that I am someone special because I possess special knowledge and skills that almost no other has. Thus I commit myself to stop being motivated by trying to impress others for the sake of receiving positive feedbacks but to decide for a profession when I will motivate myself to express my creativity and for my inner guidance to be the main measure of how I am letting the best of me to manifest in this reality.

Here are additional related links to a free online course where also you can learn how to become aware of and change your mind patterns and to some of the other supportive audios from the website that provide answers to any existential question imaginable:

DIP Lite course
The Outsider
Why Do I Feel Left Out?
What Does it Mean to Support Yourself
Isolation

Day 132: Demolition of the invisible wall

Lately I have been bumping into invisible wall. I am not referring to a vertical structure that prevents me from accessing a specific location, but a mental wall, composed of a thoughts and emotions that prevents me from performing specific tasks that are needed in order to achieve certain business goals. These tasks are part of a direct sales activities and are such as generating leads, making phone calls, scheduling meetings, executing presentations, making sales, asking for referrals and following up. All these are simple physical activities that do not require big muscles, however they are strongly related to mental activities. Thus my challenge is to penetrate the invisible wall in my mind.

I have been engaging in many different sales activities in the past and I have been one of the most successful salesman, earning high commissions. So what has changed, what is now the difference? Well firstly the media is full of information about financial crisis. There are constantly reports about how government is facing a money deficit, how cuts and savings are necessary, how even banks do not have enough money, so constantly the media programming about how there is not enough money for even the basic needs of the people, let alone to be able to afford more valuable product like I am currently selling. Consequently my mind if producing thoughts that there is no point of even trying to make any sales since no one will buy as there is not enough money.

Secondly as one of the most prominent patterns is my accepted and allowed character that I play within relationship with my father. He wanted for others to consider him as a loving father that takes care for the basic needs of the family and protects his children from all the evil of this world. Thus me and my brother were not allowed to go out in the evenings and at weekends in order not to make friends with peers that possess bad habits and consequently start indulging in drugs and alcohol. And then he also started with family business where I have been executing work task on the computer as I have been instructed by him. So my life survival tactics have been developed in form of a person who is quiet, waits for instructions of others and then the money comes automatically and mysteriously as the reward for doing what I was told to.

The third thing is that I am selling a new product with high value that requires a lot of sales steps and managing a lot of information. Previously I did a small orders for just few clients and when there would be no orders, I would take break for several hours or even several days. I started to enjoy such free time where no one demanded nothing from me. Now I am developing a much larger business with network of hundred of salesman and many thousand clients that will need to be managed basically for all my life. This requires a robust information management system and a constant overview and situational awareness of all the business points in any time in order for the business to develop properly. So comparing to my previous life style, the new business venture looks like a suicide mission.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to exist as character of obedient and humble person that waits for the orders from my father and immediately executes any given task and then stops moving after the task is completed. I realize that while I am still doing some tasks for my father and he is still consequently assisting me financially, such relationship is not supportive for my life and prevents me from acting as independent person and manifesting my own projects. I commit myself to live my own life as my father does not exist anymore and as he does not support me financially anymore and to generate my own sources of income by building my own business.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe the media news about the financial crisis and lack of money. I realize that media is focused on the shocking negative perspectives of society in order to generate attention and also to infuse fear into the public since the media owners have their own agenda that is not for the benefit of all. I commit myself to when engaging in sales activities to proceed with sales steps without any imagination about how much money the person that I am contacting currently possesses. My mind is not able to know the financial situation of any person before I actually ask them and receive a reply.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that by managing a large organization one will have less free time to relax and do fun things. I realize that any owner of a business is able to hire professional managers that can run the organization effectively and thus creating a lot of free time for the owners. I commit myself to when and as my mind would enter a state of overwhelmingness to breathe, slow down, assist myself with writing and move forward with digestible steps. There will always be ways to solve any problem if one moves with the speed of the physical breath by breath.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself not to use the tool of speaking and writing whenever I bump into the invisible wall of my mind. I realize that the mind will constantly create new walls in order to prevent me from moving forward and that they will not disappear on their own in time, but will exist and persist until I face them meticulously and deconstruct them brick by brick, thought by thought until the mind runs out of bricks and then only will I be free to move anywhere without any limitations.