Chantal, Author at Chantal Breytenbach Coaching

The Truth about Perfectionism

In April of this year, I did a thing. With the gentle nudging of my coach, I participated in a professional rebranding photo shoot. The photo shoot took place in the midst of tremendous grief and sorrow. I was still reeling from the shock of my father’s passing. If I’m being honest, I’m still reeling from it now. There are days where the grief of it is so intense that my heart physically aches, and the tears have a valve of their own that cannot be turned off…

And yet, the photos are more real, more authentic, more true than any photos I have ever taken. They reflect someone who is more grounded, more present, more connected to herself, Life, and others. They reflect who I am without any filters or pretense. They are raw and real. They are vulnerable. They are beautiful.

This photo shoot in April was not some spur of the moment, spontaneous event. It was part of a much larger agreement with my coach to start to see myself more clearly, to claim the value of the work that I do, and to realign my brand to clearly reflect that. It was part of a project called “Seeing Myself”.

Why am I sharing this with you, and what does seeing myself have to do with the title of this article? Everything really. When we slow it down… […]

What do you believe to be true about you?

Posted on June 15, 2025By ChantalPosted in Authenticity / Commitment / Compassion / Courage / Failure / Fear / Gratitude / Grief / In the muck / Inspiration / Integrity / Leadership / Life / Love / Meaning / Mindset / Perspective / Purpose / Resilience / Story Matters / Thinking / Thriving / Transformation

My father died believing he was a failure. From his perspective, he had failed, because he had been unable to secure full-time employment after losing his job during the pandemic. He lost his house and had almost no money when he died. He based a lot of his self worth on external measures of success, and he believed that he did not measure up. However, that’s now what I saw or believed… […]

Who do you become when faced with what matters most to you?

Posted on May 28, 2025By ChantalPosted in Authenticity / Commitment / Connection / Courage / Failure / Fear / Grief / In the muck / Inspiration / Leadership / Life / Listening / Love / Meaning / Perspective / Purpose / Self-care / Slow down / Story Matters / Values

A few weeks ago, in conversation with a client, she asked a powerful question: How do I know what my truth is? The answer to that question is multi-layered. Here’s why… […]

Little earthquakes: How grief and trauma shapes us

Posted on May 8, 2025By ChantalPosted in Commitment / Compassion / Connection / Courage / Emotional Agility / Fear / Gratitude / Grief / In the muck / Inspiration / Integrity / Leadership / Life / Love / Mindfulness / Mindset / Perspective / Slow down / Story Matters / Transformation

I recently finished reading, Little Earthquakes: A memoir by Sarah Mandel where she recounts the heartbreaking story of her six year long battle with stage four metastatic breast cancer and the ensuing trauma that unfolded from that. Mandel was a therapist who used narrative therapy to help her clients work through their trauma, and then chose to apply her own therapy methods in the writing of her memoir. It was a way for her to make sense of the trauma she had walked through… […]

Grief is Love in its rawest and purest form…

Posted on April 28, 2025By ChantalPosted in Authenticity / Commitment / Compassion / Courage / Decision-Making / Emotional Agility / Gratitude / Grief / In the muck / Integrity / Leadership / Life / Listening / Love / Meaning / Purpose / Self-care / Slow down / Story Matters / Values

My dear beloved community, I have not written to you since January. In fact, I have not written much in months. And my writing today comes from a tender and vulnerable place as I choose to share what has been unfolding in my life that has prevented me from sharing my regular newsletter with you. […]

What’s the difference between self-improvement and self-growth?

Posted on January 21, 2025By ChantalPosted in Authenticity / Bias for action / Commitment / Completions / Courage / Dreaming / Failure / Fear / Future Self / Goals / Grit / Happiness / In the muck / Inspiration / Integrity / Leadership / Life / Meaning / Mindfulness / Mindset / Perspective / Planning / Purpose / Self-care / Slow down / Thinking / Thriving / Transformation

Usually in January we hear a lot of talk about goals, dreams, aspirations, ways that we are going to be better and do better. This time of year tends to be a time when there is a heavy focus on self-improvement. Although, I will say that this year, I feel like the energy is different. I don’t know if it’s only on my side of the world, or whether you have experienced something similar? And I’m attributing it to all that is occurring in the world at the moment – wars, elections, wildfires. One colleague said what I was thinking. He said, “It feels like it’s the pandemic all over again…”

I will share that that is certainly where my fear-based mind went immediately, because I remember that there were these out-of-control wildfires in Australia at the beginning of 2020 just before the pandemic really hit. And if you are feeling less inspired and excited this January, I want to invite you to be gentle and compassionate with yourself. My sense is that in many ways, we are still recovering from the trauma of the pandemic, and that our nervous systems are constantly bombarded with more things to process. And it’s a lot. It really is.

And this is why I want to discuss the difference between self-improvement and self-growth… […]

How will you BE as we close this year?

Posted on December 23, 2024By ChantalPosted in Celebrations / Completions / Connection / Gratitude / Happiness / Love / Meaning / Mindfulness / Mindset / Slow down / Thinking

I’ve been thinking about of you and about this time of year. For some, this is a joyous time of year. And for some it’s the most miserable time of the year… How you feel about the holiday season probably has a lot to do with how you grew up and what occurred during the holiday seasons… […]

Guilt is not a feeling

Posted on December 17, 2024By ChantalPosted in Authenticity / Commitment / Compassion / Connection / Courage / Decision-Making / Emotional Agility / Failure / Fear / Happiness / In the muck / Integrity / Leadership / Life / Listening / Mindset / Perfection Detox / Perspective / Self-care / Slow down / Thinking / Thriving / Values

These past few weeks I’ve been riddled with guilt, so much so that my guilt would wake me up in the middle of the night, and I would feel my heart beating in my chest, and my mind racing with worry. So often, my clients share how they carry their own guilt for choices they’ve made, especially when others do not approve of those choices.

Recently, I had a deep conversation with my coach about guilt, and I had a profound insight that has changed the way I see my guilt. And I want to share with you here what I’ve learnt about guilt… […]

The Things We Avoid…

Posted on November 18, 2024By ChantalPosted in Bias for action / Commitment / Completions / Decision-Making / Failure / Fear / Goals / In the muck / Inspiration / Integrity / Leadership / Life / Mindset / Perspective / Planning / Purpose / Thinking / Thriving / Time management

My coach recently gifted me a book by Michael Neill called Things I’m Avoiding Doing: A four-week program to overcome procrastination and get shit done. The title of the book is misleading, because it makes it sounds like the focus of the book is to learn how to get over procrastination and get more done. In a world, where we are already overloaded with too much to do, it’s probably not surprising that we are not getting everything done. And yet, when you read the book, you’ll discover that it’s not really about getting more shit done, and that Michael Neill doesn’t believe that procrastination is actually real… […]

Where and how are you adding value without seeing it?

Posted on November 4, 2024By ChantalPosted in Celebrations / Commitment / Courage / Dreaming / Failure / Future Self / Goals / Happiness / In the muck / Inspiration / Leadership / Life / Love / Meaning / Mindfulness / Mindset / Passion / Purpose / Resilience / Self-care / Slow down / Story Matters / Thinking / Thriving / Time management / Transformation / Values

Just before the completion of the Coaching Leadership Mastermind I did with my coach, she invited the group to consider where, in which dimensions of our lives, we added value either to ourselves or to others in the past 24 hours. We worked through The Wheel of Life and considered which dimensions of our lives were enriched in the past 24 hours?

Then my coach invited us to reflect on the past week, and consider where in the past week we add value to either ourselves or others? Lastly, she invited us to review the whole month and consider in a deeper way where did we add value to ourselves or others over the past month? […]