Transformation Archives - Page 4 of 5 - Chantal Breytenbach Coaching

The Hero’s Journey

Did you know that you are a hero? You might be thinking that a hero is someone who rushes into a dangerous situation to save others. And you might be thinking to yourself that I’ve lost the plot – unless of course, you have rushed into a dangerous situation and saved others.

Hero’s come in all shapes and sizes. And we all get to be the hero of our own story. Your life is your blank canvas. You get to paint any story you want. We all have spiritual curriculum to complete here on earth. We are all here to learn something; to grow something in ourselves. When you heed the call, you become the hero of your own story. When you don’t heed the call, you avoid the journey that would make you the hero of your own story.

My encouragement is that your life is an open invitation to embark on your own hero’s journey. Let’s look at the twelve stages of the hero’s journey and I’ll explain… […]

Life Lessons from Running

Posted on June 13, 2021By ChantalPosted in Gratitude / In the muck / Life / Mindset / Resilience / Self-care / Transformation

I didn’t become a runner until much later in my life. At school I never considered myself an athlete by any stretch of the imagination. I was active, but not competitive – not in sports any way. Athleticism was simply not incorporated into my self-image at the time. I was highly academic and pursued many cultural activities too, but sports were always this thing I sort of dabbled in, for the sake of team spirit, but never really because I thought I could be any good at it.

I took up running after burning out in my academic job and realising that I needed to find more balance in my life. I was over-worked, underpaid, and very unfit. I was not enjoying my life, and I was looking for a way to increase my level of activity and handle my stress better.

I wanted to share my running story here, because running has taught me so much about life. There are some incredible life lessons to take away from running and I would like to share them with you here. […]

The Magic in Dandelions

Posted on May 17, 2021By ChantalPosted in Gratitude / Grit / Happiness / In the muck / Life / Mindset / Perspective / Resilience / Slow down / Thinking / Transformation / Uncategorized

About a year ago, I wrote an article about chasing Dandelions after watching a TED Talk by Dewitt Jones. Dewitt is a photographer for the National Geographic and openly declares it to be the greatest job in the world…

I listened to Dewitt’s talk, mesmerised, and inspired. Before hearing his story, I did not take much notice of Dandelions. However, I have since come to appreciate this little flower for a couple of reasons. I will share them here. […]

How to create a good day

Posted on April 8, 2021By ChantalPosted in Coaching / Courage / Happiness / In the muck / Life / Meaning / Mindfulness / Mindset / Perspective / Self-care / Slow down / Time management / Transformation / Values

A powerful coaching question I often pose to clients is “What does your ideal day look like?” or “What would constitute a perfect day for you?” This is one way to get someone to think about what they would like their life to look like day by day, or to consciously think about how they would want to create their life one day at a time.

Some clients can immediately describe their perfect day. Some clients don’t actually know what would constitute a perfect day for them; usually because they’ve never been confronted with that question before. It’s so easy to simply live on autopilot, that so many of us do it without even realising. Worse still, is you tell yourself that you can’t take time out from your busy schedules to think about what you actually want.

But think about it, if you don’t know what you want and you don’t actually know whether you are truly happy and fulfilled, where are you going then? What are you chasing? […]

Listening to the quiet whisper of your Inner Wisdom: It doesn’t always have to be a “Hell Yes!”

Posted on March 29, 2021By ChantalPosted in Coaching / Courage / Decision-Making / Happiness / In the muck / Life / Mindset / Perspective / Story Matters / Thinking / Transformation

Recently I read a blog post by Carolyn Freyer-Jones where she was questioning whether an average or sometimes even hesitant yes could be enough to get started on a big transformation or transition. There’s a lot of talk in the coaching profession that reasons that, “If it’s not a HELL YES, it’s a no.”

So, when deciding whether to change jobs, start a business, leave a dysfunctional or unhappy relationship, get married, have a child, or not have a child, start working with a coach, go to therapy, or anything else that might fundamentally change your life, the reasoning is that unless it’s a big and resounding yes – a HUGE, LOUD and INTENSE yes, it’s not really yes. It’s no. […]

Cultivating an intrinsic sense of happiness and wellbeing

Posted on March 5, 2021By ChantalPosted in Courage / Happiness / Life / Meaning / Mindfulness / Mindset / Perspective / Slow down / Story Matters / Transformation / Uncategorized / Values

Recently, Daniel Goleman shared in his newsletter, his ideas on happiness. He explains that there is a difference between the kind of happiness that depends on what happens to us on any particular day, and a deeper sense of joy or satisfaction that comes from within. The first can easily take a dive whenever there’s adversity. Any negative situation can cause us to fall out of happiness – e.g., a global pandemic and a time of lockdown, economic recession, natural disasters, etc. And let’s face it, bad things happen often, so if our sense of joy and fulfillment depends on factors outside of ourselves, we have basically elected to ride an emotional roller coaster every day.

The second form of happiness offers a sort of inoculation against these ups and downs. Goleman refers to it as being “happy for no reason.” Some would probably equate it to a type of Stoicism where you are unaffected by anything that happens outside of yourself.

I have spent some time thinking about this and even though I agree with Goleman that cultivating an inner state of happiness or wellbeing is preferable, I do want to clarify some misconceptions about what that means or what it should look like. Cultivating inner joy does not mean that you are unaffected by what happens outside of you. It simply means that you have a stable base to return to and that you have accepted certain truths in life and no longer push against those truths. I would like to discuss some of these truths to help you, dear reader, navigate this landscape of cultivating a sense of inner wellbeing. […]

Embracing the Winter of the Mind

Posted on January 31, 2021By ChantalPosted in Gratitude / Happiness / Life / Meaning / Mindfulness / Mindset / Perspective / Resilience / Slow down / Transformation

All my years living in South Africa, I had complained about cold winters. It wasn’t until I moved to Canada that I realised that your perception of what a cold winter is, depends very much on where you live in the world. Experiencing the winters here in Canada made me realise that it was never really that cold in South Africa. It just felt that way, because what I had been used to was extreme, dry heat in summer. So, consequently the switchover to cooler weather felt dramatic. Compared to the weather in Canada, the average winter’s day in South Africa feels about the same as the average spring day in Canada. In fact, sometimes winter in South Africa is warmer than spring here in Canada.

It also wasn’t until I lived in Canada that I understood how cold and darkness can affect your mood. I had heard about Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), but I wasn’t always sure if it was real, or whether people were just using the weather as an excuse to be unproductive. I had underestimated what a lack of sunshine can do to your psyche. […]

What’s in a story?

Posted on January 29, 2021By ChantalPosted in Courage / Failure / Gratitude / Happiness / In the muck / Life / Meaning / Mindset / Perspective / Story Matters / Transformation

About two years ago I read the book Become a Key Person of Influence by Daniel Priestley and a line in the book has stuck with me ever since: “You are already standing on a mountain of value. Your story is valuable. Your experience is unique. You are highly valuable as you are.”

I consider myself a go-getter. I’m decisive and I take action. I’ve always believed that I get to create my life and that where I started did not define me. I don’t think I ever slowed down to consider how my experiences – i.e., my story – had shaped the person I am today. I think I had an intellectual understanding of that, but I wouldn’t really say that I could access that knowing on a deep intuitive level. […]

You don’t rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems…

Posted on January 15, 2021By ChantalPosted in Decision-Making / Failure / Grit / Happiness / In the muck / Life / Mindset / Perspective / Resilience / Thinking / Transformation

As I mentioned in my blog post about Creating Your Year with Intention and Focus, the start of a new year is usually a time to set goals and to commit anew to the person you want to become. However, so often people don’t follow through on those initial new year’s resolutions. As soon as the novelty of the new year wears off, most of us fall back into our old behaviour patterns and forget how we promised ourselves that this year will be different.

Let’s be clear, we are creatures of habits, and our habits often become so ingrained that we don’t even see our habits as habits. We simply think of them as how we are, or who we are. Some habits have been part of our life for so long that they are part of our identity. It’s how we see ourselves. For example, being a non-smoker, or a smoker, being vegetarian, being a runner, or someone who likes routine, being an anxious person, or someone who questions everything, etc. […]

Create your year with intention and focus

Posted on January 13, 2021By ChantalPosted in Decision-Making / Life / Mindset / Perspective / Transformation1 Comment

The start of a new year is usually a time to set goals and to commit anew to the person you want to become. However, so often people don’t follow through on those initial new year’s resolutions. As soon as the novelty of the new year wears off, most of us fall back into our old behaviour patterns and forget how we promised ourselves that this year will be different. I think this year, with the global pandemic continuing to wreak havoc in our lives, most of us probably feel even less motivated than before to stay committed to our personal goals. So, what do you do when the initial euphoria of new goals wears off and you find yourself feeling a bit deflated and despondent? […]