life Archives - Page 6 of 7 - Chantal Breytenbach Coaching

What if rejection is redirection?

We’ve all been there. You ask out that person that you can’t get out of your mind, and they say no. You apply for that dream job, and it’s a no. You apply for a loan, or make an offer on a new house, or negotiate on a car, and it’s a no. You send in a proposal, apply to the university you would love to get into, send in an article to a big publication, and they say no. Rejection. It’s stings. Sometimes, it deflates you so much that you simply want to give up.

None of us get through life without being rejected along the way. For some, the rejection may have started early in life. You may have felt rejected by your parents, or your family, or your friends. For others, they are so used to getting a yes to everything they ask for, that the first rejection floors them completely.

When I started working with my coach, she introduced me to Steve Chandler’s work. Something he says often is, “yes lives in the land of no”… […]

Life Lessons from a Video Game

Posted on January 24, 2022By ChantalPosted in Emotional Agility / Failure / Grit / In the muck / Life / Meaning / Mindset

My husband is a video game fanatic. I have never really taken much of an interest in it, although I can appreciate the value of gamified learning. Years ago, when I completed my honour’s degree in Strategic Management, one of our courses was an online game, and it was quite a memorable experience. Sometimes simulated learning is the best way to build experience in a specific area. It provides the opportunity to learn through “failing” at challenging tasks without any drastic real-life consequences.

That said, what I want to share with you here is not so much about the importance of gamification. Rather, it relates to some interesting insights I got from listening to my husband share a story about the latest game he is currently playing called Dead Cells. […]

How to be ambitious in a way that leads to fulfillment in life and work

Posted on January 6, 2022By ChantalPosted in Courage / Decision-Making / Failure / Goals / Happiness / Life / Meaning / Planning / Purpose / Transformation / Values

The dictionary defines ambition as “a strong desire to do or to achieve something, typically requiring determination and hard work.” In a workshop with Michael Bungay Stanier recently, he said, “we unlock our greatness by working on the hard stuff.” So, it’s when we work hard on something that matters – i.e., when we are deeply ambitious – that we unlock our greatness or have a real impact.

Bungay Stanier believes that when you set a goal, you should also ask how it will matter? Who will benefit if you achieve the goal? How will you achieving the goal change the world? How will you leave the world a little better than you found it? What he is talking about, is an ambitious goal. A goal that is bigger than just reaching a deadline or acquiring a new level of performance. It’s a goal that inspires – a calling or a mission if you will. […]

Two ways of being with disappointment

Posted on December 12, 2021By ChantalPosted in Decision-Making / Emotional Agility / Failure / Happiness / In the muck / Life / Meaning / Mindset / Perspective / Resilience / Thinking / Transformation / Values1 Comment

How we respond to disappointment is often influenced by our upbringing and the beliefs we’ve internalised about how much control we have in life. According to Manfred Kets de Vries, the way we choose to handle disappointment is strongly related to our developmental history — our relationship with our parents and other early, formative experiences. What I want to share here today, is two different ways of being in the world and how they affect how we deal with disappointment when others let us down.

The two ways of being in the world and in relationship with others is either being an underachiever (i.e., having low or no expectations), or being an overachiever (i.e., having unreasonably high expectations). […]

Self-care is Soul care

Posted on November 13, 2021By ChantalPosted in Coaching / Courage / Happiness / Life / Perspective / Self-care / Slow down / Thriving / Transformation

At our deepest soul level, we all yearn to be seen and heard. We all yearn to love and to be loved; to understand and to be understood by others. These core needs cannot be fulfilled by accumulating consumer goods or gorging on different forms of frivolous entertainment, or even through comfort or leisure. In fact, some of our deepest soul needs are fed by being in the discomfort of our lives, by stretching ourselves further than we thought possible, by challenging ourselves, and by inviting those around us to also show up better.

And this is also where a lot of confusion seeps in when we start talking about self-care, because people sometimes confuse self-care for leisure, or self-indulgence, or pampering yourself. And real deep self-care is NOT that. […]

Live as if you are on the verge of death

Posted on October 31, 2021By ChantalPosted in Courage / Gratitude / Happiness / Life / Meaning / Mindfulness / Perspective / Story Matters / Thinking

I’ve spent the last few weeks contemplating death. Now I know this might sound like quite a somber activity to be engaged in, and yet, it is not. You see, I’m not contemplating death in a suicidal way. I’m honouring death as a masterful teacher. It is as Michael Singer says in his book, The Untethered Soul, “It is truly a great cosmic paradox that one of the best teachers in all of life, turns out to be death.”

And of course, living through a global pandemic means that all of us have been confronted with death in one form or another over the last two years. Yet, no person or situation could ever teach you as much as death has to teach you. […]

Living one day at a time

Posted on September 29, 2021By ChantalPosted in Gratitude / Happiness / Life / Meaning / Mindfulness / Mindset / Perspective / Slow down

If you had to know how your entire life would unfold in advance, it would simply take the joy out of living. It would turn you into a passenger in your own life story, since you would simply be waiting for the events you know will happen, to unfold as predetermined.

So, the fact that the years of your life don’t all arrive at once, but greets you day by day, is such a gift. It provides the opportunity for agency and mystery. With the descent of each setting sun, we can rest our heads and let the world take care of itself for a while. We go to sleep at night, knowing, or perhaps hoping (because who really knows if we will get to greet another day) that the dawn will bring with it a chance to meet our lives anew. […]

Embracing the change in seasons

Posted on September 13, 2021By ChantalPosted in Emotional Agility / Happiness / Life / Meaning / Mindset / Perspective / Story Matters / Thinking

Just as seasons change, our moods and emotions fluctuate. A state of perfect happiness is not sustainable or realistic. Life ebbs and flows, and I want to be open to all my emotions. You see, emotions are merely data points. They tell us what is going on. So, even when we find ourselves in a state of sadness or melancholy, that is not bad. It simply is. The invitation is to lean into whatever you’re feeling and ask yourself what’s going on that is causing that emotion?

Given everything that is going on in the world – especially of late – it is fairly easy to become negative, despondent, sad, even angry. And yet, when we treat our feelings as facts, we allow outside factors to dictate how we feel on the inside.

The real challenge is to remain in a state of equilibrium regardless of what is happening in the outside world; to choose our response to life, even though there might be reasons to feel unhappy, frustrated, angry, and so on. […]

Become a Cycle Breaker

Posted on August 30, 2021By ChantalPosted in Courage / Decision-Making / Emotional Agility / Grit / Happiness / In the muck / Life / Meaning / Mindset / Passion / Perspective / Purpose / Resilience / Self-care / Story Matters / Transformation / Values

One of the most important lessons I’ve learnt in my time working with my coach, is to appreciate that things in my life happen FOR me, not TO me. Everything in your life can be used for your growth and learning. EVERYTHING. Even the things that seem insignificant. And most especially the things that cause you the most frustration and heartache.

I feel compelled to share something vulnerable with you here. Healing from abuse, neglect, trauma, and violence is never easy. Sometimes it requires heroic effort to not fall into self-destructive patterns. It requires self-awareness, a deep inner knowing that things can and will be better, and that you are capable of change. It requires committed effort to learning, growing, healing, forgiving, and to never stop trying. […]

The Hero’s Journey

Posted on August 10, 2021By ChantalPosted in Courage / Failure / Grit / In the muck / Life / Meaning / Mindset / Passion / Perspective / Purpose / Story Matters / Transformation

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… […]