All in one week!
Deep loss
I have just lost a dear friend, Aveen, to cancer. She was 57, beautiful inside and outside. She left behind a “feisty” 16 year old daughter, a “hero” husband (in her own words) and many heartbroken friends. She left in style, planning her departure to the last detail. Bamboo coffin. Leopard skin car. Bob Dylan music. And she even wrote her own eulogy! “You have no choice on what time does to you. You have a choice on how you spend your time. Choose to spend it well.”
There were hundreds of people turning up to her funeral this week. Nowhere to sit or stand…Moving words from some of her longest-standing friends. Same words: Courageous, Tenacious and Loyal. And Kind, Kind, Kind. Every single one remembered acts of kindness and what they meant to them. A great trait to be remembered for!
Aveen had a tough young life, but a beautiful whole life. That’s what made her strong and kind. And a fighter till the end. She would have been a true role model to any of my Courageous Women retreats.
I felt privileged to have known her and her kind spirit. And get to witness her deep love and commitment to her family.
Deep love
They say one of the happiest things in life is to see your parents growing old together.
I feel very lucky to have experienced my parents 50th golden wedding anniversary a week ago. It was a big and happy celebration, surrounded by dear friends and family members.
What a privilege to feel the love and commitment that my parents gave each other over such a long period. And choosing to stand by and for each other through their life roller coasters. And through their children’s and grandchildren rollercoasters too!
Rollercoasters
As an executive coach I help people reach highs they never thought possible.
And I celebrate my own success, alongside my clients’ highs. Individual clients achieving their dreams, teams making small changes for big shifts, courageous women learning self-compassion, workshops teaching key Emotional Intelligence and leadership skills.
And I teach my clients that success does not lead to happiness. It’s the happiness that leads to success.
At the moment, my son is not happy. The GCSE exam pressure is too much. And when he is not happy, he stops functioning. And the whole ecosystem around him is disrupted. We all suffer. No sleep. No energy. Burnout. The low and negative energy zone.
So it’s time to try to get him happy again. So we are all happy. And the whole ecosystem can go back to the high performance zone of high and positive energy.
Riding the life’s rollercoaster is constantly moving between the high/low and positive/negative energy zones. My son’s rollercoasters just happen to be 10x higher, enrolling his loved ones in deeper highs and lows.
It’s time to slow down to be able to speed up again for the next ride!
With lots of love from the low and positive energy zone of self-renewal.
Alina
ADA, Nov 2019