Read this posting in English here

Jeg satt og leste på hjemmesiden til Anne Helene Grøntoft da jeg ble gjort oppmerksom på vedlagte You Tube. Jeg ble imponert over denne fantastiske presentasjonen. Amy Cuddy er en intelligent kvinne som har evnen til å motivere og til å forklare teori på en enkel måte.

Skal du søke jobb? Skal du gi en presentasjon? Står du foran en stor utfordring? Ta deg tid til å se videoen til Amy Cuddy - det er virkelig verdt de 21 minuttene det tar.

"Fake it till you BECOME it"  

Kind regards,
Bob and Marianne

Imagine the perfect life for yourself, your family, your friends or the world. Take a moment or two and ask yourself, "If I could wave a magic wand and create that perfect life, what would it look like? Sound like, smell like, feel like, be like?

Imagine that you could do it this New Year - what two things would you have to do to create this perfect life?And what one thing would you need to have?

Here are the two things you must do. You must find out what it is you want and then you must take action to create the result. In other words you must define your dream or goal and you must take action to start the creation of your perfect life.

This sounds relatively straight forward, right? Not! These steps require a certain amount of focus and clarity. Sometimes we need a good friend or an experienced life coach to help us get this clarity and to take massive  action.

The one thing you need to have is time. Well, the New Year is nearly here and you will have the time to do it now. We will have the time to start creating the perfect life for us now. No waiting is required.

We will be coming up with a series of posts on discoveringwhat you want, clarifying your goals and taking massive action to get the ball rolling. We will also be assisting you to create your dreams and reach your goals by offering 3 coaching sessions for the price of one if you sign up and pay by the end of January 2013.

Last but not least, we want to wish you all a very good and prosperous New Year. So decide what you want to do and get up out of your seat and take action.

Live long and prosper, Bob and Marianne

Well friends, here in Norway the shopping madness is over. The stores closed today at 1:00 PM and people rushed home to do their last bits of packing and preparation for the evenings festivities. Now we will sit down with family and friends to celebrate Jul.

Tonight is Julaften or Christmas Eve and is the time Norwegians celebrate Christmas.

We would like to wish all our readers,family, friends and clients God Jul?Merry Christmas

As in all things modest indulgence will be better than over doing it. We wish you all happiness and joy of this season. 

Eat slowly, taste your food and enjoy your friendship.

This story is a marvelous tribute to the creativity of human beings.

If you ever need an inspiration, you'll get it here.

Enjoy and have a creative day.

See the video here


With love from

Bob and Marianne

Bob and I had such a terrible experience last Saturday. We got a letter in the mailbox - it was from our friend, Jerry in Arizona. The letter opened like this; "When you get this letter, I'll be gone"..................
Well, you can imagine what that was all about.

 We got the letter on the 8th and on the 7th he shot himself outside his home. His wife, and my good friend Jann, died three years ago. Jerry could not get over losing "his lady" and "Love of his life". "They say that life goes on but it is not true. The day that Jann died my life ended."  So he left in order "to go and find Jann.Some say it is possible, some say it isn't. Nobody knows for sure. Wish us good luck.", he said.

It sure was a hard message to get - reading fresh lines from a person who had, by the time we read the lines, left us. And today is Jann's birthday, Dec 12.

I am sad and I try to cope with it as best as I can. It is hard. I try to learn something from this and that is to truly listen to somebody when they say they don't fit in anywhere in life. Jerry wrote that to me some time ago. It is important to ask what the person puts into that statement, what he/she can do to recover, what we can do to help the person, who can help, what can be done........... Jerry was lonely, he had NOT ONE person that he would see, his two step sons lived far from Arizona and he closed everybody out. Jerry did not have a friend or a coach to share the pain with and to perhaps work out a new plan and direction in life.

He  closed down the computer line, the telephone line and did not watch TV for the last year. When one of his step sons said he would like to come and see him, Jerry said that he had changed the home and did not have a bed for him to sleep in any longer.

Oh, how lonely he must have been. How much he must have missed" his Lady." It makes me feel like throwing up when I think of it. I am surrounded by my family and lots of friends and colleagues. It helps me keep going even when I am in deep mental and physical pain. And I have lost a teenage son and undergone painful and dangerous spinal surgery. 

As a Life Coach I now guide people through the process of grief and loss. I also give lectures on the process of grief and loss and how friends and colleagues can deal with it best. The best thing we can all do is listen to the person. But hear me, you can not save or fix somebody who does not wish to be better. And it does not help anyone to blame yourself because another decides to take their own life

Well, friends, I had to write this to you. I know that you have your own pain and challenges and I don't ask you to take over mine. I just want to be heard and share some knowledge and experience. I want to share with you what is going on in our lives right now. 

However, we also have many good and warm moments. Grandchildren come and visit us, so do our children here in Norway. And we are blessed with family,friends, clients and interesting activities. We are truly grateful for what we have.

I wish all of you wonderful healing days, filled with warmth and love.®

When conflict is in the air, use walking meditation to cool down and get refocussed. When the heat is turned up in a discussion and reason has begun to disappear, separate yourself from the emotions and get back to the present moment. Think mindfulness. How?

First, learn to notice what is happening and that you need to remove yourself from the emotional charge. Concentrate on your breathing in and out. If that does not work for you then excuse yourself from the area.

Go to the toilet, take a walk and focus completely on your steps as you walk. If your thoughts go to your argument and all the reasons they are wrong and you are right and to all the emotions, gently draw your attention back to what you are doing, which is walking and breathing. Note the storm of thinking that is trying to take over your life.

See and feel each step. Experience the surface under your feet. Feel your legs bend and the muscles expand and contract. Allow your body to relax as you go and feel the breath come into and go out of your body. Stay with each step and each breath. If that is too complicated, keep your focus only on your steps. When you lose focus, and you will, gently and without self criticism come back to what you are doing.

Remember that life itself is a meditation. The problem is that most of us forget what we are meditating/focussing on. We allow our thoughts, feelings and emotions to steer us often in the wrong direction.

Now that you have re-focussed your energy on the discussion, listen to what the other has to say. Truly listen, without judging or preparing your response while they talk. Try and learn what their point of view is even if you come to disagree with it. Just hear it and acknowledge it. To truly hear and understand the other is very important. You may have wanted to blame them or be right, resist the temptation and go back to listening and trying to learn what is going on for them.

Communication skills are a key to all successful relationships with friends, job colleagues or loved ones. If you struggle with this get coaching help from an expert.®
 
Walk consciously and communicate wisely, Bob and Marianne

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Reidun Orest of Norway, 88 years old, last week dared to put words to that which many shut up about; loneliness, especially when it is a big load to carry at those times others celebrate joyfully at Christmas and other social gatherings of friends and family.

Seldom is it that somebody speaks out so clearly about feelings and a taboo subject such as loneliness. Research shows that over 40 percent of people over 80 suffer from loneliness. Here is what Reidun did. She placed the following add in her local newspaper the Aften last week:

 "Lonely widow without family wants someone to be together with on Christmas Eve. Pays well. Box #1139."

The response has been wonderful to date with 35 invitations and no payment wanted by anybody. As well she has become a subject on social media, such as Facebook, and has been interviewed on Norways national TV Station, NRK.

Here is what is fantastic about this story. If you take a risk you can achieve or do something. No risk no reward. Reidun could have sat alone with her pride and her fear of taking a risk or she could step out and Take Action. When she took action it was a massive action and the reward was fantastic for her.

She has also paved the way for other lonely people to open the door of their hearts and ask for help or support when they need it. We can sit and allow ourselves to be controlled by society's rules and models or we can see the need to go beyond our suffering and take action.

When we lived near Egersund, Norway, we felt a need to include others in our life at Christmas. So we decided to ask around to the Salvation Army and one of the more socially oriented churches if they knew of someone that might like to share the warmth of Yuletide in our home. We did not get any positive answers back and one person at the church explained to us that society's norms were such that folk would not admit to being lonely, better to suffer in silence and be strong than be humiliated by expressing the desire to share company of others.

We can only congratulate Reidun for taking the risk to be open and ask. People sometimes cannot find their own answers and need a little guidance and support to take risks and uncover their own solutions. 

Life coaching can assist in this process of uncovering and reaching our goals and dreams.®