Danielle Hammack

No one else can be you. You have to do it.

Wide Awake

in Self mastery

Kaleidoscope

In “Wide Awake,” I discussed the importance of maintaining optimal mental and physical health in order to ensure clear reception of what’s coming at you from outside of yourself. Next you will need to make sure that you are not only aware of, but able to manage your engrained default “programming.”  Much like the process of setting up a new smart phone, once you have connected to the network, you have to choose the language you want it to use to communicate with you. This is where the interpretation that I asked you to take note of in the first paragraph of my previous post comes into play. Understanding your unique interpretive bias is just as important as the strength and clarity of the information that’s reaching you.

So how do you gain this powerful perspective?

One of the most efficient ways is to focus on your EQ “Emotional Intelligence.”  I am not alone in my belief that your EQ is every bit as important, if not more, than your IQ. Recognizing that everything you experience comes to you through the lens of your own personal “KALEIDOSCOPE” of sorts; a looking glass that provides you with a view that is either positive or negative, clear or distorted based on your collective life experience (aka the beads inside of it), is imperative. Understanding how these “beads” have skewed and/or distorted your perspective, provides you with such powerful insight about yourself. It doesn’t matter if the table you sit at is your dinner table at home or in the board room of a fortune 100 company…  Having this level of understanding of yourself is fundamental as you navigate through the relationships that are cultivated there.

Since it is impossible to go back in time and re-write the history and experiences of our past, it makes much more sense to identify and accept what was, and manage the ramifications of those circumstances responsible for our biases going forward. Having a map that allows us to capitalize on what has proven to serve us and mitigate what doesn’t is invaluable!  Once you have this awareness, you are empowered to actively choose and filter what you allow to impact you going forward. Developing “Emotional Intelligence” is every bit as much about understanding yourself and your emotions as it is about controlling them once you do.

I use the EQi to empower my clients. After I have administered and reviewed it with them, we are able to piece together the WHY’s that have been the foundation of their outcomes to date.  Each of us has certain engrained parts of our personalities that we are born with, but we also have layers of other people’s crap mixed in with our more “pure self.”  Separating and deciphering between the two parts of our personality is where the fun and magic happens! Once you have a better understanding of how your persona was shaped, you can begin the process of managing your “Kaleidoscope.”

Let’s get into some neurological speak for a moment…

If you have clicked on the, “Meet Dani” section of my website, you know I started my undergraduate studies at USC as a Psychobiology Major and I was lucky enough to take an introductory neuroscience class during that first semester of my freshman year. To this day, my professor is fondly remembered as one of the brightest minds I’ve had the privilege to learn from! His class opened my eyes on so many levels and started me down the path of searching for the truth of not only why, but how we are experiencing this life.

Whether you are a Hindu who views this existence as an elaborate and interactive classroom filled with opportunities for your soul to learn and progress toward enlightenment or a Baptist who believes this is your only incarnation, one of my main “take-aways” from that class is it doesn’t actually matter because your experience is dictated by your perception of events, which may or may not match reality, regardless of why you think it is all happening. At the end of the day, we are all having similar experiences of this life, at least from a tactical point of view, so let’s start paying attention to and questioning what we are looking at through our lenses. For the purposes of this discussion let’s dive into some basic neuroscience…

Your brain is an extremely sophisticated, self-learning computer.  It receives input from your senses and interprets that input based on how closely it matches with data from previous experiences. Most who have an understanding of how the brain works will agree that this experience we are all having, is actually a virtual reality that is controlled by our “mind’s eye.” That said, I will re-assert my previous point that the clarity of our perception (how clearly our brain interprets what we encounter) is OUR RESPONSIBILITY to manage and care for once we are aware of any default glitches or errant “beads” that might be messing with that interpretation.

Clear input in (healthy antennae – aka physical and mental health) + Accurate interpretation of that input (EQ) = Clear and appropriate response out!

This brings me back to the point I made earlier. Your “Emotional Intelligence” should be a main focus of your time and energy as you begin to work through career or life transitions.  Your “mind’s eye” has been, and will continue to take in and interpret data whether you manage it or not! You simply CANNOT delete what has been planted/downloaded to date, but you CAN undertake the process of understanding how it has shaped you and you CAN manage not only what you let in going forward, but if and how you will allow it to affect you in the future.

I offer and administer the EQi to my clients when it’s appropriate because it has proven to consistently yield an accurate snapshot of where a client is coming from when we start to work together. From there we are able to pinpoint where best to focus his/her energy in order to capitalize on their strengths and downplay, manage or redirect what isn’t “working for them.”  From where I stand, that’s what EMPOWERMENT is all about!

Bottom line:

We are all living/experiencing our own private perception of a virtual reality, so let’s make sure that our interpretation of that experience is as healthy and clear as possible.  Understanding, managing and leveraging our default programming is what “Emotional Intelligence” is all about.

Make it a priority to know and understand yourself and the unique “Kaleidoscope” through which you view your existence. Be open to and accepting of all of the “beads” contained inside that are dictating what you are seeing through your lens…

The good.

The bad.

The ugly.

Embrace all of your strengths and blind spots from this new place of clarity.

Once you do, you will be “Wide Awake” and in control of your life and career at a level you thought previously impossible!

 

Until next time…

dani

 

in Self mastery

Wide Awake

As I live my own life and coach my clients, I am reminded that slowing down and taking the time to get back to the basics is never a mistake! Ironically, it is in fact, one of the fastest ways to leap forward. To put it in terms that are close to my heart and have been since I was a little girl…when a professional driver approaches a turn on a race track, they slow down to ensure that they will be able to accelerate at full throttle on the way back out of it.  It’s all about finding the right “line.” For anyone who has spent any time either spectating or racing themselves, the concept of “slowing down to go fast” is probably familiar. For the purpose of what we will be discussing here, it is the perfect analogy.

More often than not, the first step toward the solution to whatever dilemma(s) we are facing is as simple as identifying and clearing out the “static” that has been created by those seemingly unrelated aspects of our daily life; those little habits or repeated oversights that are insidious to our progress.

Regardless of your religious or spiritual perspective of life, it’s meaning or your opinion of why we are all here, I think we can all agree that we should make the best of it while we are.  What that means to each of us is actually beside the point.  What is important is that our perspective is free and clear of interference, or “wide awake” as I like to refer to this state of being.  A clear and unencumbered channel equals a healthy outlook and our best chance for a happy interpretation of our lives. Please notice I said, “interpretation.” We will come back to this idea in a subsequent post.

For now, let’s imagine you are any type of “receiver” through which data, content, or information can be shared. The key point here being that YOU ARE THIS DEVICE and keeping yourself healthy and in good working condition is tantamount to your satisfaction and level of happiness in this life. Think about how frustrating is it when you realize that your Wi-Fi is down and you can’t access the information you want to download?  Take it a step further and think about how it would feel if you realized that unless you dive in and actually diagnose and fix whatever it is that is impeding the signal, you won’t be able to access ANYTHING but broken static or a blank screen any time soon!

Here’s a thought…How about we start doing the work necessary to repair our metaphorical “connections!” When it comes down to it, doing so is actually quite simple, but please don’t mistake the word simple for EASY! Don’t underestimate how deeply involved you have likely been in “coping” for much of your life.  For all of the unique (and not so unique) ways that you have chosen to do this, these “skills” are the very tendencies or habits that have been weakening or flat out blocking your access to the answers that would help you to sidestep that with which you are trying to cope in the first place. It’s a vicious and insidious cycle!

“Self-medicating. Numbing. Escaping…” Call it what you will, but whatever IT is that you are doing to avoid the pain caused by not doing whatever it is that you know would make you happier, does absolutely nothing but delay your progress toward getting there.  Even worse…it may even be blocking you from figuring out what would!

If you had a bullet in your leg that wasn’t lodged in a precarious place, you would technically have the choice to do nothing but clean and bandage it to avoid infection.  Your body would then grow scar tissue around it and you would be “fine,” but the fact is you would still be walking around with a bullet in your leg and chances are that bullet would keep you from doing something that you would otherwise like to do.  Sure, you avoided the temporary pain of removing it, but in doing so you have turned something that would have been an acute and short-lived problem into one that will be with you for the rest of your life unless you actually stop compensating for it and have the damn thing removed!

So, you see, achieving progress and clarity in any area of your life is about sucking up the short-term pain of slowing down long enough to discover and address your “blocks” so you can enjoy the clarity you will gain once you have dealt with them! I have learned over the years that the reason a client initially engages me doesn’t really matter.  Regardless of the “why” we always end up back at the beginning…so now I simply start there, because if we can identify what’s been clouding their ability to see things clearly, we can address it together so they can move past it more quickly. The basics are just that…basic and foundational.  The view I am always striving to help my clients to gain is “crystal clear and unobstructed,” like the one in the picture I chose for this post. The way I see it, the faster you are able to see clearly, the better!

So, if you have been following my blog you know I like to “Bottom line” things as I wrap up…

 

Your baseline physical and emotional health and the habits that dictate their status can be very telling. Recognizing and addressing those that are creating “static” or even “interference,” can be transformational, and dealing with them directly can help you to move ahead or completely shift course in ANY area of your life where you are feeling less than empowered. Life can be simplified down to a series of CHOICES! If you aren’t satisfied with where you are…make a different one and keep making them until you can see things clearly. Put simply… Slow down to speed up!

 

 Until next time…

 

dani

 

in Owning your power

Sex, Power & Sailboats

Out of the gate, I’d like to say this post will likely be one of my more controversial, but I also think it will be a great way for us to get to know each other.  You may ask yourself how this topic has anything to do with health & well being, empowerment or executive coaching, but as you read, it should become apparent.  I know my perspectives won’t land with everyone and that’s ok with me!  Who was it that said if everyone likes you it’s a sign you are doing something wrong?  Regardless, I tend to agree… so while I sincerely hope that what I share here resonates with you, I also understand it may not.  If that’s the case for you, feel free to simply stop reading this post.

Now that we have that out of the way, let’s tackle the issue of gender stereotypes and frankly, the BS that tends to accompany them!  First, let’s start with this idea that men are the only sex who actually enjoy it, and who may be tempted outside of whatever relationship they may be in if/when said relationship fails to fulfill them on any level.  I am speaking to both men and women here, but for very different reasons. I think it’s important for men to understand that the false sense of security that society has fed them around infidelity is a crock of shit. You guys are not the only ones who deal with temptation. Knowing and accepting this may help you to avoid those relationship pitfalls that could possibly lead or push your woman toward another man before he appears in her life at “just the right time” to steal her away from you, whether it be for a night or forever. Bottom line – both people in a relationship carry the burden of keeping it mutually satisfying and worth each other’s time and effort. Until we realize that the differences between men and women (while absolutely necessary and perfect in the way that they attract us toward each other), pale in comparison to our similarities, we will never be able to truly support and bring out the best in each other.  We are all human FIRST and who we are in our romantic relationships is who we will be in every other area of our life, so it’s the best place to start being real and to practice standing in our power.  Technically it is our own internal relationship that is at the root of everything, but our intimate relationships tend to give us the clearest representation of what is actually going on inside.

To women:
If you haven’t already, it would help you to admit that you have the same urges and needs as men. If you find yourself in a relationship where those needs are not being met, please understand that your silence is deleterious. Downplaying our sexual side and/or keeping it to ourselves is something that has been engrained in most of us since before we recognized we even had one.  Understanding that this pressure is nothing more than a control tactic used by our parents, religion and society at large, can serve to liberate us in ways we may not even comprehend and in areas of our lives that have nothing to do with sex.  Mohadesa Najumi said it best, ”the woman who does not require validation from anyone is the most feared individual on the planet.” It’s important to fully embrace and own every part of yourself, including your sexuality. Burying or denying any part of who you are, gives whatever it is, more power to sabotage you than it would otherwise have.

For those of you who may be misconstruing my words as advocating promiscuity, please understand I am actually doing the exact opposite. It takes a strong sense of confidence to be sexually selective.  Once you are standing in your power in this aspect of your life it will make it much easier to carry that same sense of invincibility into other areas.  Your goal is to openly own and acknowledge everything about who you are. This seemingly simple step will liberate and empower you in ways you can’t even imagine.

My advice? Start with you!  Nurture yourself the way we tend to take care of everyone else in our life, first.  Then, once you have your own course mapped out, others will recognize you for who you are and naturally be drawn toward you. Your proverbial “village” will appear!  At the same time,  suitable partners will find you irresistible because they will subconsciously recognize that you are both headed in the same direction, but would never try to push you off of your own course or ask you to abandon your own “boat” to join them on theirs.  Any course changes from that point on can be decided together and neither one of you will be obligated to remain tied to the other should you decide you don’t want to go where the other is headed. This may not sound very romantic, but in the end I have seen more relationships die a slow death because one or both members silently gave up control of their own navigation to maintain peace.

To men:
I will suggest that you do exactly the same thing I just suggested to the women, but with one caveat…BE THE MAN!!! Once you find the woman who is your legitimate equal and is happy and willing to join you on your journey, NEVER forget that she wants and needs you to be just a little bit stronger than she is.  This is true in every aspect of your lives together.  I don’t care if your gal is the most powerful woman on the planet! Trust me when I tell you she needs to know she can rely on and trust in you, no matter her own capabilities.  Straight talk here…push her against the damn wall every once in a while for a kiss and don’t ever let her arrive at the conclusion that she has to save you in any way.  This may sound completely counter intuitive, especially after I just finished telling all of the women to stand in their own power, but I can tell you I have NEVER met a woman, regardless of her position or background, who would disagree with these words. In fact, if you ever come across one, please take heed because she is either lying to you, or to herself and neither scenario bodes well for a lasting relationship. Go ahead, ask your female friends if they agree…

Now, for those of you who are off-put by the fact that I have assigned genders to this discussion, I will say this.  After extensive research on this subject I am convinced that regardless of sexual orientation, in order for two people to have a strong thriving relationship, it must have balance between the yin (feminine) and yang (masculine) energies.  So, listen to me when I say, I don’t care what physiology you were born with, the yin member of the pairing will naturally want to be cherished and protected and the yang member will want to do just that for the other.  If both of you are open to this and agree and acknowledge which of you is more comfortable with each role, you will enjoy smoother sailing than otherwise.  If this concept rattles or intrigues you, I would highly recommend that you do your own search on the subject of gender balance; yin/yang energy in relationships.  There have been countless books published over the last century.  One of the newer authors on the subject, David Deida, has written several books on this very topic if you are interested.

Bottom line: We are all like sailboats on the ocean;  Able bodied and capable of steering our own course.  It’s imperative that we accept the care and navigation of this vessel as our burden alone.  If we focus on this responsibility first, the rest will fall into place effortlessly because we will attract that which will match, empower and join us on our journey..

Your power comes from accepting and owning who you are authentically! The world needs all of us to be honest about this. Simply stated…“No one else can be you…you have to do it!”

Until next time…

dani