Author: Elisa Balabram Page 5 of 21

Shopping for Your Purpose

On November 21, 2014

Finding your purpose In case you keep asking yourself what’s your purpose, you are not alone. I've been told by a few clients, friends, and students that they don't know what to do next, what their purpose is, or which career to pursue.

My first encouragement is to be fine with not knowing. I have changed careers a few times in my life, and I’m still growing, learning, and stepping more into my purpose each day. Then, I recommend that you consider meditating, and doing a writing exercise of your ideal day, highlighting what stands out to you from it.

Side Effect of Self-Love

By Elisa Balabram

On November 2, 2014

In Self-Love

loveyou I launched the 30-day Self-Love challenge on November 5^th 2013, and over a hundred people joined me on this journey of focusing on self-love at least once daily.

My personal self-love practice did not end after the 30 or 45 days the challenge lasted last year – and I’m still committed to self-love, although sometimes I need a little reminders. I created a reminder on my cell phone, and I also got a little white board magnet (seen on this post’s image) for my fridge, and wrote to myself: “I love you”.

It made sense to have a daily reminder that I’m loved, especially by me. Pretty soon, as in many things in life, I stopped reading it or paying attention to it. Until one of my sisters visited this summer, and she wrote “I love you too”. A few weeks ago, a friend spent the weekend at my house, and although she didn’t know the board's story, she also wrote “I love you too”. When I saw it I smiled, and told her who had written the previous messages. Now, my little reminder got even more special.

Keeping it Cool in the Midst of Chaos

By Elisa Balabram

On October 22, 2014

In Trust Yourself

Trees rooted I went to the Rubin Museum with a friend, and we spent time enjoying the exhibition “The All Knowing Buddha : A Secret Guide”. The exhibition includes 54 detailed paintings, which provide step-by-step guidance to visualization of the Buddha Sarvavid Vairochana, and it offers unique insight into the meditation and rituals of Tibetan Buddhism. Both of us chose to stop in front of each painting, take it in, and have our own interpretations of it. Maybe we had stared at five of those paintings, when someone opened the emergency exit door, and the alarm was really loud. I started laughing… it was really as life is, we are all centered, focused, enjoying a quiet moment, and then, bam! something happens. It is up to us to keep our cool. I think we waited until silence was restored to keep enjoying the paintings, and to me, the whole episode was a reminder to practice keeping it cool in the midst of chaos.

Then, I was invited to share a few coaching strategies for a new app project in a video format. We spent all day filming, and the street noises, the honking, the sirens, or even someone walking upstairs would disturb the sound, and I had to record whatever message I was saying, again, and again and again. And again. I encouraged the team a few times, to set an intention together that the noise would stop. It did stop for a while, and then, maybe we let go of our guards and it started again. It was an all day ordeal, and I believe that if we had not set the intention, it would probably have gone through the night.

Adapting to a New Creative Rhythm

By Elisa Balabram

On October 1, 2014

In Self-Love

rhythm

When I had a full time job, my personal life rhythm was established by my schedule. I had a long commute to work, and had to leave home early to make it there by 9am. My bed time was at 11pm, mostly non-negotiable, as I was used to getting up really early, writing, having breakfast and going to work. Even on weekends, I rarely could sleep late, as my rhythm was set up.

Since I’ve been self-employed for a while, I’m able to make my own hours, and at first, I was able to keep up with the same rhythm. But during the spring, things started to change. I was teaching late evenings, and was getting home too late to make it to my 11pm bed time. That led me to not be able to wake up as early as I’d have liked either.

How We Value Each Other in the Social Media Era

By Elisa Balabram

On September 7, 2014

In Business

Value In the past few months I have been thinking a lot about value: self-value, and how we value others.

It started when someone was very happy to find me in one of the Facebook groups I’m a part of. She was looking for speakers in a topic I’m an expert in, and I immediately volunteered to speak. At first she was very grateful to have me at her event. Then, she asked about my “Klout” score (if you are not familiar with it, it is a type of social media ranking), and mine is not great, but it’s not that bad either. I checked and the average score is 40, and mine was 55 the last time I checked. Unfortunately or maybe very fortunately, that was not enough for her, she never even responded to my email after I sent her the score.

A few weeks later, someone else contacted me to be a guest on her tele-summit, which would cover a specific topic on self-love. I also said yes, until she asked how many subscribers I had on my email list. It wasn’t the number they were looking for, so no deal. Although I understand the need to bring more subscribers to everyone’s lists, I would rather build a summit on the quality of the speakers than on the size of their lists. I have found that at times having a huge list may or may not represent the actual quality and value of one's work.

I don’t know what I’m doing

By Elisa Balabram

On August 25, 2014

In Trust Yourself

Do you ever h ingredients ear yourself say that, while cooking, communicating, working, presenting, selling, creating, etc.? As I practice paying attention to my inner voice, I’ve noticed lately that when I’m cooking, that voice shows up every time I decide to try something different. I might be in the middle of adding a spice or herb I find in my cabinet, which was probably placed there by mom during her visit, and I hear “I don’t know what I’m doing”.

I only started cooking after I moved to New York, and it’s not like I’ve cooked daily since. I don’t consider myself a pro, I’ve never had formal training, and I usually don’t know what goes with what. I tend to resist studying about it or following book recipes… I try to follow my mom’s recipes by heart, but I sometimes can’t find all the ingredients, or don’t remember all that is needed, so I give myself permission to experiment. The reality is that when I catch myself thinking “I don’t know what I’m doing”, I acknowledge that yes, I don’t know.

Following One’s True Calling – inspired by artist Lygia Clark

By Elisa Balabram

On August 18, 2014

In Business

"I think my walking is wonderful, because now I do not know what came before, whether it's art in the form of propositions or life that suddenly collapses within me by bringing this state of sensibility!" Lygia Clark, 22.1.1970

My sister and I went to the artist Ly Lygia Clark gia Clark’s exhibition at MoMA, and it was very inspiring. Lygia Clark (1920-1988) was born in my hometown, Belo Horizonte, Brazil, and lived in Rio de Janeiro and Paris. The exhibition will be shown through August 24^th, and I recommend it.

It was very interesting to learn more about her journey as an artist, her creative process, and how she moved from working on wood, to rubber, and how she then moved into creating art to explore the body. She didn’t stop at one art modality that she was known for and great at; she kept studying, learning, and evolving. Over the years, Lygia Clark’s interest in making interactive pieces grew, and she also explored ways in which her art could be therapeutic. She developed a type of psychoanalytic therapy, helping clients connect to their bodies through her art objects.

The Spirit of Authenticity

By Elisa Balabram

On July 29, 2014

In Self-Love

authenticity For over two years I’ve been participating on a chat on Twitter called #SpiritChat. The host Kumud Ajmani has gathered a group of people from all over the world, and it continues to grow. In addition to being a great and inspiring way to start our Sundays, I also met one of the participants in person and we became great friends. I highly recommend, if you are up on Sundays by 9AM EST, that you join the chat.

On Sunday, I had the opportunity to co-host the chat. I wrote the introduction to the topic The Spirit of Authenticity, based on my own experiences with being authentic, or not. One thing that I didn’t include in that article is how the topic came to me. I was on my way home after teaching an all-day course, followed by teaching another 2-hour course, and I was a bit out of it. I started to cross the street when the light turned white for pedestrians to cross. But before I took the next step, I heard “stop and look”, so I turned, and there it was – a car was speeding my way, the driver ran the red light, and if I hadn’t stopped, it would have run over me.

I Have Faith and Maybe Chocolate

By Elisa Balabram

On July 9, 2014

In Trust Yourself

ball I missed the semifinal World Cup game Brazil vs Germany yesterday afternoon. I was commuting and checking in disbelief the score on an app on my phone. By the time I got home, it was half time, and by then there was no point in watching it anymore. (I’m happy to see many positive messages starting to pop up, as it relates to our personal and spiritual growth, during “good” and “bad” times, but this article is not about the World Cup.)

On my way home as I followed the game, I thought how nice it would be if the box of chocolate my mother had mailed to me last week would have arrived. It would at least be something good to balance the events of that afternoon. I imagined two scenarios: either there would be a delivery note in my mailbox for me to pick it up, or as it happened once before, the postman would have left the box there for me, even without a signature.

Saying Yes to New Adventures and Trusting Your Intuition

By Elisa Balabram

On July 2, 2014

In Trust Yourself

I had the opportunity to visit Finland for the first time, to attend a conference in Lappeenranta. It was a wonderful experience, I learned from the conference, and I also had some personal experiences that I will always cherish. Here are the evening experiences that made the trip even more special, as I followed my intuition:

The day I arrived, there was a dinner outside with the conference attendees, followed by an opportunity to go to the sauna, and then jump on the cold lake, and back to the sauna. I had read the program, suggesting that we could bring a swimming suit if we wanted to experience it, and I did. I was a little insecure about it, since I had never done it before. It turns out that several people had done it and knew what to do. I trusted myself and asked as many questions as I could think of to one of the conference attendees who was leading us to the sauna, and who had done it before. Even though we had just met, I asked all the questions I could think of, as it was the only way for me to gather courage to do it.