Tag Archives: life coaching

purposeful journey

7 Feb

winter dawn

The other day, I was on a call one of my colleagues was doing for her community . She mentioned how winter’s harshness can be counterproductive in terms of getting things done with the swiftness that we are often used to.  She talked about how we push ourselves so much to keep going, when in the past winter has been a time for slowing down, resting, closure, and endings.  She used nature to illustrate her point, talking about the end of a year and how it’s symbolized by barren trees, ice and snow.  What she said really resonated with me.  Growing up in Pennsylvania myself, I can see how the transition from one season to the next is the perfect metaphor for life.

As the seasons have come and gone over the past couple of years, they have mirrored the highs and lows of my own life. The infinite cycles of Mother Nature bringing with her the rebirth and growth of spring, the abundance and brightness of summer,  the reflection and acceptance of fall, and the endings and closure of winter.  As we in North America look with anticipation to the thaw and renewal of the coming spring and escaping one of the harshest winters on record, I can’t help but notice the similarities that show up for me.

I’m ready for spring and the end of winter! Proudly admiring the culmination to my labor of self-love:  Me!  🙂  I feel like a brand that’s been remarketed… (read in cheesy TV commercial announcer voice) Jen Halulko!   New and Improved  QSCA Certified formula! Now you get super-charged doses of the qualities you know and love! An Intuitive Life Coach, she’ll teach you how to use your Intuition with the Law of Attraction to deliberately create your life so you can have the love, relationship, and family you desire and deserve!

Aaahhhh.  That felt gooooood!! Like it? I came up with that all by myself!  Hee! 🙂 Seriously though, I’m so excited, and so proud of myself for getting my certification.  I honestly worked my ass off to get it, and it was something I actually wanted to do.  I went back to school for my Bachelor’s Degree because I felt like I had to.  I was working in Corporate America then and to get a decent salary and even be considered for a promotion, I had to have a degree.  Now it’s pretty much a given that one needs a Master’s Degree or higher! I’d started my MBA prior to leaving my job for that reason.  Upon leaving and embarking on the journey of self-discovery that led me here, I abruptly ended that pursuit.  That’s not to say I think poorly of higher education.  For me; however, it wasn’t something I really wanted to do, and for that reason, I stopped doing it.

There’s nothing like a healthy dose of self-confidence to help you notice when you’re doing things out of a sense of obligation or the expectations of others.  So, I went from one day living life just going through the motions, to a complete 180.  Topsy turvy, upside down, sideways, inside out, and back again all in a few months—and it hit me like a ton of bricks—as it would anyone who is used to living to please others rather than themselves. Things happen in life that we aren’t prepared for. 

Things happen in life that we worry might happen and are afraid will happen.  Things happen in life that are extremely painful, but one thing remains consistent through them all.  After we’ve worked through them and come out on the other side, we look back and realize that they were necessary– even required– for us to learn the lessons we needed to learn in order to find our life purpose.

The reason we went through all the struggle and pain in the first place is to get to where we are right now, looking back on those things with fresh eyes, a new perspective, and one of gratitude for the journey.  Painful though it was, we were able to find the reason we are here, the reason we were born, our purpose in life.  Seems crazy, doesn’t it?  I know, it did to me too! But that was before I embraced my gifts or learned about the Law of Attraction.

 

Stay tuned! 🙂  lone woman

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New Year…New Life

8 Sep

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During the time I was dealing with losing my job and sorting out the issues with my friend, a family friend came back into my life.  She and my mom had been friends since they were kids, I’d known her since birth, and we considered her family.  I’d grown up calling her my Aunt, her children my cousins, and so on.  She and I had always been close and I was very fond of her.   She had always been a unique individual, free-spirited, or what my mother liked to call “flaky”.  It wasn’t unusual for years to go by without hearing from her.  I’d wonder how she was doing  and would eventually track her down.  I had done just that earlier that year in May, a couple of months before losing my job. We talked every few days from then on.

About a month later, I was talking to her during the hour-long drive home in the early morning hours from my ghost tour job in Saint Augustine.  She confided in me that she was in a horrible living situation and desperate to get out, but had nowhere to go. I called her back the next day after talking it over with my husband and invited her to come stay with us. The plan was for her to stay as long as she needed until she had saved enough money to get her own place.  I was excited to have her come and stay, but there was an uneasiness in my gut when I thought about it. Figuring it was just the idea of someone living with us causing it, I made the call anyway and brushed it off.  Unfortunately, like so many times before when I ignored that inner voice; what I now call my soul voice, I made the wrong decision.   I remembered her as a sweet, nurturing presence in my life when I was a kid,  and as someone I could always talk to, no matter what. I felt my kids would benefit from her being around since I intended to return to work full-time when I found another job and she’d be there with them when I couldn’t be.  They’d have another adult with a positive presence in their lives. She’d benefit by getting out of her current living situation and have a place to stay with people who loved and appreciated her, and she could save up the money to start over.  She offered to help out with the kids, cooking, etc., in return for staying with us.  I figured it was a win-win situation for all concerned.

She arrived December 1, 2012.  She’d changed her name over the few years that passed from the last time I’d seen her until I tracked her down and called her in May.  The day she arrived, she asked that we not call her by her former name.  She reasoned that it bothered her because she’d been through hell and having coming out on the other side, she felt that person was long gone.  In hindsight, I can see where the red flag should have gone up for me.  After all, I’d known her all my life as that person.  Chalking it up to one of her many eccentricities, I didn’t give it much thought at the time.  It felt strange and awkward calling her by this new name, but wanting to respect her wishes, I compromised and just called her “Auntie.”  I would find out her name wasn’t the only thing that had changed since I’d seen her last.

…next…new year…new life…part 2

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My Induction Into Paranormal Life: Taking Stock

1 Aug

Most people get to a certain point in their lives and start to evaluate; especially after something significant happens that causes them to be faced with a major life change or their own mortality.  The death of a relative, getting married, having kids, losing a job, turning 40, or any other life changing event or milestone can prompt you to take stock of your situation.

After I lost my job, I had plenty of free time to take a good, long look at mine.  I did have a lot to be thankful for.  I had my health, a nice home, 3 beautiful kids, and a husband who was everything I could ever hope for. But..I still didn’t have joy in my life. Life seemed daunting, hard, a struggle to get through most days, and I couldn’t figure out why.  The two main causes of stress in my life; my oldest daughter and my job, had now been reduced by half.  As a parent, I knew I needed to figure something out.  I was tired of being miserable! In my opinion, you can’t be a good parent and take care of your kids if you don’t know how to take care of yourself.

I had read that a gratitude journal could help change one’s focus from the negative to the positive things in life, so I decided to give it a try. One of the things the article suggested was to think of the people in your life who support you.  These people are the ones who want to see you succeed, do well, be happy, and are there for you no matter what.  I wrote down the people who came to my mind first; my husband, my parents, my life coach, my therapist, my aunt, and my mother-in-law.  Then I started to think about my friends.  Friends support you, right?  robin williams

I have two really great friends that I met after my husband and I got married in 1994, and we’ve been friends through all the military moves to different states and countries.  No matter the amount of miles separating us, or how often we saw each other or spoke on the phone, we could always pick up right where we left off as if no time had gone by.  I wrote these two friends down.  The friends I had made more recently, I’d made at my job.  After I examined my friendships with them further, I decided that they weren’t really friends.

Had I gotten it wrong somehow? Maybe somewhere along the way, I’d gotten the wrong idea about what a friend is supposed to be.  After all, these days with Facebook and Twitter, a “friend” is just someone you know or that your friends know.  Was it possible that I’d misinterpreted the meaning of that word all this time? I had managed to take a task meant to change my outlook, and turn it into a reality check.

I’ve always had a hard time making friends. Later, after finding out about my gifts, I would learn that it’s always difficult for an empath to trust, due to our ability to read others.  I know when people are being honest and sincere and when they’re not. Maybe because most of my “friends” were at least 5 or 6 years younger than me, didn’t have kids, weren’t married, etc., I expected too much from them. The only basis for comparison I had was how I treated them.   I was there for my friends to confide in and rely on.  I was there for support, to have fun with and commiserate with.  I considered their feelings, was honest with them, and I didn’t judge them if their opinion was different from mine. I was there to give advice if they asked for it.  I valued each one of them as a person, treated them with respect, and they knew I genuinely cared. I realized that they were benefiting much more from being friends with me than I was from being friends with them.  As a matter of fact, when I reached out to them for support, they usually made me feel worse; not better!

…next…letting go…

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