This is the audio Introduction to my podcast:

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Since I started working as a full time personal development coach, I am happy when I wake up in the morning. I truly look forward to my interaction with clients, my social networking and reading and researching. I smile when I even think of these things.

Affirmation: I follow my bliss!

However, one of the things I have failed to do is to enjoy the feeling of relief when I do finish up a project. Instead, I usually just rush on to the next project. Not a good idea. One of my goals is to look for relief in all the small places and enjoy and relish in the feeling of relief when I experience it.

Relief is the turnaround emotion. When you experience relief, it means you are going in the right direction. Relishing in it creates more of it in your life.

Affirmation: I love the feeling of relief.

So to feel good about this, I think of last year’s conference where I had a good time. I ask myself about the pressure I am feeling. No one has really put pressure on me about it. I am just feeling the pressure that I am expected to attend and I am avoiding talking to my church lady friends. Hmmm….. So I am the source of the pressure in my mind. Not the church ladies. OK. That was easy. Turn off the pressure, Iyabo.

Now, what do these negative feelings tell me? I am spending my time investing in activities I think others expect me to participate in. OK. So I get in touch with what I want to do for me only and it is this: I want to go to one session to check it out because I really had a good time there last year. OK. That is it. I will go to the Friday session. How about I arrive late so I don’t get sucked in? Cool.

Boy, now I feel better. It is on my own terms.

Affirmation: I do what feels good to me.

I appreciate my husband the most. He really is a great guy. He is committed to his own personal growth and he tells me stuff that he genuinely believes is for my own good even when he knows I do not want to hear it. That is courageous. Especially with me! He finds all sorts of little ways to be my hero. I have not taken the trash out in eight years and I do not clean up after cooking dinner. A friend visited my home recently and my husband was helping me lay out stuff and clean up and she was shocked that I did not have to ask my husband to do anything. I really do appreciate that about him.

I do not like male bashing. I like men and I have always had good relationships with the men in my life including my father and my brother. I find that we women spend a lot of time male-bashing and expecting less than extraordinary from the men in our lives. Sometimes it is justified and sometimes it is not. However, I enjoy putting my focus on the positives in my relationship with men. Do I find my husband maddening sometimes? Absolutely. Does he have shortcomings in certain areas? Yes, just like I do.

However, I find myself happier and our relationship so much better when I consciously focus on the multitude of things that he does right all day long. So many times, I forget about those things.

With my recent computer issues, he did all that he knew to do to get the situation resolved and when he did not know what to do, he went and asked for help.

It feels good to know that I am supported by him. I enjoy his support.

I also enjoy my sister. She recently adopted two cats and calls me everyday to tell me about the antics of the cats. I enjoy her camaraderie. I enjoy and appreciate my relationships with friends and loved ones.

I appreciate my coaching clients. I believe I have the best clients in the world. They are wonderful people that are sincere about their own growth and development. I am awed as to their courage to look at themselves and to proactively make changes. They are awesome people and it is my honor to work with them.

I appreciate the fact that relationships that were not serving me have dissolved and dissipated. I am relieved to know that when a relationship does not serve me, it looses energy through no action on my part. I love that. I love that I am finally in a place in my life where I can say, “You know what, that relationship with that new friend, neighbor, co-worker, client, whomever, is not healthy. It is not reciprocal. It is not honoring. It does not serve me positively. It does not serve the other person positively. I will not feed it any energy. It is not what I want.” And the relationship just goes away. The person stops calling. I never get to see the neighbor. It just vanishes.

I think that is very powerful.

Who do you appreciate in your life? If you focus your appreciation on those good healthy relationships, those that do not serve you will begin to fall away.
Affirmation: I easily show appreciation to those I love and care for.

Gratitude comes up when I avert a situation or things could have gone down differently but they did not. Appreciation comes up when I did not even ask for it and it is just there. There is a sense of relief with gratitude and with appreciation, a sense of the natural order of things. I try to express both each and every day.

I am grateful for so much. I am grateful for my home that I have lived in for 12 years and it is comfortable and lovely. I am grateful for surviving professionally. I am grateful about how I feel being a coach. I am grateful that my computer woes are behind me I think. I am grateful for my body that is still going strong. I am grateful for food on the table. I am grateful for my finances. I am grateful for the fact that the crazy neighbor stays far away from me.

I really do have so much to be grateful for. When so called “bad things” happen to me, it turns out that it was not so bad after all and it worked itself out. I am grateful for that.

Affirmation. I am grateful and I have so much to be grateful for.

I love to read and I have fantasies of publishing, but I have no clue what to write that would fill up a whole book. However, ever since I started my Authentic Life program a few years ago so many things have fallen in place that pursuing my dream of being a published author really does not feel far away. OK, I give myself permission to keep writing and keep fresh ideas coming in.

The other thing that I want to do that I have done but not in a long time is to fly a kite. I love seeing those lovely colors and patterns up in the air.

This post makes me realize that I have room to create more things that I want to do because the truth is that I have done most of what I always wanted to do. Very memorable things like snorkeling, getting a tropical fish tank, growing roses, marrying the man of my dreams. I do have this desire to live on the beach and scuba diving. I also have a really strong desire to be a mom. I can add that to the list.

What would you like to do that you have never done?

Affirmation: I give myself permission to do all the things that I have always wanted to do.

I can increase my love by staying in a place of love, doing what I love and reminding myself everyday that my purpose is love.

Affirmation: My purpose is love and I easily flow in love energy.

I love newborn babies. I love their innocence, softness and sweetness. I love animals. I love my kitty that died recently. I love children. I love people and most of all, I love my own self.

Who do you love? Why?

Affirmation: I love me.

I also love coaching. The type of interaction that I have with clients when I am coaching them is so pure. The relationship is already set up. I am in tune to the client and my listening is on and my intuition is on. I am zoned into the client. When I respond, the client absorbs it. Truthfully, 99% of the time, I come away from coaching, charged and energized. I get in a zone. I know I have delivered value and the client tells me that. I love it. I end up learning so much from my clients.

Another way of putting it is the coaching experience expands me in a very pleasant way. All of the things that I mentioned that I love, expands me. That is why I love to do those things. I do them and I feel that I am a better person for doing them.

How about you, do you do what you love to do often? Do you know what you love to do? What is holding you back from doing them? Coaching can help you identify and do more of what you love.

Affirmation: I do what I love to do.