This is the third and last installment of a series of posts to better introduce myself, beyond my role as life coach. As I explained previously, this is a post with an interview-style structure.

What are your greatest strengths?
I’m very compassionate and am skilled at understanding other people and perspective-taking. I am also good with evaluating situations, decision making, and problem solving. My knowledge-base in psychology and ability to apply what I know in novel situations for a certain outcome (two very different things) is also a strength. I’m resourceful and creative. I also have a keen sense of style/design. I’d like to think my sense of humor is a strength too. I've taken the VIA Survey of Character Strengths, and according to that assessment, these are my top 5 strengths: 1.) creativity, ingenuity, and originality 2.) judgment, critical thinking, and open-mindedness 3.) honesty, authenticity, and genuineness 4.) fairness, equity, and justice 5.) leadership.

What are your greatest weaknesses?
My messiness has been a weakness, but I’ve improved with that! Although I can be extremely self-disciplined, my motivation is something that I have to work with at times to make sure I do certain things. Although these are personally areas I work on, I think they benefit me professionally in so far as giving me an edge with helping clients who have the same points of improvement. So much of life hinges on motivation!
 
Name 5 traits that you think describe yourself.
I pretty much did this above. I think my friends would describe me as intelligent, straightforward, funny, outgoing, and caring. Now I need to ask them!
 
If you weren’t a life coach or therapist, what would you be doing?
I would probably either be working in the fashion industry or rehabilitating wild animals in Africa, India, or Asia.

This is the continuation of a post from a couple of weeks ago in response to a request to know more of who I am, outside of a life coach. I decided to structure this task in an interview format, addressing what I would want to know about someone I'm just meeting.

What don’t you enjoy?
Eww. I don’t like cleaning up and putting things away. This is something I’ve made a conscious and concerted effort to improve within the past year, and I have been successful--but it is a work in progress. I’ve discovered and created techniques and tricks that facilitate being neater, and they really help! I dislike cardio workouts. I am not athletic, and tend to be sedentary. If something requires a lot of physical exertion with subpar payoff, I’m not a fan. I have a limited diet, which I really dislike with my love of food; there are a lot of things I can’t eat that I wish I could. Although emails are a necessity and can be convenient, I don’t enjoy tending to them.
 
What are three important lessons you’ve learned?
This is a biggie! 1.) If you commit, persevere, try, and put in the time, you can overcome weaknesses and things that are a problem and actually turn them into a skill and a strength. I’ve experienced this a couple of times: I was diagnosed with a non-verbal learning disorder in high school (terribly late because I was able to compensate for it until that point). I worked terribly hard at my writing, and was fortunate to have skilled mentors who helped me overcome my challenges with writing. When I took my GRE’s (the test you take after college to get into grad school), I had a 4.5 on the writing section, and 4.5-5 was the highest rating you could get.
2.) Self-love is so important. At some point, people will likely reject you, exclude you, hurt you, judge you, make fun of you, etc. Ultimately, you are the one person you have, from the beginning of your life to the end of your life. What other people say and do can and will affect you, but at the end of the day, other people don’t matter because you are the executive of your life and you are the person experiencing your life. If you don’t love yourself and only look outward for acceptance and love, you are giving who-knows-who a lot of power over your life experience. Know who you are, know who you want to be, and love yourself- flaws and all. The best life is going to be the one that you choose based on your values, not one that you create based on being pushed, pulled, and controlled by others. If you don’t love yourself, you can’t love someone else; you will be too consumed looking for and needing that person’s love to be able to give freely and accept the love that they have for you. You have to know you’re worthy of being loved! 3.) You gotta dig in and face it. Avoiding whatever it is will not make it go away. Distracting yourself is not going to make it go away. It will only fester, maybe get worse, or have additional negative consequences. There is a time and place for avoidance and distraction, but it is not a long-term solution. Being able to tolerate and “work with” uncomfortable feelings at times is part of a healthy life. AND I’m adding a fourth: 4.) It is okay to say “No” and set limits!

What is your philosophy of life?
I’ve spent much time since I was very young thinking about the meaning of life. Although I still don’t know, I’ve logically concluded for now that a good life is one that you enjoy and one where you give back. That logical reasoning also vibes with me at an emotional level, and it’s what guides much of what I do.

There are still a few questions as part of my interview, which I will save for a later post. If there are any questions you'd like to add to my interview, please let me know, and I will include them!

Loss is an inevitable part of life. We experience loss in many ways, beyond the death of a loved one. For example, we can experience loss with our health, relationships that end, or with our career.

Impermanence is the nature of life. Our world is always changing; sometimes that means we permanently lose what has had a meaningful presence to us.
As is our nature, like almost every other mammal, we are built for attachments at the neurological level (oxytocin, vasopressin, etc). Although our primary attachments are likely to people, we can be attached to more than just people: ideas, activities, objects. Adjusting to a loss that has been a big part of our lives affects us at a core level. There is a piece of our world that is missing. Some of the thoughts that we habitually think are no longer relevant; what we normally expect every day will not happen; the behaviors we have routinely engaged in will not happen. All of these changes affect how we feel.

What can be even more startling, buried under the actual loss, is being faced with the reality that our worlds can change so quickly; what we depend and rely on can disappear.  Although we might not be consciously aware of it, I think that “losing” in and of itself—separate from whatever the actual loss is—is unsettling and can threaten our safety and security. We have beliefs about who we are, how our world is, and what our future will be like. We function every day according to these beliefs. When a chunk of this falls out, especially when the loss is unexpected, it can really shake us. We have to get through the days, mourn the loss, and re-work our worlds.

When we re-work our worlds, it needs to be with awareness and intention. We need to reconstruct and put together a world that accommodates the loss, but also so the loss does not steal from our future. Every loss can be a learning and growing experience. Learning and growing from a loss does not take away the hurt and the pain. However, approaching the loss from a learning perspective helps us to recalibrate our world in a way that is healthier and better for us, as opposed to developing a world that is bitter, pessimistic, and cynical. Avoiding re-working our worlds isn’t helpful; this results in being stuck. We can also choose to look at the glass half full: we had something to lose. We will always have the memories. We got to experience *that* (whatever it was) in our life. It wasn’t forever, which would be divine, but we did have it—and it was good while it was. Appreciate it, savor the memories, feel the pain, and then focus on creating your new world.

We are behooved to engage life in a way that appreciates the present, expects impermanence, knows there will be pain, and knows it will lessen; we also need to know that we can adjust after a loss--our worlds are not over, but have shifted. Being mindful of these these things and practicing them can offer comfort and peace in a life that has changes and losses. Every loss provides a lesson, and an opportunity.