Today I met Zelna

"Ants & Bugs", "Zeal" & a whole lotta ingredients for recipes of success. 
That's what I learned from Zelna Lauwrens, world renown author and kids life coach who visited us in SA for a special intro to her work. 

Personally I've been on a very trying journey since taking on my fiancees two boys who live permanently in our home, and that displayed some concerns I'm just not equipped to deal with. So I went to see Zelna with hubby to get some answers. 

It's not that I battle with children, but I've never claimed to be a gushy, over the top, nursery school type personality who would give up all of her time to be surrounded by kids. No, I'm not that. I'm the middle ground woman who can be playful and silly while still enforcing boundaries and discipline. 

So why Zelna?

Being passionately curious about life's challenges and searching for answers, I found myself sitting in Zelna's presence. She's a charismatic, down to earth ex- Durbanite that oozes confidence and so much passion about her journey, a journey that has helped over 9000 children in the world not only find themselves, but embrace their unique identities without the labels.

Zelna's workshop material is based on her book called 'Labels are for things, not kids'. Now, before you think you know it all about parenting (and maybe you do) Zelna's offering includes checkpoints for parents to assess where their children are at and looks at family dynamics, eating patterns, sleeping patterns and physical well being - a holistic approach really. Her strategy is simple and candid and her workshop so easy to follow, even for a newbie mom such as myself. 

I've often tried to put labels on our children, because it's easy to quantify the concerns we have if we follow a systematic approach to their disorderly conduct, you know, a mainstream diagnosis.

Then, once we find the label we proceed to treat the child based on the recommended medical treatment as designed by doctors. Herein lies the key, as Zelda points out that most children that are labelled with a disorder are, in fact, reacting to a personal need that isn't being met. These needs can be met by listening to the child's wants and desires and understanding, through communication and upliftment techniques, what they need to be their best selves. This in turn strengthens and heals the relationships involved.

Getting rid of ANTS & BUGS

A lot of Zelna's work focuses on incorporating joy into the child's mindset, changing negative belief systems and reprogramming the child's mind with positive affirmations and praise. Zelna refers to this as "Zeal", which by definition is enthusiasm / passion. 

ANTS - Automatic Negative Thoughts  BUGS - Big Ugly Grumpies 

The most amazing part is that I've just blogged about this, this week! I wrote about how our thoughts become our reality and how I needed to shift my own thinking patterns away from the negative. I was reminded last night that my joy and my happiness also matters. I've been so obsessed with helping these broken winged children, that I've accepted the sacrifice of my own joy as a daily norm. Last night, I gave myself permission to find my ZEAL. 

I've also been schooled on whom I invite to my picnic. Reminded that my ANTS and BUGS are no longer welcome to share my sandwiches or chocolate cake as I bask in the hypothetical sunshine of my life. I too can change my negative thoughts by practicing my joy and flicking those ANTS & BUGS back into the grass. 

"Coaching is insurance for your children"

The beauty of Zelna's work is that it's being practiced all over the world by various therapists associated with and hand picked by Zelna to take on the programme in their own practices. 

Even if your child/children are not displaying obvious behavioral issues, such as my own, coaching offers children and parents alike an opportunity to set goals and work a plan of action to attain them. These goals could be in all area's of their lives, school, play, conflict management etc.

My Zeal Plan

According to Zelna, a Zeal Plan is a tool whereby we ask questions to get children to unpack their goals. Perhaps a vision board or through creative visualization in a technique she calls "Mind Holidays". 

"Use what you can or what you do well with your children", she says, "give them something tangible to learn from, because we remember by doing."

So what can I use or do well that can assist with the boys emotional and spiritual development? I think some regular holistic massage and meditation time is on the cards and aunty Tan is just the person to bring her gifts and talents to the table. Watch this space!


Special thanks to Candice Luck from Live Love Dream for the invitation to the workshop and of course to Zelna for her time and patience with (all my many) questions.  

Hold on! The Shift Is Here.

Everyone is feeling it, it's an unwelcome blend of change and hypersensitivity.
There's something in the air, some sort of cosmic shift that I don't really know how to explain. If I had to try articulate it, I would explain it it as the end of the old and the start of a brand new being for each of us. 

While in the shift you'll experience moments of deep introspection, heightened awareness and for some (particularly me) a great sense of discomfort on all levels - physically, spiritually, mentally and emotionally. 

In short, I've been feeling lost. That's all. Questioning everything, questioning friendships, life purpose, seeing things in a totally different light. A definite repulsion for all things ego driven. Negative people, gossip, drama. The petty things drain my already agitated soul. Over the last few months the most important person in my life is, wait for it, me. Somehow I forgot this, not consciously but because somehow life has gotten the best of me. I'd forgotten that without looking out for myself, no one else would and I burnt out as fast as I was ignited with the desire to help others before myself. 

I had to get lost before I could find myself 

It happened slowly, then suddenly all at once. I started to notice the glow had turned into a dull reflection in the mirror and apathy was my attitude toward all things that made me smile and shine from the inside out months before. It's almost as if my body was walking on this earthly domain and my soul had simply left me to exist all by myself. I could feel the separation. My Angels that had always seemed arms length away were now distant memories until I was recently reminded that it was in fact me who left them when I chose to put everything else before my own spiritual and emotional responsiblities. I have work to do to catch up to my old new self, the shift has reminded me of this. 

I think I cried for a full day last Sunday, a purge of emotions from as far as 15 years back. Emotions and issues I honestly thought I had dealt with but the shift will do that to you. 

The shift will cause you to suddenly question everything you thought you knew about your life and where you're going. I sat in a pile, I was blaming the whole world for my list of excruciating circumstances, memories and people that I had to deal with. "How the hell did I get here?", I sobbed. I had lost myself and I didn't even realise it. 


Don't resist, just let it happen


I called my parents on two separate occasions this week, both times about the same problem's I've been dealing with. Just this afternoon both of these people, separate from each other for the last 20 plus years gave me the same advice. A golden thread of clarity hit home inside me, both of them sharing the same simple gems that have put everything into luminous perspective. "Go with the flow of life, let go of the need to control everything that you can't understand/fix/comprehend." 

Here comes the pearler

"I just wish I had a break, when is it my turn to just live my life and get ahead", I sobbed. To which both parents echoed - "Make your own break, make the change you want to see, create the life you want to live." 
(Insert facepalm here) You hear these snippets 1000 times in life and suddenly it's all relevant. Create.The.Life.You.Desire. Hashtag are you feeling me? 


So I'm back from the dead, back from the cesspool of self pity and loathing to bring you more blogging awesomeness, love, light and authenticity. Just know that no matter what you're going through, the shift is happening. It's not a tangible thing, it's not something you can control and it's not something you should fear. No matter where you are, if you're reading this and you're feeling the shift you're not alone, we'll go through it together. 

If you're in the same boat don't panic, it just means you're that much closer to a breakthrough than you realise!

The truth about life's lessons

Awareness sets you free. It's the difference between life happening to you versus for you - to learn from and by. 

The last 2 weeks find me somewhere between limbo and and abyss of emotions, my awareness of every moment, constantly teaching me new things. 

What you haven't seen on my Facebook

If you follow my posts, you'll know that I'm going through a bit of a life changing period. Today was hard. 

I sat in the car outside Builders Warehouse sobbing. It's been the first real moment of manifested misery and frustration since our breakup. I had invested 5 years into him, 5 years into us. Why did I feel like such a failure, as if I could have done more. I lick my deep wounds.

Last night, my mother (whose going through her own lessons) Skyped me in frustration as she prepared for another wedding. She's a talented and dedicated floral artist and decor designer that was simply having a bad day. A series of mishaps with her planning and flower arrangements has left her feeling defeated and deflated. It's not the bigger picture and it's not the norm, but it is life. Life with it's mixture of up's and down's and unforeseen blessings. 

She continued to explain how her major arrangement had accidentally been smashed and how she would have to do it all over again. Seeing the glass half full I comforted her with, "Perhaps the Universe, knowing how much you love doing what you do, has given you a second chance to do the same thing with as much love and passion as always - can you find that passion again while feeling the way you do?" I was trying to illustrate that life doesn't happen on our terms, if you love something as much as my mother loves her floral artistry, the Universe will give you an opportunity to prove your unconditional dedication but the final outcome depends on your attitude in the face of adversity.  

With fists in the air we shared our emotional dilemma's for the day and then laughed it off as we do when we're together. "It's one of life's lessons" I explain to her, "how badly do you want to keep doing what you love?" Her facial expression was clearly less than approving. We expect things to go smoothly 24/7 and when it doesn't we take it personally, as if life is happening to us. 

Today was a tough one. I sat crying in the car, crying on the way home on the phone to a man that has been sent into my life as a friend, but is actually the loudest and clearest voice of reason I know. He consoles me, listens and advises until I've turned off my car and I'm sitting in the carport at my new home. "It just doesn't seem fair", I petition. "Why is this happening?" 

My voice of reason replies, "It's just one of life's lessons, you take the good days with the bad but it's not all doom and gloom", he assures me. By now my dialogue includes "It's a bloody stupid lesson if you ask me! 5 years - gone!" I leave my vehicle wounded and proceed to my flat where my cat waits to greet me. We had it all, and here I am living in someone else's back yard in a flat, with a cat and lots of tea. I've become the stereotype of the single woman in her 30's and this wasn't my plan.

We don't stop learning 

I may as well have pressed a panic button (and later that afternoon I had by accident) to let my spiritual network know that I needed comfort. Then, she called me. She being a friend that has more wisdom than I do years of my life yet in the same breath is also still learning. 

"You're upset", she observes, "I'm coming over". This is the part when I pushed the panic button instead of the gate opening button and in a funny and ironic way, as if a Freudian slip of the finger, I realised I wasn't in fact, okay. For the first time since we've parted I was breaking down, it was sinking in and the strength I had pulled out of nowhere had dissolved. Miserable with flu, exhausted on all levels, I was done.

As she walks through the gate to my courtyard, her outstretched arms embrace me and I cry, a lot. Between tears, gasps and snot I cry tears of lost love, disappointment and anger - lots of anger. I cry now as I type this, this wasn't how it was meant to be in my mind and on my terms. 

As the tears stream down my face and meet with her shoulder, she strokes the back of my head, she may as well have been stroking my soul. Human contact, or lack thereof, is the downside of being single. She responds with the best advice she has, "It's one of life's lessons". I'm kinda getting sick of hearing that pain, suffering and misguidance is okay, but it is. 

Follow the leader

I had arranged a breakfast meeting in my snotty stage of influenza with a friend, a young aspiring make up artist looking for answers and greatly jaded by her life experiences to date. I see the beauty in her, the light and the joy - she has forgotten any of it exists within. 

As she pours out her heart to me about her recent break up, and her struggles at the tender age of 23, I find myself dishing back the same insight. "It's one of life's lessons". Has this phrase become a cliched response to our personal low points, or is there some truth behind it? I know she's going to be okay, I know that this is just a phase, therefore it must be one of life's lessons. A lesson that she's either going to grow from or 'die' inside because of. The choice is hers and I can't decide it for her.

I return home and plop into bed, it's 4pm and I don't care. I'm going through my own 'stuff' and I could sleep forever. The depression has hit me and then the voice inside my head starts analyzing the 'life lesson' theory.

So, you want to know the truth? 

If you're battling to accept the divorce application you've been resisting for 3 years or the retrenchment you're facing. If you can't deal with the death of a loved one and find yourself questioning the meaning of life and the days of grey skies and thunderstorms. If you're wondering why life is 'unfair' or 'cruel' and why we have to go through these uncomfortable periods of relearning and regrowing - it's because it is in fact, part of life's lessons. 

As spiritual beings having a human experience, our lessons in this life include the good and the bad. After the rain, there is always growth. It presents us with constant opportunities of putting our best foot forward when we're actually feeling less than positive, less than happy and maybe even the lowest of the low. It's about continually seeking out the hidden meanings behind the things that occur and those opportunities will keep occurring until the day we die. The alternative to embracing change and hurt, is being a victim of our circumstances. The alternative is a road on which I have long since decided to get off. Life is good, it is sweet and bitter and crazy. 

I thought about the love I have for my cat Tiger. Holding him up to my face I find myself cooing, "You love your mother, don't you!". His affections for me fast forward me to a future me whereby my own children are going to make me feel vulnerable and open to hurt. They are going to disappoint and they are going to be part of other personal hurts and challenges I have to face, why, because it's part of life's lessons. 

The sooner you realise that days like these are temporary but they will return, the less pressure we put on ourselves to be okay, all the time! There may not be a constant state of joy, but there can be a lesson learned in each sad and stormy day that helps us be the best version of ourselves we can be.  

Like love, joy and peace, there will be days of rain and even thunderstorms. The difference between the two is in accepting that they are both here to help us learn - about us, about others and about our life purpose. 

Never stop growing. Life is beautiful and the Universe is conspiring to help you achieve all things that serve your greater good. Don't stop believing in the goodness and joy in this world that will return. It's just life's lessons, it's not forever and it's not here to keep you where you are. Use your pain as a compass, find faith in your Higher power and tomorrow the sun will shine again!