The Five Freedoms

I recently shared this quote - one of my favorites - by Virginia Satir, a famous therapist, with a friend...and wanted to share it with you, too.

The Five Freedoms

The FREEDOM to see and hear what is here, instead of what should be, was, or will be.

The FREEDOM to say what you feel and think, instead of what you should.

The FREEDOM to feel what you feel, instead of what you ought.

The FREEDOM to ask for what you want, instead of always waiting for permission.

The FREEDOM to take risks in your own behalf, instead of choosing to be only "secure" and not rocking the boat.

Teaching Coaches coaching

I have just had a very exciting briefing with a group of scientists at the university to coach entrepreneurs. ALL of them have no training or coaching previous. My Job: to teach basics of coaching in a two-day workshop, so they already have a base with which they can work. I'm excited!

Originally written by Kerstin Hack on Thursday, March 05, 2009 @ 15:05

I am ... Coach

Since yesterday I am officially coach and Supervisior or more accurately completed systemically-solution-oriented supervisor and coach. Sounds impressive, huh?
The title is cool. But more important is that I feel: "Yes, I am a coach now!" Yesterday we had a final reflection, where we once again looked at the past, present and future. When I stood in the presence and felt: Yes, I am a coach, I have learned the stuff, I can do (mostly) good. "It was for me a very nice, nice feeling.
And yes, of course, I look forward to continue, to learn, new experiences - and many interesting conversations and coaching processes.

Originally written by Kerstin Hack on Thursday, February 19, 2009 @ 08:32

Encounter

This week I have finished three new impulse booklets and gave them to the graphic designer and lecturer for the second revision
- Prayer for politics
- Growing naturally. (Maturity)
- Money.
I write very creative and out of the belly. The intensive work is very stressful for me. I was really exhausted at noon today. Then I had a coaching. Although only on the phone, not live. But now, after I have accompanied a young woman in a decision-making process for an hour, I feel myself again refreshed and happy. I need intensive, inspiring encounters like any other water or coffee!

Originally written by Kerstin Hack on Thursday, January 29, 2009 @ 17:45

Can we ...?

Today I cleared up Christmas gifts and Christmas cards. And take revenge for all the received newsletters with my personal Year in Review - following the motto: an eye for an eye, tooth for tooth, newsletter for newsletter.
The funniest and cheekiest Christmas card came again from my training Institute "isiberlin" for coaching and supervision.
The text (if it is not visible in the photo):
outside: Can we ...? believe in Santa Claus.
Card inside: A jumping Santa Claus with some resemblance to Obama with a sign reading "Yes, we can."

Originally written by Kerstin Hack on Saturday, January 17, 2009 @ 14:36

Tip for the end of the year

A friend has reminded me (thanks, Rose) that I am two years ago - based on a method of coaching - a good idea for the structuring of the annual had reflection. She had then written up - great, if one has such friends, keep the good ideas that you yourself have already forgotten.

One can reflect:

What has changed:

* In the environment
* In the activity
* In our own abilities
* In the values
* In the identity
* In the spirituality

In addition, you can ask:
- What's gone?
- What was this?

I will do the same tomorrow ... or Thursday somewhere above the clouds on its way to New York!

Originally written by Kerstin Hack on Tuesday, December 30, 2008 @ 20:26

Good questions for 2009

I have just written my client newsletter. And because a woman replied that the she liked the impulses that much, I present an excerpt here:

"The best way to predict the future is to make it. - Author unknown

Dear Friends,

Many people are wondering these days what the new year will probably bring. I have quit, to ask me this question - for the simple reason that I can not answer. No matter how much I think - I will not find a secure answer to this question. The answer can only bring life - I know it afterwards. The 31 12. 2009, might tell me what the year has brought.

But there are issues on which it is worth to think about. For example the question: How can I design this year - with God's help? What are the things I would like to learn? Where do I want to develop? What experiences and encounters, I would like to give space for? What do I want to produce, move and change? I can answer these questions and the clearer the answer is, the more powerful I can design it. I wish you the courage to abandon "fortune-teller-questions" ( "What will be?") on New Year's Eve but instead think of "design issues" such as the above. "

Originally written by Kerstin Hack on Tuesday, December 30, 2008 @ 10:00

2008 - My year in numbers - Down to Earth

The end of the year is a good time to look back. I do this, inter alia, by looking at numbers - the internal issues will come later.

The Year of Down to Earth
1 edition - CD Rom "Well said"
1 new employee (an age-less)
2 international licensing agreements for impulse booklets closed (Japan + The Netherlands)
2 new online partners (E-books and clicking Germany)
5 new writers won for Down to Earth
13 lectures / seminars throughout Germany
16 new books / impulse booklets / Quadros of which I've written 14 (phew!)
18 Articles which were published in magazines (some twice)
24 reviews of Down to Earth Products in online and print magazines (which could be more)
? Coaching a few dozen hours, where I accompanied people in their processes.

In short: An intensive and successful year with slightly better sales figures than last year, and especially a lot of good matches. I think that we enriched people's lives in one way or another.

Originally written by Kerstin Hack on Tuesday, December 30, 2008 @ 08:10

Coaching Tip: First Aid against panic

Everybody knows situations where everything collapses over you. Depending on the personality is then activated the rehearsed patterns of panic: fear, Lashing out, despair, depression, massive pressure, total chaos, absolute helplessness, etc. My supervisor has given me a chance today to "first aid" in crashes of emotional states.

The method originates from the trauma therapy and was developed for people who have had bad experiences and when a "Flashback" comes and they are threatened to panic because they saw the situation recalls. It helps also in the normal everyday neuroses that each of us has sometimes.
The background for the approach is the idea that if you crash emotionally to think either in the past. Then one remembers what terrible things one has experienced. Or one thinks of the future and fears it. To get the feelings, the hiking in the past / future triggers off, you must return to a narrow line of the present issue by dealing with all your senses focused on what is now.

First Aid program against panic and to arrvie back in the present day - Short Form:

Name 5 things that you see.
Name 5 things that you hear.
Name 5 things that you feel.

Then: name 4 things that you see, 4 things that you hear, 4 things that you feel.

Then 3
Then 2
Then 1

Then, the first acute panic looses a little bit.
And then you can maybe think about the root that caused the problem. But everything in his time.

Originally written by Kerstin Hack on Monday, December 15, 2008 @ 17:58

Coaching - Tip: The beginning of freedom

Recently, I had a coaching training includes an interesting phrase, which I find very helpful:
Freedom begins there, where I have three options.

If I have only one, I will be rigid.
If I have two, I stand in a conflict.
If I have three, freedom begins.


I find the idea very helpful and the habit of situations in which I feel a crisis, to consider: What kind of (at least) three options do I have? I always see at least three.

Originally written by Kerstin Hack on Monday, December 15, 2008 @ 17:55

Interesting idea

Today we have spoken about dealing with acquisitions, offerings and cancellations in the Inter-Vision Group, which is part of my coaching training. Jens said that he remembered in the last rejection a sentence of a person which said:
"With every NO one comes the Yes a little closer."
A very interesting and liberating approach ...

Originally written by Kerstin Hack on Thursday, December 04, 2008 @ 12:39

Joy at growth steps

I am very happy. 2008 I have produced 16 new titles (12 books impulse, 4 Quadros) , of which I wrote most (14) by myself. Tough program!
2009 is different. This is not just wishful thinking, but actually justified. For the spring program, I have already promises and first, very good text samples of four fresh, unused authors who write well and competently, and who already work on impulse stapling and Quadros: Haso, Oliver Mack, Damaris Graf and Henning Rietz. Of Thorsten Huith, No. 5, I will get a test text on Monday, and then I will finally decide, whether we will make a pulse booklet on "creativity" together. And for autumn's program, there are already discussions with potential authors.
I am pleased, because for me it does not discharge itself: even correcting costs time and energy, but usually less than conception and writing. It means that the burden of production is no longer mainly on my shoulders. But I am happy also because there is a marked growth step. New writers will write - in usual Down to Earth-quality (I will take care about that) - about subjects in which I am not competent and so that brings extension - even in new readers circles. I can express myself as an author on the topics I like and which give me most joy and I can concentrate on other areas.
The publisher is mainly strategic development and marketing / acquisition. Otherwise development of the coaching area, which grows well and gives me much joy. I am pleased with the development and about life!

Originally written by Kerstin Hack on Friday, November 07, 2008 @ 19:59

Telephone coaching

I'm actually quite delighted of a coaching conversation that I had on the phone. Not only because the outcome was good and my conversation partner has said to me afterwards how much it helped her. But mainly because it is simply beautiful, to be able to accompany people in life and to help them to take away life-inhibiting blockades and open them to life. I'm just grateful that I can do this - accompanying and supporting other people.

Originally written by Kerstin Hack on Saturday, October 18, 2008
@ 11:07

Coaching and Cure of souls

Often I am asked what the difference between cure of souls and coaching is. An (English) article explains that quite well.

Originally written by Kerstin Hack on Monday, October 06, 2008 @ 08:43

Seasons

The super-intensive production phase is slowly approaching its end. The impulse magazine "Wellbeing" is in the printing and the impulse booklet Communication is nearly completed. Since May I have finished 6 impulse booklets and 4 Quadros. Phew!
Now there is another time. Many lectures, seminars, meetings and coachings. I just had a very good coaching. After 45 minutes it was not really clear how we can find a solution, but in the last 10 minutes the solution then - surprisingly for me - was visible. It came as we changed the perspective. I asked the customer to go behind the chair where he just sat and to consider what he himself would advise. I was totally thrilled. And amused that the customer, who I often advise, already said: I ´would like to have another position, let's see what comes then. So I asked him to imagine that he was an adviser to the consultant, whom he should give some tips. Even that was surprisingly good. "That was important." he said. Fascinating, what happens when I support people. I am soooo happy to do coaching!

Originally written by Kerstin Hack on Monday, September 22, 2008 @ 15:15

At home

Smile is like a window through which you can see whether the heart is at home. Russian proverb

After six intensive training days on the island of Ruegen in the beautiful Victoria house in the quiet seaside resort Sellin I'm glad to be here again. The subject of the training was self-experience and self-reflection. We have intensively talked about our families, our history and our strengths and weaknesses. It was very moving, to listen to the life stories and family histories of the others and to recognize: That has made me to who I am now. It explains a lot, while it opened new liberties. If I recognize that I have this or that from my parents, I can handle it. I can appreciate or find alternative views and ways of life.

Originally written by Kerstin Hack on Saturday, September 06, 2008 @ 09:44

Power and reflection

The last week was also dominated by Quadros. I have designed three of the new Quadro books with my graphic artist and so they should be printed next week. I am looking forward to it very much. It is a completely new product - an impulse booklet for a month - and I am curious if the Quadros will be popular for people. The fourth is still in work, but I hope that all be finished in September.
After so much "power" I need some reflection. Tomorrow I´ll go to Rügen for a week where we have intensive training on "self-reflection and self-coaching". I am very excited what I will learn about me and my coaching work. I reflected a lot anyway, but am open to anything new. There are not many Internet cafes on Rügen, so there won´t be many entries in this blog during the next week.

Originally written on Friday, August 29 2008 by Kerstin Hack @ 12:51

Age difference

Today I spent the day with two very (age) different ladies. In the morning I gave a coaching for a woman who proved to be the post-war generation. I think it helped her to get her own feelings on the track and get closer to a solution.
The rest of the day I kept an eye on the three-month-old Anna so that her mother could visit her seriously ill father in the Berlin Charité clinic. Between the two "ladies" were probably around 60 years. These were two very different meetings, but the needs of the two were similar: interest, careful attention, sensing what might be good for them. I've enjoyed with both.
Now I am going to take care about the "lady" in my skin and who has got the same needs. I think the first is to get something to eat and to drink.

Originally written by Kerstin Hack on Saturday, 23rd August 2008 @ 18:53

Cool

Recently I received a letter from a woman. She asked me for advice on how to deal with massive desires. I wrote her that I can not answer the question, because each human is individual, and I do not advise from a distance. Apart from that I do not have the capacity for many letters contacts.
I mentioned, however, that high sugar consumption and little movement often get the body and the soul out of balance and the sagged sugar levels produces "longing".
Today she wrote to me that this comment helped her terribly, because she ate irregularly and too little and almost exclusively chocolate, cakes, etc. for three years. Now she is going to change that. Cool.

Originally written by Kerstin Hack on Tuesday, 19th August 2008 @ 13:14

Mentoring

I have registered as a mentor in the Mentoring Net now. I am curious what kind of new contacts I will get. Tip for all who seek mentors: There are mentors in all corners of Germany.

Originally written by Kerstin Hack on Thursday, 14th August, 2008 @ 17:59