Nicola Walker Coaching

Reignite Your Joy, Align with Your Deepest Desires

Inner knowing

Facing the unknown and the hazards of overthinking

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Person hiking in foggy hills alone facing the unknownFacing the unknown is like standing before a yawning, misty chasm. Your mind races to figure out how to navigate waves of air and nothingness, riddled with potential hazards. In a desperate effort to keep control, you think of all the worst case scenarios and overthink the ways you might avoid them. 

If overthinking wears you out, or disillusions you, you might not even step forward, but cling to the edge of your dreams, choosing comfort and safety over incalculable risk.

When creating your dream career, or entrepreneurial adventure, you have to find a way to get comfortable with the inevitable, unfathomable unknown.

[Read more…] about Facing the unknown and the hazards of overthinking

Focus on Your Brilliance, Not Your Failings

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Person standing on beach at full sunrise.

Everyone is brilliant. Yet brilliance is easily obscured, undiscovered or forgotten. Focus on your brilliance. Train your mind to recognize and appreciate your brilliance rather than your failings.

What makes you brilliant?

Brilliance is about who you really are, without trying, doing or working out how.

Your brilliance is visible in the light that shines through you when your heart is open and your joy is sparked.

Your brilliance is your intuition, your innate knowing that guides you. This wise part of you shows you the way.

When you focus on showing up as your most brilliant self, the highest and best outcomes happen.

[Read more…] about Focus on Your Brilliance, Not Your Failings

How to Unwind When The Stress Gets Too Much

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Still lake image for self care at work“Give yourself the time to move through the initial awkwardness, even a sense of fear or guilt that arises with open-ended time you can sink into, rather than more busyness disguised as unwinding.”

It has been a hectic week. Lots of driving, meetings, rushing out the door feeling so pressed for time that my jacket falls from my full arms into the flower bed. I run towards my car, keys clanging as I throw bags in the trunk, slam doors shut, roar out of the driveway; an oddity on what is really just another peaceful blue sky day in the Santa Cruz mountains with birds chirping from the branches of tall, bright green needled pine trees.

Today is Saturday. I planned the day to be blank, to unwind.  “What do I want to do?” my mind wonders, almost slightly anxious about making the right decision. “Walk on the beach? Go to a café?” It seems like I feel the need to do something to make the day special in order to unwind, yet my body is fatigued. I’m processing from all the events of the week. I don’t actually really know what I want to do.

Keep it simple and don’t let trying to unwind actually make you busy.

I remember how much nicer it is to let the way I spend my day happen naturally and spontaneously, without making a conscious choice. At first I feel the awkwardness of letting myself not “do anything of consequence”. I look out at the sunny tree tops feeling a little lost because I don’t have plans or anyone to share at least part of my day with. Yet I know I’m doing the right thing. [Read more…] about How to Unwind When The Stress Gets Too Much

How to Stop Beating Yourself Up for Taking So Long

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Sitting on the Fence“Finding and following your inner calling is different for everyone, so that’s why comparing yourself to others is just being cruel to yourself and so not the point.”

“I actually felt shame about having taken so long,” a client admitted the other day. “I’ve been sitting on the fence, but I couldn’t get clear enough to move forward with what’s been calling me.”

My heart was wide open feeling the pain of her shame. I immediately guided her to be gentle with herself, to help her see that the unfolding of her passionate purpose has been perfect, that there is always a larger picture where so many things you wouldn’t even think of need to happen before you can be ready to take those first steps.

“It’s different for everyone,” I said, “so that’s why comparing yourself to others is just being cruel to yourself and so not the point.”

The call of your heart speaks in whispers, nudges and yearnings. It evolves and takes shape with its own timing as you take the steps to meet it. Listen to your heart – it is showing you the way to live your purpose. You could feel drawn to write, to paint, to speak in front of groups, to travel, to interview people, to be part of the solution to a social or environmental issue, to invent something that you keep imagining and long to make real.

Whatever pulls you and speaks to you is an ingredient of your vision. It will either be part of the life that is perfect for your soul or will help you to get closer to following your inner calling.

The greatest advance you can make is to love yourself for being exactly where you are. [Read more…] about How to Stop Beating Yourself Up for Taking So Long

Follow Your Heart

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When a new year begins, it’s as though your slate has been wiped clean and you can begin again. Ask yourself, “what is deepest in my heart to create and experience?” Keep this question with you as you go about your day, especially when you go for walks, exercise or relax. The answer will float into your consciousness.

Ideas about what you want in life can change. That’s why it’s important to listen to what is true, to find out if it is still true for you. Remember that life can be perceived in many different ways. Keep going deeper to find the truth. You’ll know when you find your deepest truth, because you’ll resonate with it. Maybe you feel a rush of energy, a quickening or a deep sense of inner knowing.

It’s always most effective to act on what feels most alive for you. When you listen deeply in this way, you are flowing with your inner wisdom that is guiding you to your highest good. Maybe you hear that it is time to address an issue that has been bothering you with another person. Or it is time to stay at home and spend more time alone. Or now is the moment to look into that niggly feeling that you could be doing more with your life.

If you ever feel dull, irritable or dissatisfied, ask yourself, “what is true for me?” “Am I following my truth?” You’ll find your truth in your heart. Summon up the courage to follow your heart and you’ll feel full of life again. This is the path of inner happiness.