The Beginning of My Awakening!

I remember seeing a post on Facebook a few years ago asking when did your awakening start.

The first thought that came to my mind was “how could someone possibly know when it started?”

When I began to look through the comments, and I saw a lot were when something very major happens to them, such as someone’s death, or a major accident, etc. but I also saw people saying something very small such as a dream, a feeling, etc.

This one post got me thinking that when did my awakening start. I didn’t have anything “major” happen to me, nor did I see anything that small of a dream that told me to look into, none of that resonated with me. All I did know is that I was definitely awakening.

“The beautiful thing is when you ask, you will receive it.”

So randomly one day I got a vision of when my mom was in a coma and I wanted to die. Like literally die!

You see, my mom was my absolute everything. I wouldn’t do anything without her consent. Mind you, I’m a grown woman married with a child, and I still wouldn’t do anything without her consent. I know, super unhealthy… I’ll come back to this another time.

Anyways, back to my awakening… In 2010, I was possibly in one of the highest points of my life: I was married to an amazing man (still am😊), owned a beautiful home, started working in a prestigious retail company in their IT department, and had a 7-month-old baby girl, so technically I had checked all the boxes. My life looked even better than I visualized….but I wanted to die, LITERALLY DIE, as my mom was “dying”😳.

She (thank goodness) did not die. She was in a coma for 11 days and woke up as if nothing was happening. She went on to continue her life as usual.

But, I couldn’t shake this off. I couldn’t stop thinking about how I just didn’t care about anything in my life... Not even that gorgeous little girl waiting for me at home.

This scared me so deeply that I ran to my husband and shared all of this. I am very thankful that he has always and continues to give me a safe place to speak about these things. After discussing this with him, I realized that I had to do something and that something was to see a therapist.

And that’s what I did. I began to see a therapist and continued for the next 5 years. She helped me immensely understand what I was going through, open my eyes to things that I couldn’t see, and gave me the hope that I so desperately needed to see, the light at the end of the tunnel!

This was the very beginning of my awakening!

I couldn’t see it while going through it, I could only see it once I had gone through this dark time in my life!

Although painful, I am so very grateful to have gone through it because it leads me to such knowledge and awareness and ultimately led me to my life’s work!

Do you know when your awakening started?!

Share below I always love hearing the different ways we begin to awaken!

The Beginner’s Guide to the 5 Love Languages

How often have you felt that you and perhaps one of the people in your life closest to you are speaking ‘different languages’ - despite both using plain English and spending a lot of time in each other’s presence (perhaps even living together in the case of a spouse?!)

This is not an uncommon phenomenon, and it’s widely recognized that effective communication is one of the cornerstones of successful relationships - both romantic and with others who play a key role in your life (your coworkers, friends, children or extended family members for example).

In this Beginner’s Guide to the 5 Love Languages, I’m going to help you explore the foundations that support successful and effective communication with the people in your life and guide you towards a better understanding of why “we are the way we are”.

What is the 5 Love Languages concept?

You may have heard of the 5 Love Languages. The concept was brought to the fore by author Gary Chapman, in his book - unsurprisingly named The 5 Love Languages.

The overarching basis that the 5 Love Languages is built upon comprises 5 different ways in which people (yes, us humans!) experience and recognise feelings of love from those around us.

The 5 Love Languages concept asserts that all of us connect with at least one primary and one secondary ‘love language’, and that when the people in our lives communicate with us in these particular ways, we are able to perceive and appreciate their feelings of love, gratitude and respect for us very easily.

On the flipside, if our close friends, family and loved ones attempt to display their ‘love’ (NB. the concept of ‘love’ here is not limited to romantic love, but instead to all-encompassing feelings of appreciation, respect, affection or attachment) in their own ‘love language’ - which may not correspond with ours - we find it much more difficult to process these actions or words in the way they are intended.

So what ARE the 5 love languages?

The 5 Love Languages are as follows, and are relatively straightforward to interpret, but here is a beginner’s guide to give you an overview:

1. Words of Affirmation

The basis behind ‘Words of Affirmation’ is quite straightforward - people who speak this love language are generally most fulfilled, empowered and receptive to having encouraging, affectionate words spoken to them, receiving love notes, and they appreciate verbal reminders that they are respected, cared for and appreciated. For example, compliments (“you have such a beautiful smile”), expressions of thanks or appreciation (“I’m so grateful you took care of that chore for me”) and reminders that they are being thought of (“I’m missing you, and can’t wait to see you at the weekend”) fill speakers of this love language with joy.    

2. Acts of Service

In this case, actions speak louder than words.  People who connect with and speak this love language place a great deal of emphasis on literal ‘actions’ done for them by others to essentially lighten the load. Somebody who speaks this love language will feel a great sense of appreciation, respect and affection when, for example, their spouse goes above and beyond with household chores (without it having been discussed or agreed open previously). For people who speak in the Acts of Service love language, there is no greater expression of love than being helped out by those closest to them.

3. Receiving Gifts

This love language is another pretty self-explanatory one, but it tends to incorrectly be labelled (by those who it doesn’t resonate with) as a form of materialism or shallow-ness. The truth is that speakers of this love language feel most appreciated and treasured when people in their lives have taken time out to create or purchase a thoughtful gift that shows they are being thought of. What matters is not necessarily the value or detail of the gift, but the indication that the giver feels affection enough for the receiver to have purchased or arranged the gift in the first place.

4. Quality Time

They say that there is nothing so precious in this life as time, and speakers of the Quality Time love language will certainly follow that train of thought. They perceive the ultimate act of love and appreciation to be shown by receiving the undivided attention of their loved ones. In our increasingly hectic world, this means truly engaging and listening. It could be a husband putting his family first despite hectic overtime at work, or as simple as leaving your cell phone in your purse when you meet a friend for coffee.

5. Physical Touch

Last but not least - and not to be confused with a sexual or romantic kind of touch - is the importance of physical touch when it comes to expressing appreciation, affection and gratitude. Those who speak this love language show - and receive - love best through expressions such as hugs, the gentle touching of an arm, and thoughtful hand-holding.

What are the benefits of learning about the 5 love languages, knowing your own, and recognising the love languages spoken by those in your life closest to you?

As you can see from the outline of the 5 Love Languages above, different people certainly express love, affection and gratitude in VERY different ways.

Let’s imagine a married couple, Sarah and John. Sarah’s primary love language is Words of Affirmation, whilst John’s is Acts of Service.

Sarah feels an increasing amount of resentment, and as though John just does not appreciate her and their relationship. She is fed up that he never tells her he loves her, or thank her for all the effort she puts in in their home. She begins to dread making dinner, because he never says thank you or compliments her cooking skills.

John, on the other hand, is bemused. Why is Sarah so irritated with him? He just mowed the lawn and painted the garden fence this weekend. He even offered to collect her dry-cleaning on the way home from the office yesterday evening. Why doesn’t she appreciate the things he does for her?!

When you break it down like this, you can begin to see where communication breakdowns happen - not just in marriages or spousal relationships, but between co-workers, friends, and even parent-child relationships.

Understanding your own primary love language is one thing, but recognizing which love languages those around you speak and really exploring how best to communicate and express your feelings to them is absolutely life-changing.

If Sarah could see that John’s yard work was an expression of his love for her and their marital home, and if John could understand that Sarah just wants him to tell her he loves her, so much confusion, resentment and irritability could be avoided.

Are you ready to explore the love languages further, and discover which languages you and your loved ones speak? If so, you’re going to absolutely love the 2-week mini-course I’m running: Relationship Mastery through the 5 Love Languages.

This is your opportunity to equip yourself with the ability to effectively communicate with anybody - no matter what their love language is - and enjoy a lifetime of successful and high quality connections!

Click here to find out more and register for the mini-course - I can’t wait to help you on your journey to Relationship Mastery!

With love and light,

Elvira

IS IT REALLY JUST A WORKOUT PROGRAM?!?

It’s hard not to follow the crowd…

The thing is that in my virtual fitness group everyone was talking about doing the next BIG program. It’s brand new with amazing results.

I still have a few pounds to lose after having baby #3, but I didn’t want to commit to this crazy ass workout routines that I may fail at. I don’t want to feel pressured into feeling guilty for not doing something. In my logical mind, the right thing to do was just to say NO. 

NOT do the “HARD” stuff. 

Ignoring the craze is HARD! It’s HARD not to want to go with the crowd! It’s HARD not to want those amazing results!

It’s also HARD to wake up early and get in your workout! It’s HARD to keep up with my nutrition. It’s HARD to stay consistent!

At the end of the day, I had to CHOOSE MY HARD!!!

The HARD my gut told me to follow.

I gave in… I decided to join everyone in the group and do the fitness program.

Already feeling excited about the upcoming results, I started planning what time I was going to work out and how I was going to keep up with my nutrition.

Hubby who is also in the same group decided that he too will do it.

I was like “ok, so let’s figure out at what time each of us will do our workout, so we don’t overlap”.

He, on the other hand, was planning on doing the workouts with me.

Ughh, that was the last thing I wanted to do. I am a driver; he is more of a wanderer.

I get to things quickly and stay focused as much as I can to completion. It takes him longer to get started, and he then pushes me on the workouts and that, of course, is annoying.

My patience will definitely be tested. So I told him that I didn’t want to work out with him...that I preferred we worked around our schedule.

He got offended and verbalized his frustration.

I wasn’t expecting that.

Feeling bad, I agreed to do the workout together.

On the bright side, I was going to work on my patience and spend time with him which with our schedules we didn’t much.

The journey has been interesting, to say the least!

It started off not so great.

We were getting on each other’s nerves and yelling at each other. We didn’t have a flow. I was getting resentful for setting up everything as all he had to do was wake up and just work out. I kept getting annoyed each time he would push me to go harder on my workout.

And slowly things started to shift. We needed a rhythm that worked out for both. He wanted to help set up, so he on his own decided to wake up earlier to help me. We started to plan out our day, be productive and talk about things that we didn’t have time before. The conversations started to get deeper more fulfilling. We began to hug and kiss more. We were laughing and enjoying our company so much more.

Ohhh this is fun now!

Our fitness routine discipline started to spill over into other parts of our life.

It’s amazing how focusing on our fitness and nutrition, other aspects of our life started to get better.

We first noticed it in our relationship. We looked forward to our morning date. That’s how we started to call it. We had uninterrupted time for each other, and we could talk & plan without having a little one dangling over us.

Our girlies were so much happier. They are enjoying everything so much more because we are enjoying ourselves so much more.

The energy and focus in our work became so much more intentional and apparent. Results were undeniable.

Our mindset shift has been THE biggest transformation thus far. As we are conquering our body, we are also conquering our mind. And when you conquer your mind….

LIFE IS LIMITLESS!!!