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Buddha and succulets. Dana Mitra is a faculty coach, career, coach, and leadership coach. She specializes in coaching academics, women leaders, and professionals making career changes. She coaches on purpose, balance and productivity. She is an experienced researcher and professor, with 20 years in the industry.

Reclaim physical space to get unstuck

I sense out there a transition—from the clutching of crisis to an unsettled awareness that fear and isolation are far from over. Temporary changes in routine are becoming new ways of doing things for the long-term. Loss feels greater perhaps as the thought of a curtailed summer becomes more and more real.

I found myself feeling claustrophobic in the same spaces that felt just fine a week ago. I realized today that I was withholding a part of what keeps me “zen” but not having a corner for my own thinking and “being.”

I had given up my meditation/journaling corner to make space for my husband to have an office, now that he works from home. I thought it was fine to squeeze in some time when he was elsewhere or just to take my journal in any other part of the house.

I realized that I had been holding out for “temporary” when these changes are here for a long time. Yesterday, I sought a new space to call my own. I carved out a corner of our bedroom by moving a few pieces of furniture around

Immediately I felt a sense of peace. I brought all of my treasure from my nook in the loft to my new little corner. I have my books, my art supplies, my journal, photographs, my vision board—my kit of things for introspection. I felt a restoration of a part of what keeps me positive, grounded, and hopeful. I now have a little space of retreat in a household full of people. I didn’t even realize I was missing it. 

My students too have been struggling with a loss of space. Having their routines when they were at school, trying to work effectively at home created struggle, anxiety, depression, hopelessness. Some of my students had little siblings who tugged at them constantly. One had a disabled brother prone to screaming for large parts of the day. Another had a mother who worked a stressful job on zoom calls in the middle of their small apartment for 10 hours a day.

I urged my students that, no matter how small their space, no matter the people, that they too could create space their own. Take over a tiny closet. Reclaim a corner of their bedroom by moving something out. Push their desk in front of a window instead of a wall. Make small changes until they find a glimmer of joy that helps their spirits to align at a higher frequency.

We can also find outside spaces for working and being as the summer approaches. One of my favorite spaces for Zoom meetings is at a small table on our outside patio. I can look at the trees and birds while engaging with my colleagues. I walk our neighborhood on phone calls. I sip my evening tea on the front porch and take in the sunsets. Each of these moments of blending outdoors with  my regular routine feel like tiny gifts.

Little tweaks can restore ourselves in a time of change. The places that help us to feel a part of something bigger. Productive when we don’t want to be. Put a plant from your office near your laptop in your at-home workspace.  Find music that drowns out family noise and reminds us of our favorite coffee shop. Light a candle; add a  lamp to have a better lit space rather than overhead lighting. Focus on your senses.

In this brave new world, we have the blessing of focusing on the little adjustments that can keep our spirits higher. How can you change the spaces in which you live to align with your yearnings and comfort?

"we are not our flaws. We are not our fears."

Forgiveness Relieves Anxiety

Many of us have struggled with anxiety during a rough patch in my life. People very important to us can cause us to lose trust in them, and in turn, I lost trust in ourselves.

Anxiety can lead to dreading social situations. To being short fused and unfair to my closest people in our lives. We might not feel like we cam manage our moods. We might feel like a ships drifting about with no control of whether the next wave would knock us over. The world was doing things TO us. Wehad no control over it.

Forgiveness is the gateway to get my health back.

Holding on to the pain and hurt is the greatest struggle–far after the cause of the pain left the scene. Anxiety comes from trying to control things we cannot control. We beat ourselve up by replaying the wrongs and squeezing on to them rather than setting them free.

Sometimes we aren’t ready to forgive because we believe other people were wrong. It wasn’t okay that they said what they said. Did what they did. They should have huge regrets for how they acted. There should be consequences. Because otherwise, where was the justice in this world?

The shift can come through  sitting in stillness and silence.

Forgivieess is never about  other person. About holding that person in a kinder light.

It can be about that. But whether wewish the other person goodness or karma, we don’t ever get to determine how they experience what they did and said. We can’t control how they feel about anything. Wishing and hoping they feel anything at all is futile.

What we can control is ourselves.  Physical discomfort and pain is made by ourselves. Own the resentment. The anger. The anxiety. The choice.

All of that energy may never land for “them”, but it grows in us when I don’t let it go. It sucks the life out  and prevents us from showing up.

To be well and happy,we forgive.

So that we can be free and strong and dream of brighter futures and bigger and better ways of being. So that we can invest all the people who lift me up and value my energy and love.

We can fully decide that we will consciously turn from fear to light. We will seek peace and serenity for ourselves  That choice can set usfree.

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Ready to get unstuck? Message me for a free consultation or email dana@danamitra.net