Three things to keep in mind when transforming your life

Often we hear of transformations that are one-dimensional, i.e. a person loses tons of weight or gets rich. When I hear of such examples, I am left wondering how the rest of his or her life is going. Are they actually happy?

Recently, I ran into a fellow coach in one of my professional development classes, who not only got my attention because of his personal and professional transformations but also because of his charismatic and non-judgmental style.

His name is Dave Walker and he’s a career transition and “Halftime Life Journey” coach as well as a storyteller and professional speaker. His writing includes blogs that describe his personal experiences and knowledge; he is writing a book “Tell Me Why I Now Love Mondays” that shares what he learned from his mid-life transformation.

The story began seven years ago when Walker woke up one Monday morning (his least favorite day of the week), deciding he had had enough of his life and couldn’t take his consulting job any longer. He had recently hit 265 lbs, drank too much, lacked energy and motivation, felt isolated and disconnected from his friends and his family. He didn't know it yet, but he was clinically depressed.

That day, he went to work and asked to quit. He said it was scary, as he had a family to support. Instead of accepting his quitting, his boss offered him a new role in another division—which Walker describes as giving him a “sense of relief” and validation. Walker took the job.

Then, one and a half years later, after a divorce that left him a single parent, he stood looking at himself in the mirror, and he had another self-revelation.

“I’m going to die of a heart attack and I’m going to leave my kids without a father,” he said to himself.

The thought was so horrifying that he put on his roller blades and started exercising. Yes, roller blades! You see… Walker loves having fun. As a matter of fact, fun is one of his motivators. He says it’s one of the ways of making things easy and sustainable. He also loves to connect with people and facilitate groups; he does so by creating workshops and writing.

Forward five and a half years--or seven years since he woke up on that fateful Monday morning wanting to quit his job--Walker now weighs 195 lbs and feels passionate about his career. He wakes up feeling excited, even on Monday mornings. He feels close to his kids, his extended family and his friends. He’s even found a partner, with whom he feels a deep connection.

So I asked him, if he could give us three tips or take-aways to make transformational change in our lives, and he gave me the following:

1.    It’s your choice: His first point is that change is only possible when we want to change. I call this “hitting bottom” or reaching such a painful stage in life, that it is unbearable to continue in the same way. “I was tired of giving up on life,” he says.

2.    Don’t take on the world: Change starts with just one step at a time. Walker divided his life into four quadrants: 1. Career; 2. Self; 3. Family and friends; 4. Soul mate. He focused on only one “quadrant” at a time. 

“I see people who are not taking care of themselves, and I just want them to understand the concept of putting the oxygen mask on themselves first,” he says.

He believes that it is important to start with one’s personal and professional foundations in order to have the energy for the other quadrants.

“We often try to start with the others and run out of steam,” he says.

Each change gave him the energy to make further changes. 

“I was like a kid each time I hit a new quadrant."

If he had tried to do everything at the same time, it probably would have been too overwhelming and would have deprived him of the energy and motivation needed to accomplish the things in the other quadrants.

To illustrate this, Walker describes how after he lost the weight, his suits no longer fit him, prompting him to order new ones in the same cut as those worn by Daniel Craig, the James Bond actor. Walker (a 007 fan) admires Craig’s portrayal of Bond for his vulnerable yet tough image.

Wearing his new suit, he took a selfie. When he looked at it, he thought he resembled Craig. This external change gave him the confidence and courage to tackle internal areas.

“I became addicted to change,” he says.

3.    It takes time, effort and grit: So for the past seven years, Walker has been getting to know himself and as a result “feels like he’s been more in his skin.” He’s built momentum, allowing each change to lead to another. Now, he’s focused on writing his book describing his transformation, on coaching his clients, running workshops, public speaking and working on building his business. He admits to some fear associated with the financial end of things, but he is confident that by applying the same determination and commitment that he placed on the other quadrants of his life, he will attain his new career goals too.

Daily practice and repetition makes us better able to focus

In a fast moving world, in which we struggle to find the concentration necessary to accomplish cognitively demanding tasks — or “deep work” as Cal Newport calls it — the idea of practicing an art can feel overwhelming or perhaps relegated to the activities of the rich and self-indulgent.

I believe the inverse to be true. Practicing an art may be hard, requiring discipline and daily action, yet it increases our ability to focus.

“Practice, repetition, and repetition of the repeated with ever increasing intensity are its distinctive features for long stretches of the way,” writes German philosopher Eugen Herrigel in his 1948 book Zen in the Art of Archery. It took him six years of learning a Japanese form of archery in order to understand Zen Buddhism. The lessons he shares with us are valuable, regardless of our intention to learn anything about Zen.

While reading this book — which a psychiatrist, pianist and golfer friend gave me — I was struck by the similarities between the lessons Herrigel learned and the lessons I have encountered during my years of practicing Shotokan karate, playing the piano, writing — and now meditating.

“What is true of archery and swordsmanship also applies to all the other arts,” Herrigel writes.

Every sensei I’ve studied under has said that practicing karate should be like brushing your teeth: you need to do it every day. This could mean doing 90 front kicks or mae geris or 90 choku zukis or straight punches or ten katas every morning.

“Unless a student is willing to commit himself to daily, punishing training with no end in sight there’s no way that person can achieve a high level without specific guidance,” Richard Amos sensei said in an interview on Shotokanway.com. Amos is 8th Dan or black belt (very high ranking, with 10 being the highest) and chief instructor of the World Traditional Karate Organization based in Manhattan; he was the second Westerner to ever complete the three-year Japanese Karate Association Instructor’s Course. Having had the opportunity on a few occasions to train with Amos, I can attest to the high quality of learning and training that has left me totally wet with sweat and yearning to move to NYC.

Writers, too, have daily rituals. Stephen King writes every morning until he has reached 2,000 words. Ernest Hemingway wrote each day starting at 9am and ending at noon. Leo Tolstoy wrote: “I must write each day without fail, not so much for the success of the work, as in order not to get out of my routine.”

Every piano teacher I’ve ever had has told me to practice every day — even if it’s for 20 minutes. The practice must be focused on those difficult passages, they say. I am to repeat passages over and over until the notes become part of my finger muscle memory.

The same goes with meditation. The more we do it; the better it gets. We say we want to be more mindful, to meditate every day, but we just find it hard to stick with a daily routine. Our thoughts jump around like frogs on lily pads.

If you’re looking to start a daily meditation practice, read Leo Babauta’s advice on his blog Zenhabits.com.

But doing so is hard and requires grit.

“I will not deny that I spent many gloomy hours wondering whether I could justify this waste of time, which seemed to bear no conceivable relationship to anything I had learned and experienced so far,” Herrigel writes.

What a relief to read this! How often I have found myself in this type of negative thinking. How glad I was when a coach or mentor reminded me of my goals and of my ability. Often, I have given up a daily practice only to take it up six months later because my body and mind missed it.

It is hard to force myself to turn off the light at 9:30 pm in order to get up at 5:30 to meditate, exercise, read and write. It’s hard to force myself into the basement where the piano sits to repeat sections of Beethoven, when I would rather play Tetris or watch standup comedy on Youtube. Everything is hard if it has any value.

Herrigel’s master warns of beginner’s luck. “Whoever makes good progress in the beginning has all the more difficulties later on,” reminding me of my countless zealous project starts that then slowed down when the going got hard.

In the end, focus is the goal.

The master warned Herrigel: “When you come to the lessons in the future, you must collect yourselves on your way here. Focus your minds on what happens in the practice hall. Walk past everything without noticing it, as if there were only one thing in the world that is important and real, and that is archery!”

Each time I have let my thoughts wander during karate practice, my lack of focus resulted in painful consequences such as being stepped on or receiving a punch to the stomach.

One way to focus is how we come to practice. Our sensei in Gstaad, Roland Pfäffli, instructed us that even if we were late to practice, we had to enter the dojo calmly and not skip the rituals of washing our feet and bowing upon entering the room, quietly kneeling near the entrance, and waiting until he acknowledged us. By focusing on the ritual of entering a room, we were focusing our minds on the training even before training began.

Many writers have rituals, like burning a candle or sitting down with a cup of hot coffee or tea.

In comes the importance of breath.

According to the master, if your only goal is hitting the target and not on breath, you will not hit the target.

“The more obstinately your try to learn how to shoot the arrow for the sake of hitting the goal, the less you will succeed in the one and the further the other will recede. What stands in your way is that you have a much too willful will. You think that what you do not do yourself does not happen,” the master said.

He describes proper breathing as follows:

“Press your breath down gently after breathing in, so that the abdominal wall is tightly stretched, and hold it there for a while. Then breathe out as slowly and evenly as possible, and, after a short pause, draw a quick breath of air again — out and in continually in a rhythm that will gradually settle itself. If it is done properly, you will feel the shooting becoming easier every day. For through this breathing you will not only discover the source of all spiritual strength but will also cause this source to flow more abundantly, and to pour more easily through your limbs the more relaxed you are.”

“Breath in karate is inextricably linked to the expansion and contraction of karate movement, as well as to the coordination of these movements” writes J.D. Swanson sensei in his latest book Karate Science: Dynamic Movement.

Breath is crucial to karate too, which is best symbolized by the “kiai” or the scream that you hear when a practitioner punches or kicks. The true meaning of the word is the convergence of your energy (ki=energy; ai=join). So when you hear it, you are hearing the compressed and stored energy suddenly release with breath.

This sound helps the practitioner focus on breath, much as the master in Herrigel’s account had his student hum when releasing breath:

“The Master attached so much importance to breathing out as slowly and steadily as possible to the very end, that, for better practice and control, he made us combine it with a humming note.”

My last two piano teachers noticed that I held my breath when I played difficult passages, resulting in tense shoulders, arms and fingers, causing my playing to sound jerky. They asked me to sing the melody along with my playing. This reminded me to breathe and to feel the melodic phrasing.

So take up an art and practice every day and don’t forget to breathe. Your focus will increase, as will your success.

7 brave helpful dating tips for every woman over 40

Why are women—especially those over 40—finding it so difficult to find a committed relationship? In my role as coach, I hear that they feel overwhelmed, scared and disappointed by a world of Tinder and Match.com. So what is the cause? Are we women too accessible? 

Some women practice the “three date rule,” which is a widely accepted number of dates that people go on before sex. British writer Kira Cochrane, writes about this rule after she moved to the U.S: “I also learned of the third-date rule - the most central and widely recognized of all dating rules - which decrees that there should be no sex until the third date, however much you might actually desire sex before this point.”

So, how many dates are women going on before they have sex with their new partners?

Statistics show that it’s not just the Americans who accept the three dates as a rule. Time Out’s Global Dating Survey 2015 states the average is 3.53. But, the Brits may be more conservative. According to a 2014 Daily Mail survey, women are opting for five dates instead of the traditional three. A survey by yougov.co.uk found that “one in five (18%) people would take the plunge after seeing someone for the first time and one in eight (12%) follow the classic ‘three date rule.’” So one third of people have sex on or before the third date.

So how long should women wait before sex?

Over the past years, I have asked therapists this question but few are willing to give me a number. They say it depends how you feel about it. My friend Christophe Sauerwein, a London-based psychotherapist—with whom I have been having an ongoing conversation about this—has a straightforward answer.

“I would stick to 10 dates, especially if you are middle-aged,” he says, “10-12 dates is the suggestion for people in recovery. Everyone struggles with vulnerability as it concerns attachment. If the aim is to build a long-term relationship, the aim is to connect and bond emotionally first. If sex is in the equation and it happens too early, there is a risk. The problem with sex is that it creates a very strong bond, but it is not enough to make the relationship exist. It’s not a proof of the relationship. It’s one-dimensional only.”

This bond is something he calls “the sexlock”, comparable to wedlock or the state of being married. Once you have offered something of yourself--the symbolism of giving of the body, the close proximity, the hormones, the pheromones--it is very difficult to undo the bonding.

Furthermore, sex is a blinder.

“We fool ourselves,” he says. “We convince ourselves the relationship will work and feel compelled to continue, but it’s the wrong assumption. If we decide to break up, it’s easier to do so before than after sex.”

“From a woman’s perspective, she is offering her body. From a psychoanalytic perspective, there is a defloration that takes place, much like the original first act. It should be handled with care. Only have sex once you are sure that the person in front of you is suitable. It’s all about intimacy.”

Contrary to how people use the word today, intimacy needs to include the mind, the emotions and the soul. 

“We are not speaking of one-night-stands,” he says. “If these fit into your value system, then fine, but know that the risk is huge. People pretend to themselves that they don’t want a long-term partnership, but on the basis of that one experience, they start to obsess about someone they barely know. The chance of disappointment is immense.”

But, hasn’t everyone had an obsessive crush on someone? Does this mean we are all love addicts?

“We speak a lot about sex and love addiction and this has to be handled with care,” he says. “Just because you were obsessed with a boy at 18 doesn’t mean you’re an addict. But if you are 30 years old and still repeating this, then there’s a problem. Everyone is on the spectrum, much like an eating disorder.”

Our conversation led to what constitutes sex.

“What is sex?” Sauerwein asks. “Sex is surely more complex than penetrative sex. It’s the aim, but that’s not when it starts. There is a lot that happens beforehand. It’s a very individual experience. It’s important to discover ourselves in that respect.”

A recent UK-based study shows that there exists a different understanding between men and women of when sex starts. For men, sex corresponds more to penetration and is focused on the penis; for women, however, the French kiss is often just as important to create that physical bonding. Her neuro-system or her entire body is involved.

 “So when a man kisses a woman without her permission, he may not realize that what he’s doing could be abusive. She may not have wanted it. If he forces the kiss after the date, he may see it as a preliminary, not as a sexual act. But for the woman there is a sexual component. The kiss is penetrative. There’s pleasure. The woman has the right to be clear about that and to voice her consent.”

So, based on my own experience, what I have read and learned from the experts, here are some tips:

1.  Waiting produces better sex – When we wait, we have a better sexual experience, experiencing less shame and less fear.

“We feel safe, we don’t feel exposed, and the first experience goes better,” Sauerwein says. “We know the other person so well, we feel comfortable.”

The inverse--sex too early--will negatively impact on the quality of the experience. Many people report that when they have sex with people they have just met, they bring their past into the act. The brain realizes it doesn’t know this new partner and starts to contrast or compare.

“If I do this, I’m inviting too many ex-lovers into the room: this guy is not as good as this other guy… The only answer is to get to know the partner you are touching.”

2.  Bond with the right person - Waiting 10 dates will allow you to get to know the other person and any lurking red flags and turn offs. If he stops seeing you before you get to 10, you will know he was most likely only after sex.  

Sauerwein says to be careful about love at first sight. The charming prince fairy tale is just that… a fairy tale. “Feeling passion for someone doesn’t mean you have to sleep together tonight,” he says.

3. Waiting preserves friendship - If at the end of 10 dates, you see him more as a friend than as a life partner, you still have the option of keeping him as a friend.  The chance is higher than if you had slept with him. Some of my best friends were initially dates that never went further.

4.   Ask yourself some questions – Be honest with yourself and ask yourself what you are trying to achieve.  If you have a strong belief that sex is the answer, then what is the underlying question? Am I lovable? Am I seeking love? Am I attractive? If validation is what I am looking for, then are there other ways of getting this? Why should I agree on sex without knowing the other well enough?

“Do we need to be sexual to feel loved?  If so, this could be an indicator of insecurity, fear, or low self-esteem,” Sauerwein says.

5. Beware of online dating – “It’s hugely dangerous,” says Sauerwein. “We don’t have enough information. We just have a narrative. It’s highly subjective. I had a client who found that the person she had been exchanging hundreds of emails with had lied about everything. The photo was 10 years old. People lie online. They are wearing masks. Our job before we get into sex… is to pull down the mask.”

If you do meet someone online, know that texting and exchanging emails don’t count as dates.

6. Beware of long-distance relationships – “Long-distance relationships are also dangerous,” Sauerwein says. “We make it really nice when we see each other. It’s easy to show your good side once a month. Aim for seeing each other once or twice per week. Plan to have entire days together. Go to the museum, out to lunch, out to dinner. Get to know the person over a test period.”

7. Aim for intimacy but be careful with the word – “We narrow the word intimacy too much to the physical. It’s about emotional, intellectual, spiritual, physical and sexual intimacy. Will you allow the other to see into you? It’s important to talk about sex before sex.”

For more information on intimacy, read the Intimacy Factor by Pia Melody, a therapist and author of books on codependency and sexual addiction.

Intimacy leads to pleasure.

“How do we make sex pleasurable? When we give and receive pleasure. It’s hugely interacting. We need to have enough trust, as in love trust. I know that this woman cares enough about me to say no. I can share without fear what I would prefer and not prefer about sex.”

There are many ways to express our personal preferences regarding position, oral sex, anal sex, lights or no lights, etc...  How do we say it to our partner?

“Many give pleasure but struggle to receive it,” Sauerwein says. “Take the 69. It’s a very difficult thing for many to handle. We have to hold the give and take. Many people don’t like it. It requires a lot of intimacy, being able to give and take at the same time. Joint climax is the ultimate in give and take, but it takes a lot of time and mutual understanding.”

8. If a man becomes distant after the act, run away. “Such a man will hardly change,” Sauerwein says.

9. Practice loving a man without sex as much as with sex – This addresses the spiritual self.

“It’s similar to the tantric approach, without giving it an immediate sexual dynamic. There’s a great potential for growth there.”