Soulistic Excellence

Home
Singapore
Singapore
Soulistic Excellence

An independent coach focused on positive psychology, whole-body effectiveness and holistic solutions

Our company is specialised in helping clients develop leadership skills, psychological safety, effective communication and well-being to benefit both on a personal and professional level. We are passionate to support people to relate to themselves fully so they can relate to their business, relationships and challenges with bigger purpose, clarity and confidence. We believe that personal growth and development go hand in hand with making a positive impact on the world.

15/01/2024

NEW PROMISE (PART 2) :
Understand your chosen path as a year to craft your growth process
The first two tracks – "Your way of doing & Your way of having" are driven from mental concepts by creating ‘strategies’ to operate.
Needs: Self-preservation, social systems or closeness
Basic desires: To survive, belong or strengthen ideas of who you want to be (for others)
Expression: In this process, the focus is on the role, position and external domains in order to gain or be in charge of something that seems to be very important for you at the current life circumstances.
This capacity can be very helpful when you face with urgency and crisis, or something that is important to prioritise to meet your needs (consciously or subconciously). What to keep notice is that you may feel like spending time, energy, and efforts to analyze or plan your way up to achieve. Sometimes, you may feel like time, energy or sleep might not be enough to all the things you wish to accomplish.
=======
The third track – “Your way of being”. In my view, this can be an important shift. As you begin to pay attention more to yourself as a vehicle of ambitions, dreams, hopes and creations.
Self-observation, self-reflection and self-care are taking place to make your personal growth and a developmental process more natural and at ease.
Needs: Self-observation, self-reflection and self-care
Basic desires: To return home to your presence, true nature and gift
Expression: You have a bigger sense of self-awareness, balance, boundaries, unhealthy & healthy emotions, unhealthy & healthy body and energy. Your learning and motivations drive towards;
• ‘WHO you are’ to be with this issue and relationship
• And may begin to wonder in what way you can become something that bring more joy, harmony, generosity and sincerity to what matter to you and your life in a more effortless manner.
• Performance and activity have a sense of flow, calm and effortless because you learn to develop a bigger range of capacity to be with circumstances, pressure, triggers and emotions.

=======
The fourth track – “Your way of loving”
This area of growth takes an on-going developmental process. It can be seen as a self-mastery level because we can begin to really land in our heart.
There is a wilder desire to love and to trust. There is sense of seeing beauty, awe and wonder in things, places, people and atmospheres we look at. As well as a sense of great appreciation for both opportunity and difficulties that show up in our life.
Needs: Self-forgiveness, self-remembering and self-mastery
Basic desires: To dissolve inner and outer conflicts of body, mind and heart – in order to love and trust unconditionally
Expression: There is a greater sense of meaning because your deeper heart comes more online with vision, actions and commitment to create something that you sincerely value and care about.
There is a sense of integration between wild passion, fierce courage, sincere benevolence and tendering compassion. I may exaggerate the description here a little bit so you can get a taste of these qualities. This growth is made of moments that transfer love and joy in a way that uplifts or heals another's sense of being.
There is no right or wrong in choosing which track to develop your growth and reflection. Bringing experiences from year 2023 to mind with kind attention, you can sense what have served you and what haven't so that you can begin to see how to have life and work moving forward into the next year.
In the next post, we will discover some of questions we can use as prompts for reflections.

Image credit: Architecture & Deisgn and the sculpture artist Malgorzata Chodakowska

30/12/2023

YEAR END'S REFLECTION: NEW PROMISE

(PART 1)

The final days of the calendar year has a natural invitation for us to wind down, rest and create a space to ‘be’ with family or loved ones. For some of us, there is a “new promise” of what the next year could bring through finding time to reflect all experiences. If we wish, we can mindfully call a quiet time to contemplate our way of habits and ways we operated from, both in which have served and haven’t served us.
I called it a new promise, as we always have a choice to change. We can start to brainstorm with all parts of ourselves and decide after the reflections of WHAT, WHY and HOW we want to continue, reproduce or recreate the results of our lives.
Inside a promise, if done sincerely, it inevitably always comes with willingness. This is a powerful quality to set new intentions and to grow beyond what seems to limit our capacities in 2023.
I aim to make this reflection to be more practical and digestible to process. So in this post, we can firstly look at the WHAT as a starting point to cultivate clarity.
There are two main steps we could begin to draw reflections and insights around the new change we want to make as the following.
First step:
Prioritize the areas of growth or in the business term we call effectiveness

1. Personal/Individual competence
2. Self-care
3. Family
4. Work
5. Roles and responsibilities
6. Material values or possession
7. Health
8. Relationship (this also includes your way to relate with nature, climate change, sustainability, animal, food, etc.)
9. Emotional strength and healing
10. Passion
11. Purpose
12. Calling (or in spirituality we call it a vocation)
13. Spirituality
14. Your own area that does not yet include here.
Second steps:
Decide on your tracks so that you can walk towards your growth area more effectively, with more intentional focus.There are four tracks of how you could go about;

1. Your way of doing
2. Your way of having
3. Your way of being
4. Your way of loving
These tracks will enable you to develop more precision to gather energy, inspiration, and clarity around the intentions you wish to set for 2024 – so that we can move forwards with a more focusing solutions. The key to work on these reflections is to have curiosity in process.
In the next post, I will share the WHY part. Enjoy your first step.

25/06/2023

I’m in Chiang Mai for a retreat. Topic is on Presence.
What is presence?
Easeness of being. This is a good summary in my view.
What does it bring to our life when we can be presence?
In my on-going experience, it helps us to live in a full sense of moments, a rich sense of fulfilment as nothing is missing, and a keen sense of maturity.

Presence leads to clarity of how we reacts to dynamics of the past, present and future. We’ve kept being distracted to real powerful moments of ourselves and immediate relationships.
Perhaps David Whyte, one of my favourite poets and philosophers, could expand more what maturity I’m talking about here.

(From his book: Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words. Source: Philo Thoughts)

18/03/2023

EMBRACING CHANGE AND THE FLOW OF LIFE
I came across this quote and it said it was quoted by Buddha. I was surprised. As a buddhist myself I've never heard of it but this isn't what I want to address on this post. The message captured me and I want to expand on the core sense of truth as I've known it.
Buddha certainly talked a lot about change - saṅkhārā aniccā (all fabrications are impermanent) is one of the key teachings of Buddhism.
He also talked a lot about pain (dukkha) - saṅkhārā dukkhā (all fabrications are painful/unsatisfactory/suffering) is another key teaching.
And one of the ways that we suffer is when we experience resistance to change. We often suffered from ill will, hatred, expectations, wanting to control, ignorance and avoidance. To me, these suffering more likely arises in our fabricated mental states.
The possibility of change suggests a courage to lean into the possibility to be curious and attend to our experience of resistance so we don't continue the suffering for ourselves. Embracing the self that underneath carries fear.
Recognizing change is important in bringing about insight and wisdom.

-----
WHAT TO DO?
To make it more practical in the personal and business world, here what I would focus on:
☑️ Start change any time, wherever you feel it. Don't wait for the perfect moment.

☑️ Plan change in a small bite size. Create a new narrative with change such as - this is a bit like updating/upgrading your software so new features are enghanced and easier manageble

☑️ Build a capacity in communication, clear declaration, know your needs (internal communication) and ask for support.

☑️ During the process, keep sensing in your body to find the resistance and the location of the resistance.

☑️ Work with a professional who can help you develop your competence through a process of inner work, someone who can recognise when it shows up, name the resistance, mirror/give feedback, invite your presence to be in contact with the part that resists the change, etc.

☑️ Add in your well-being developmental process with self-care. Working with the part of you that resists, you need clean energy, vitality and openness (to develop presence working with it).

☑️ Embracing change is to open to flow with the current. Overtime we can build the skill to balance on top of the peak current, instead of building the dam to block energy in motion and its natural unfoldment of life.

If you would like to learn more about change and develop some practices working with resistance, please feel free to contact me to help you traverse changes smoothly.
at work place.

07/03/2023

POWER OF IMAGINATION ON PERFORMANCE
I am a big fan of neuroscience, psychology and spirituality. The combination gives me frameworks in my coaching. Most time when we face difficulties, we used the old well of our resources, out of our memories, past skills and past experiences. And we sometimes come up with our own knowledge (from given knowledge) how to do things and work it out. These are strategies, to survive and strive. The blind side of this is we keep entangle ourselves with the reactivity loop: triggers, react, control, triggers, react, control, etc...
In our leadership effectiveness, we apply whole-brain competencies for clients. It transforms the way we think focusing on creativity, mental imagery, attunement, inspiration and flow. These elements stimulate parts of ourselves that know how to THRIVE, not only survive or fight to get what we want.
Each problem or decision, how might you cultivate new perception build upon an image you wish to project into the world?
It's about creating a shift in the dynamics of your thought process into practicing. Images are the closest memory of what we have to perception and experience.
Imagery was made famous in the sporting area but can also be used successfully in professional settings. Perhaps because imagery appears abstract and involves the mind there are groups of believers and non-believers. This has led to the technique being underutilized and practiced in the corporate world.
By focusing and adapting your (1) beliefs, (2) internal dialogues, (3) mental imagery, and (4) thought patterns, you create an opportunity to firstly develop self-leadership. With this landing, you are able to allow yourself to visualize the favorable outcome in order to develop confidences towards performance.

Imagery is a forgotten skill. But by making imagery or imagination as a conscious activity, we can develop an awe experience and felt capacity to execute effortlessly.

=====

A quote for the day:

"I am enough of an artist to draw freely from the imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world."

~ Albert Einstein, from an interview in 1929, with George Sylvester Viereck

======

Image by Anke Dirix
Resource: Mellissa Ferrier

28/02/2023

BOUNDLESS PRESENCE
I posted one of Dalai Lama’s quote yesterday. It reminded me when I joined a leadership training around Presence topic many years ago. His name was inevitably mentioned as one of the biggest presence figures in the consciousness field. I longed to meet him and experienced be in his sphere.
As they say, a strong intention manifests a field of reality, I had a chance to visit Dharamsala the same year. Thanks to my sister (the one on the top right).
Be in the presence of His Holiness, the Dalai Lama was phenomenal. This direct experience changed my brain and body chemicals in many ways. His natural expression of love, warmth, tranquility and compassionate energy was unexplainable. No wonder his presence impacts people in boundless space and time.
Directing his energy as a sense of having his hands on my back when life and work get a little difficult is one of the greatest blessing.
Who or what might be your external resources that can help shift your mind, breath and nervous system? Making a list of these resources is helpful in energy and tension management when we get emotional hijacked.

27/02/2023

Skilful conversations support skilful interactions.

When we talk about a conversation, what comes in mind? We tend to think that great conversations are a lot to do with speaking. Often we speak to get our point across, to be heard, to be seen, to be right, to be validated, etc. Assetive with a space of “ I”.

Wise conversations start with objectless listening. We listen with less of our agenda, more attentive, more to understand, non-bias, non-judgmental, hold space of “we”.

17/01/2023

PAUSE (Part 2) AWARENESS vs IMPULSIVITY
A few people reached out to me and were confused about why not goal-setting and what I meant by a pause in this context.
Pause doesn’t mean freeze, do nothing, or do no actions.
Pause here as a stepping-stone to sharpen your sense of clarity, to reset and question your own authentic future actions with fewer biases.
Bias actions carry psychological and habitual phenomenon. Pause gives a big breath and space that allow us “to catch” ourselves consciously and with more precision. It helps to break automatic responses that our mind tends to favor “just do it” attitudes.
It is like when your inner world is on fire and you are burning for resolution, it is tempting to conclude anything that gives you a chance to make up for something that has failed in the past… The longing is unbearable, and you are still aching to find some relief.
When we act without thinking but from a reflex or an impulse, we get swept along with needing to be seen doing something rather than nothing, even the result might not be great.
This is what seems to happen with the goal-setting strategy for the new year and its journey along the way.
Impact on self-esteem = 100%
Enthusiasm = 100%
Effort = 90%
Success = 10%
Feeling of failure = 80% at the year end when we realize we don’t quite make it to meet the goal.
When the current of commercial belief says, it is New Year, new you, new resolution, new life, new job, new body, new… etc. It is a mind desire. This is a kind of impulsivity. We do not need to do new things, start a new goal or set a new change just because it is a new year.
We do new things because we hear an inner call, a need inside us what is needed to happen so we can cultivate our acts together. And it can start in the third or sixth month of the year.

THIS brings real purpose, meaning and personal will.
THIS is a place to feel safe to act for what is real and true.
The way in is to pause, slow down, listen, filter our longing, or digest our needs and meet ourselves fully, not the goal.
I wish you much success! If you have any questions or any topic that you would like to explore, please feel free to drop me a message. Let's journey together.
References: Matt Licata and Prof Amanda Kirby

(Photography by James Tyrrell)

10/01/2023

PAUSE - A place for new beginnings
Happy new year everyone! As we prepare to belong to this new year, a "pause" as a looking forward tool is a great beginning to reflect on our power and possibility for 2023. This key step can support new fire in our clarity, values and purpose towards growth.
I just came back from South Africa. A valuable insight was a PAUSE. A pause to deeply listen to the worlds around us.

No planning, no controlling, no rushing, no opining, no jumping over too fast into questions and ideas.
Like many of us, I grew up with a professional belief that I worked well under pressure. Rooted from my family, not consciously but inner story was I must study hard(er) so I could be successful. Success = hard push up. The assumption was that pressure would pushed me far. So I spent many years to set goals and crafted plans for the new year ahead - for something better and more. That psychologically implied my current deficiency. And I collapsed into exhaustion, frustration, disappointment, responsibility escaping, worst case...blaming from internal to external systems. Planing & goals seemed to set framed limitations and directions how one must move. I committed to that framed concepts and forgot to have a broader sense of what else might be going on. Certainly it limited mindset how things should and have to be. Setting goals was like setting a trap for myself. I became a controller, not a traveler of my own life & work journey.
In a pause, I found quiet mind. In quiet mind, I found stillness. In stillness, I found patience. In patience, I found trust to meet whatever showing up. It allowed me to be more discern of my internal landscape and how I might show up in my habitual narratives. I found what was needed to be seen and attended to in the moment. Freedom and hopes appeared.
There are many possible ways to gain directions and effectiveness to meet results we wish to have. I experimented my 2022 with this. In my own experience, pause allowed me to non-judgementally sit aside the pain and power equally. Pause brought ease and spaciousness. Then natural actions and will occured from inside.

So an invitation to Pause as a starting of all things, we will find balance and mercy to ourselves for what we have to endure moving forward. Its anchor offers a stable ground yet with freedom - so we can stand tall and firm on our own feet of values and responsibilities towards what we truly wish to happen with adaptability.
Pause awakes us into the new seeing and destructs our locked knees.
Flow with the year! Together, let's show up with joy, fluidity and vitalised energy.

Address

Singapore

Website

http://www.leadershiftworks.com/

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Soulistic Excellence posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

Featured

The Prenatal Consultants
101 Irrawaddy Road, #15-05/06 Royal Square Medical Centre

Want your practice to be the top-listed Clinic in Singapore?

Our Story

Passionate to develop people; to inspire and empower others to find their authenticity,clarity, passions and confidence - to be happy, loving who they are and what they do, live and lead their lives with true potentials with heart.

I am a Qigong practitioner and fascinated by psychological and emotional process for sustainable change. I dedicatedly offer individuals and groups – parents, teachers to professional executives in coaching and training with Integral and Somatic principles. Jokingly I call myself a slow coach because I help people to slow down to process their self-awareness and cultivate compassion and courage. I specialize in;

Stress Management

Career & life transitions