Written by: Aura E. Martinez, Executive Contributor Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise. It is so tempting, at times, to believe that what we see on social media is true & that perhaps others know the key to a great life, except for us. Especially when we perceive rough patches in our life, we may sit & wonder what’s wrong with me that life isn’t as fun & exciting as it used to be?! If you find yourself in this situation now where you’re questioning yourself a lot, wondering what’s wrong with you or your life, or you’re looking at other people’s lives and wishing yours were more like theirs, it’s time for you to make your grass greener. The truth is your life will only be as good as you make it to be. I know that it may be better or easier “if only the right person would show up,” “if only this opportunity would show up,” or “if only I lived in x place,” etc. However, this line of thinking & feeling will only disempower you. It disempowers you because you end up relying on something outside of you to feel better. Replying on anything outside of you for your happiness only creates crutches. I don’t know about you, but crutches can be quite uncomfortable in the literal sense. So it is metaphorically. This is because what happens when whatever it is that you rely on for your happiness isn’t there? You can’t move forward then? Anything outside of you is not where your real power is. It will always be within you. And with this, I would like to go over what are some of the things you can do to make your grass greener. 1. Consider your happiness. What I mean by this is to look within you & figure out your definition of happiness. For this, give yourself some quiet time. Write down what comes up for you when you think of happiness. What makes you truly happy? What lights you up? What makes you feel alive? As you write down the answers to these questions, think of what you can do today to get you closer to what you define as happiness. 2. Cut out the dullness. Take an inventory of your life & think of what sucks the life out of you. Make a list and see what you can do differently to cut out whatever doesn’t light you up inside. If what bores you are things that at the moment you are unable to change, i.e. a job, then ask yourself how you can change your perspective of your job. Think of all that your current job provides to you besides a paycheck that you can be grateful for. The point of this is to change the state within you when it comes to this part of you and your life. 3. Implement gratitude first thing in the morning & throughout the day. I know this is something that gets said over & over again and it’s for a good reason. That’s because it’s impossible to be sad, angry, depressed, or worried when you are in a state of gratitude. When you are in a state of gratitude, your focus is on all the good you have working for you. If you’ve been so used to focusing on all the things that go wrong in your life, then give yourself the time to make gratitude into a habit. What can you feel gratitude for right this moment? What is working in your life? How can you express gratitude for the people you have in your life? How can you express gratitude for the things you have in your life? Remember that gratitude is not just a feeling, it’s a lifestyle. So, consider how can you think, feel, act and do in gratitude every day. 4. Lean into your curiosity. Your curiosity is one of the keys to your most passionate life. What you are curious about provides you with clues as to what your next step is, what would make your life most interesting, the direction of your happiness, who you really are, etc. As kids, we were curious all the time, which made life so interesting. If you have been ignoring what you are curious about, it’s time that you start leaning into your curiosity. I can promise you that this will make your life more fun. 5. Mind your business. That’s right! I will highly encourage you to mind your business if for whatever reason you feel highly triggered by how other people are living their life. Stop looking at what others are doing and start living your life instead. I will add this though, as you do this, investigate why this triggers you so much. I can bet that the reason why you feel so triggered is that a big part of you wishes it was you living that kind of life. In that case, ask yourself the following: What about how they live their life triggers you? What aspect of their life do you admire? Why is it that you admire this? (This will reveal what some of your values are) If there is anything about their lifestyle that you would like to implement in your life as well, what would it be? How can you add your own flavor to that kind of lifestyle that you admire? The whole point of you asking yourself these questions is for you to understand where the trigger is coming from, own your trigger, learn from it and grow from it. After you have done all this, then you can move on to minding your business and tending to your grass. If you crave a fabulous life, one that you are so in love with, you must cultivate that kind of lifestyle. No one else can do this for you and that’s a good thing because that means you have all the power. It is your job, your responsibility & duty to cultivate the kind of life that has you feeling excited to wake up every day. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Aura! Aura E. Martinez, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine Aura E. Martinez is a Self-Discovery and Empowerment Coach helping women gain total clarity in their purpose so that they can wake up to a daily life of fulfillment and certainty. As a person who has traveled the world as a Flight Attendant, the opportunity has helped her learn and see so much and she discovered the most fabulous place for us all to see that is truly the key to greater well-being and she shared that with others worldwide. She is also the founder of Live to the Max™/Viva al máximo™, author of the book Creating a Lifetime of Wellness: Start Having the Life You Deserve and the journal Creating a Lifetime of Wellness Journal: Your Personal Coach to the Different Areas of Your Life. The book has been seen in Spirituality & Health magazine, Psychology Today, and Natural Awakenings NYC edition magazine.

Written by: Daniel Van der Pluym, Executive Contributor Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise. Reflective practices are one of the most effective ways to increase self-awareness. When we are more aware of ourselves, we can better understand our true purpose and navigate life with more certainty. In this article, we will define these practices and explore the importance of self-awareness in becoming more actualized. We will also provide strategies and tools to assist with various practices so that you can gain a deeper level of awareness about yourself and your place in the world. If you are struggling to understand your true purpose or calling in life, reflective practice is just what you need! What is reflective practice? Reflection practices involve the ability to observe actions to develop and improve their performance. It is a skill that can be useful in different areas of life, from work and school projects to personal relationships. Reflective practice helps people to understand their actions and behaviors better so they can learn from mistakes, set goals more effectively, and find fulfillment in what they do. There are many different ways to reflect. Some people prefer to journal about their thoughts and experiences, while others find it helpful to talk to a friend or counselor about what they are going through. These practices can even be done alone, such as meditation or mindfulness. Whichever method you choose, the goal is the same: to gain a deeper understanding of yourself and your place in the world and you are taking the time to connect with yourself on a deeper level. If you are struggling to understand your true purpose or calling in life, intentional reflection may be just what you need to gain greater clarity and move towards personally meaningful outcomes. How do reflective practices help with self-awareness? Self-awareness is the ability to accurately assess one's inner and outer world. Through asking larger and more insightful questions, as well as through reflection, an individual may be able to better understand their emotions and processes around making decisions. Through self-monitoring, one can learn how to find contentment in what they are doing, which in turn may lead to a greater sense of purpose. By examining their thoughts and feelings over time, an individual may be able to make better choices more consistently. In the end, these practices allow an individual to better navigate life in a way that fulfills them rather than drives them away from themselves or others. Reflection is a powerful way to become more self-aware. When we take the time to reflect on our thoughts and experiences, we can gain a deeper understanding of ourselves and our place in the world... If you are struggling to find your true purpose or calling in life, reflective practices may be just what you need! Two states of self-awareness Self-awareness is present in both public and personal situations. Public self-awareness is when someone is aware of their actions in front of an audience, while personal self-awareness is when someone is aware of their inner thoughts and feelings. Public Awareness This knowledge aids us in following social norms and acting as acceptable society members. Although it has several advantages for people, this awareness is frequently hazardous. People with a lot of these qualities tend to worry too much about what other people think or operate with a high level of self-consciousness. Personal Awareness A person can look within themselves and evaluate their internal condition on their own. Individuals who have a high level of private self-esteem are articulate and honest about their emotions and reaction to things. We interact with different people in our lives, and we must be aware of how our thoughts and emotions affect these interactions. If we’re not careful, our relationships can quickly become strained. To have successful relationships, it is essential to understand and be honest about ourselves. We need to know what we are thinking and feeling so that we can share this information with others in an effective way. Understanding the impacts of personal and social control It's no secret that personal and social control plays a big role in our lives. We're constantly being told what to do, how to behave, and what's "acceptable" by friends, family, society, and the media. But what happens when we lose sight of who we are and start to conform to others' expectations instead? We can begin to feel lost, disconnected, and unhappy. When we allow others to dictate our lives, we give up our sense of self-control and independence. We lose touch with what makes us happy and who we are inside. And worst of all, we can start to feel like we're not good enough or worth anything unless we meet other people's standards. But it doesn't have to be this way! You can reclaim your power by learning to understand the impacts of personal and social control on your life. Start by getting honest about how these forces have been affecting you, then begin making small changes in the way you live your life. With time and practice, you'll find yourself becoming stronger and more confident in who you are. You'll also learn how to stand up for yourself and make your own decisions based on what feels right for you, not anyone else. The aspects of self-awareness? One useful method of examining a person is by analyzing their own physical and psychological characteristics, as reflected in their psyche and personality. Whilst self-awareness is often spoken about in general terms, there are four different aspects to it: Physical self-awareness: This is when we are aware of our physical appearance and how it might be perceived by others. It includes our height, weight, skin color, hair, etc. Awareness of our physical body, the way it feels, and our response to it is an important part of self-awareness. When we are physically OK, our awareness of the physical body is usually strongest. However, all aspects of ourselves affect one another – whether we are consciously aware of them or not! Mental self-awareness: While we might not always be aware of our mental state, it is still there in the background. This includes our thoughts, feelings, and emotions. It also encompasses our beliefs, values, and attitudes. Mental self-awareness is about being aware of what we are thinking and believing about ourselves. It is not a matter of trying to control thoughts but learning how to make them more accurate and helpful. Emotional self-awareness: Emotional self-awareness is the ability to be aware of one’s own emotions, thoughts, and feelings – and to recognize that they are yours and not someone else’s. It also involves being aware of how others perceive your emotions and thoughts as well as your actions. Being emotionally self-aware can help you to articulate your feelings more effectively, which can allow you to manage difficult feelings in more effective ways. Spiritual self-awareness: Spiritual self-awareness is when you understand your feelings and emotions about yourself and the world around you. This is about our continuing sense of identity and the realm of what we as human beings value. Ordinating the different aspects of self-awareness can be difficult, but it is important to try to do so. By understanding all four aspects, we can get a more holistic view of ourselves. This can help us to make better decisions, both in our personal and professional lives. Common benefits of self-awareness Becoming someone who is more self-aware has numerous benefits. Here are some examples of common benefits of self-awareness: It gives us the power to influence outcomes; It helps us to become better decision-makers; It gives us more self-confidence — so, as a result, we communicate with clarity and intention; It allows us to understand things from multiple perspectives; It frees us from our assumptions and biases; It helps us build better relationships; It gives us a greater ability to regulate our emotions; and it decreases stress. Carl Rogers and self-actualization According to Carl Rogers, self-actualization is an ongoing journey where we continuously develop and grow by reflecting on our experiences and learning from them. He explains that all humans have an innate tendency toward self-improvement which allows us to reach our full potential. According to Rogers, a person's sense of self should come from the alignment between their actions and values. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs Abraham Maslow identified self-actualization as part of the higher order which grows beyond basic needs. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs details a five-stage model of human psychological development. The first four stages are concerned with establishing a sense of security and meeting basic needs such as food, water, shelter, and clothing. The final stage, self-actualization, is when an individual reaches their full potential and achieves a state of personal growth and fulfillment. According to Maslow, self-actualization is reached when an individual's actions are in alignment with their values and beliefs. This occurs when an individual can live authentically and be true to themselves. To achieve self-actualization, an individual must be free from external constraints and be able to fully express themselves. While everyone doesn't need to reach the stage of self-actualization, people need to strive for it. By reaching this stage, individuals can achieve a greater sense of fulfillment and happiness in their lives. Characteristics of self-actualized individuals Self-actualized individuals are those who have a deep understanding of themselves and their place in the world. They can act by their values and beliefs, and they continuously strive to grow and develop. Self-actualized people know themselves well. They understand what they want and what they believe in, and they act by their values. They also strive to grow and develop as people. Self-actualized individuals are typically happy and fulfilled. They have a strong sense of purpose and meaning in their lives, and they feel a deep connection to others. Self-actualized individuals are often described as being "in the zone." This means that they are fully present in the moment and they can focus on the task at hand. How do I know if I'm a self-aware person Self-awareness is the capacity to be aware of and understand your thoughts, feelings, and behavior. It's about the consciousness of who you are as a person and how you interact with your environment. How can you tell if you're self-aware? One way to find out is by examining your relationships with others. Do you have close friends and family members who you can trust and open up to? Or do you tend to keep people at a distance? If it's the latter, then that may be a sign that you're not as aware of yourself as you could be. Another indicator of self-awareness is how well you handle stress and adversity. Do stressful situations cause you to react in unhealthy ways? Or do they simply roll off your back? Self-aware people usually have a more positive outlook on life, no matter what challenges come their way. Finally, take some time to reflect on your behavior. Are there certain things that tend to trigger strong reactions in you? What emotions do these situations evoke? By answering these questions, you'll get a better sense of how aware (or unaware) you currently are. Self-awareness to become more actualized Reflection offers many advantages, but one of the most valuable is that it aids in self-actualization. Self-awareness can be significantly enhanced by partaking in practices that necessitate thinking about and reflecting on your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. A self-actualized person is one who not only lives authentically but may also have a better sense of how to spend their days and how to spend God’s resources. They are intentional and conscientious in their decisions about how to use what God has given them. The importance of utilizing negative feedback for self-awareness To become more reflective and self-aware, it is important to be open to constructive/negative feedback. This can be difficult, as no one likes to hear that they're doing something wrong. Sometimes this feedback can be harmful to our self esteem. However, if utilised effectively constructive feedback is essential for growth and development. It allows us to see ourselves from a different perspective and learn new ways of doing things. Without this feedback, we would never know when we're making a mistake or could be doing something better. We would simply continue going about our lives without ever improving or changing. So next time someone gives you criticism, instead of getting defensive, try to listen with an open mind. Use it as an opportunity to learn more about yourself and grow as a person. The purpose of negativity Negativity has a way of raising our awareness of what we need to change to shape us into the best version of ourselves. We may be our own worst critics, but those around us are there to help us grow and develop as individuals. There's a reason why people call it the "dark side." Negative feedback can provide valuable information to help you learn new ways of doing things and what you can improve on. Sometimes, getting this feedback allows us to change for the better, learn from mistakes and become better versions of ourselves. Examples of reflective practices and how they support self-awareness Reflection can take many different forms, but all of them share one common goal: to help us understand ourselves better. Some of these practices include journaling, meditation, and self-assessment. Journaling is a great way to get in touch with your thoughts and feelings. It can also be helpful to document your progress over time. By writing down your thoughts and experiences, you can see how you've changed and grown as a person. Meditation is another great way to connect with yourself. It can help you learn to focus on the present moment and accept your thoughts and feelings without judgment. This can be a valuable tool for understanding yourself better and accepting who you are. Self-assessment is another great way to become more aware of yourself. By taking time to reflect on your strengths and weaknesses, you can begin to understand how you can best contribute to the world. This can help discover your true purpose in life. Reflective questions What are some reflective questions you can ask yourself? What are my core values? How do I want to be remembered? What is my definition of success? What makes me happy? Why do I do the things I do? Critical evaluation As humans, we are constantly evaluating. We judge people, things, and experiences. This is a necessary part of our survival instinct. It allows us to make quick decisions about whether something is safe or harmful. However, this instinct can also be destructive when it comes to our relationships with others and the environment. We often evaluate too quickly and harshly, without taking the time to understand the situation fully. This can lead to stress and anxiety, which have negative effects on both our mental and physical health. We need to learn how to critically evaluate situations more consciously so that we can make better decisions that are beneficial for all involved. Conclusion Reflective methods are necessary for enhancing self-awareness. We may use reflective techniques to concentrate on the present moment and accept our thoughts and feelings without prejudice. This allows us to comprehend ourselves better and embrace who we are. There are several distinct types of reflective exercises, but they all have the same aim: to assist us in understanding ourselves better. These incorporate journaling, meditation, and self-assessment. By critically evaluating our thoughts and actions, we can develop into better versions of ourselves that are more beneficial to society as a whole. What reflective practices have you found to be helpful in your journey of self-discovery? Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments below! Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Daniel! Daniel Van der Pluym, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine Daniel Van der Pluym is the founder of Deeper Potential Coaching and part founder of ADHD Ambition. He is a psychotherapist, certified Life Coach and mindfulness teacher. Through his work, he focuses on helping people overcome their life challenges to create a new story of meaning and fulfilment. His work as a psychotherapist coach and part developer of ADHD Ambition is geared towards helping people overcome uncertainty and rumination, so they can live with more clarity and fulfillment.

Javier Peñalba is an ICF-certified life coach helping people with a fear of commitment to creating fulfilling relationships. Having dealt with anxiety for decades since the young age of 6 after the sudden suicide of his father some meters away from him, Javier has worked on a long journey of self-discovery, where he uncovered symptoms of commitment phobia, relationship OCD and anxiety. In particular, he could not stay in any intimate relationship for more than a few months without running away from it. Having dedicated the last years of his life to understanding and overcoming this issue, Javier is now happily married and is providing seminars and life coaching services to help people suffering from fear of commitment. Javier Peñalba, Life Coach Introduce yourself! Please tell us about you and your life, so we can get to know you better. “Everything you need to be happy and at peace is right here within you, now.” – Javier Peñalba I come originally from Nicaragua. I was born in 1986 in the midst of a small family, including my mother, father and older sister. We were living in my grandmother’s house at the moment, close to many of my father’s brothers and my cousins, so although my core family was small, we had a lot going on socially all the time. There was a lot of love and companionship between all of us and I really enjoyed that part of living there. My country was going through a big economic and sociopolitical crisis as it was suffering from civil war and a harsh dictatorship, although these were not things that really affected me directly at the moment. However, it did affect my father, who was not generating enough money and, therefore, a lot of the financial support came from my mother. This, apart from his habitudinal alcohol addiction, made him get into a depression. I thus watched at times how he came home drunk, yelling and acting strange or getting aggressive, even against my mom at times. I grew to love him but also fear him a lot at the same time, as I did not recognize him in those moments. One day, when I was 6 years old and it was only me and my mom at home as my sister and grandmother were abroad, he came back home from a brother’s birthday at around 4:00 am, very drunk and agitated. As he went into his bedroom and lied in bed, he got restless and started looking for a gun. My mother knew his intention and tried to stop him. I nervously watched as they argued and he tried to hide with his gun while my mother fought for his life, one that he didn’t want anymore. My mother was able to take the gun from him and left me in the room with him as she went to look for help. Little did she know that he had another gun in his bedroom. He scared me out of the room easily by making a strange face and noise, and as I ran out, he locked himself in. That crazy face he did was my last sight of him alive. My mother came back with one of my uncles and the three of us were trying to get into his bedroom and stop him from whatever he was planning, until we heard the loud “bang” that marked my life forever. My mother was somehow able to break into the room and we stood in awe at the picture in front of us. That image got fortunately deleted from my brain, despite the rest of it being as vivid as a horror movie that just happened yesterday, where I was just a secondary actor and didn’t have to do much but could still witness everything and be as scared as the protagonists. I did not cry, yell or speak. I was shocked at everything, and my automatic response was to dissociate and, upon being called up by my aunt, I went to play video games all alone at her place. This marked the onset of my anxiety. We moved out of my home and went to live at my grandfather’s house, far away from my cousins and uncles. A feeling of separateness and of being different than others started growing within me, as I did not have a father and I saw all of my cousins having one and as I was so far away from my father’s family. I also developed a sense of guilt for the death of my father, having thought that I could have done a lot more to help him as I was the last one to be in his bedroom before he took his life. For years, I was not able to talk about my dad, see his pictures, or even think about him. I never cried or expressed any emotion about what happened. Neither did we address it much in the family, as it became sort of a taboo. However, I became very fearful and every time that my mother would leave home or come late when picking me up from school, I would begin getting nervous, restless, and if it lasted too long would start crying unconsolably telling those around me that I was an orphan now. My mother married again 3 years after my father’s death with who is today my stepfather, a very kind and quiet man who has supported us since I was 9 and who has been a great companion for my mother. As I was growing up, I became a good student at school, had a couple of friends, was very athletic and loved to play soccer. I was extremely responsible, respectful and usually very quiet. I tended to take things very seriously and had very strong values, gaining the nickname “el abuelo” or “grandpa” for a couple of years during my school years due to my strong morality and seriousness. However, given my own trauma and very introvertive way of having processed everything, I also became a very distracted, forgetful, insecure, shy and anxious little boy. My mother who tends to worry a lot, found a great reason in her life now to worry about: me. I thus grew to dislike her constant worrying, which I translated into her not trusting me and on top of that controlling me. At the same time, I always wanted her to be safe and worried about something bad happening to her like it had with my father. This inner struggle made me at times distance myself from her. She took me to some psychiatrists to look at my distractedness and nervousness but they all just assumed it was my trauma. In the end, they prescribed me anxiety pills that helped me a bit while taking them but left the underlying causes unresolved. As I became an adult my personality became that of a good student, good worker and good friend. I was close to my family and we all got along pretty well, at least most of the time. I decided to study Industrial Engineering in the university, having at the beginning no real idea of what it meant or my purposes for doing it. However, after some years I got to enjoy it more and more, but never to the point of it becoming a passion. I thus worked in different companies: as an operations supervisor in a dairy manufacturing plant; as a logistics advisor in a logistics company; and as an intellectual property analyst. Nevertheless, I deeply lacked a sense of meaning and purpose for what I was doing. In relationships, I became very fearful and insecure. I developed a fearful-avoidant attachment style, which basically means that I feared rejection, got anxious very easily and avoided deep interactions and relationships of almost all kind. Once my relationships were more stable I would obsess over my partners’ flaws and the relationship itself and would quit them within a couple of months. After feeling trapped in one of those relationships when I was 24, I looked for an escape route by applying as a Spanish teacher assistant in France and left some months later, giving me a good excuse to break up during that time, all while being able to discover the world a bit more. I thus lived 7 months in that country, where I created some nice experiences and where I got the idea that perhaps I did not belong to Nicaragua and needed to live elsewhere, as I always had this feeling that I was different than others there. Hence, after coming back to Nicaragua and living some years there, and after having one more relationship that I quit after 4 months because of my same issues, I got a scholarship for an MBA in Taipei, Taiwan. I lived in that country for 3 years, making some good friends, learning the language and understanding a bit more of myself every time. After 2 years, I graduated and most of my friends moved back to their countries, so I stayed there and started feeling a bit lonely and hopeless that I could actually find a job that fulfilled me there. I also deepened in my own insecurities as I suffered some romantic rejections but also another failed relationship where I left my partner after some months. My love life felt always like a baseball game, I was either batting the ball away, or being batted away. I started really believing that the issue was in me and perhaps not in my partners, as I used to think. After 3 years, at the end of 2016, I moved to Germany, as I found a job here as a patent technical writer given some of the experience that I had built back in Nicaragua. I could now enjoy a new experience learning a new language, getting to know new people, and developing myself further in the area of patents. After around a year in the country, I started a new relationship. I was very enthusiastic at the beginning, but after about 9 months to a year, I started getting obsessed over perceived flaws and having a strong urge to escape the relationship that wouldn’t leave me alone for one second. Anxiety got the best of me and forced me to break up after about 2 years into that relationship, marking the onset of an in-depth self-inquiry journey. I could not believe that this was happening again. I thus began googling all of my symptoms online: obsession with flaws, urge to escape relationships, fear of intimacy, difficulty creating deep connections, etc., and I started understanding more about fear of commitment and relationship OCD. I decided to go to a psychologist to get this checked all while reading books on my own and starting to meditate. Understanding more about this helped me to reduce my own shame and guilt about all of my failed relationships and people that I had hurt in my life. I also started opening up about my past, including my trauma, something that I had avoided for all of those years of my life. I started healing my life and understanding the nature of my fears. After some years in this new path, where I felt I had a lot more clarity about who I was and what was happening to me, I changed my relationship with my thoughts and started connecting to something way bigger than me that gives me an underlying sense of peace. I started speaking to more people about my thoughts and hiding less from the world and realized how many people out there suffer because of their own unquestioned thoughts and unprocessed emotions. I realized also how a fire burned in me when I talked to others and listened to them intently, always open and willing to give them my advice if it was asked for or simply asking questions and letting people come up with their own answers. In this process, I found my coaching school iPEC, whose vision of “increasing the consciousness of the world, one person at a time” fully resonated with my new self. I thus started certifying myself as a life coach and fell in love with the profession, which connected me to a higher purpose that I had not found in any of my other career paths. I started my own coaching business called Transmute Yourself Coaching where I mainly help people to transform their fear of commitment into long-lasting, fulfilling relationships. 2 years after my last breakup, I met who is now my wife, Karola. I had gone through a transformation process, but the path was still ongoing, as many of my fears would only surface in a relationship. I got some of the old fears, obsessions and escaping urges I had in the past, but I took a compassionate distance from them, understanding their nature and separating that from the depth of my being. She, a coach herself, gave me the opportunity to put everything I had learned into practice and supported me along the way. The more that I could connect to the deepest part of me while in the relationship, the more I realized that it was possible to find peace and stability in it. After 2 years of being together, we got married and are now living happily together in the city of Bad Soden am Taunus near Frankfurt am Main, Germany. We have created our own recently published podcast and life coaching startup in Spanish called JavOla Coaching, where we help people to create a lighter life and with greater connection with themselves and their partner. We plan our first in-person event in the city of Malaga on 26th November called “Vision Workshop Malaga 2022 – Creating The Life Of Your Dreams”. I am today the proud uncle of two precious nephews that I love playing with when we have the chance to meet. I love walking in the forest that is close to my place, writing, reading, coaching, making videos, running, and hiking. I love animals of all types, melt at the sight of dogs and am a vegetarian by conviction. I love speaking about various topics, but especially those that have to do with the human mind and soul. My favorite series has been Stranger Things. My guilty pleasure is learning about the paranormal, having always had a special passion for alien life and UFOs, ghosts, or anything that is hard for the human mind to explain. Languages have always been also a passion of mine, having learned 6, including Spanish, English, French, German, Italian and Mandarin Chinese. During my free time I also like traveling with my wife and learning a bit of the language of the place where I travel. What is your business name and how do you help your clients? My business name is Transmute Yourself Coaching. I focus mostly on helping people to transform their fear of commitment into long-lasting, fulfilling relationships. This includes people that, like me, tended to run away from relationships without even understanding why, who obsess over flaws of partners, and who have a hard time committing to anything. My clients tend to see relationships as a wolf that they meet in the darkness of the middle of the night. I tend to ask them, “would you commit to taking care of a wolf if you knew that it would attack at any moment?” and the answers is always no. But when I ask them, “if it were a cute rabbit, would you take care of it?” And the answer is almost always yes. I help them by shifting their perspective of relationships from that of a dangerous wolf into that of a rabbit, so that they can decide by themselves the type of relationship that they want without letting it be fear that takes the decision for them. Each client is unique and I tend to tailor my sessions based on their individual needs. However, generally speaking, I help them to shift their perspective first through a huge amount of acknowledgment and validation so that they understand that what they go through is totally normal for them, reducing a lot of the shame and guilt involved with their behaviors; by creating awareness and exploring each of the core beliefs that hold them back, questioning also the truth behind them and generating new beliefs and emotions that can help them to be comfortable first with themselves, and then in relationships; and by helping them to build new actions and behaviors that make them actively face their fears to realize that commitment in itself is not as dangerous as they thought. With that being said, I have also helped people in topics not related to fear of commitment, and I am eager to do so as the need arrives. I thus love helping people to connect to their own strengths and potential, to connect with their sense of purpose and realize any frustrated dreams or projects, to reduce stress and anxiety, to heal and improve family relationships, and to increase confidence and reduce shyness and insecurity. People interested in my coaching services can request coaching here. Those that just want to get updates from me are also invited and join my email community, which will give them access to my free gift PDF: "3 Powerful Tips to Overcome Commitment Phobia and Connect to Yourself in the Process!". What kind of audience do you target your business towards? My clients are people who have discovered that they have a fear of commitment, especially in relationships, and have realized that the issue is not in others but in themselves. This as of itself is a little moment of awakening, which usually leads them to start digging out information about the topic and prompts them to understand themselves better and grow in the process. As they are in this journey, sometimes they may feel stuck and that’s when my personalized life coaching services come into play to help them to accelerate their growth process and find their own peace with themselves and in relationship to others. My clients can be men or women usually in their early twenties all the way to late fifties. Those in the lower age range usually have just gotten to realize that they have this issue based on a couple of past relationships, bringing them to the conclusion that their urges to escape relationships cannot just be because of them not finding the right person. Those in the higher age range are usually tired of going through the same cycle over and over and have also come to realize that this is something that they need to work on and that the issue is within themselves. At times, my clients are already in a relationship and are having the urge to leave it, creating the need to find help, while others come to me right after having broken up because of their fear. However, what is common in all of my clients is that they really wish to have a relationship but simply cannot stay in one for too long because of a fear that is hard for them to understand and that seems to control them. What would you like to achieve for yourself and your business in the future? I want Transmute Yourself Coaching to grow into the go-to life coaching business for self-development and spirituality, primarily for people with fear of commitment but also for anyone who wants to build a happier, more connected life filled with inner peace. Apart from my coaching services, my plans are for Transmute Yourself Coaching to provide courses, seminars and books about self-development and spirituality. I wish to see my business helping thousands of people to create fulfilling relationships and inner peace around the world through the services provided. My first book is now released and it is called “Awaken Through Anxiety: 6 Steps to Transcend Anxiety and Awaken to Your True Self” available on my website. My second book, called “Becoming a Commitment Master: 10 Powerful Tips to Overcome the Fear of Commitment and Connect to Your True Self in the Process” will be available soon and people can already subscribe to get notified of its release date. What is your work inspired by? My work is inspired first of all on my own experiences in life. I realized that overcoming a strong fear of commitment and obsessive thinking, and also finding meaning in one’s life and coming to peace with oneself and the world is totally possible with the right amount of introspection, self-work, and guidance from others. Life itself is our big master, and if we study its lessons through the situations it puts us through, every day becomes an opportunity with connect to who we truly are. Apart from my own life, my work is greatly inspired by my coaching school, iPEC, who, apart from the great coaching tools they provided me with, taught me many life principles that have resonated deeply with me and helped me greatly in my own spiritual healing process. Their coaching approach of letting coachees come up with their own answers, while enabling coaches to share the right information as it is required in the process based on the current level of awareness of the clients, has provided me with a high level of confidence to be able to tackle any client situation. My work is also inspired by one of my favorite authors and spiritual teachers, Eckhart Tolle. I consider the way that he has put forward ancient spiritual concepts on how to find inner peace and connection to our Being to be very practical, easy to understand and most importantly to experience. I also find his teachings very flexible and non-dogmatic. By not bringing up so many dogmatic and strict rules, but just guiding his readers to connect to the dimension behind our identities and live from that place as much as we can, I learned that all needs are fulfilled now, in each moment, and that the rest is just the icing on the cake. This teaching is not something to be just read but to be experienced, and when that happens, a huge inner transformation can take place as it did in me. I try to bring part of this beautiful dimension of presence and connectedness to my clients as I guide them to find peace and stability in relationship to themselves and to others. Tell us about a pivotal moment in your life that brought you to where you are today. A pivotal moment was definitely my last breakup. The irrational anxiety that I used to get in that relationship got to such unmeasurable levels that I found it hard to concentrate on anything but on my urge to break up. After breaking up, I took the decision that I was not letting this preventing me from being happy and that I would work on it until I found a solution for it. The growth that was created after that definitely led me to where I am today. If you could change one thing about your industry, what would it be and why? I would definitely love life coaching and self-development to be included as part of the school pensum. Kids learn a lot faster than us adults, and they would pick up these principles in a natural way as I know they would resonate with their Being. Integrating coaching and self-development with the education system would accelerate the rate at which we as humans wake up to our true spiritual nature, reducing suffering around the world and speeding up our evolution as a race. I also think that these tools should be openly available to everyone around the world to increase our overall wellbeing, love and compassion as human beings. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Javier!

Written by: Janifer Wheeler, Senior Level Executive Contributor Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise. As a small business owner, you know that productivity is key to your success. If you can’t get things done, you won’t be able to grow your business and achieve your goals. That’s why it’s important to have a system to stay productive. This blog post will discuss some essential tips for small business owners to increase productivity. Follow these tips, and you’ll be on your way to achieving more. How Can a Small Business Increase Productivity? Time Management One of the most important things you can do as a small business owner is managing your time effectively. This means setting aside time for specific tasks and sticking to them. You may also want to consider using a time tracking tool like RescueTime to help you keep track of how you’re spending your time. Delegate and Outsource Another important tip for increasing productivity is to delegate and outsource tasks that can be done by someone else. This frees up your time to focus on the most important tasks. Some ways to delegate and outsource tasks include hiring an employee or virtual assistant or using a service. Some tasks you may want to delegate or outsource include: Social media marketing Content creation Customer service Bookkeeping Data entry Set Priorities An essential tip for small business owners is to set priorities. This means knowing what tasks are the most important and must be done first. You can use sales productivity tools to help you set priorities and organize. Some factors you may want to consider when setting priorities include: The urgency of the task The importance of the task The time it will take to complete the task Your energy levels Take Breaks It’s important to take breaks throughout the day to rejuvenate and refuel. This will help you avoid burnout and maintain a high level of productivity. Some ideas for taking breaks include: Going for a walk Taking a nap Reading or listening to music Spending time with family or friends Create a Routine Having a daily routine can help you stay focused and on track when you know what tasks need to be done and when it’s easier to get them done. Some things you may want to include in your daily routine include: Wake up at the same time each day Exercise Eat healthy meals Set aside time for work Set aside time for relaxation Go to bed at the same time each night Set Boundaries It’s important to set boundaries between work and life. This means knowing when to stop working and take a break. Otherwise, you may find yourself working all the time and not enjoying your life outside work. Get Enough Sleep Sleep is essential for maintaining a high level of productivity. When you’re well-rested, you have more energy and focus on getting things done. Some tips for getting enough sleep include: Going to bed and waking up at the same time each day Creating a bedtime routine avoiding caffeine before bed avoiding electronics before bed sleeping in a dark, quiet room What are Productivity Tools? When looking into getting more productive, many clients struggle. And that’s understandable. Being productive on your own can be a struggle. Most productivity coaches have their own toolbox of productivity tools they recommend. These tools range from time-tracking assistants to organization aides and prioritization calendars. Here are a few: RescueTime RescueTime is a time-tracking tool that helps you track how you spend your time. You can use RescueTime to: Set goals for yourself See where you’re spending most of your time Get insights into your productivity Find out which activities are distracting you from work Block distracting websites Prioritize Prioritize is a tool that helps you set priorities and get organized. You can use Prioritize to: See all of your tasks in one place Set priorities for your tasks Get reminders for upcoming deadlines Track your progress over time Share your task list with others Get insights into your productivity Integrate with other productivity tools Fiverr Fiverr is a service that helps you delegate and outsource tasks. You can use Fiverr to: Find freelancers to do work for you Get help with social media, marketing, design, and more Save time by delegating tasks Get insights into your productivity Pay only for the work you need Evernote Evernote is a tool that helps you take notes, save ideas, and get organized. You can use Evernote to: Save notes, ideas, and snippets Access your notes from anywhere Get organized with notebooks and tags Share notes and collaborate with others Find anything fast with a search Save time with templates Get insights into your productivity Integrate with other productivity tools Todoist Todoist is a task management tool that helps you keep track of your to-do list. You can use Todoist to: Set priorities and due dates for your tasks Get reminders for upcoming deadlines Track your progress over time What is the Importance of Productivity Tools? Now that you have a good idea of some extremely important time-saving tools to put extra minutes on your clock, let’s take some time to consider some additional benefits of Productivity tools. They Help you Save Time The whole point of sales productivity tools is to help you save time. You can do more in less time by automating, delegating, and organizing your work. Saving time means being able to: Get more work done Spend more time on things you enjoy Have a better work-life balance They Help you be more Organized Being organized can help you be more productive. When you have a system in place for your work, it’s easier to get things done. Some benefits of being more organized include: Knowing where everything is Having a plan for your work Being able to find things quickly Avoiding overlap and duplication Being able to see your progress Feeling less stressed Organizations can also help you: Make better use of your time Meet deadlines Get more done in less time They Help you Focus Productivity tools can also help you focus on your work. You can get more done in less time by blocking distractions and helping you stay on task. Some benefits of better focus include: – Being able to concentrate for longer periods – Avoiding burnout – Getting more done in less time – Feeling less stressed – Having a better work-life balance Tips for Staying Focused – Set priorities for your tasks – Break down big projects into smaller tasks – Use a timer to focus on specific periods – Take breaks regularly – Avoid multitasking – Eliminate distractions Productivity tools can help you be more productive by automating tasks, organizing your work, and helping you focus on your work. Some benefits of being more productive include: Getting more done in less time Having a better work-life balance Feeling less stressed Having more time for things you enjoy They help you get Insight into your Productivity Many productivity tools include features that help you track your progress and get insights into your work. Some benefits of getting insights into your productivity include: Seeing where you need to make improvements Identifying areas of wasted time Finding ways to be more efficient Setting goals for your productivity Tracking your progress over time Tips for Getting Insights Into Your Productivity Use a productivity tracker to track your progress Set up weekly or monthly reports to track your productivity over time Look for patterns in your work habits They help you Integrate with other Productivity Tools Productivity tools often integrate with other productivity tools. This can help you save time by automating tasks and avoiding duplication. Some benefits of integrating with other productivity tools include: Having all of your work in one place Saving time by not having to switch between tools Having a more seamless workflow They help you Manage your Team’s Productivity If you have a team, productivity tools can help you manage your team’s work. Some benefits of managing your team’s productivity include: Having an overview of your team’s work Tracking progress on projects Identifying areas of wasted time Finding ways to improve efficiency As a small business owner, there are a lot of things you need to juggle. Letting your productivity slip from managing your team to meeting deadlines is easy. But by using productivity tools, you can make your life much easier. Productivity tools can help you be more organized, focus on your work, and be more productive. They can also help you get insights into your work and integrate it with other productivity tools. And if you have a team, they can help you manage your team’s productivity. So if you’re looking to increase your productivity, check out some of the best productivity tools for small businesses. You can also consider getting the help of a productivity coach who will develop effective strategies to help you make your business more productive. You’ll be glad you did. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Janifer! Janifer Wheeler, Senior Level Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine After retiring from teaching, Janifer Wheeler realized she had a bigger calling. She now brings her 20+ years of experience in education to the production industry to help entrepreneurs and teams find the proverbial work-life balance by following her JOYfully method. She’s also founded The JOYFully BadAss Academy, where they teach people how not only to do more but enjoy every minute of their workday — without taking any excuses or guilt home with them either (we know what it’s like). Give me 30 days, you won’t regret it! Click here to learn more.

Written by: Jen Barnes, Executive Contributor Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise. Are you a nurse who: Collapses on the couch after shifts with no energy for anything except binging on Netflix and scrolling through social media Knows you need to exercise, sleep and eat well but you just can't get yourself to do it Doesn’t know how to feel better when the system you work in is so broken and doesn’t seem to care about you or how they treat you If this sounds familiar, your body is protecting you in the best way it knows how from a problem that isn’t going away. It is shutting you down. I get why you are doing these things. When we feel beat up, exhausted, and unheard with no end in sight it is natural to shut down. In fact, in the face of a threat that doesn’t seem to be going away, numbing, disconnecting, and shutting down is how our body protects us. But the problem is, the natural tendencies we have in this shutdown state like binging Netflix and scrolling social media don’t really help us. They actually make us feel worse. They interrupt our sleep and steal time away from things that will help us feel better. And, they keep us from connecting with others so our supportive relationships feel out of reach or unhelpful because we’re too disconnected to take it in. To be able to do the things you know would help you, first, you need to shift out of this shutdown response. There are several ways to do this but today I will share three options to work with and identify if any of these are a fit for you. Before we explore these strategies, it is important to assess if it is safe enough to shift out of this shutdown state. Sometimes we genuinely need this response to protect us from what is happening. This may be particularly true if your home environment is unsafe in addition to the stressors you face at work. When we don’t need to be shut down or being shut down is no longer effective, we can try some of these practices to shift out of this state when it is safe enough to do so. It is important to note that sometimes when we shift out of this shutdown state, we may find ourselves in our fight or flight response. So I will review a tool we’ve practiced previously to help us shift out of that state as needed and into the ventral vagal state where we can rest and digest and where it is safe enough to connect. What most people do from this shutdown state, is do things that amplify or match the shutdown state. They may numb out with food, alcohol, sex, their phone, or in some other way. But the problem is, they will continue to be shutdown and feel disconnected and will struggle to feel good. And because of that, they numb and shut down further, never really feeling good enough to solve the problems they face. So I am about to share how to get out of that shutdown cycle so you can do the things you know will help you or have the wherewithal to find them. Since the shutdown state protects through immobilization, to get out of this state you need to engage in any movement at all. One way to do this is to go for a walk. This walk can be around the hospital or clinic, outside around the block, or even on a treadmill. The point is to get your body moving to stimulate the vagus nerve. Another option is to rock in a rocking chair. To keep the chair rocking, you will need to move your body again stimulating the vagus nerve. You may be thinking: “But what if I have collapsed on the couch and just can’t get up?” In that case, you can visualize movement. Even visualizing movement can stimulate the vagus nerve and help you shift out of the shutdown response. So visualize yourself going for a walk, dancing, swimming, riding your bike, or doing some other activity you enjoy. If after you do one of these things, you notice some restlessness, anxiety, anger, or other agitation, you likely bumped into your fight or flight response. In that case, you need to apply a strategy to help you return to the ventral vagal state where you can rest, digest, and feel safe enough to connect. I’m about to share one way to shift out of the fight-or-flight response. Since the fight-or-flight response is protection through movement, fluid movement with breath can shift you out of this state into the ventral vagal response. Volcano breathing, a technique from Yoga Calm, is a simple and effective way to do this and tends to be a crowd favorite. Take a moment to try it now. Either seated or standing place your palms together in front of your sternum. As you inhale reach your arms overhead As you exhale move your arms down around, by your sides, and back together in front of your sternum REPEAT at least three times. PAUSE and notice how you feel. Now you know how to get yourself moving from that shutdown response. This will open the door for you to be able to apply other tools you have to feel better or be open to learning more. If this was helpful for you, DM me the phrase “I’m UP” on Instagram. If you’re wanting to learn more helpful tools to address the chronic stress you face, I’ve created a complimentary workshop just for you. In How to Recover From Chronic Stress and Build Resilience in Nursing we will explore the four necessary steps for recovering from chronic stress and building resilience in nursing so you can feel good in your body, enjoy your life, and maybe even love nursing again. Be sure to sign up today to reserve your spot. Even if you can’t make it live, sign up to gain access to the video recording. Since I am a LICSW and this workshop will help you grow in your nursing practice by building resilience, you may be able to use this workshop for continuing education credits. For $19, upon completing a brief quiz demonstrating that you learned the key points of the workshop, I will send you a certificate of attendance to be used for continuing education. Sign up here today. Click this link. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Jen! Jen Barnes, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine Jen Barnes is a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker in private practice in Minneapolis, MN. She specializes in complex trauma, PTSD, stress, and grief. The daughter and sister of nurses, she has a passion for empowering nurses to build resilience. She has worked with nurses 1:1 hoping to expand her reaching to a broader audience. In 2021 she completed the Dare to Lead certificate program in order to more effectively address organizational challenges in healthcare. Most recently, she spoke at the American Association of Critical Care Nurses’s 2022 NTI conference on Building Resilience in Nursing.

Written by: Rylee June, Executive Contributor Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise. Oftentimes in the new age spiritual communities and within many spiritual practices meditation, journaling, silence, and energy healing is recommended to be able to better connect with your intuition. The truth is that though those methods may welcome some form of temporary clarity they are not a long-term solution for you to be able to understand the difference between an intuitive download and a thought of fear that may trigger anxiety unless you can understand these 3 things we are about to talk about. Before all else you have to understand what your intuition even is. Your intuition is the language of your soul, the language of your energy and the energy that surrounds you through relationships, your body, desires, money, experiences, global connections and everything in between. When working with clients their number one desire to connect to their intuition is to overcome their past wounds, challenges and limiting beliefs to be able to find their purpose. Your purpose can only be found from within you, which requires these 3 understandings, and a deeply rooted connection to faith. Because even in understanding these 3 things for yourself will only ever get you so far, you will always be subjected to some level of self-limitation based on your beliefs, current environment and what information you subject yourself to. 1. Awareness Of Thoughts The first thing you need to understand to be able to connect more clearly to your intuition is the awareness of your thoughts. Humans have between 30,000-60,000 thoughts per day, it is impossible to focus on all of them, but the ones we tend to think about and focus on are the ones that are based on a specific energetic pattern our bodies are used to being in. A state of being your brain expects to experience without hesitation. Your thoughts are what fuel your experiences, perception and reality in life. Scientifically there are patterns that take place within and beyond any energetic experience you are having at every given moment of time. Becoming conscious of the thoughts you are focusing on will grant you access to WHY you are experiencing your life in the way that you are and begin the process of allowing you to more deeply understand to differentiate between the voice of fear and the voice of intuition guiding you to better experiences, changes and deeper healing in your life today. Study on thought awareness - particularly scroll to the section of Open Monitoring Receptive Practice 2. Emotional Intelligence When it comes to your intuition your emotions play a big role in helping to guide into experiences and memories that have disconnected you from trusting in the guidance that is coming through for you. Emotions are energy in motion, they show up to guide you like a GPS to what is really going on behind the thoughts you are thinking. Take a person who is afraid of ghosts for example and a person who is not. If both enter a haunted house one will have thoughts of fear and a reaction emotionally to anxiety, where the other one will likely be affected very little and not experience an emotional reaction other than maybe a sense of curiosity or neutrality. However, intuitively regardless of the fear or lack of fear, from either person intuitively both will be able to feel something energetically that each one will process slightly differently. The person who is more anxious and in fear will be more hyper vigilant than the other person, making them more susceptible to feeling the energy of the room at a higher rate than the other person. Especially since there has been a stigma placed on this haunted house, even if no one has seen ghosts in this house or not. Assuming there have been other people who have enforced energetically that there is a reason to fear this space, and the person more hyper vigilant will equally feel that on a more inclined rate. HOWEVER, regardless of the fear or not, the emotions being expressed and experienced are both guiding each person inward to understand something more deeper about their emotional experience. For the anxious person it may be a sense of self mastery to overcome fear for the other person is may be a deeper sense of empowerment to know they conquer irrational fears and this may be something they can apply to themselves in another area of their life that is like a “ghost” but they are seeing it as a bigger challenge than it is. Our emotions are always trying to show us something deeper within, a consciousness, understanding or story that is dictating our lives in some way, what triggers those emotions may be rational or irrational to the very circumstance you face, or may actually just be the trigger for something else happening in your life. That is why awareness of your thoughts are so powerful to help you explore and navigate this on a deeper level. In part helping you to be able to identify and understand what your intuition is picking up on and reading in terms of energy in any given situation. View Study On Emotional Regulation (Scroll to this section 3. Faith Believe it or not this is the most important one. In new age spirituality teachings there is often a heavy emphasis on faith but from a place of “just choose one” (universe, guides, angels.. etc) and ultimately what one is left to do is then settle with the one that brings the most comfort or validates them in that moment. In order to trust you must have faith, and without faith you are left to your own demise at every turn because a person can only see what they want to see, or are willing to see in a given experience. Through studying the results of my clients and the transformations that have happened in myself the one common theme to my clients having greater success in their desired changes, their ability to trust, their ability to forgive, let go, heal and move forward with a deeper sense of purpose was vastly different between those who chose the God of the Bible and those who closed their mind to only connections that were more universal. Faith is something that has to be disciplined, it is not something we come by honestly, as there are tons of reasons throughout life that present us with the opportunity to not have faith in better outcomes or results. Faith is fundamental to life, especially when you turn yourself to one source that holds you accountable to your thoughts, actions, display of person and the way that you live your life. It doesn’t always make that truth and guidance comfortable, which it shouldn’t anyways, but is always guaranteed to challenge you in a way that helps you to see greater than where you are or who you are in that moment. Your intuition will come through to guide you in directions, thoughts and experiences that oftentimes can not guarantee the desired outcome, but what it can do with faith is help you to move through and beyond no matter what the outcome is. 3 things to start doing today: When your emotions are triggered in anyway less than neutral Begin observing your thoughts of what could be perpetuating that emotional experience Practice devotional time with God through his word (not the ideas of who you think he is, there is an actual book to reference) and let the voice of your creator be your guide for trusting in the direction your intuition is taking you today, and equally each day for the rest of your life. It gets clearer and clearer every time you tune in, practice and keep moving forward. To learn more about my work and how you can become more intuitively connected check out my podcast ‒ Intuitively Connected. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Rylee! Rylee June, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine Rylee June is an international Intuition Master Coach and spiritual activator. Supporting thousands across the world in healing their trauma and limiting beliefs, as well mentoring and coaching those who offer energy services in curating ethical and deep transformative experiences for their clients. Podcast Host, Self Published Author & a pioneer in her industry, Rylee June is here to take a stand in the spiritual industry and create ethical practices for those seeking energy and life transformation support.

Written by: Jane Parmel, Executive Contributor Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise. We’ve all heard them – those sayings about being part of a team. “There’s no ‘I’ in Team” “Team Up with…” “Teamwork makes the dream work” “Don’t change a winning team!” So many business owners are “one-man” or “one-woman” shows. They are the one with the vision, the ideas, the knowledge about what needs to be done, the “work ethic”, the connections, the opportunities, the money. These four quotes form a framework to see how creating your Advisory Team can change your business by accepting advice built on the experience of others: “There’s no ‘I’ in Team” You may have wanted to be “the person in charge” but after some time of working or struggling in business, that thinking gets old and can affect the business or organization on the whole. Yes, you are the boss but another quote plays into that mindset as well – “With great power comes great responsibility”. To truly succeed in business, you need to build a team. This team can be a behind the scenes workforce curated specifically for your needs in your business brought together by YOU! “Team Up with…” Connect with the people you already work with but on a higher level. Successful entrepreneurs build an advisory board of subject matter experts (SME’s) to provide the expertise and guidance needed to propel business growth and profitability. Advisory boards consist of professionals such as an attorney, accountants, marketing experts, payroll providers, and a banker. Independent Consultants are like SME’s on steroids – they specialize in certain aspects of business, and some are even pinpoint focused on subject matter specific to a certain industry, or a certain population being served. Small business coaches and consultants broaden perspectives and can work with you (Coach) or for you (Consultant) to help encourage and/or implement change. “Don’t change a winning team!” Remember that movie whose main character said, “Greed was good”? We have a better one – “Change is magnificent!” Here’s why: Change is the greatest filter in the world. Some people embrace it and do it well while others bolt at the thought of changing their socks! In your business or organization, implementing change will produce different results. Change brings about a clearing out of old processes, additional evaluation of existing staff, acceptance by your audience, and room for higher revenues. Opening up to the possibilities that exist is the first start in exponentially growing your business but with a team to advise, those opportunities may be lost while you work. “Teamwork makes the dream work” The bottom line is the bottom line. You are the boss with one set of eyes. Your staff provides many more sets of eyes, and they are the people doing the actual work, in factories, offices, kitchens and trucks. Your customers provide opportunities for feedback and advertising too. Business coaches and consultants provide strategies and broader outlooks to hone your business vision and mission even further while opening you to the possibilities you may not even have considered. Open up – create your team – be open to input. The changes might just knock you off your feet when you check out your sales at the end of the month! For more information follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and visit my website! Read more from Jane! Jane Parmel, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine Jane Parmel is the founder of Cardinal Profit Strategies, and is a Business Efficiency & Profit Acceleration Specialist. She is a successful entrepreneur, holding certificates in Management Consulting and Entrepreneurship. She is a Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Business Initiative Alum. She provides resources for business owners on several podcasts; she speaks on Business Resilience, Efficiency & Success in Business and Connections. Jane writes for several Business magazines and blogs. Her story on resilience appears in the collaborative book “Voices of the 21st Century: Resilient Women Who Rise & Make a Difference”. Jane wants to help business owners avoid the missteps that often mark a premature end for a business. Her mission is to make more businesses resilient and profitable.

Written by: Dr. Loren Michaels Harris, Executive Contributor Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise. As a child, I heard someone say, "We ride into this life in one vehicle, and we will ride out in that same vehicle." For what has now been sixty incredible years in this 'vehicle,' I can finally say regarding the previous statement; 'I know this much is true!" My vehicle, this body which contains everything I have ever needed to drive from one point within my journey to the next, has traveled a literal plethora of terrain, driven through every type of weather condition possible, and is still (I am happy to report) on the road and moving at a safe and constant speed towards its destination. On July 4, 1962, when my vehicle was driven off of the showroom floor, it appeared to have all the customary bells and whistles; ten perfectly formed fingers, ten perfectly formed toes, big brown eyes that seemed to scan every horizon with hope and inspiration, and an incredibly animated mouth… a mouth that could transform in an instant from a soft and endearing coo to a screaming peel that could make the most seasoned of mechanics swear that there was far too much horsepower under the hood for such a small engine. My vehicle went home that week with its original owner, the registration was in order and the title signed, as this was a cash transaction and the cost of the vehicle had already been paid in full, or so we thought. As fate would have it, I was destined to spend only a few short weeks with my original owner; Lucille. You see, although Lucille had four additional vehicles and had cared for them for many years, she found that possessing a fifth vehicle, her first 1960's model, was proving to be a bit too much to handle, so back to the dealership we went! My second owner (her name was Ada), was a super great mechanic who possessed five additional vehicles herself, and for some reason wanted to try her hand at completing her fleet with me. As I mentioned before, this was a cash deal for Lucille, so for her to transfer this vehicle over to Ada required nothing more than a handshake, a hug perhaps, or maybe there was a knowing glance between these two African American single female collectors that spoke silently to the severity of this transfer of title. I don't know if in this life I will ever truly understand exactly how things went down that day, or perhaps it was night, even that I will never know, but what I do know is that for the next eleven years I was parked safely on the property of Ada who did her best to provide me the best she had to offer. In the blink of an eye, the course of my destination was critically altered when Ada's vehicle decided to conk out. I guess her engine could not be repaired because after that day, I only saw her one other time and that was to say goodbye. In total, this vehicle of mine was cared for, maintained by, and even in some cases… used as the getaway car by twenty-two different women. I know this much is true; that was then, and this is now. Today, as I look back through the maintenance records, the traffic citations, the insurance claims, etc., in other words; 'the paperwork associated with my journey thus far, it is easier to understand why it took nearly fifty years to go out and procure my own Kelly Blue Book. See here's the deal, in my twenties, I drove everywhere out of fear and desperation. I drove like a bat out of hell (literally). I allowed my tires to bald (and eventually my hair followed suit, but that's another story). I allowed all my vital fluid levels to drop, and my wiper blades were for shit. Do you get the picture? I simply did not value vehicle upkeep, I was young, and the world owed me, so fuck it…ride this bitch until the wheels fall off. And fall off they did. In my thirties (which I never thought I would live to see), I continued my careless off-roading, I picked up tons of hitchhikers, I would loan my vehicle out to strangers, and I never gave it a second thought because after all, it's not like I'm going to live into my forties anyway! In my thirties, I skip-traced my way back to Lucille, my original owner. I distinctly remember thinking; "This is it, now that I have been reunited with my original owner, I'll finally be back to my shiny showroom floor self!" I could not have been more wrong. Sometimes when we think we are beginning to care, that is when we realize the fear. The fear we possess regarding finally looking beneath the hood of our vehicles. This fuel of fear is causing every single function within our vehicles to fail. It took me well into my forties to realize the damage I had endured due to a series of fender benders, rear endings, you name it. I looked finally at my dashboard and realized that the fuel light was on, and there were maintenance alerts all over the place, alerts that somehow, I had never noticed before. I hit my fifties with my pedal to the metal! I am determined to raise the blue book value of my journey. I am dedicated to using my high beams to finally illuminate the terrain, and for the first time in all the time I have been on the road, I find myself admiring the sleek design of my vehicle. One day I catch a glimpse of my fresh paint job in a window I am passing and suddenly, just like that, it all makes sense, I have officially become a classic! How could I have ever known that one day the world would be thirsty to learn from the story of this vehicle how to create their own Divine Design, how to become yes, you guessed it, a classic? Yet today, that is exactly the reality of my vehicle. I drive for a living now. I guess you could say that although I am a classic, I am not one of those vehicles that remain in storage most of the year, only getting out into the world at large once, maybe twice per year. We all know those types of 'Classics' who love when admirers come to them but are not so keen on road trips themselves. I use my vehicle today in much the way one sees an Uber or Lyft: a great way to get somewhere. But I need to get back to the point in this story where we were discussing maintenance records. Remember I mentioned I seemed to have all of the paperwork that would allow me to piece together memories from all of the neighborhoods I have driven through, parked in, or escaped from? The records allowed me to find my way back to my original owner. The story was placed back within context after so many years of "versions" running the show. The healing was unleashed the moment I found the maintenance records. On July 4, 2022, this vehicle turned sixty years old. If I had a chance to go back in time and change anything about my journey or how I cared for my vehicle, would I? How many of us have spent countless hours perhaps days, weeks, years even, asking ourselves that very question? Ten years ago, I would have had a mile-long list of reasons for the many mistakes I thought I had made in life. Ten years ago, I would have told you that no matter what you try to do to get to that place in life where you are valued, it won't happen! Ten years ago, this vehicle was out of alignment. Remember back in the day, the take your hands off the wheel test? We would do that to test how the vehicle would react, would it swerve to one side or the other? Would the vehicle stay true and remain within its lane? If you have ever attempted this test of removing your hands from the steering wheel, then you already know; it can be the most thrilling thing when the vehicle remains true to its lane and does not falter in either direction. And you most surely also know that it can just as easily be terrifying if the vehicle should suddenly swerve to the left into oncoming traffic, or to the right just when there is no guardrail, and a thousand-foot drop is inevitable. Having the courage to take our hands off the wheel is found buried deep within the desire to live our best life. Having the courage to pour over the maintenance records of our journeys is nestled within the confines of a thirsty soul. Having the courage to acknowledge and then celebrate the entire trip log is waiting within the healing of forgiveness. Having the courage to 'become' is guaranteed within your birthright known as a legacy. Anything that does not serve you must go! Keep your vehicle in alignment with purpose. Whatever you say, mean it and it shall become meaningful somewhere in the Universe. Never forget, you rode into this life as a classic, you can ride out as an even greater version of the original, but only if you write your blue book, show the world your worth, and leave the world your value. Live with your tank full. Die with your tank empty. This is Purpose! I know this much is true! Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Dr. Loren Michaels Harris, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine Dr. Loren Michaels Harris strives to motivate, inspire, and uplift every person that crosses his path. Loren is the host of the daily interview talk show, Bathrobe Moments, and is featured on the e360tv Network, where Loren is also an Executive Producer. Loren has been heard on Larry King Live and NPR Radio, seen on ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, and FOX. Loren has been featured on the covers of multiple magazines and has been featured within PEOPLE Magazine.

Written by: Anna Frummerin, Executive Contributor Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise. Did you know that the difference in the quality of people’s lives often comes down to the quality of the questions they consistently ask themselves? If you ask a disempowering question, such as “Why does this always happen to me?” your subconscious mind may even make something up, such as “Because you aren’t good enough” or “Because you are not smart enough.” If you’re wondering why it works like that, it is because our subconscious mind is a proving mechanism. Whatever we constantly affirm to ourselves, the subconscious finds proof to show us that it is true. This negative self-talk will only prevent you from uncovering how to reconnect with yourself. But, if you start asking yourself empowering questions, such as “What can I learn from this mistake I made?” your brain will look for answers to this question and often come up with an answer that not only makes you feel better but allows you to celebrate and reconnect with your true self. This is why asking quality questions is so important. Because quality questions create a quality life. They direct our mental focus and ultimately determine how we think and feel. The key is to develop a pattern of questions that empower your true nature. For example, focus on quality questions such as: What am I most happy about in my life now? What am I most excited about in my life now? What am I most proud about in my life now? What am I most grateful about in my life now? What am I enjoying most in my life right now? What am I committed to in my life right now? Who do I love? By making quality questions part of your daily ritual, you will be able to access your most empowering emotional states. And over time, as you consistently practice doing so, you will be able to empower yourself emotionally and create mental blueprints to happiness, excitement, pride, gratitude, joy, commitment and love — which is who you are at your core. If you like this article and would like to learn more about how I could help you overcome your challenges and shape the life you love, follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, or visit my website for more info! Read more from Anna! Anna Frummerin, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine Anna Frummerin is a Leadership & Mindset Coach with a core focus on helping her clients achieve results by enhancing their mindset and improving their communication. As a 4-time cancer survivor, she has discovered through her own life experience what it takes to win in life no matter what the challenges are. She is a Certified NLP Leadership Coach, ICF Certified Executive, Life Coach, and Action Learning Team Coach and has dedicated her life to helping others become the best version of them. She is the founder of A New Approach (ANA) – An online coaching and training company serving clients across the globe. Her mission: Discover the "Hidden Champion" inside and win big at The Game of Life.

Written by: Anna London, Executive Contributor Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise. Chrysallis.AI is an education platform that uses machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) to adjust curriculums to the pace of individual students. The platform utilizes fluid analytics, adaptive learning, and gamification to make STEAM and Cyber Security education fun and more impactful. This also makes the platform more engaging by offering alternative education models that are specific to each student, increasing the odds that they finish modules and can demonstrate understanding of the concepts. Keeping data unbiased with diverse data, especially when it comes to machine learning. Good data in, good data out. Machine learning requires a great deal of data input learned over time so in our case with our Metaversity platform, we have a diverse set of beta testers representing students and users from all racial and ethnic backgrounds, age ranges, genders et al to ensure we are capturing a collective of information the machine can learn from to adapt and adjust to each individual students learning pace and needs. While the technology has many applications in different industries, synthetic media is gearing up to be one of its most significant transformations yet, especially in education. These capabilities have led to impressive new applications for AI-powered systems in recent years — including video games, autonomous cars and drones, facial recognition, and more. But they've also raised concerns about potential privacy breaches and ethical dilemmas. Therefore, from the moment the concept is born and fingers hit the keyboard, code must undergo static and ongoing dynamic code analysis using CAST or another OWASP-approved tool that can identify certain well-known vulnerabilities, such as Buffer overflows, SQL injection flaws, and XSS and highlight problematic code that may lead to operational concerns or lack of functionality to users and keep data secure. Follow me on Instagram, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Anna! Anna London, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine Anna London is an US Army Veteran, Colon Cancer Survivor, Educator, Cyber Security Expert, Entrepreneur.

Aivars Oreniss is founder and CEO of RaodBird. Aivars is originally from Latvia, where he lived until he was 26. While in Latvia, he started multiple construction, agriculture, and automotive companies. At the age of 26, he moved to Stockholm and started a fleet management company which later helped to develop the concept for the RaodBird fleet management software platform. Aivars Oreniss, Founder and CEO RaodBird Introduce yourself! Please tell us about you and your life, so we can get to know you better. My name is Aivars Oreniss, I am married to Liene Orenisa, we have two dogs - Bruno (Jack Russel Terrier) and Jojo (Russkij Toy Terrier) and just recently we got our first baby boy Oliver. I was born in Madona, Latvia and I grew up in the countryside and went to a small elementary school there. My mom has been a dairy farmer all of her life and my dad was a truck driver and supply manager for an agriculture land drainage building company. My dad died when I was 4 and my sister was 2 years old. We grew up with our mum and uncle. At age of 15 I went to Riga to study computer sciences at a professional high school/college. My first job at 17 was to run a music studio which was started by two of my cousins. The Studio offered practice space and equipment for small bands which I had to sell to those services. It was my first “cold calling” experience where I had to find some first 100 leads and call them and make them book practice times. We typically charged some 5-7€ per hour then for those services. I did it well and in a couple of months the studio was fully booked. Over time I was involved in a couple of other ventures with my cousins. At 19 I started a construction and services company which In the beginning took jobs from general enterprises and grew the portfolio with accomplishments to be able to participate in tenders ourselves. And I also started studying Finance at University, but I dropped out after my first study year. By the age of 22, we worked mostly with government entities directly and built small scale projects in sewage systems, water pipelines, road construction and similar projects. Two years later, I had full-scale construction company with some 70 employees at its peak and we were doing over 1M € in annual revenues. Which was quite impressive for a self made 24-year-old. Unfortunately, the young age, mistakes and dark business environment drove me out of that business and the company went irrecoverably insolvent and I decided to start over everything and by the end of April 2015 me and my today’s wife Liene moved to Sweden. It took me 1 day to get a personal id number in Stockholm and 3 months to get a Taxi license, even though I almost couldn’t speak Swedish. I have been always very fast learner and it’s always been easy to pick up new skills for me. First year I was just driving Uber and one year later I secured Taxi Business license and started my own fleet management company. By the end of 2019 I had 3 cars and some 10 drivers working on different employment grades. Then Covid-19 came and I started thinking about making the app to manage my fleet. Because it was always a lot of work associated with administration. I found developers which could help me but it was not possible to justify the development costs for that small scale business like I had. Then I started RoadBird. What is your business name and how do you help your clients? RoadBird is now a software platform which helps fleet managers like myself to manage their fleet and connect them with drivers. The platform does everything related to driver administration, efficiency and productivity tracking. The platform collects the data from revenue data sources, telematics data sources and shifts data sources. We are able to very accurately track driver efficiency and their performance, which is one of the biggest challenges for fleet managers because earnings sources are not able to provide those data on their own, and it becomes even harder to track everything when there are multiple drivers operating the same vehicle using multiple ride hailing platforms. We have built a system which is able to manage large network of drivers and have hundreds of cars under management, the onboarding process is fully digitalised and it will be fully automated over time. The platform is able to track the efficiency and fulfilment of the drivers. Ee also track if they’re properly operating the taximeter and reporting damages to cars. We have training content of 8 different series which helps them in all those different aspects of operations. What kind of audience do you target your business towards? The target audience is fleet managers which run taxi fleets and our platform also enables fleet sourcing from rental fleets. Other group is drivers which want to work as drivers under mobility platforms. What are your current goals for your business? Launching the platform and scaling to the first 100 cars. Raising our pre-seed round of funding and generating productive KPIs for further growth. What would you like to achieve for yourself and your business in the future? I would like to scale RoadBird to have hundreds of thousands of cars under management. Yo launched the platform in all the largest cities around Europe initially. I want to organise my life in a way that I can comfortably run my business and develop my ideas into real business. I see great opportunity into the electrification of transportation and it’s potentially a niche where I will spend most of my professional life and career. I want to be able to help my family and to keep close contact with my immediate family and support them. By my nature I am a very practical and creative problem solver with this naturally gifted entrepreneurial spirit. Who inspires you to be the best that you can be? Successful people. Steve Jobs, Mike Markula, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos are the names that inspire me most. There are many others which I like a lot but these are people which I truly respect. What is your work inspired by? Just because I know that things can be done much better than they’re done now… Tell us about your greatest career achievement so far. It’s RoadBird, although it is still a very early stage company, but the way it’s foundation is built it makes it really possible to achieve the vision we are going after and even much more. It’s much harder than it sounds but I am very optimistic that it will be a very successful company. If you could change one thing about your industry, what would it be and why? Ride hailing Pricing algorithms for inefficient trips. They use linear calculation principles which are inefficient for fleet managers for all trips more than 30 km away from cities. We will make proper software to solve this, but adoption by third party platforms is a challenging business development question. If we succeed the mobility platforms will be available countrywide and it will improve their performance and driver engagement to completely another level. Tell us about a pivotal moment in your life that brought you to where you are today. That was possibly the decision to move from Latvia to Sweden. My life would have been different if I had stayed. I am really happy that I took this decision, although it wasn’t emotionally easy. It took approximately 3 years to adapt to change but my life is much better organised, I am much more mature and spiritually stronger than I was before. Follow me on LinkedIn for more info!

Written by: Caroline Lewis, Executive Contributor Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise. We are all living through a time of Great Turning. The Great Turning is an incredible phase in our Earth’s history when humans steer away from an industrial growth society and towards a life-sustaining society not just for humans but for all living species and our Planet. Joanna Macy and Molly Brown describe this through “The Work that Reconnects.” This turning is now taking place, and sensitive people are already witnessing and contributing to this time in our Earth’s history. In the beginning stages of the Great Turning, life can feel more unstable as old models and structures that have supported a society scaffolded by the outdated growth-for-profit agenda begin to crumble. As more and more people turn away from what is no longer working, and turn towards new socially and ecologically just ways of cohabiting our planet, a huge shift in our Earth’s history occurs. A new cosmology of the Earth that is both old and new replaces the existing story of colonization and domination over nature, and humans and the non-human world (animals, plants, watersheds, ecosystems) heal fractured relationships with one another in order to live in a future of reciprocity and compassion. “In the story of the Great Turning, what’s catching on is a commitment to act for the sake of life on Earth as well as the vision, courage, and solidarity to do so. Social and technical innovations converge, mobilizing people’s energy, attention, creativity, and determination in what Paul Hawken describes as ‘the largest social movement in history.’ In his book Blessed Unrest, he writes: “I soon realized that my initial estimate of 100,000 organizations was off by at least a factor of ten, and I now believe there are over one – and maybe even two — million organizations working towards ecological sustainability and social justice.” https://workthatreconnects.org/ Why Emergent Sensitive Leadership is necessary “In the past, changing the self and changing the world were often regarded as separate endeavors and viewed in either-or terms. But in the story of the Great Turning, they are recognized as mutually reinforcing and essential to one another.” — Joanna Macy Highly sensitive folks often care deeply about the state of the world and the future of the planet. They are highly creative and artistic, entrepreneurial, or/and are in healing and helping professions. HSPs have open hearts and often find themselves supporting others in their relationships and in work environments. Highly sensitive and compassionate people from diverse backgrounds, races, ethnicities, lineages, gender identities, and sexual orientations who rise to leadership in their own lives and in their communities play a significant role in our hope for a more sustainable and ecologically just future. Wildly Sensitive Leadership is the Path Forward. However, empaths need support in knowing how to lead their lives from a grounded place instead of one sprouting from overwhelm and anxiety that is a result of a lifetime of heteropatriarchy, societal pressures, and conditionings. They need support from the community, safe spaces to grieve, adventures to inspire them, ancient intuitive knowledge from the land and their ancestors, and the deepest and most soulful connection to the Earth that has long been forgotten by capitalism, patriarchy, and white supremacy. The sensitive ones who have the courage to cultivate reciprocal relationships in community and with the Earth while leading from their hearts and intuition are necessary for embodying a new path forward away from a status quo and the heteropatriarchal standard that is not sustainable for humans and our precious non-human world. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Caroline! Caroline Lewis, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine Caroline Lewis (she,they) is a psychotherapist, energy healer, and wilderness guide. She believes true embodied joy is rooted in the courage to embrace sensitivity, opening our hearts through the necessary risks to love, grieve, hope, and transform. Through healing and sacred nature connection, Caroline guides wildly sensitive leaders with aligning with their true purpose and souls' wisdom during this time of ecological transition. She is the founder of Root Awareness which offers transformative experiences through nature adventures, meditation, process groups, and 1:1 healing and coaching sessions.