Coaching Changes Your Life By Changing How You Think.

This past month: I almost broke. Starting with my leg, which actually broke. It has been a roller coaster of experiences that I am still maneuvering.

Back in August, David and I had booked and planned out a Birthday/Fall Break trip to Spain. His birthday and mine are 2 weeks apart and right around the Fall Break week. It was to be his first experience in Western Europe, and our birthday present.

Then, 6 days before we were supposed to leave, I fell and broke both bones in my lower leg. Like really, really broke them, badly. Like call in a specialist bad. The specialist said I was a 50/50 chance for needing surgery. He said in 3 days to come back, he'd see how they were healing and if I would indeed need surgery.

Three days later, we go in to the hospital. In the meantime, David and I had been looking at how to cancel the trip with least amount of financial loss. He was not going to leave me at home alone, so going without me wasn't an option.

Can I first say how grateful I am to be on this coaching journey! There is so much power in thought work. I was able to turn my thoughts around and not let my broken leg break me. I was able to quickly pull out of - *@$! now we can't go - to 'hey, people with disabilities travel all the time, who am I to say 'oh poor me''. The voice of reason was played by David this time, he was like, ok but how. So, we started looking at how feasible having me go on the trip would be.

Shout out to Spain for having two of the Top 10 accessable cities in Europe, Madrid (6) and Barcelona (1)! Those were the two cities we had already booked to go to. Ok, so, airports, busses, trains? Were they doable? Turns out, yes, airports and airlines are actually very willing to provide assistance, and we found everyone to be nice, helpful, and friendly; not to mention all the cool gadgets there are to get wheelchairs through airports and onto planes.

If I had never coached myself and managed my mind, we would have been out all that money AND the a wonderful experience.

Was it easy? No, but not as hard as you'd think. To be honest, I spent a fair amount of time in our accommodations to give David a break from having to push me, but we got out for breakfast each morning and were able to get in a day of sight seeing together in both cities.

We were able to share this wonderful week, that not only gave us a tourist experience, but really opened our understanding to the difficulties faced by people in wheelchairs or otherwise needing assisstance.

The Bottom Line: It is easy to find the negative, to worry and stress over the unknown. It is what our brains are designed to do best. But, we can train our brain to think differently than we used to, to bypass the inner naysayer. We can look for alternate possibilities, and end up having a beautiful experience rather than a defeating one.

Do you need help breaking through negative cycles? Do you keep running into one snag after another in feeling like your expat life is living up to your expectations?

Let's work together to get you there!