What Is Self-Love And Why Does It Matter?

Self-love means that you accept yourself fully, treat yourself with kindness and respect, and nurture your growth and wellbeing.

Self-love encompasses not only how you treat yourself but also your thoughts and feelings about yourself. When you love yourself, you have an overall positive view of yourself.  It allows you to talk to yourself just like you would talk to someone you love, to be comfortable with who you are and to accept ourselves, warts and all.  Learning to being kinder to ourselves when things go wrong increases our enjoyment of life, our resilience and our well-being. It also helps us accept others as they are.

WHAT DOES SELF-LOVE LOOK LIKE?

• Saying positive things to yourself

• Forgiving yourself when you mess up

• Meeting your own needs

• Being assertive

• Not letting others take advantage of or abuse you

• Prioritising your health and wellbeing

• Spending time around people who support you and build you up and avoiding people who don’t

• Asking for help

• Letting go of grudges or anger that holds you back

• Recognising your strengths

• Valuing your feelings

• Making healthy choices most of the time

• Living in accordance with your values

• Pursuing your interests and goals

• Challenging yourself

• Holding yourself accountable

• Giving yourself healthy treats

• Accepting your imperfections

• Setting realistic expectations

• Noticing your progress and effort

WOULD YOU LIKE TO?

• Discover and let go of the limiting thoughts, fears, beliefs, feelings and behaviours that are holding you back

• Unleash your enormous potential and flow through life with brilliance by learning to relate to life in new ways

• Learn to be kinder to yourself and how to turn your inner critic into an inner coach

• Learn powerful tools and techniques to increase our enjoyment of life, our resilience and our well-being

• Learn to accept yourself, to make time to care for yourself

• Learn simple techniques to improve your relationships with yourself and others

• Overcome self-sabotage and stop the dreadful feeling that you are not good enough

• Learn how you can make your inner voice your biggest supporter and source of inspiration

• Accelerate the process of accomplishing your goals

• Learn to be resilient in tough times by mastering your emotions

• Learn to tap into the right kind of energy and vibrations to heal emotional and spiritual trauma

• Enjoy everything that matters most by experiencing more connection, contribution and celebration

Then feel free to contact me for a friendly chat to find out if I can help you to make the most of your life.

Learn to love yourself unconditionally and I promise you will fulfil your greatest potential in any area of your life.

Peace, Love & Light,

Ray Deekes
Self-Love and Happiness Life Coach

A Moment of Reflection

Today I opened my LinkedIn and saw a message that made me have a moment of reflection. It’s been over year since I finally made a life time dream come true: to do what I love to do by creating and developing my own company to help others to find their true potential and live a fulfilling life.

I was very excited to launch my website which I designed myself.  The process of showing my ideas and concepts was a very enjoyable experience as it was full of creativity, learning, passion and dedication. 

Just a month later after officially launching Ray of Light back in February, things started to get very difficult for many people around the world due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s been hard to listen to the news on a daily basis and to stay positive. Job insecurity and fear have added an extra layer of stress to many people’s lives, making them unable to manage this additional pressure. I have friends and acquaintances that are suffering from very high levels of stress and anxiety, some of whom are dependant upon medication to feel they can cope. This is affecting their lives on so many levels (health, relationships, work, etc.).

Speaking of friends, I recently had a fantastic conversation with a close friend who works is a human resources specialist.  During this conversation, she told me that she regularly deals with people suffering with high levels of stress due to experiencing difficulties at work. She always recommends finding a good ‘stress coach’ to help them manage their stress and improve their wellbeing. SADLY, she states that a very small percentage of stressed people actually take action. Furthermore, a recent UK psychologist study revealed that only one out of ten people needing professional support actually take action and get help. A common strategy is to suppress emotions, increasing reliance on alcohol, smoking, food, caffeine, etc.  We live in a quick fix society, which advertising thrives on BUT these quick fixes do not make the problem go away. These coping behaviours have a detrimental effect on the individual’s health (e.g. affecting levels of energy and motivation, gaining weight, etc.), relationship problems, quality of sleep and weakening their immune system (so important at this time!).

One of the things I’ve learned from direct experience: that we are all capable of doing what we set to do if we have the confidence, dedication and the motivation to do it. We are all capable with a system in place.

I’m very grateful for having gained experience helping people from different cultural and economic backgrounds and people of different professions around the world.  

I have enjoyed the challenges of improving the way they feel, their relationships, their health, their professional life and their wellbeing. I have helped several people to lose weight, to manage stress and anxiety, to develop their businesses, to improve their physical and mental health, to improve relationships, to stop procrastinating and improving their productivity, to get fit, to sleep better, to improve their nutrition, to improve the way they feel and to experience more joy in their work places and their homes. A big thank you to all of them for being brave to step up for what you really want in your life and for working together with me making positive changes in your lives. 

I am ready for more. Why not make 2021 the year your dream comes true for you too?

Wishing you a Happy New Year! Get off to a good start with Ray of Light Coaching Services. 

Warm wishes,

Ray Deekes
Director of Ray of Light Coaching Services

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ray Deekes is a firestarter. He is passionate about inspiring and empowering others to reach their true potential and to live a fulfilling life.

He brings a mix of stress management acumen and understanding on peak performance, health & wellbeing learnt from his studies in Stress Management, Health & Wellbeing (Centre for Stress Management, London) as well over 20 years of experience in high demanding jobs working with top executives from around the world and over 30 years of sports practice. Ray is also a enthusiastic practitioner of Mindfulness (Monash University) and very passionate about promoting healthy eating (University of Aberdeen).

www.rayoflight.online

Quote of the week - May (week 3)

In this time of uncertainty, a lot of people are feeling stressed, anxious and worried about what is going on. With Ray of Light Coaching Services learn coping strategies to handle inevitable life stressors which come in your way.

Find out more about Ray of Light’s International Online Coaching Programmes at: www.rayoflight.online

GET COACHING GET RESULTS

Quote of the week - April (week 1)

Make the decision TODAY to master your fears and star enjoying your life to the fullest. Get the support you need with Ray of Light Online Coaching Programmes to:

• Reduce your stress, anxiety, burn out & depression

• Boost your joy, happiness, enthusiasm & self-confidence

• Increase your resilience & peace of mind

• Improve your productivity, your relationships & overall wellbeing

• Learn coping strategies to handle inevitable life stressors that come your way

What is mindfulness and how it can help with these crazy times?

Mindfulness is living in the now. It is essentially about being more aware and awake in every moment of your life.

I discovered Mindfulness more that three years ago when a colleague at work recommended me a Mindfulness course for professional development. At that time I was suffering from high levels of stress and anxiety at work. Mindfulness meditation really helped me to start taking back control of my life by learning to relax and cope with stress even when things looked out of control. 

It took me months of commitment, dedication and daily practice to be able to discover peace, freedom and happiness with mindfulness. It was totally worth it as it has paid off with large dividends. Today I’m an enthusiastic practitioner and I’m very passionate about it. Mindfulness doesn’t eliminate the difficulties of living but it gives us the space to choose how to react. It prevent us from getting lost in stories about things that may or may not happen.

Our state of mind has a very powerful influence on how our body feels. This area of science is called mind-body medicine. As humans we get lost in our thoughts, they consume our attention most of the time. We're creating all sorts of stressors and anxieties about what ifs and maybes in the future or reliving stressors from the past, and that produces an inappropriate activation of the stress response (fight or flight).

The prolonged effect of too much stress produces a wear and tear in our immune system. It's like getting a car and absolutely flogging it to death by the way that we're driving it. So when our immunity system gets compromised, we accelerate the progression of chronic illnesses, heart diseases and accelerate the aging of the brain.

Being relaxed and aware is the mental equivalent of being fit and healthy. Mindfulness can be practiced any where, any time, regardless of what you are doing. The more you practice it the easier it gets. By practicing every single day it helps us to:

• Decrease stress, anxiety, and depression

• Support better regulation of emotional reactions and increases positive psychological states

• Decrease burnout

• Increase immunity to the influenza virus (flu) and coronavirus

• Improve relationships 

• Increase creativity

• Improve skills needed for interpersonal relationships

• Overcome procrastination and improve your productivity

• Improve empathy and compassion

Brain imaging studies also show that regular mindfulness practice produces growth in brain areas associated with learning and memory processes, emotion regulation, self-referential processing, and perspective-taking.

Mindfulness can really help you to keep calm, find happiness and peace of mind even in the midst of dealing with coronavirus. Mindfulness for wellbeing and top performance is one of the key elements of Ray of Light Coaching Programmes.

“I cannot thank Ray enough for the help he has given me. It made such a difference. I was really struggling with anxiety and stress. As a working mum of four children I found it hard to find balance in my life. I didn’t feel I was doing good enough. I felt overwhelmed. Ray helped me to see things differently, to slow down and to focus properly on one thing at a time. Learning Mindfulness meditation gave me the skills to have more control and to function better. I struggled to fall asleep but a quick meditation along breathing techniques has completely solved this problem. I do it every night without fail. I also use this to relax and focus on the next task when I’m really busy. I’m still learning Mindfulness and I try to apply it in different areas of my life on a daily basis. It is an ongoing process but it’s really worth it for the benefits you get.”

— Emma, England

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ray Deekes is a firestarter. He is passionate about inspiring and empowering others to reach their true potential and to live a fulfilling life.

He brings a mix of stress management acumen and understanding on peak performance, health & wellbeing learnt from his studies in Stress Management, Health & Wellbeing (Centre for Stress Management, London) as well over 20 years of experience in high demanding jobs working with top executives from around the world and over 30 years of sports practice. Ray is also a enthusiastic practitioner of Mindfulness (Monash University) and very passionate about promoting healthy eating (University of Aberdeen).

www.rayoflight.online

A wealth of health

Developing good eating habits is very important when taking care of our health and wellbeing. We are responsible for what we eat.

Food is essential to keep our bodies going, to give us energy, to repair damage and build muscles, bone marrow and blood. A lot of research shows how food affects our mood and wellbeing.

All food contains chemicals that have an effect on our body. For example, scientists call carbohydrates (pasta, bread and sweets) “comfort foods” because they boost the powerful brain chemical, serotonin, which is involved in feelings of contentment. But the confort won’t last long. After 20 minutes it will dissipate.

If your body is in good shape you will feel better: HEALTHY BODY = HEALTHY MIND. A balanced and healthy diet is based on plenty of fresh fruit, vegetables, nuts, seeds, grains, fish, egg, beans and other non-dairy sources of protein, which will provide your body with the nutrients your immune system needs. Importantly, only a moderate consumption of meat, milk, dairy foods, bread, rice, potatoes, pasta and other starchy foods is recommended as is a total avoidance of food and drinks high in fat/or sugar (e.g. junk food).

Our bodies' digestive system is one of the most important. It performs the most energy-consuming process of your entire body as it’s function is to breakdown and absorb the nutrients we eat. The more processed or chemically heavy the food, the more strain it suffers. Under normal conditions, it works hard to get as many nutrients as possible from what we eat and drink. It fuels all our body processes and keeps our organs in excellent health. So avoiding eating food that is hard to digest (e.g red meat) you can help your digestive system to save valuable energy reserves.

A poor diet has a negative effect on your life; it drains your mental and physical energy; your immune system becomes compromised, you accelerate the progression of chronic illnesses, heart diseases and the ageing of your brain. If you pumped low-octane petrol into your car everyday, how long would your car run before it breaks down?

A healthy diet will keep your immune system strong and able to fight off infections, both bacterial and viral infections, including the coronavirus (COVID-19). Experts have officially confirmed that recovery from this new virus depends on the strength of your immune system.

Our body is our most valuable asset. We only have one so better to start taking care of it. If not now, when?

Ray of Light Coaching Programmes help individuals gain the knowledge, skills, tools and confidence to become active participants in their care so that they can reach their self-identified health goals.

About the author

Ray Deekes is a firestarter. He is passionate about inspiring and empowering others to reach their true potential and to live a fulfilling life.

He brings a mix of stress management acumen and understanding on peak performance, health & wellbeing learnt from his studies in Stress Management, Health & Wellbeing (Centre for Stress Management, London) as well over 20 years of experience in high demanding jobs working with top executives from around the world and over 30 years of sports practice. Ray is also a enthusiastic practitioner of Mindfulness (Monash University) and very passionate about promoting healthy eating (University of Aberdeen).

www.rayoflight.online

Are you happy with the life that you live?

You deserve to be happy. Everybody does. Everybody can be! However, too many people just settle for what they have, living an ordinary and monotonous life without experiencing all the joys it can bring. If you are not happy with your life, really… truly... happy, then how about making some changes…

Of course nobody can expect to be happy all the time, but if you are not happy most of the time then it’s time to do something about it. Change can be difficult, challenging and yes it takes time and effort but with a helping hand to guide you…your life can change.

I know it is possible because I’ve done it myself. I was very stressed and unhappy in my professional life for many years and it was affecting other areas of my life. At the beginning I was in denial like most unhappy people are. I gradually realised that I could take back control of my life and re-engineer my future by learning new skills and by combining my passions with the experience that I had acquired in more than 20 years of my professional life to start my own company.

I love my new found freedom, independence and enjoy life’s rich variety. Everyday is different. No longer monotonous and now I only do what I love and am good at. I’ve never being happier in my life. It has also dramatically improved the lives of the people around me. 

There can be few regrets that are as significant as having lived your life unhappy. Often it is those with low self confidence and low self esteem who are willing to settle for whatever life gives them, not believing that they can be happy if they really want to. Every human being has the potential to achieve happiness in many areas of their lives. You are who you choose to be.

If you have not asked yourself the following questions, I suggest you do so because our life has an expiration date:

• Are you happy with the life that you live?

• Are you living an unfulfilled version of your life, which is getting in the way of your happiness?

• Are you being honest with yourself about what a good life really looks like?

• Are you giving yourself excuses about why things can’t be better?

If the life choices you made are holding you back, then it’s time to make a positive change in your life. Plan your future; don’t just wait for it to happen to you.

ABOut the author

Ray Deekes is a firestarter. He is passionate about inspiring and empowering others to reach their true potential and to live a fulfilling life.

He brings a mix of stress management acumen and understanding on peak performance, health & wellbeing learnt from his studies in Stress Management, Health & Wellbeing (Centre for Stress Management, London) as well over 20 years of experience in high demanding jobs working with top executives from around the world and over 30 years of sports practice. Ray is also a enthusiastic practitioner of Mindfulness (Monash University) and very passionate about promoting healthy eating (University of Aberdeen).

www.rayoflight.online