the yoga of self-awareness | spiritual yoga, stress management, and meaningful personal growth
Download Our Free Guide Here:
How to Ensure that Your Anxieties (& Mindset)
No Longer Restrict Your Growth
Beyond Stress Management Techniques:
How Avoiding Your Stress is Restricting Your Personal Development & Ability to Reach Your Potential/Goals
Various Mental and Emotional Challenges
Intrusive thoughts and overwhelming emotions determine so much of our lives, but only because we avoid them (and our tendency to continue to avoid them means that they will continue to prevent us from being free). These unwanted thoughts/emotions include self-criticism, insecurity, isolation, excessive worry and fear of failure, and difficulty coping with stressors and the various pressures of personal and professional life. As a result of spending energy avoiding our stressors and anxieties, we may experience reduced productivity, efficiency, and cognitive functioning (a lack of focus/concentration, impaired decision-making, learning, creativity and problem-solving, poor time management skills, etc.). Learning to sit with our anxieties will ensure that we don’t waste our life running from them.
A stress management coach, personal development coach, and/or mindset coach who does not include strategies for building resilience will not encourage the development of the kind of openness required for personal growth. This is different from stress relief coaching; managing stress is not simply stress relief (and neither stress management nor stress relief guarantee any kind of meaningful or fulfilling personal development). A coach can show you how your avoidance habits are reproducing challenging aspects of your inner life.
Dysfunctional / Strained Relationships
Escaping our uncomfortable feelings and thoughts means escaping people and situations in our lives that produce these feelings and thoughts. And when we can’t avoid these people and situations (at home or at work), those who are closest to us are most victimized by our destructive habits, including the consequences of our unchecked self-interested motivations. Our own inability to deal with our inner life leads to conflict, poor communication, excessive irritability/anger, feelings of disconnection, and perhaps even being trapped in co-dependent relationships with people. Work life balance becomes near impossible, and so do effective networking, delegation, and management. And then these strained relationships with other people produce more stress than they alleviate.
Stress management coaching, personal development coaching, and/or mindset coaching that only addresses goals and do not directly/indirectly address our relationships with other people often fail to produce meaningful individual growth (which, in the long run, does little/nothing for our deepest stress and anxieties). Apart from being a non-optional dimension of our experience, personal relationships can be the source of our deepest fulfillment. Relationship stress management is not just “communication coaching”, but rather relies on self-connection (and addressing one’s instinctive self).
A Lack of Meaning or Purpose
It’s difficult to pursue our most meaningful goals (and lives) if we aren’t connected with our deepest values and if you spend our lives avoiding whatever triggers pain—being pulled/pushed around by emotional overwhelm, perfectionism, insecurity, and self-criticism, etc.. Life becomes narrower and narrower (and our habitual self becomes more rigid). We feel more unfulfilled, unmotivated, and less connected to ourselves, other people, and to life/nature—we feel less present. Being connected to ourselves means being able to drown out all the noise in our lives (i.e., setting boundaries and gaining inner clarity and a sense of direction), so we can manage stress levels, manage anxiety, master skills and practices, and remain on a path of growth and impact as we address our personal challenges, reach our potential, and achieve our personal development goals.
A personal growth coach and mindset coach (and an effective stress management coach) always remains focused on meaning and impact, and meaningful personal growth always remains focused on the individual and their self-connection. Ultimately, any coach (including a personal development coach or stress coach) should always remain focused on fulfilling and meaningful progress. Coaches who remain focused on the blind accomplishment of goals (or personal growth for the sake of personal growth) are likely to leave you frustrated (and more stressed).
Avoidance Behaviours
Doing what we know is aligned with our core values (which include addressing various kinds of personal and/or professional challenges) can feel overwhelming, and this overwhelm can lead to procrastination, missed opportunities, intense self-criticism, and self-sabotage. Advancement becomes nearly impossible and so our work becomes less fulfilling and we feel less appreciated and recognized by other people for our work and become more self-critical. Overreacting to stress responses produced by uncertainty and inner/material instability (including catastrophizing, rumination, and prematurely acting on unrealistic comparisons or expectations, etc.) are counter-productive: overwhelming emotions often reinforces self-sabotaging tendencies, causing us to attempt things (that we think will get us ‘unstuck’) that actually keep us trapped in (or even reinforce) old patterns, making growth (and stability) seem more out of reach. In terms of dealing with stress, the very attempt to reduce stress can actually prevent stress relief.
A personal development plan goes beyond generic life coaching should contain (and a stress management coach should provide) strategies for dealing with avoidant habits and key behaviours that are preventing clients from accomplishing their personal development goals and reaching their potential. A personal development coach, mindset coach, and/or stress management coach should not only provide temporary stress relief (and leave you with no tools to confront future stress). Coaches that do not address avoidance do not address growth beyond one’s existing silo (defined by existing avoidant habits).
Declining Health or A Lack of Energy
Destructive physical health effects of all kinds of stress (including work stress) and anxiety abound, from health anxiety, headaches, reduced mobility, and fatigue, to sleep disturbances, chronic pain, obesity, weakened immunity, high blood pressure, cardiovascular issues, etc. (and the very arising of any of these personal issues can lead to burnout and often produces even more anxiety). Apart from physiological issues, it costs energy to continuously suppress our most overwhelming emotions and negative thoughts (including the effects of trauma) and try to micro-manage our inner/outer life (including how other people perceive of us). It costs energy to manage dysfunctional relationships. It costs energy to be the person your anxieties tell you that you need to be in order to succeed. It costs energy to not have resilience (and integrity). And all of this energy can be wasted, or put in the wrong places, or even repressed. Without effective strategies for allocating our energy, we can feel out of control, more anxious and overwhelmed, and less confident (which only exacerbate existing problems).
Personal development coaches and mindset coaches should always address client’s energy allotment (but should not be so overwhelming as to cost energy) so that a client achieving their goals and reaching their potential is energizing and not energy-consuming. This is also a must for any stress management coach; a stress coach understands that stress relief can create space for managing more meaningless stress. Stress management coaching (or a personal growth coach) that does not address energy often only exacerbate burnout and don’t allow for the enjoyment of one’s accomplishments.
Lost Money and/or Time
Apart from the myriad costs associated with poor physical and/or mental health, strained relationships, poor productivity, missed opportunities (and ineffective life coaching or growth coaching and/or stress management programs, etc.), the habits we develop to manage the stress of overwhelming emotions and intrusive thoughts often end up being expensive (as do our attempts to stop sabotaging ourselves). These stress habits include “destructive” addictions (e.g., gambling, food, shopping, sex, social media, dysfunctional relationships, drugs/alcohol, attempting to “buy” connection/relief, etc.), but also addictions that we might not think to be destructive (e.g., spirituality, exercise, self-help or self-perfection, “helping” others, attempting to “buy” connection/happiness, etc.). Our addictions and avoidant tendencies only frustrate our ability to develop both inner and outer skills and competencies (including emotional intelligence and improving our relationship with our own inner life). Stress coaching and personal development must address self sabotaging behaviours in order to produce meaningful self-improvement.
Mindset coaches, personal development coaches (and stress management coaches) that don’t address clients’ self sabotage are likely only providing some stress relief (and thus functioning as more of stress relief coach). Coaches that do not address self-sabotage often produce little/no long-term impact in terms of accomplishing meaningful goals and reaching one’s potential. A personal coach (& personal coaching in general) should show how self-sabotaging habits are affecting one’s confidence and development outside of one’s career.
More “Stress Management” or “Stress Reduction” is Not Enough:
The Benefits of Personal Development
Coaching, Mindset Coaching, & Confronting Your Stress
Greater Resilience
& Stability
Stress Management
(& Personal Development + Mindset)
More (Useful) Energy
Stress Management
(& Personal Development + Mindset)
Greater Work-Life Balance
Stress Management
(& Personal Development + Mindset)
Greater Emotional Intelligence & Regulation
Stress Management
(& Personal Development + Mindset)
Greater Personal Fulfillment
Personal Development + Mindset
(& Stress Management)
More Recognition
Personal Development + Mindset
(& Stress Management)
Greater Capacity for Leadership & Management
Personal Development + Mindset
(& Stress Management)
Improved Performance & Productivity
Personal Development + Mindset
(& Stress Management)
Greater Impact
& Sense of Contribution
Personal Development + Mindset
(& Stress Management)
Inner Clarity
& Sense of Direction
Better Physical
& Mental Health
Stress Management +
Personal Development + Mindset
Healthier Self-Confidence
& Self-Relationship
Stress Management +
Personal Development + Mindset
Greater Self-Awareness
Stress Management +
Personal Development + Mindset
More Presence
& Self-Connection
Stress Management +
Personal Development + Mindset
Improved Personal & Professional Relationships
Stress Management +
Personal Development + Mindset
Coaching for Meaningful Personal Development:
A Personal Development Coach, Mindset Coach, and Stress Management Coach with a Yogic Perspective
Your efforts to change/fix/solve yourself can actually reinforce the very habitual self from which you are seeking freedom. Focusing on your ‘self’ can cause you to remain firmly in the grip of your compulsions, anxieties, rumination, intrusive thoughts, overwhelming emotions, and self-sabotaging behaviour and/or thought patterns. On the contrary, focusing your efforts on making your implicit habits more explicit—gaining clarity about your unconscious, habitual self—will allow you to see how your fulfillment is tied up in the tangled emotions connected to the things you avoid.
A professional birth chart reading is a unique and rich source of self-awareness. Balrāj identifies and addresses the most significant ways in which your habits are sabotaging your own efforts to find a sense of freedom from limitations so you can connect with your true self (i.e., the ‘version’ of your self less ensnared by your habitual anxieties/compulsions) and act on your deepest values. Vision is important, and is why personal development coaching exceeds stress management coaching, because stress relief can leave a vacuum for different kinds of meaningless stress. You need to know where you’re going.
A reading allows you to feel deeply seen and understood, and often provides a reality check and helps you to stop asking the wrong questions. You experience a more meaningful connection to your past and to your current situation, allowing you to make better sense of the moving parts in your life and experience a greater sense of choice and empowerment. Psychological astrology is an outstanding tool for any kind of mindset coach, self-improvement coach, or self development coach (and stress management coaching).
Traditional Breathwork & Meditation Coaching
Traditional approaches to breathwork and meditation were focused on breathing re-education and self-awareness (not “fixing the self” in any way). Traditional yoga wasn’t concerned with solving the ego’s problems. Instead, it concerned with freeing awareness from the limitations imposed by the ego’s desire for permanent identity security (based on the ego’s feelings of inadequacy). Freed from these limitations, experiencing more clarity, calm, and deeper connection (with yourself, with others, and with life itself) is not optional. But this meant no longer avoiding parts of oneself that one was content to (continue to) avoid, especially those parts that motivate self-sabotaging behaviour. At balraj.yoga, this philosophy underlies everything that we do, including our private, half-day personal development workshops.
Even though these practices address various physical effects of both chronic stress and acute stress (in particular the nervous system, immune system, stress hormones, etc.), these practices are deeper than stress reduction techniques, relaxation techniques, or “anxiety hacks” (i.e., approaches that covertly promise tools for being able to “control” overwhelming emotions and/or stress). Traditional yogic practices are, first, about producing the attentional stability and resilience to become aware (without reactivity or judgement) of the internal forces running your life (which are perhaps the root cause of your stress). A stress management coach and personal development coach who can help cultivate inner stability provides the opportunity for re-habituation, to re-construct a self who is less inclined to be anxious and more inclined towards growth. This is imperative for stress management coaching, mindset coaching, and personal development coaching.
Conversational
Hypnosis
When addressing some of your deepest personal challenges in your life, willpower and a purely intellectual understanding of your habits, problems, and behaviours aren’t always enough to produce change. Furthermore, we often tend to employ remedial measures that only help us further bypass or even reinforce our problem, thus making overcoming self sabotage seem impossible.
Conversational hypnosis allows us to harness the intelligence and resources of the unconscious to untie the knots that keep us stuck. It is remarkably useful for those who are struggling with self-sabotaging behaviour (and who are too unclear/overwhelmed to correct these behaviours using their conscious will).
And it isn’t magic. It is simply a method that allows us to directly confront our problems with some fierce compassion. Breakthroughs are not simply intellectual, but rather produce unexpected behavioural and perspectival changes. No longer your own worst enemy, you experience less restriction when attempting to pursue the most important things that make your life more meaningful, including your personal development plan (if you have one) and professional growth. This goes beyond correcting “limiting beliefs” or “erasing memories”, or trying “manifest” what (we think) is in our best interests (but could actually be reinforcing our self sabotaging habits). Instead, this unlocks your own resources trapped in your repressive behaviours. This is an imperative part of all coaching, including stress management coaching, mindset coaching, personal development coaching.
Personal Growth & Stress Coaching Packages/Services:
Private Personal Development, Mindset,
and Stress Management Coaching
Results-Based Restricted Growth Intensive
Fully-Customized Stress Management & Personal Development for the Purpose of Achieving Meaningful & Fulfilling Goals
3-12+ weeks of live, results-based private coaching with a personal development coach, mindset coach, and stress management coach (not a generic “life coach”):
- for those looking for a personal development coach who can help you create purposeful, fulfilling growth (and not the blind pursuit of goals/status, not growth for the sake of growth)
- for those whose stress (and a lack of fulfilling personal development) is restricting their growth and want a stress management coach who does provides more than temporary stress relief
- for those looking for a coach who can help with clarity & provide purposeful coaching (and not those who want a coach for the sake of having a coach)