EPISODE 6. GRACE GRACE

Thriving Through Awareness & Community

Estela: Welcome everyone on Freedom experience. And let’s welcome the lovely Grace, who came all the way from Budapest. She’s also a location independence artist and also a coach, working with a technique called life expansion. She has a lot of things to share with us. So I would love to talk about your background and how you were introduced into coaching life expansion?

Grace: I came to therapy because of my sufferings in the past, and I enjoyed learning about therapy. Got great results with client, they did a great work. But at the same time, therapy looks a lot towards the past, and I think it’s great to look towards the future, and so I started going more into coaching. And few years back, I started to discover Neuroscience in Belgium and really saw how we can work our brain, what I called we can body build our brain back to a really meaningful and happy life. Since then it’s been exciting, devising exercises, and explaining to people what’s happening. And for a lot of people a big difference can be done. Some people had a very difficult life, when they were young, and they need a bit of therapy, that’s why I called it a bodybuilding, is because there is a lot they can do themselves.

Estela: can you give us a little insight on this body building, so does this mean it’s very concrete and some people can take away some ideas or techniques from?

Grace: I like to always talk about possibilities, I like to inspire people to have sense of possibilities. When you don’t have that, and you have the opposite, which to me that is a sense of hopelessness and helplessness. When you have the hopelessness and helplessness that’s how you feel, you don’t see any opening. Whereas possibilities, you really feel that sense of power and hope. If people are experiencing hopelessness and helplessness, that’s what you’re going to build yourself into. And if you look at your life, and see where you feel hopeless and helpless, and just start to ask yourself, what if I look at this another way? And you keep opening that up, and this bodybuilding, because it won’t change in one day, but in three days, if you do ten times a day, you will see a difference. Instead of seeing issues as hopeless, you say what if something good will come out to that? In the beginning, your whole being, will going to go nothing’s going to come out of this, but if you keep doing it something will happen. That’s the technique that is incredibly powerful.

Estela: Can you give a sense of time, like how long does people need to be practicing, repeating day after day, those kind of sentences? How does it looks like? How does it take for someone to come from a hopeless situation into opening up with the possibilities?

Grace: It depends on the person. So if the person has lots of trauma, and is looking at the glass half empty. Some people look at their glasses full, but some people are just the opposite. These difficult people experienced a difficult childhood, then you’re going to be needing a bit of a tough package, so it doesn’t mean you don’t have the power to do something. That’s the first difference. The ones with the glass half full will tend to go faster. It’s a repetition, because the brain, to me, is a muscle. And you can also do another exercise, which is to turn on the very preform of cortex, every day, especially the things you do early in the morning, and habitually, you do it differently. And you break this pattern and habits that goes with the hopelessness and helplessness stock in the present, and turn it from that present, to a meaningful life. You change two things, all the way you do it and all the things itself, and in a few weeks, you will see a difference. I have clients that said that this exercise is incredible. But I think all in all, if people do those two things, the first one, you’re going to get result much quicker.

Estela: I remembered one of the exercises you were telling me about in Bali, the way how you start your morning, from the way you wake up, you will say that, “it’s going to be a wonderful day! And I wonder what this day is waiting for me!”

Grace: Yes. Instead of having, “Oh! Gosh today...”, and you’re going to that routine again and have that image, you will have a syndrome of stock life, so it’s stock on what’s going to happen, and there’s no change. Instead of, “Oh! I wonder what’s going to happen in this day!” and the preform of cortex is starting to look for what’s going to happen, or movie that you keep playing, like, “Today I know what I’m going to do and what’s going to happen...” Its better if you will say, “Today is going to be a good day, and I’m really excited to see what’s going to come up.” One day, once you wake up and you are in that stage of excitement, and you’ve turned that habit of seeing the stockiness, you will never go back, and will definitely stop.

Estela: What does it take for people to take that first step or action? And what does that depend on, is that for people that are open for change, or is it coming from certain period of someone’s life? Or why would someone start with this?

Grace: We can’t generalize it, if you’re asking why people would start. Then there are different examples. A lot of people wait until something hatred happened in their lives that’s really tough, I want to say is do not wait until that to happen, you start today. I’m one of those people, which I find it difficult on my own before, community is really important, like women and co-working space in Bali, that great working space where we have a community. Just like when you want to start a sport of running, it’s nice you go with someone, because then you’re accountable. Find somebody to do that program with, because people want to do something but they won’t because nobody’s watching, we need those witnesses in our lives. Some people start because they are in distress, they feel stock, or wants a happier life, it’s all very good reasons, give ourselves a mean. Some people are very good at discipline, they decide they’re going to do that, and they do, and another group of people, that I am part of, is that need bigger and accountability buddies.

Estela: So it also comes back to the fact that you have to know
yourself, and what other things do you need in your life to get to move forward.

Grace: Absolutely. I think a lot of people punch themselves like, “I bought this program, and I don’t do it”, and why didn’t you do it? Because I don’t like to do it on my own, so you need support, and it’s just ok. Why co-working space is set up? They just don’t enjoy it and are less productive.  So there’s nothing to bash yourself up. Some people are extrovert, some are introvert. You’re kind of a bit of an extrovert like me, we don’t like to work on our own all the time, there’s nothing wrong with us, so we ought to be kind and say I was going to do this exercise but I don’t, what would make me do them? Then they will find a solution, and that’s it. Be practical. If you don’t like certain vegetable, don’t eat the vegetable. So if you need support, go and get the support.

Estela: That’s really great and really encouraging Grace, thank you so much. Just one more thing, if you could give an advice to yourself ten years ago, what that one thing would be?

Grace: I think its perseverance. That time when I needed more support, when
I didn’t see results. But I’m really glad with the way I did it. But I changed
that, today, I would say, find a community to be reaching out, I would have
moved much quicker, But I wouldn’t be the today that I am with the knowledge,
and the loneliness I felt in the journey, which made me realize that if I got
the support, how quickly I went. So it’s always good. I never have regrets. But
the one thing that is so necessary for us is support, we are a community-based
people so they’re there to support.

Estela: Just realizing that it’s not only us, we made ourselves to many problem, and actually it’s just about opening up and reaching out to others as well, to see that we are all experiencing life as a human, that there are always challenges and good part as well.

Grace: when I started going to groups, I went into workshops and realized
that every person in the group was a part of me, and I thought that I was the
only one with such problem to be embarrassed, but everybody, feels at times,
lost and discouraged, we are all like that, so it’s just the way you cope that
we are all like that, so let’s stick together and support each other, or suffer
alone in a corner. That’s what I have experienced.

Estela: So that’s the reason that we come in together and support this
two-day Freedom fest. Really looking forward to your talk and to your workshops
Grace. Thank you for being here with us. And more interviews are coming atwww.freedomexperience.online

Grace: Listen to that because they are awesome people. Thank you very
much.

Estela: Thank you.