Category Archives: Amy Barnes

Free to Be

Posted on July 21, 2011 | Leave a comment

Maybe you know someone like “Larry” or maybe you are a lot like “Larry.” Larry has never been able to please his Father. He went into the family business and married a woman that pleased his parents. He went to college and selected a major not based on his interests but based on what would be a good fit with the family business and please others. He has done well in his life but he has never been happy. For some people this would be a great scenario and they would be very happy. For someone like Larry whose interests and dreams are not in alignment with others expectation of him, happiness eludes him. He can never be happy living a life out of alignment with who he is.

Many of us are a little like Larry. We make decisions in our life not because it is what we really want to do but because it is what others expect of us. We have not learned to be comfortable in our skin – we rely on others opinions and we rarely trust out gut – we have trouble making decisions, sometimes even on daily simple things like where do I want to eat, because we have so little faith in ourselves. When does it become okay to listen to our own hearts, our own inner voices and use our own talents and gifts in a way that best fits us and best fits the world?

When you are in touch with and use your gifts, talents and passions, you become fully alive and fully you. Amazingly, fully being you frees up a tremendous amount of energy and gives you a much better opportunity to be both happy and successful in all areas of your life. As a coach, I empower clients to get in touch with their own gifts and talents and passions so they can most fully be themselves at work and play and in their relationships. Being ok with who you are – all of you is the basis of self-worth, self-esteem and self-confidence. I believe we were not created to be anything different than we are. I believe that we each have the potential for greatness inside us that can best be accessed by fully being ourselves.

I want to empower you to be the best you can be, by being yourself.

Amy Barnes, MA MBA LMHC

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Posted in Aliveness, Amy Barnes, Coach, Empower, Self Confidence, self esteem, Self worth, Uncategorized

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Whose Authority Do You Trust?

Posted on April 25, 2011 | Leave a comment

by Amy Barnes MBA MA LMHC
Who do you trust to make your major life decisions for you? Do you trust yourself or do you rely on the opinions of others or of a specific other. I trust my friend’s opinions and I value them. However I know that when I make a decision or decide to do something, I want to feel a 100% yes inside of me.

I used to laugh that I was born without the gene for fashion. I relied on others for their opinions on my hairstyles and how I dressed. For years I ended up with hairstyles I did not like. Now I respect others opinions but also have a much greater sense of trusting myself and going with what feels best for me in all areas of my life. I feel comfortable speaking and owning my own authority, realizing that this can be done in a way that is respectful of others and their opinions.

Sometimes we get great advice and sometimes the advice we get is based on the other person’s self interest. We all look at life from out own point of view. What is right for me may not be right for you.

Often my clients ask for my advice or want me tell them what to do when they need to make a major decision. My clients come with many questions: whether or not to stay married, whether or not to get married, what to do for a living, to stay or to leave a job, how to deal with a “problem friend” and many more including how to be happy. My answer is no, I will not tell you what to do. I do not want the place of having the authority over what should happen in someone else’s life.

I want to support my clients in being their own best authority. I want them to be able to trust their gut and to make the decisions that are right for them. Often I have clients who have yielded to others to make major life decisions for them all their life. Sometimes it’s a spouse, a boss, a friend, or our current relationship partner.

I want to support you in being the best authority in your life so that you can trust your gut and step into your full power and creativity.

Until next time,

Amy Barnes MBA MA LMHC

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Posted in Amy Barnes, Trust your gut, Uncategorized

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What Transforms Pain into Joy?

Posted on April 15, 2011 | Comments Off

by Amy Barnes MBA MA LMHC
The pain may be a divorce, death loss of job, cancer, a disappointment or hurt that causes you pain. Some of us bounce back more easily from these places of pain than others. Most of us have a built in resiliency that keeps us going. For some of us we need help just getting back to feeling okay. Most of us need help going from that place of pain to a place of joy some time in our lives.

Counseling and therapy do a reasonably good job of getting people from a place of pain to feeling okay, that is what insurance companies pay for, Mental health insurance companies pay for people with mental health diagnosis to get to a place of okay.

My question is much bigger than that. For me okay is not good enough. I want to feel joy, peace, contentment and even happiness most of the time. As a counselor and coach, I ask myself, what can I do that most reliably helps people get to that place of joy and stay there more and more of the time.

For each of us there are some differences yet there are some consistent things that help us each get to and stay more and more in that place of joy. Now there is an entire field of happiness psychology devoted to helping people feel happier (not just okay).

Would you rather feel joy or just okay?

No this is not a trick question and I have done this long enough and with enough people to know that everyone is willing to move from that place of pain to joy. It takes commitment and a willingness to believe in yourself.

If you answer is YES. I can support in your journey. Give me a call.

Until next time,

Amy Barnes MBA MA LMHC
Amy is a relationship counselor and coach with over 15 years experience, specializing in supporting individuals and couples in transforming pain into joy allowing people to step into their full power and creativity.

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Posted in Amy Barnes, Happiness, Joy, Pain, Transformation

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Is Being Connected Ruining Your Relationships?

Posted on February 22, 2011 | Leave a comment

by Amy Barnes MBA MA LMHC

Would your relationships benefit from a tech diet? How can you be fully present when your attention is really on the screen and not the person in front of you? What’s worse is as a whole, is our society spending significantly more time in front of some sort of an electronic screen than we are in real live face to face contact?

I love my technology. I love Skype for talking to my daughters now in Japan and Morocco and Face Time for talking with my son. I use my laptop for learning French and of course there’s email and Facebook. I’m writing this on my office computer. I also love Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Chocolate Garcia ice cream. Yet just as I could not live on a diet of only ice cream I cannot live in a world where my only social interaction is over the internet. I also love long dinners with friends and face to face conversation and laughter with no screens present.

As a marriage and family therapist and coach, I now hear terms I never heard of five or ten years ago in counseling sessions. Clients read me text messages from their significant or ex-significant other during sessions. Clients complain that they cannot ever turn off their Blackberry’s as they must be available 24/7. Who even used the term 24/7 ten years ago? Spouses learn about affairs and other issues of contempt from cell phone call records and texts. Being unfriended on Facebook is often the final straw in the dissolution of a friendship or relationship.

Elizabeth Bernstein recently wrote and an article in the Wall Street Journal entitled, “Your BlackBerry or Your Wife.” She shares stories of families who sit at the dinner table all looking at their own screen on their iPhones, iPads, laptops, DVD’s and Blackberries. Family members give lots of connection and attention to the device but a serious lack of connection to other family members. She advocates going on a “tech cleanse” Turning off everything with screens for a week. She even notes that in an Italian study couples who have a TV in the bedroom have sex half as often as those who do not. Susan Gilchrest O’Neil, a family therapist in New York states, “Technology should be on the list of the top reasons why people divorce, along with money sex, and parenting.

Yes technology is amazing and I love it. Yet let’s not technology replace real face time? Can your Blackberry give you a hug or cuddle with you on a cold night? When is the last time you spent an hour with a friend or family member without a screen. Try your own tech cleanse. I advocate at least a screen free hour or two a night. Try unplugging for a whole day every weekend. What if you controlled all those electronic devices instead of letting them control your life?

Until next time,

Amy Barnes MMA MA LMHC
Amy is a relationship counselor and coach with over 15 years experience, specializing in supporting individuals and couples in transforming pain into joy.

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Posted in Amy Barnes, Coach, Coaching, connection, Relationship, Relationships, Technology, Uncategorized

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The Hope of Spring

Posted on February 17, 2011 | Leave a comment

By Amy Barnes MBA MA LMHC

This morning I tossed a red Frisbee to my grateful black lab and pointer mix, Char whose favorite sport is jumping up in the air and catching it again and again and again. I was quite comfortable with only a light sweater despite the ice still on the deck and the several inches of a crunchy icy snow mix still covering my backyard from Indy’s massive ice storm and subsequent snow several weeks ago. No buds on the trees, no visible sign of spring, only one day of sun and a weather forecast of snow next week. Because we have had years of experience of snow melting and spring coming we not only have faith that spring will come, we know without any doubt that spring will come.

However we often do not have that same faith in ourselves and our relationships. In relationship counseling, I meet with couples and their relationships start to improve, for most ever so slowly. The couple becomes confident that everything will be perfect and all will go smoothly. Yet at this point the relationship is often still quite fragile. Often after a minor disagree they become extremely discouraged. They had a taste of spring, a taste of what they want in their relationship yet they cannot sustain it. They are not yet ready to weather the ups and downs of even a healthy relationship.

We are not meant to be perfect. It’s not that we or our relationships will ever be perfect; the question is how do we learn to negotiate the bumps in the road? How will you handle your next disagreement, your next disappointment, and what will do when you or your partner reverts back to that old annoying behavior. Like the weather our lives ebb and flow we have good days and bad days. Learning to sail only on the goods days would leave you unprepared to navigate the storms.

As I counsel couples I hope to leave them prepared to handle together as a team whatever happens. So that just as we believe in the promise of spring after the winter, my hope is to strengthen relationships so couples can realize that whatever happens they know and believe in the hearts that together that can weather any storm.

Until next time,

Amy Barnes MBA MA LMHC

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Posted in Amy Barnes, Counseling, Healthy Relationship, Relationship, Relationships, Uncategorized

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Making Plans for 2011 and Beyond

Posted on January 12, 2011 | Leave a comment

What do you want to create in your life in 2011 and beyond? As a counselor I enjoy assisting clients in creating what they really want in all aspects of their lives. Yesterday I focused on making my “I want list.” Some of us feel very comfortable asking for what we want. I grew up for whatever reasons feeling uncomfortable about asking for what I most wanted. It was like I would jinx it or it wouldn’t really happen so why get excited or who cares. After a while I stopped voicing my wants and then I stopped wanting. I just accepted what ever came my way.

Now I am much clearer about my wants. I periodically give myself time to just write a list of my wants. Then I can turn my wants into goals. What is it that I really want to create in my life? If I don’t create the life I want who will.

Remember the Harvard Business Goal Study. Only three percent of the Harvard MBA graduates actually had written goals. Three percent had written goals. Thirteen percent had goals but not written and the other 84% had not set specific goals. Ten years later the Thirteen percent with non written goals were on average earning twice as much as the other 84%. The three percent who had written goals earned on average ten times more that the 84% with no set goals.

Creating vision boards to me is a way of setting goals of getting clear about what I want in ALL areas of my life. Louise Hay, Martha Beck and Cheryl Richardson like vision boards and even Oprah likes and uses vision boards. Vision boards are a concrete and daily reminder on what you really want. Keeping what you want in front of you every day and taking daily action steps to make it happen does allow you to create the life you want.

Join us this Saturday for Imagine Believe Create, in Indianapolis to focus on your wants and create your own vision board. Then we’ll talk about the next steps you can take to make your dreams, your goals a reality. Click HERE for more information.

Hope to see you Saturday.

Until next time,

Amy Barnes

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Posted in Amy Barnes, Counseling, Indianapolis, Uncategorized

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BREATHE!!!

Posted on December 8, 2010 | Leave a comment

Yes, just breathe. Most of us are rushing around this time of year with far more to do than we can comfortably handle. We don’t even take time to breathe. Are you breathing or holding your breath??? Are you a shallow or a deep breather? Healthy breathing is a great stress reducer and one I frequently use myself and with my counseling clients.

If you want to create anxiety and stress, open your mouth, take a quick gasp of air and hold your breath. Notice the feeling in your body. For me I notice my shoulders and arms become tense. I feel anxious and no longer relaxed. Now focus on taking six slow deep breaths, noticing the air come slowly and gently in and out of your nostril. When I do this I notice my shoulders start to relax and I get a smile on my face. Many of are so stressed that we think the way our body feels when we are stressed is normal.

Shallow breathing only allows about a teacup of air in, making your heart work hard to pump oxygen to your brain and all those other parts of your body. Your brain then decides it needs to send out even more stress hormones – you’ve heard of cortisol and there are hundreds of other stress hormones your brain likes to tell your body to pump out, shooting adrenaline through your body and causing you to be more and more stressed.

So what can you do instead? Breathe, have a cup of tea and a nice conversation with a friend, laugh, take a few laps around the mall before shopping.

The simple act of spending two minutes each day focusing on nice slow, gentle and deep breathing can do wonders to lower your stress and anxiety and increase your immune system.

If you want to find more ways to lower your stress and anxiety, improve your relationships, and just feel really good about yourself, give me a call.

Isn’t it time for you to step into your full power and creativity?

Until next time,

Amy Barnes MBA MA LMHC

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Posted in Amy Barnes, Anxiety, Counseling, Stress, Uncategorized

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Transformation and Change

Posted on June 21, 2010 | Leave a comment

Transformation and change, its what I do for a living.

The opening of the 100 acre  IMA Sculpture Park was the result of individuals with a vision.  I celebrate those visionaries who could see change and a different way of doing art.  Years ago I walked my dog along the old limestone pit now filled with water with barely a walkable path around the lake,  Yesterday I walked along those paths now cleared and embellished, filled with happy adults and children, friends and families, talking and playing despite the oppressive hot and humid day.  What a difference.  Transformation can be marvelous and wonderful and positive.

My friend Kurt Refsnider, a geologist and glacier expert, who lives in Boulder and researches glacier and other deposits in the article circle has noted some not so positive changes.  The sea masses where polar bears live, used to remain frozen for all but about three months per year allowing the polar bears to gather food at sea.  Now the sea masses melt about a month and a half earlier and refreeze about a month and a half or more later.  Polar bears are now on land for about six months with no food sources.  If you need a better example, think of the negative change that has occurred with oil in the gulf. 

 Transformation or change can be either positive or negative.  People have the ability to cause both positive and negative changes to the environment, to others and to themselves. 

 As a Coach and a Change Agent I am most interested in what creates positive change. 

How can I use this ability to create change in a way that inspires individuals, couples, and corporations?  What if I could actually use my gifts as a catalyst, a change agent and a visionary to inspire and motivate others on a much larger scale?  To make the world a better place for all. 

So that’s what I want on my tombstone.  The world is a much better place for her having been here. 

 Until next time,

 Amy Barnes, Life Coach and Change Agent

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Posted in Amy Barnes, Change Agent, Coaching, IMA 100 acre park, Indiana, Indianapolis, Kurt Refsnider, Life Coach, Transformation, Uncategorized

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Redefining Success One Moment at a Time

Posted on May 5, 2010 | Leave a comment

What’s your marker of success?  How will you know when you are successful?  Will you have 40 million in investments, a second home in Florida or Tuscany, CEO of your own Multi million dollar company or happily married or retired from a job you dread?

What if you could be happy now?

 I now choose to measure my success by the sense of peace and joy I feel each day, in the moment.  Yes in this very moment.  For this moment is the only moment we are guaranteed.  Time spent fretting about past events or worrying about future events only keeps us from enjoying and being present in this moment.

 Take a deep breath and notice how you feel in this moment, tension in your body, anger sadness, fear or joy or a sense of peace.  By the way are you breathing or holding your breath?  We only exist in this moment – no longer are we in the past and the future has not yet happened.

 I choose to be fully alive and thoroughly embrace this moment.  Yes I would choose to have millions in the bank or be happily married or spending the afternoon at a villa in Tuscany.  Yet we know that neither money nor a relationship is a guarantee of happiness. 

 Last weekend in Santa Barbara, I gathered with Kathlyn Hendricks and several of my Hendricks buddies – other Hendricks coaches from the Hendricks Institute to play and learn in an Advanced Leadership Training Program.  The experience left me feeling expansive and joyful. 

 Learning to be present in the moment sounds so simple yet for most of us it is quite difficult.  In the moment I may feel angry or sad or scared yet, being in the moment allows those feeling to pass through me and to return to a sense of peace and joy. Mastering these skills is an advanced move.  As a coach I am ready to assist those who are ready to learn these and other tools to transform your life and allow you to love the life you are living now!

 Until next time,

 Amy Barnes,  Life Coach for Body, Mind, Spirit and Relationships.

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Posted in Aliveness, Amy Barnes, Body Mind Vibrance coach, Coaching, Hendricks, Life Coach, success, Uncategorized

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Confessing Old Fears

Posted on April 15, 2010 | Leave a comment

Years ago I sold for Xerox.  When I started we had few competitors, people did not yet see the need for a copier.  Like all relatively new technology copiers were expensive.  I did not see myself as a natural sales person.  Yet somehow I got the job.  One hundred people interviewed for two spots so I figured my new employer knew something I did not.      

I didn’t thrive because of my fear.  Most prospective buyers said, “No.”   I did not like to be told No.  First even though in our sales training we were told most people would say no, the rest of me did not get it.  My fledgling self esteem was daily beaten down by the No’s.  Often I would sit in my car a block or two from the prospect’s office just trying to gather enough nerve to go in.  Despite my fear and lack of knowledge, most months I managed to hit or exceed my quota.  Now I know I would have benefitted greatly from a Life Coach. 

I was too afraid to ask for help.  I allowed myself to be over run and limited by my fear.  I was embarrassed by my fear, afraid to admit how I felt.  I was certain that no one else ever felt that way.  After all nobody ever talked about it.  Sales meeting were always about how wonderful we were.  I found them to be of absolutely no help because they did not deal with the problems and issues that I had. I found this to be further evidence that I did not fit in.   I saw myself as having no options.  Today looking back I can see tons of options – Maybe that it why I named my coaching business Life Options.

 First I did not understand the sales process.  I was going to get lots of No’s.  Today we call that filling the pipeline.  Lots of prospects convert to lots of potential sales and Yes’s also, lots of potential No’s.    I know now that I could have welcomed the No’s as a realization that I was getting much closer to more and more Yes’s. 

 Second, I could have asked for help.  I was too embarrassed.  Was I going to get fired on the spot for something I did not even know I was supposed to know? Here I was a young 20 something, thinking I was supposed to know it all.  How great to be old and wise and know how much I don’t know.  Now I love to ask questions. 

 Third, I didn’t understand my fear.  Maybe that’s one of the things that eventually got me into the therapy and coaching profession.  Feeling the fear let’s me know I’m alive.  Fear does not have to keep me from doing anything I want.  Being able to feel strong emotions (also anger and sadness and the other two basic feelings, joy and sexual feelings) are normal and healthy.  Its not feeling the feelings that causes the problems it is what we choose to do with our feelings that does. 

 I choose to let my fear dictate what I did.  I left Xerox and took a really big hit on my self esteem and self confidence.  I realize that in my life fear has kept me from doing a number of things.  No more!

 Yesterday, I visited a Toastmaster’s meeting.  Years ago I attended Toastmasters regularly and highly recommend it.  I was surprised as my stomach clenched as I got up to respond to a Table Topics question on taxes. As I often get up and talk in front of groups, I was surprised by my response:  fear.  Yes, I am alive.  I’m glad to be here.  Thanks for the reminder!  Thanks for the opportunity!  And twenty seconds later the fear was gone.

 Let me see, what can I do today to stretch my fear muscle?  What has your fear been keeping you from doing?  It’s ok, feel the fear and do it anyway!

 Until next time,

 Amy Barnes MBA MA LHMC and Life Coach

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Posted in Amy Barnes, Coaching, Fear, Life Coach, Self Confidence, self esteem, Uncategorized

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