“Namaste: I honour the place in you where the entire Universe resides. I honour the place in you of love, of Truth, of peace, and of light. And when you are in that place in you and I am in that place in me, there is only one of us.” This is true connection. It occurs between good friends, those who love each other unconditionally, and in all transformative connections.
Connection: Plug into the other's Higher Power
Listening is key to deep connection. When we get caught up in our thoughts, we stop being fully present and we lose track of what the other person is saying. And they don’t feel truly listened to: We lose the deep connection. Yet most of us go habitually inside our heads while supposedly listening to formulate our response to what is being said. This can be the beginning of the end for many relationships.
The key to Transformative Life Coaching (TLC) is to be totally present in the now, to listen with laser-like focus, and to relinquish all judgement on what is being said – both positive and negative. We must listen like a rock. I would not be doing anyone any favours to you by listening to agree. After a few moments, or a few short minutes, you can see that the person speaking realises that they are being truly heard and valued, and an inevitable deepening of the connection happens, and you become one. From that moment on, you are plugging into the other's Higher Power. I will often begin a coaching session by listening to you uninterrupted for a full ten minutes. Most people will want to speak for much longer. When was the last time you listened to someone for ten minutes without your thoughts wandering and without interrupting them?
When it comes to relationships, when you are playing to win, you have already lost. If you give someone the gift of truly listening, being fully present, and not hooking on to any of your own thoughts, then you are hearing the highest version of the other person, their true Self, their soul: And that person intuitively knows all the answers to what they must do next. You are allowing them to BE.
Stop building a case, narrative, or story, to try to win in any meaningful relationship, and you will see your own life transform, with a deepening of all your important connections. You simply have to become aware that you are doing it and the constant judging will stop by itself. You will feel a deep sensation of love, connection, peace, and wellbeing. When it comes to relationships, we have a choice: We can entertain our thoughts, or we can let our thoughts entertain us. It's never the other person, but your thoughts about them that drive you nuts.
Connection is the secret of all great relationships. But connecting is a deceptive skill, as there is no actual skill involved at all. Connection is what happens when human beings spend time together without their thinking getting in the way. We are born into the oneness of life and then are conditioned into a separate reality as our thought system begins to take form. But just underneath the thoughts that separate us is the singular energy that we are made of. It's only when our thinking is running amok that we start to feel separate from one another. You may have experienced moments of total oneness with your baby, with someone that you love unconditionally, or when in Nature. That oneness is available to us at all times and in all relationships if we unhook from our habitual egocentric thinking.
This is because our relationships with other people unfold entirely in our head: We are not plugged into reality. You have taken the blue pill instead of the red pill, and you can't see and hear Truth. When we think about a person, we aren't actually thinking about the real them. We are thinking about a representation of them that we have formed in our minds, largely based on our egocentric subconscious fears. Our thoughts are literally making them up in our mind. At some point we decide what people are like, and project onto them. From that moment on we maintain them in our minds as a fixed persona, even revising past events to make them fit what we want to believe. It's fantasy land! We then look for, and listen to, in that person what we expect to see and hear, and edit and filter what we perceive to fit our story and the character that we have created for that individual. This is true for all our relationships. We get caught up in our own head. There is no intimacy, connection, and certainly no miracles occur, as the thinking is largely based on fear that was programmed into us in our childhoods. To simply be with someone in a state of full presence is one of the most miraculous gifts that we are given in our life. And one that is under-received, because we don't recognise our own part in its presence or absence. You are not responsible for the versions of you that exist in other people's minds.
Before any meaningful connection, take a moment to simply BE with your Self, taking a few deep breaths. Take some time to BE with the other person. Either in silence or in meditation, or both! This will radically transform your communication and your connection. Be fully present to it, as though it is the most important thing in the world, because for that moment, it is. I start all our 'VOICE for men' meetings with three minutes of silence, and the shares are usually around ten minutes, uninterrupted. Come and give it a try: Get in touch.
When you get the hang of this approach, you will feel completely present with it, totally connected, and your relationships and your whole life will transform miraculously. In this way, you get out of your mind, and are simply BEing with each other. This is true connection, without words, and without effort. Try it, and watch the miracles unfold. It may feel strange at first, but with time you will not want to have it any other way. The sweet feeling of connection will be completely worth it, and it will feel like bliss. This will enhance your presence in the world, and it will infuse all your relationships. You don't have to BE with everyone, but isn't it wonderful to know that you could?
Namaste.
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Email me: hello@transformativelifecoach.co.uk
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“Transformative life coaching uniquely creates and holds the space for you to see your self afresh, with clarity, and step into new ways of BEing, which will transform how you perceive and intuitively create your world. My work is to guide you to raise your own conscious awareness to the level that you want to achieve.” Olly Alexander Branford
My coaching themes and services for men: Transformative Life Coaching, Transformational Coaching, Life Coaching, Personal Coaching, Positive Psychology Coaching, Recovery Coaching, Trauma Informed Coaching, Work Addiction Coaching, Workaholism Coaching, Addiction Coaching, Mindfulness Coaching.
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Hello,
I am very pleased to meet you. Thank you for reading this far. I very much look forward to connecting with the highest version of you, to seeing your highest possibility, and to our conversations. Please do contact me via my website for a free connection call and a free experience of coaching.
See you soon,
Olly Alexander Branford MBBS, MA(Cantab), PhD
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I have a Bachelor's degree in Natural Sciences from Trinity College, Cambridge; a Master's Degree in Philosophy from Trinity College, Cambridge; a PhD Doctorate in Scientific Research from University College London (UCL); a Medical Degree (MD/MBBS) from The Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine, London and have been a doctor and reconstructive trauma and cancer surgeon in London for 20 years. I have published over 50 peer reviewed scientific journal articles, have been an associate editor and frequent scientific faculty member, and am the author of several scientific books. I have been awarded my Diploma in Transformative Life Coaching in London, which has International Coaching Federation (ICF) Accreditation, as well as the UK Association for Coaching (AC), and the European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC). I have been on my own transformative journey full time for four years and I am ready to be your guide to you finding out who you really are and how the world works.