mind: how to find true inner happiness with lydia kimmerling
Stepping in to 2021, the idea of a new energy and an opportunity to look forward felt more important than ever before. On a global scale, January was turbulent yet it came with a feeling of transformation and a chance to look inward. Happiness for many, is a choice. It’s something that so many of us crave but also in chasing it can be the very thing that makes us feel unhappy. A never ending social media highlight reel can help us to find inspiration but it can also hold a mirror up to the very things within our lives that we need to overcome. So is true inner happiness possible? And if so, how can we align with it?
Meet Lydia Kimmerling, a London born Master Life & Business Coach, she has spent the last ten years coaching hundreds individuals and groups across the globe. Based between Ibiza and London, Lydia believes that your natural state of being, is to be happy. So when you feel happy, this is you being your true self and it is from being your true self first, that you can create an amazing life. She is on a mission to help people be more, live more and experience more. With over three thousand five hundred hours of coaching under her belt, she runs her own coaching company and team under the ‘The Happiness Explorer’ brand. Lydia is dedicated to coaching individuals and groups on finding their inner happiness, firmly entrenched in the belief that no one should feel stuck in their own life.
Why did you decide to become a coach and how has it changed your life?
Well, I learned what has now become my own mantra the hard way. It was New Year’s Eve 2010 and I found myself, crouched down on a wine soaked carpet sobbing “Is this it?! What will make me truly happy?!” I had come to the harsh realisation that I had been playing the happiness waiting game for too long - pinning my happiness on some eventuality, a point in the distant future, only to arrive at the said point to find it was “never enough”.
I felt stuck. Stuck in a low paid job as cabin crew that sucked the life out of me, stuck in an unfulfilling relationship, stuck with a body I wasn’t proud of due to chocolate binges and that ‘one for the road’ all too frequently. I finally became ‘unstuck’ when I paid for an ICF accredited course to become a life coach. I never looked back.
What is a life coach for anyone who is learning about it for the first time?
Coaching essentially gives people the tools to become their happiest selves - no wonder it’s one of the fastest growing industries in the world! It’s a process of self discovery that deepens the understanding of who you are and what makes you tick. This strengthens the relationship you have with yourself, enabling you to make better decisions, create faster change and improve your quality of life and work.
As a coach you are not giving your client the answers, you are creating space for them so that, via your coaching partnership, they can find the answers for themselves. And this, for the client, is really powerful because the answers are coming from a place of introspection.
The world is going through a lot of change currently, what is one technique that you can recommend that may help people to navigate it?
In my Happiness Reset programme, the first tool I impart is the “Happiness Switch On”. This is a practice that teaches you how to feel more in control of your day from the moment you wake up. When you wake up, so do your thoughts, and if you are not fully conscious of what you're thinking (which we rarely are the moment we wake up) your thoughts will take control of you. The Happiness Switch On is about making a choice to take ownership of your happiness, by asking yourself three simple questions - Who do I want to be? How do I want to feel? What do I want to do?. Taking just three minutes to connect to your inner world before you connect with the outer world, will help you to feel happier, which is when you take more positive action.
You held a New Year Kickstarter workshop recently where you mentioned turning pain into power. How can people harness that right now?
If you think about all of your toughest situations, once you are through to the otherside you can see how it benefited you. The toughest of times always bring growth which is more often than not something we become grateful for. So however tough it is right now, try to look for the growth in your circumstances and you will be able to turn your pain to power.
If you missed it, you can watch back the session here: https://happinessexplorer.lpages.co/new-year-kickstarter/
One of your beliefs is that we need to take responsibility for our own happiness. What’s the first step in doing that?
The first step is to end the happiness waiting game. If you want to feel happier right now, you need to look at what you are unknowingly giving your happiness away to. Far too often we find ourselves stuck in a happiness waiting game, outsourcing our happiness to something in the future saying, I'll be happy when I have lost weight", "I'll be happy when I have a new job" or I'll be happy when I meet my life partner". Of course all of these things add to our happiness, but if you believe they hold you to happiness, you will lose your happiness every time your life changes. You can exit your happiness waiting game to find more happiness right now, by focussing on what you do have and being grateful for it. You can add this to your Happiness Switch On practice by saying three things you're grateful for, directly after answering your questions.
Stepping in to 2021, what is one piece advice that you would like to pay forward?
Invest in your personal growth - it’s the one investment that always holds value and never depreciates. Quite often we don’t invest in our personal growth because there’s a hidden block sabotaging you - like the fear of not being good enough - and then we find all the excuses to not change. Maybe you’re telling yourself you haven’t got time to read that book, you can’t find the money to sign up to that course or you just don’t have the willpower to break your habits. You have everything you need within you and you can create positive change when you realise that you’re worth the effort.
connect with lydia and find out more…
check out her website: https://thehappinessexplorer.com
follow her on instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lydiakimmerling/
