There are days when reflection arrives as a gentle invitation, and days when it shows up as a non‑negotiable need, like thirst. In both, my way back to myself starts with slowing down enough to notice that I have drifted. What a reflective practice looks like in my everyday life and work?
Walking as moving thought
Long before reflective practice had a name in my life, it had a rhythm: my walking pace. As a teenager, whenever something felt tangled, I would leave the house and walk until the inner noise loosened and the essential thread of the question appeared. Later I read in a book by Julia Cameron has a phrase about my experience – “solved through walking” – and it mirrors how my thinking settles when my body is in motion.
Today, walking is a deliberate practice rather than an intuitive escape. I schedule it. Sometimes it is a long, spacious two‑hour walk in city-close nature, more often, it is a 15–20 minute circle around the building where I live, or a park near our home in Brussels. What matters is not the distance, but the moment when my breath slows down and my thoughts stop chasing one another and begin to walk alongside me instead: I recognize the systemic approach here, which I use a lot in my coaching work, this time– self-applied.
On these walks, I don’t listen to anything, no podcast, no music. The steps themselves are the metronome of reflection, sometimes enriched by a word, or phrase coming from a conversation of passing by people, horn of a car, wings of a bird or flock. Questions that felt heavy behind the laptop screen become lighter when they are allowed to move with me: How did that coaching session / important conversation / {anything else that I need to reflect on} really land? Where was I truly present today, and where was I half a step ahead of my client / my child / my husband / myself?
Silence before serving
As a coach, I think of reflection as a professional hygiene. Before each coaching session, I take a brief pause – sometimes five minutes, sometimes only one or two – to become aware and possibly “release” the inner “leftovers” I am bringing into the room. It can be as simple as standing by the window, staring at a tree or a distant rooftop, and letting my gaze soften until my thoughts do the same.
These mini‑rituals are what I call “prophylaxis of presence”. They are not dramatic or mystical. I might lean on the balcony railing, look at a dear drawing on my living room wall, if at home or staring at an object in a favorite color when in the office, or simply close my eyes at my desk. The intention is always the same: to notice what is buzzing in me – an unfinished email, a family worry, excitement about a new project – and allow it to move to the “background” so that the coaching client can move to the “foreground”. In these short silences, I am not analyzing. I am practicing “being” after hours of “doing”, and this shift is the doorway to reflective practice in the session itself.
From long pauses to micro‑practices
In the earlier years of my career, reflection mostly happened in long, infrequent doses: one-day trip; retreat; half day with my journal or notebook in a café. These moments were islands in a sea of busyness. When I became a parent and started building my own practice while navigating other professional roles, it became clear that I could no longer wait for perfect conditions in order to reflect.
The shift came when I stopped imagining reflective practice – in my own vocabulary I have always called it something like “pause to move” (спри за да продължиш in Bulgarian, my mother tongue) – as a special event and started treating it as a series of smaller, sustainable habits. Instead of “I need a quiet afternoon to think about my work”, it became: “I have ten minutes between two calls – what can nurture my presence right now?”. Walking shortened. The pauses before sessions became more intentional one-minute rituals. I began using transitions as tiny bells that reminded me to check in before anything that matter – coaching session, conversation, starting and/or wrapping up the workday: How am I entering this next moment? What do I want to bring, and what do I need to leave behind for now? This made my “pause to move”, the reflective practice something I could carry with me, instead of something I needed to escape to.
Simple structures that hold reflection
Even though my reflective practice is deeply personal, certain structures help it stay alive. One of them is a light version of journaling. I do not write pages every day, but I often capture short notes after a coaching session or workshop: one sentence about what worked, one about what I would tweak next time, and one observation about myself. These micro‑notes are not for performance review; they are there to help me connect dots over time. When I reread them, I can see patterns: where I tend to overprepare, where I am tempted to solve instead of coach, where my energy is highest.
Another structure is questions. As a coach, questions are my tools, but in reflection they are also anchors. A few of the questions that often accompany my walks or my pauses are:
What am I proud of in how I showed up today?
Where did I abandon myself or my boundaries?
What am I avoiding looking at, and what small step could I take toward it?
Sometimes I also borrow from solution‑focused and strengths‑based approaches that I use with clients. I ask myself: If I imagined a “slightly better” version of this situation, what would be different in my behavior, my schedule, or my conversations? What is one resource I already have that I am not using fully? These questions gently steer my reflection away from rumination and toward agency.
When reflection becomes a need
There are moments when my body signals that reflection can no longer be postponed. It shows up as irritability, difficulty to focus, or an inner heaviness even when “objectively” things are going well. This is usually a sign that my “doing” has grown louder than my “being” for too long. When that happens, the walk is not optional. The pause is not a luxury. They are the way I reconnect the outer pace of my life with the inner pace of my nervous system – I call this “from pieces of mind to a peace of mind”.
In those times, my reflective practice becomes more spacious again: I might take a longer walk in nature or through the city and intentionally unplug for half a day, or I might sit quietly with a notebook and let a messy, unstructured page of thoughts spill out. Often, clarity does not come as a big answer but as a small, honest sentences like: “I am tired.” “I miss playful work.” “I need help here.”
Reflection as relationship
After all reflective practice, for me, is a way of staying in relationship with myself first, but also with the people I serve as coach, and with the systems I am part of. Walking, silence, questions, brief notes – these are simply the languages in which that conversation happens.
When reflection is woven into everyday life like this, it becomes a quiet form of loyalty to my own truth. It feels natural. I do not force myself to “be reflective”; I notice that I feel off when I am not, and I follow that signal back to the practices that help me return.
At the end of a walk, or after a short pause before a session, there is often a sense of arriving – not to a solution, but to me. From there, the next step, the next question, or the next conversation is clearer.
An invitation for you
When was the last time you noticed that your “doing” was louder than your “being”?
If you gave yourself just ten minutes today – a brief walk, a quiet look through a window, a few honest lines on paper – what might you hear (see, feel) more clearly about your own life and work?
If you are about to establish a reflective practice, what would it look like?
As I wrap up my specialization in Positive Psychology this week, I’m reminded of a timeless truth that research continues to support: when our three fundamental psychological needs are met – confidence, choice, and connection, we experience higher levels of hope.
Hope is not wishful thinking; it’s one of the core virtues that fuel our motivation and resilience. It’s what Harvard psychologists describe as a dynamic system—born from our sense of competence, autonomy, and relationships that anchor us. In simpler terms, when we feel capable, have agency over our decisions, and belong to a supportive community, hope has fertile ground to grow. 🌱
From Chaos to Clarity
In a recent in-person session combining coaching and LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®, one of my clients uncovered a deeply personal sequence of transformation:
Clarity emerges through chaos
Readiness to change follows
Goal-setting unfolds from a peaceful and courageous place
She didn’t start with the goal. Instead, we explored what needed to be true before goal-setting could happen: what internal and external conditions would allow her to step forward with energy and confidence. It’s a powerful reversal of the usual logic. Clarity is not only a state, it turns out is also something we co-create through exploration and small action.
Change then becomes the “cheese” in this sandwich—something that binds clarity and goal-setting, connecting where we are with where we want to go. And when we take even one intentional step, hope starts breathing again.
The Psychology of Moving Forward
We often wait for perfect conditions to act: when in reality, renewal begins when we recall what matters most. Growth rarely happens in silence or stillness; it happens when we dare to reflect, speak, and rebuild connections.
In uncertain times, our ability to move forward isn’t about eliminating doubt—it’s about finding pockets of meaning inside it. We become hopeful when we feel ready, even if “ready” simply means ready enough to take the next small step.
I leave you with this reflection: What is one thing you need right now to create your positive change?
End of the year is approaching and it is the perfect timing to re-search within ourselves what is that we want to accomplish in the next months and in the next year. It is an opportune time to reflect instead of react towards the mountain of work that is waiting for us in the great new projects ahead. Last but not least it is a good time to employ intention and purpose in our work planning for the next year.
BEFORE GOALS
Whether consciously or not, every day, we strive to achieve something. Some of us move directly to make our desires reality, others are just meandering and happy to explore – or just the opposite: blaming ourselves for wasting valuable time. In fact, the pace we give ourselves to clarify our goal is almost half of the success.
Before we formulate something as a goal, it is just a desire in our head: ‘I want to be more confident ‘, ‘I want my startup to make it to the next level‘, ’I want to take better care of my health’ are not goals and not even desires. They are thoughts that cross our minds for a micro-moment, under the influence of a situation. For instance, a billboard advertising sportswear or healthy practice, news of the launch of a new venture fund”, etc. In order for a thought to become a desire, you need to concretize it for yourself. ‘I want to be more confident’ turns from thought to desire when you specify that you wish, to be confident when communicating with people who can influence positively your business or career.
DESTILL THE DESIRE TO A GOAL
Unraveling a desire and what lies behind it can create goals in several ways:
Behind the request to be more confident may be the realization that in order to “impress people of power” you need to be able to offer more – that is, you need additional qualifications in your professional presence. And then your goal would be to improve your expertise and acquire specific skill within a certain period of time.
Behind the request to be more confident may be the realization that you are an introvert, and it takes a serious effort to have a conversation with a person you have just met, no matter how beneficial could it be for your business or career. Then your goal would be to find out what you value in communicating with others, what is unique that you, although as an introvert, can offer, and build on it a strategy to increase your comfort in communicating with new people.
Behind your request to be more confident may be even the realization that focused on your business routine, you now weigh 8 kg more than a few years ago and that you tie confidence to appearance and to how you perceive yourself, not only how others see you. In this case, your goal would not be to accept yourself as you are, but rather would be to address a health problem, to overcome resistance, laziness, apathy, and eventually change the way you look.
WHEN WE FORMULATE SOMETHING AS A [FUTURE] GOAL
Once formulated, a goal is more achievable because of its clarity.
If you have to hit a ten, it will be much easier when there is a target in front of you. Dividing it into circles 1, 2, 3,… 9, 10 is important: not to get angry when you hit 7 or 5, but to arrange the pictures of what is around and before your goal. With the example above, we can say that in zone:
1-3 resides your desire to be more confident;
4-6 is the clarity in what situations or which aspect of your life you want to be more confident and why you need to;
7-8 is clarifying what this confidence will give you when you develop it, and
10 is the brief moment of joy and celebration of success, after which you must move on. In a way that has been grounded for you by the goal you have just achieved. Keep the pace and continue walking the walk!
WHAT GOALS ARE WORTH THE EFFORT?
Achieving our goals is a process of materializing our intentions. There are goals for the sake of goals. Such a goal leads to nowhere and the joy and benefit of what has been achieved is too short-lived to be worth the effort. What are the goals that move us forward? Those connecting us with the better version of ourselves, with the people we want to be. To be connected to ourselves means to be in harmony with ourselves. And we are in harmony with ourselves when our desires and reality coincide.By pairing the two layers – desire and reality, we achieve what we long for. Consider it from the perspective of something I call a “journey from goals to tools.”
FROM GOALS TO TOOLS
Our goals yesterday should be our tools today. Our goals today will be our tools or means to achieve new goals tomorrow. You can easily imagine this with the aim to learn a specific technical skill or another language. Chinese for example. This are goals that, once achieved, automatically become tools for you – and a means by which you achieve your further goals – entering new professional field or the Chinese market with your product.
This transitional moment is the starting point of the path to ourselves in achieving our desires – when we look at our desire as a bridge, rather than as a ladder. A bridge that leads us to the next important thing we want to accomplish. The benefits of seeing our current goals as future tools, are at least two:
it reduces the stress of achieving goals at any cost; we start perceive success not as the act of climbing a steep path but as a way forward;
the perception of achievement as a bridge we cross to move forward is also something that reminds us that joy is not necessarily in the arrival, but most often – in the journey itself.
WHAT IS NEXT FOR YOU?
So, what do you want to achieve for yourself, for your startup or your career in three or six months? Is it to close a deal, to shift in your business, is it to create more “me” time for you, to recharge, or more time to think strategically about your business? Or maybe what you want is new quality of the relationships in your work or private life?
Think of the goal you are pursuing as a future tool, identify what is the tool that this goal will transform in, when achieved. Once you are able to look at accomplishments that way, you will be astonished how this mindset shifts your energy and grit to make it all happen.
Mind full vs. mindful. We all have been there, right?
‘Mindful’ is a state of mind we can foster intentionally. Methods vary as people’s needs, especially when we are under pressure and strive to achieve goals. Recently, a client shared her surprise how companies still keep within job announcements the well-known “ability to perform well under pressure” line. As Adam Grant nailed it in his book “Think again”, a proper answer to the question of how one deals with pressure and stress, is “an even mix of angry outbursts and shutting down completely”.
WHAT OTHER OPTIONS DO WE HAVE?
No one likes to be under pressure and yet we all are. Whether we’re part of or leading a team, or acting as a solo-preneurs or startup commanders, the initial response to negative emotions is to suppress them. A bad idea, which will throw us at the “bottling or brooding” spiral, coined by the psychologist and author of the book “Emotional Agility”, Susan David.
Here’s a brief and yet intense exercise that I developed, inspired by exploring and understanding more about the scientific process behind different mindfulness practices and especially the popular technique RAIN – a process developed by Michelle McDonald as part of the mindfulness movement, which is characterized by cultivation of moment-to-moment awareness of ourselves and our environment and attention to our feelings without accompanying it with judgement. In other words, to reconnect to ourselves.
TRY BRIDGE
The technique I created is called BRIDGE and serves very well to people I coach, who are more kind of Do-ers than Be-ers and who need to rationalize the role emotional intelligence (EQ) plays for their mental wellbeing. Emotional intelligence, otherwise known as emotional quotient or EQ is the ability to understand, use, and manage your own emotions in positive ways to relieve stress, communicate effectively, empathize with others, overcome challenges and defuse conflict.
In the light of above said, the BRIDGE technique can help a busy person to observe consciously their thoughts, emotions, and sensations without trying to hide or solve them. The aim is to develop coping skills through self-compassion, in moments of behavioral or emotional dissonance. It can be in work or personal context, depending on what bothers the person at given moment, when “life happens”. BRIDGE can help us to reconnect and re-build the bridge to ourselves. Why? Because the primary and ultimate resource that we will ever need for everything we wish to accomplish is us. BRIDGE is an instrument to help us practice being ourselves.
BRIDGE – MINDFULNESS TECHNIQUE TO CALM MIND
You need 6 to 8 minutes for this exercise in an uninterrupted environment. Here is BRIDGE step by step:
B stands for BE. Meet yourself wherever you are, whoever you are, you don’t need to BE anything but you. Here and now. Just the way you are in that moment. Your thoughts, the way you feel about given circumstances, you, authentically.
R is for RECOGNIZE. Recognize your mood now. Maybe you are experiencing an emotion. Allow yourself to do so. Maybe you are a little bored. Or you are anxious about a deadline and feel guilty for investing time in this exercise… Or perhaps you are calm and still. Recognize the emotion as it is even if you aren’t able to give it a name. It is fine.
I is for INQUIRY. Move your attention from how you feel to where in your body it reflects. Do you feel physical sensation in a particular part of the body? How does it feels? Sense and observe with curiosity.
D is for DEVELOP. Develop your awareness on the situation, your feelings and sensations. Through the mindful technique of labelling, you can learn what you are dealing with. Sadness, worry, joy, happiness, or even hunger… they can all be named. You may experience a few emotions at once. Start by separating them and giving each a label. Stay with this labeling for a while. Let it sink-in.
G in bridge stands for GAIN. I invite you now to gain further clarity. What is the message for you from your body and mind here? What is behind this sensation? Pause for a while and give it time to say what it has to say to you.
And finally, E is for EMBRACE. Whatever the reason is for you to feel that way, embrace it, show yourself kindness. It is a part of you for a reason and is here to support you, to accompany you in your humanly fragile and flawless way forward.
This is BRIDGE, an easy exercise to bring you to a mindful state for a few minutes. The most important part of mindfulness is to recognize that it is a training of the mind, and like any exercise – in the gym or outdoors, prepare yourself to run a marathon, it will take some time before you see the benefits.
This is BRIDGE, an easy exercise to bring you to a mindful state for a few minutes. The most important part of mindfulness is to recognize that it is a training of the mind, and like any exercise – in the gym or outdoors, prepare yourself to run a marathon, it will take some time before you see the benefits.
Test the BRIDGE technique when you are calm and when you are anxious as well. See the difference and use it to build your emotional stability muscles and keep yourself in a good shape and spirits.
With one conversation at a time we may not be able to change the world, but we may possibly change someone’s world. There are circumstances in life, as so in business, when it is not about a conversation but is more about creating a space for a person or team, ‘to be’ – to hear, to listen and to sense what is there for them beyond words and thoughts. Such ‘space’ is available, “if only we are brave enough to see it, if only we are brave enough to be it” – to reword Amanda Gorman’s ‘inauguration’ poem from the beginning of this year. One way to create that space for a person, group or team is something I call ‘coaching constellation’. It stems from organizational constellations, based on Bert Hellinger’s family constellations concept and the theory of systemic thinking.
YOUR BUSINESS AVATAR STARTS WITH WHO YOU ARE
“The context this work was born into is that the first ‘team’ to which we belong is the family of origin. In every other team we belong to thereafter (business, organization, etc.), we are either looking to replicate what worked really well in our family or find what we didn’t get. This means that we bring our family system and its stories with us everywhere we go, and that teams for example, often behave like families (with all the function and dysfunction of that!).”, says Laura Beckingham, who enables people to live and lead more consciously, through systemic constellations and more.
“For business owners and leaders, this instrument provides quality time for self-reflection and 360 degrees’ observation of a difficult situation, challenge, as well as potential for business growth. Tapping into something we can call deep data, we can come up with more effective and sustained solutions to complex challenges.”, adds Lachezar Afrikanov, who is using systems theory in his coaching approach towards school and NGO leaders.
“This approach gives you in-depth insight and helps you to establish the source of a problem in a short time. Use business constellations whenever there are repeating problems, patterns that don’t work or issues that can’t be solved with rational thinking”, suggests Martijn Meima, a business coach and trainer, who recently published a book about entrepreneurship viewed from a systemic perspective.
A COACHING CONSTELLATION IN ACTION
A mighty way to determine the effect of something is the Before-and-After approach. Bravely enough, I decided to go this way, while crafting this article. I opened a call for clients to volunteer and Iana Avramova, an energetic serial entrepreneur, was willing to explore her inner journey on a sensitive subject for most startups: money. Hats off to her for being open and authentic in sharing her constellation experience with us.
BEFORE THE SESSION
[putting-the-problem-in-initial-question-formulated-by-the-client] > “How to monetize with ease the products and ideas I have?”[exploring-the-current-state]:Why is it not working so far?>“The sales part makes me anxious; I get overwhelmed from all the things that MUST be done; Negative answers on potential partnerships.”
[checking-deeper-with-pre-session-questionnaire]: How is it not working now? >“My sales are occasional, without a strategy or regularity; My marketing efforts have not brought actual sales; There are so many possibilities to explore that it also makes me dizzy.
DURING THE SESSION
The session itself was a one-and-a-half-hour online coaching conversation. We started with distilling Iana’s initial challenging question about her relationship with money. During the course of the session she gradually moved from [How to achieve financial abundance with ease?], to [How to achieve financial freedom with ease?], to the most resonant to her exploratory journey question [How to achieve financial ease?].
Constellation process needs a leap of faith, in order to reveal new perspectives and insight. As Laura Beckingham put it, what makes a [business] constellation effective is “allowing it all ‘into the room’. It works when the facilitator is letting go of the need to ‘constellate’ literally and working more systemically in a broader way.” A constellation can be set up with people, floor or table markers or objects, representing elements of the question at hand, and from that, the information needed emerges.
I introduced digital version of ‘table markers’, to represent each of the elements playing important role in client’s inquiry. We settled representatives for Ease, Money and for Iana, using virtually the system deck of coaching YOCO cards.
[10 days] AFTER THE SESSION
A week after our coaching constellation session, I e-mailed Iana Avramova with a few questions to reflect on, and a few days later she came back to me with answers.
What were your thoughts and feelings when you entered the session? Iana: I was expecting that it will help me move at least one step forward towards more clarity. I knew I had a blockage related to money and finances. In the past I have been doing a lot of work on the issue but still, something was obviously missing. So, the session for me was mostly about digging, figuring out, and systemizing what is sabotaging me and preventing my start-up from earning good money.
What made you slightly but markedly change your question a few times in the session? Iana: What I have found out during my personal and professional development is that desire always beats will. In all three times the question was valid for my case. The problem was that the words I was using were too big for me. Changing the question throughout the session allowed me to desire and feel comfortable with it. If I had kept on the initial question, I would fail inevitably at one point. Now I know I can stick with this final question and the actions it requires for the long term.
What new perspectives did you gain with the final question that you hadn’t had with the one you entered the coaching constellation session? Iana: A huge discovery for me was that I take money and finances very seriously. When something is so serious, it requires enormous effort, long-term vision, detailed strategy, complete dedication, lack of sleep, personal life, time for the kids, time for reading, sport or anything in general. I do not want to get that serious. I want to keep some independence, some leisure and lazy time, I want to avoid being stressed, tired, overwhelmed and nervous. Changing my perspective and allowing myself to think of money as a means, made it easier to think, feel, and see earning money as a game. The greatest discovery was the change of perspective. Like Wayne Dyer has said it “If you change the way you look at thing, the things you look at change”.
How was the coaching constellation process instrumental to you? Iana: An amazing process. It allowed me get all my thoughts out, to see them arranged into a visual. It helped me screen out the important and relative thoughts from the rest. For me it was of a great importance to doubt each thought and belief I have, in order to first figure out how I sabotage myself and second to come up with a completely new way of looking at things.
SYSTEM AWARNESS AND A BONUS FOR YOU
What Iana Avramova experienced within the coaching constellation was self and system awareness and letting herself taking the world as it is, through observing reality without judgment. System awareness has four components that we all can focus on too, when we examine a challenge: knowing it > sensing it > asking [yourself and the systems you belong to] and > doing [taking action towards a new, desired perspective].
“Try it yourself and experience how the process work. Use your intuition to investigate how to get the best out of your company. This constellation can support you to use the full potential of your company or project.
1. Use four sheets of paper and write the following on them:
1) I (or your name)
2) My company (or the name of your company)
3) The full potential of … (fill in the name of your company)
4) The first next step (literally write down these four words. You don’t have to know what this step is)
2. Intuitively place the sheets in the room or put them down where you think they should be.
3. Then step on the sheet of paper with “I” and observe what you experience there. You can pay attention to signals from your body, your emotions, your thoughts. You just observe, without judgment.
4. Investigate how you relate to the other elements. Imagine people standing on the other sheets of paper. If you do this with other people, you can ask them to stand on the other sheets of paper.
5. If you have a sense of moving, move your sheet of paper and let your feet determine its position.
6. Take some time after moving the sheet of paper to observe the changes. What do you experience in this position and how do you now relate to the other elements?
7. Slow down and take your time. If you have registered all information, take another 30 seconds to allow subtler information to present itself.
8. Step off this sheet of paper. Shake, turn around, and stamp your feet, before you continue.
9. Repeat steps 3-8 for the other sheets, “My company”, “The full potential of xxx”, and “The first next step”. Make sure you really step off a sheet of paper, shake, turn around, and stamp your feet before stepping on the next one.
10. Finally, end on the sheet of paper with your name on it and observe what it is like to be on that position now and how you relate to the others.
11. Write down what information you have received about your company and its full potential. Also write down the information you got about the first step. Decide to really take this step in the next few days and be curious to the results this will bring. Don’t expect anything, be open for everything.”
CONSTELLUSION
Do you remember when you learned to swim? The harder you tried to control the situation, the faster you sunk. The moment when you let go of control, you then stayed on the surface without effort, enjoying the lightness of your body. This is a micro moment and everyone who struggled with swimming at first, can recall it. Reliance meets laws of physics and you are floating. You are a step forward and this is just the beginning of an adventure.
Same thing with business constellations. What does make them effective? Part of me believes it might be our maverick imagination in a freely discovery; another, more solid explanation lays down the principle of quantum physics, revealing non locality and entanglement. Explanation may well be hidden in the phenomenon of social fields.
On the whole, a constellation is about employing the system’s wisdom, beyond tangible, conventional knowledge. It means that the person or the leader, if it is a team work, will not look for a quick fix, but will start searching for the root cause of a symptom. Cultivating system awareness means to expose ourselves to the ability we all have – to look at situations, relationships and challenges as related to the whole system. However, it is about acknowledging world as it is, through observing reality without judgment. It happens when ‘we are brave enough to see it, we are brave enough to be it’.
