Welcome to my first News to ENRICH blog: Tips to be the best version of yourself and ENRICH your relationships.

I have been interested in the topic of well-being for as long as I remember myself and finally I have collected my thoughts to share with you tips and tricks on how to raise your self-esteem, how to enrich your relationships and how to be living the best version of yourself.

You see, to feel great you want to understand what makes YOU feel great. Although we are all human beings and all have fundamental human needs, every one of 7 billion of us has a unique fingerprint! That means YOUR blueprint is different, YOUR hierarchy of needs is different and YOUR story is unique. Hence, to understand what makes you tick and what drives you is paramount.

To make this journey smooth and to understand how we are going to create the best version of yourself let me share with you a concept called the Ladder of Needs. I have created it based on the human needs theory as well as practical work with my clients. Let me know what you think about it by leaving your comment on this page or on my Facebook page.

The Ladder of Needs has four categories: physical, emotional, mental and spiritual.

Physical needs is all about what we HAVE, i.e. food, shelter and physical satisfaction. For example, air we breathe, water and food we intake, space and house we have, movement, rest and sex.

Emotional needs is all about how we FEEL, i.e. feeling loved, happy and listened to. For example, when we feel happiness inside, when we feel loved and love another person, when we feel we belong, we are free, we feel empathy from another person, we feel freedom and trust 

Mental needs is all about what we ACHIEVE, i.e. success, respect and power. For example, what career or job we have, what financial status we have reached, how much success, respect and power we have and how quickly we can problem-solve.

Spiritual needs is all about how much we GIVE and HELP others. For example, to grow ourselves, to have a purpose in life, to contribute to others, to support and give love, to be creative, having a sense of morality and spontaneity, acceptance and lack of prejudice.

There are a lot of concepts here but don’t worry, I will walk you through them one by one to share useful tips and exercises to make sure you understand them and know what to do to satisfy your needs and live a happier life.

So the first boost of ENRICHing news is in regards to the way we breath, which is part of our physical needs category on the Ladder of needs. Rarely do we think about this simple automatic act. But it does wonders. It is a better technique to relax than having a four-hand full body massage and it is preventive as well as curative. You can boost your emotional intelligence and you can save your relationships in a heat of a moment adopting below skills.

So, what are the elements of breathing that are so important and what we should watch out? Here are four of them:

• Mindful breathing
• Quality of air
• Depth of inhale
• Variety of styles

Today we will look into the first one: mindful breathing. What is a mindful breathing? Simply, it is breathing full of mind, that is when you are aware of your breathing and your focus (attention) of your mind is on the breathing. You have just done that when you first read the word ‘breathing’: you automatically focused on your breathing and became aware of it. You may have started breathing deeper or you may have taken a big inhale. That is mindful breathing. You can start with 5 minutes a day and it will help you relax. Why? Because deep breathing helps kick-off your parasympathetic nervous system which is responsible for the relaxation of the body. Here attached is an audio if you want to experience it live.

In the next post, we will talk about the quality of air we breath!