Thanks to Mette, I joined International Coaching Week Guangzhou event last night and listened to some great life coaches’ talks. Their talks resonated a lot to my personal journey as I approached my 40 years of life.

The joy and pain of life are universal. But how you perceive and manage them tend to be highly individual. It makes the biggest difference as in how you get your own Life Coaching.

I learned the most from 2 exercises, ‘talking to the dead’ and the Yellow Emperor Life Code / 《皇帝内经》.

Talking to the dead This term sounds scary at first glance. It has to do with my Chinese family. I am blessed with a long list of known ancestors. Unlike other parts of China that were war-davasted, mine can be dated back to the Qing Dynasty/大清帝国 non-stop, and I grew up in houses built during the Qing Dynasty. Like many other Chinese family, we have an (extended) family re-union in Qing Ming Festival (Tomb-Sweeping Festival/清明节) around early April each year. Naturally, we shared stories, from the elderly to the younger. That’s when I keep knowing the lives my ancestors once lived. I learned about personalities, big choices in life, their occupations, life achievement as well as their miss and sorrows.

I learned to appreciate myself as a natural continuation of my ancestors, only under different times and conditions. And I subscribe to the The Karma Theory/因果轮回 as taught in Buddhism.

I survived 3 traffic accidents, and each time my Dad told me,

“You know what? You are only borrowing your life from your ancestors.”

This exercise turns into a growing wealth as I learn more. And The Karma Theory remains the most powerful law I derived from it.

7 for women 8 for men/女七男八 The Yellow Emperor Life Code / 《皇帝内经》 teaches that, your life goes through major stages until you die. Women go through a 7 years cycle and 8 years for men.

Women typically have their 1st period at age 14, and you count the rest of your own significant life events, whether it’s physiological, personal or career life, along this timeline.

So do men.

I had my 1st major career success near age 32, and I got a miss-achievement near age 40. Like it or not, time, as the Ultimate God, is dictating everything one does as an individual. Your health, your happiness or sadness, your success or misses,etc.

This, has significance in how you plan your life stages.

Whatever your life purposes are, you are on the train once you were born and you were inevitably dragged through these stages of life.

For example, since my life has limited span, each stage means a significant growth or decline as I age. Accordingly, I must plan how I live and work accordingly.

I am grateful for having Mette putting together such great event and I made it an exercise for my own Life Coaching.