Agnes Lukacs
Transformation Coach
How to live like a king with a corona
By Cecilie Gamst Berg
Are you getting bored with the whole Covid thing? I know I am. In the beginning it was quite exciting in a “oh, this is a historical event” kind of way, and I even started writing a blog chronicling the Corona Lockdown days. The last sentence in Day One was: This will change the world forever.
Remember when it was called Corona? No, remember when it was called Wuhan flu, then, briefly, China flu? That was quickly deemed “racist”.
Then it suddenly became Corona. I bought a bottle of Corona to support that poor company, only to realise it tasted a lot like water. Distilled water.
In addition to an inferior lager and my favourite restaurant, Hostal Corona in El Terreno, there must be a thousand companies around the world bearing this name - Crown. Is that why the press quickly started calling the virus Covid?
Anyway, I’m bored with it and, when I look at the world shutting down around me, not a little concerned about the future – are we all going to be abjectly poor and live under a bridge? And now that so much of the world was doing so well?
But there’s no need to worry, according to transformation coach Agnes Lukacs when I meet her over coffee in an air conditioned café in El Terreno. It’s all in the perception. You know, change lemons not only into lemonade but lemonade cocktails; the glass not only half full but overflowing, that kind of thing.
“Yes! You can absolutely create, and change, your own reality. You do create your own reality by the way you think about something. A virus is neither good nor bad, it just is. It is the way we react to it that counts. You have to accept the reality, and not wait for someone to come and save you. No one is coming to save you. Only you.”
Lukacs knows what she is talking about. Five years ago, living and teaching English in her native Budapest, she decided to change her life. She had a vague dream about living on an island, just not which one. Somewhere Mediterranean.
“I just wanted to live in Paradise – that was all I knew. But after years of taking self-help courses and being coached to invest in myself, I also knew what steps to take. By creating a goal and setting a date, I knew it would open up for possibilities. So I made a decision: By May 1st 2016 I would be living on an island.”
Something like, ‘build it and they will come’? Actually, I know from my own life that it is absolutely true; once you have made a commitment or set a goal from which you cannot back down, everything seems almost magically to fall into place.
For Lukacs, the opportunity to go to a Mediterranean island soon presented itself in the form of an old friend of her mother’s suddenly popping up on Facebook, inviting Lukacs’ mother to come to Mallorca and stay as long as she wanted, with her daughter.
Lukacs spent six months in Mallorca, exploring it and the Baleares, before she went back to Hungary to keep teaching English. But this time she had a plan and a direction, and started combining the teaching with coaching.
“My students wanted to learn English to reach goals like moving abroad, starting a business or working in fashion, so now I was helping them to change their lives as well as learning English. I had taken so many courses and spent so much time learning how to change my own reality and now, finally, I could combine the different aspects of what I had learnt and experienced.”
“I went back to Mallorca to live, keeping my English teaching /self-help business going online. During my first stay in Mallorca I had met a man, and now I lived with him. He was so great and helped me with everything.
“But although we still love each other it just didn’t work out, and after we split up I realised how “lazy” and unmotivated I got beside him, and how I needed to be challenged by life and live “close to the bone.” I needed to get out of my comfort zone.”
Sometimes we have to take a great leap into the unknown to find out what we are capable of, but now with the Covid thing, leaping into not having a job, no income, isn’t that too much to ask, especially of people who rely solely on tourism?
“First of all, people have to take responsibility, for themselves and for their finances. Then they have to change their programming. That’s what I do, by the way, help people to change their programming. Programming is the ‘voice in your head’; the thoughts and words you tell yourself, consciously or subconsciously. If your programming is ‘ It’s not possible’ ‘I can’t do it,’ ‘I’m not enough’ you shouldn’t be surprised if your life doesn’t go the way you want it.
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“Then they have to be willing to change. They have to accept reality, and be willing to take action to change it. Most importantly, they have to connect with like-minded, positive people who also want to change.
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Lukacs mentions one of her clients, a baker with a shop. When the lockdown came, at first he didn’t know what to do, and fell into thinking “Oh no, we’re all going to die.” Then he realized he must change direction. He made a plan, took action, and two weeks later he had a new website and was doing deliveries. He thrived during the lockdown instead of going under.
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She gives another example of how being willing to shake up one’s pattern will lead to good things, as in the case of two other clients, one a personal trainer and the other a maker of healthy foods.
“Instead of the two of them sitting alone thinking about how badly lockdown has affected their businesses, I introduced them to each other, and now they are working together. In fact, we are all three of us working together. People who are interested in training and mental and spiritual development are also interested in healthy food!”
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“I think so many people live their lives just waiting to die. They think negative thoughts and speak negative words, not knowing that the thoughts and words will manifest themselves into a negative reality. They blame other people, they blame the government, they blame circumstances outside themselves for their predicament. They don’t take responsibility for their own lives.”
“Basically, whatever you feed into your mind, will grow. So why not grow something positive in your life?”
“When you know what you want to create in your life, make more of that. When it comes to Covid, and the uncertainties we all face now, what counts is your attitude. Educate yourself! Knowledge is so important. There has never been so much information everywhere, and most of it is free!”
Lukacs, who will occasionally accept clients pro bono or for bartering, as well as running her website www.freeandjoyful.com and posting free inspirational messages on Facebook once a week, advises people to get off social media and stop wasting time on stuff that can’t improve their lives.
“Stop watching the news. Get off Facebook. Focus. Feed only what will help you. Read only what will help you. Find your strength. Ask yourself how you can take control.
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“Coaches are there to guide you, help you and show you the right direction.
Growing, evolving, learning and changing the way we think and the way we create our lives is a lifelong journey, but, using modern techniques, a good transformation coach can give you the tools to transform your life with a few sessions.”
Walking into the immune system strengthening sunshine after our interview, we avoid shaking hands. Then we put on our de-humanising masks and walk out into a world where everyone looks like a dentist.