My message is simple: if you want to learn something, you need to organize your day in such a way that there is room for the exercises you need to do.

You need to know how much time YOU need to do the exercises.
You need to know how much time YOU need to complete the exercises.
You need to know WHICH exercises get you far, and WHICH exercises are absolutely useless for YOU.

Explore. Learn more about yourself and your learning style. Yes, it takes time.
And it always pays off.
You are responsible for the thoughts you are thinking. Your thoughts become your words and your actions.
#nataliatokar #upskillme

"For centuries, religion has taught people to put others before themselves, to be selfless. In essence, to be a wounded healer. While healing another, you too shall heal yourself, thus praising healing through people. This is the neurosis of high empathy. High empathy is dangerous, as it can be socially offensive, enabling and causing trauma and chaos. Healing through others is not true healing.
On a spiritual, mental, emotional, physical level, you can not truly heal (guide others to heal) unless you yourself are healed. This takes depth of knowledge about yourself, deep psychological work & understanding, healing, empowering, and integration. Only when you have truly healed, you would be able to guide others if asked, by what worked for you as an individual, thus your advice may or may not be helpful to others. Only then, could you be an example to some, or many who resonate, only then can you show people doors to perceptions & consciousness, the keys you used, and your truth. Through your own personal journey you are able to truly storytell & guide by example.
That is true selflessness. True selflessness is self awareness. Healing is an intensely individual process before it’s a collective one, not the other way around. Healing from the inside out is true healing; it is not obscured by dangerous teachings of illusive collective oneness, idiotic scriptures, chaos, & deluded collective trauma ( “here, hold my baggage while I hold yours. Ok, wait, which one is mine & which one is yours?” Huh… doesn’t make much sense, does it?)
What do I mean by “baggage”? Baggage means unevolved aspects of human consciousness that are expressed through passive-aggressive manipulation, psychological projecting, & gaslighting. Baggage is essentially “mind control”, “mind games”, “mind trauma”. Taking on someone’s baggage does not mean listening or supporting someone through a difficult time; this is called “holding space” for someone, not taking on their “baggage” of psychological & emotional abuse."
from Darbi Sue Dunbar's blog

You can not want something that is not meant to be yours

March 27, 2022. Petroff Palace Moscow - Join the reading practice session
https://community.nataliatokar.me/c/calendar/reading-march27-2022

When native speakers transcribe my videos and say they’d wanna learn with me, I know I’m doing something right.

Watch the video here https://youtu.be/23CNh6yKbd8

Community LIVE CALL.
On March 19, I’m inviting all the community members to join our call “Tools and strategies to self-correct your speaking habits”

In February we explored a number of resources to self-correct our writing.
This month, we’ll look at our speaking behaviour.

Native-like fluency means changing your norm. The way you normally speak is a reflection of your identity, your thinking skills, and your attitude to life.

Most people need to learn to be attentive and aware of what their norm currently is. It’s because people are delusional about where they are and who they are that they suffer so much from self-correcting exercises. In fact, they bring a lot of joy, because each time you self-correct an old persistent pattern, you break free from old thoughts, which means your actions change. Actions are always fuelled by thoughts.

It’s FREE for the members of the Community of Practice. If you’re not a member, sign up and start your free trial today.

There WILL BE NO ZOOM LINK!!!
We use our own software for video calls. Once you’re a community member you can RSVP. The link to the video will be in the in the event description. You will also receive a notification when we go live.

https://community.nataliatokar.me/c/calendar/live-call-march-19

We offer special payment terms for all the community members from Russia. You guys can pay in RUB.

Feel free to cancel your membership on the platform (your Visa/Mastercard won’t work anyway since it’s a foreign website). Reach out to me directly or message our community manager, and we will send you the right link.
Thank you for choosing to practice with us!

If you live outside of Russia, everything stays the same for you. Everything works seamlessly too🙂 Enjoy your practice.

Today, silent reading is the norm. The majority of us bottle the words in our heads as if sitting in the hushed confines of a library. Reading out loud is largely reserved for bedtime stories and performances.
But a growing body of research suggests that we may be missing out by reading only with the voices inside our minds. The ancient art of reading aloud has a number of benefits for adults, from helping improve our memories and understand complex texts, to strengthening emotional bonds between people. And far from being a rare or bygone activity, it is still surprisingly common in modern life. Many of us intuitively use it as a convenient tool for making sense of the written word, and are just not aware of it.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200917-the-surprising-power-of-reading-aloud

preview of the Final SPRINT! session on Clarity. Level #1. Precise wording

What we learned during the 14-day SPRINT on Clarity. Level #1. Precise Wording. What you see on the screen is what students defined as learning outcomes.
1. Resources to find precise words (and how to use them)
2. Mechanisms to balance inner state
3. Exercises to prcatice clarity (precision)
4. The structure of delivering clear explanations
5. Stategies to work with text/audio/video content


We had only ONE clear focus during this SPRINT! We did ONLY the exercises that served the purpose. And yet, there were so many new discoveries. Thank you for your work! If you want to continue working on Clarity., consider joining Level #2. Strong Verbs and Adjectives. At this level we will be learning to tell better stories, because every story needs good action verbs🙂 https://community.nataliatokar.me/c/calendar/clarity-sprint2

Read fiction in English.
You don’t have to be an avid reader. You don’t have to read a book a month or 50 books a year.
Sometimes one paragraph is enough to learn something.
Reading for pleasure is one thing. Reading as a practice is a different thing.
I talk about reading in the context of deliberate practice. It’s an exercise to improve your fluency in English.

To make the best use of this exercise, limit the number of pages you read, the amount of time you’re ready to devote to it, and create a certain set of criteria to measure your progress.

➡️To access tons of exercises where we use reading as leverage to achieve better fluency, go to the Resource Library (available to everyone who’s taking the Listening course and members of the Native-like fluency group). https://courses.nataliatokar.me/courses/listening-course-how-to-hear-every-word-in-english

➡️To find creative exercises where our focus is READING, go to the Community of practice (start your free trial if you’re not a member yet). https://pages.nataliatokar.me/community

➡️To practice for free, go to my SoundCloud account and work with the playlist “Natalia Reads”. All transcripts are available in the description box. See if you can beat me and read better🤗 https://soundcloud.com/natasha-tokar/sets/natalia-reads-out-loud

How to practice Clarity. Level #2

We begin on March 25, 2022.
10 days of real-time practice. Only 30 min a day. Only ONE focus.

I identify five Elements of CLARITY, and non-native speakers need to practice each consistently:

Precise wording
Strong verbs & adjectives
Structure (identifying facts)
Connections & Transitions
Intonation

This SPRINT! is about the second element. We will practice replacing weak verbs & adjectives with strong and precise ones.

➡️Daily 30-min live sessions where we practice replacing weak & generic verbs & adjectives with strong & precise alternatives. Short, digestible, result-oriented lessons. Replays are instantly available.
➡️Participants will CREATE homework for themselves and others. We will pay a lot of attention to the skill of being spontaneous in English. I will show you how 🙂Homework is optional. You don't have to do it, you don't need to report to anyone or show your work to anyone if you don't feel like it.



Read more and apply here
https://community.nataliatokar.me/c/calendar/clarity-sprint2