Season 2 Episode 5: All the Feels

In this episode, we learn all about how feelings show up in our brains and in our bodies, and how they can affect the way we interact with the world around us

In this episode, we learn all about feelings. How they show up in our brains and in our bodies, and how they can affect the way we interact with the world around us. Nancy tells us about trying to conquer her Monger during a stressful time, and how feeling her emotions in her body and naming them, helped her to feel better in the moment. We also hear from science journalist and health advocate Donna Jackson Nakazawa who explains to us from a scientific perspective what a feeling actually is, and how it affects our bodies over the course of our lives. She gives us some tips for understanding our emotions and how our health can be affected by trauma.

Listen to the full episode to find out:

• How feelings affect our physical and mental health.

• How a feeling is biologically created.

• How trauma affects our emotional and physical state

• Resources and advice from Donna Jackson Nakazawa.

Resources mentioned:

• Go to donnajacksonnakazawa.com to order Donna's books and courses.

• Follow Donna on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter.

• Coach in Your Pocket

• The Happier Approach Book

+ Read the Transcript

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Nancy VO: Hey guys, it’s me! Nancy Jane Smith. Welcome back to the Happier Approach, the show that pulls back the curtain on the need to succeed, hustle, and achieve at the price of our inner peace and relationships.

Zip up your wetsuit, because in today’s episode we’re diving straight into the Emotion Ocean. This episode is all about feelings. You know, those pesky little things that tend to wash over us at what seems like exactly the wrong moment? Sometimes it can seem like taking the time to understand and acknowledge our feelings is just a big road block on our journey to self-loyalty.

Well, it turns out that feelings are more than little cartoon thought bubbles, inconveniently popping up over our heads. And just swatting at them won’t make them go away. Feelings are actually connected to what’s going on with our physical bodies, and they can have a HUGE impact on our physical as well as our mental health.

But, I didn’t always know that.

A few years ago. I was driving to work. As the world zoomed by out my window, I could feel my anxiety rising. My thoughts were jumping all over the place, my neck was throbbing and my hands were sweating.

In an attempt to calm myself, I wanted to get to the WHY. Why am I so stressed? So I asked myself, "What is going on? Why are you so stressed!?" But rather than approaching this stressed feeling with a loving curiosity, my Monger took over. The question became, "EXPLAIN YOURSELF, SOLDIER!!" WHY ARE YOU SO STRESSED?"

So like a good soldier, I named all the things that were stressing me out: work, my Dad’s parkinsons, my husbands' epilepsy, a presentation I had coming up.

This is usually how the game goes—my Monger asks me to justify my stress, and I list off my stresses with an air of indifference as if I was reciting a grocery list. I always lose the game to the Monger because her message always is: you SHOULD

be able to handle it, SOMEONE SOMEWHERE has it worse than you, and you are a wimp who can't handle any stress.

But sitting at the traffic light wrapped in the safety of my car I let myself cry. I put my hands over my heart and named what was under all that stress, what I was feeling: sad, overwhelmed, and scared.

My body relaxed, and as I pulled into my office parking lot, I thought to myself: I’ve turned a corner with this whole anxiety thing...

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Fast forward to this past week. Again my anxiety was high, I was worrying about a project for work, obsessing about a conversation I had had with a friend, and my arthritis was flaring. Last night as I was cooking dinner, I thought to myself once again: Why are you so stressed?

I recited to myself: Well I am behind on a project at work. I ran out of time again! I think I said the wrong thing to Sandy today and my arthritis is killing me. It just sucks so bad. All with the emotional equivalent of reading a grocery list.

And then there was the Monger's voice: "You are fine. You are so privileged. Think of all the people out there who are hurting, and you are barely holding it together because of a few stressors—give me a break."

I had been playing this familiar game most of the week. My anxiety is high—my Monger belittles me—I try to justify it by naming all my stressors—she belittles me more. And round and round we go.

I’ve been playing this game for so long it’s habitual. It is like putting on an old itchy sweater.

I want to say that I recognized the game and BAMMO. I practiced acknowledging my feelings, and all was well.

But that isn't what happened. My Monger won last night just as she had all week.

Bird chirping sfx

And then this morning, walking the dog in the cool crisp air, smelling the flowers and watching Watterson have the joy only a dog can feel early in the morning, I thought to myself: You suck.

You are a mess. You are never going to get this project done at work. You are so behind and you are so lazy if you moved your body more you wouldn’t hurt so much!

My Monger thrives on these negative emotions. And it’s so easy to get stuck there. To feed into that negativity when I’m feeling down on myself. It’s a cycle. I feel bad, the monger pops up, I feel worse. Both mentally AND physically. How do we break that cycle once and for all? It turns out, it has A LOT to do with the story we tell ourselves about how we’re feeling.

ACT II: Donna Jackons-Nakazawa

Donna Jackson-Nakazawa:

we're always searching for a place where our voice and our essence can come to be to its true fruition. And that's a lifelong path.

Nancy VO: This is Donna Jackson-Nakazawa. She's a science journalist, health advocate, and author of six-- soon to be seven-- books that probe at the connection between science, journalism, and health.

Donna Jackson-Nakazawa: I delve into the science behind

the mind body connection and do a deep dive into the science while also intersecting it with what we know about the deepest layers of our human heart and our human existence

Nancy VO: Donna’s journey down this path started early.

Donna Jackson Nakazawa:I grew up in a family of Newspaper Publishers, grew up kind of running around the Annapolis Gazette, the evening Capitol at the time in Annapolis. My father was the editor and my family ran the paper and I just grew up running around with you know, all men At that point, a couple of female reporters and we would go and visit the presses all the time. And guys would give me little bits of unfortunately, lead type.

And I could grab my own words, and you'd go in there be all these little wooden boxes, and you could pick your words, and they’d print little papers for me.

My mother's family were a group of well educated and well known scientists and her father had been one of the founding scientists at the National Institutes of Health. So depending on which side of my family I was with, there were all these extremely smart people talking about, you know, chemistry and intersections of biology with chemistry and, and then on the other side, people were running around reporting and my father was a social activist. We had Vietnam vets come and sitting at our kitchen table. So I think that that marriage of science, public service, and communication was just very strong in me.

Nancy VO: But… things weren’t always easy for Donna growing up.

Donna Jackson Nakazawa: Well, in that narrative, which I made sound so pretty and, and easy, um, there was a lot of discomfort, a lot of tragedy and a lot of a lot of hardship and a lot of adversity.

When I was 12, my dad who had a series of autoimmune issues, went in for a very minor surgery and he died. And so he never came home from that surgery. And we were truly aligned as writers and and thinkers, and life changed completely for us. My father's family without going too much into it had a lot of vested interest in the financial aspects of newspapers and printing presses. And so we were kind of ousted from that family. everything changed from you know, a family that would be outside and having crab feast on the water and sailing on the weekends. And really kind of a charmed life. To really struggling.

Nancy VO: All of that emotional stress started manifesting for Donna in a physical way.

Donna Jackson-Nakazawa: I was 14. And you know, at that time, we didn't understand the link between trauma and and our immune system. We just had no clue. But I started fainting and passing out.

By the time I was in my early 20s, I was really passing out on my college campus. In my 20s, I started having seizures, I ended up having a pacemaker put in for heart block and vasovagal syncope so and then I began to develop a series of autoimmune diseases. Thyroiditis, I had Guillain Barre syndrome got better than I got it again. And a couple of other autoimmune diseases. I don't like to list them all because it just makes me, you know, listing diagnoses kind of perks up my immune system in a way I don't like.

Nancy VO: Because of her background in science journalism, Donna saw a connection between the negative emotional stressors and traumas she’d experienced, and her autoimmune issues.

Donna Jackson Nakazawa: The immune system is kind of like a barrel, right, you can put so much in it. But then there can be that last drop

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And the water at the top of the barrel spills over. And so we all are born with different barrels, right. And we could call that lower level of water, genetic predisposition, genetic predisposition, we certainly have autoimmune disease in my family, we can call a layer of water a huge, a huge part of the water that fills the barrel, our experiences, our traumatic experiences, whatever it is, over time that's picked up a sense of unsafety in us is going to pick up our immune system. So unpredictable chronic stress growing up that threat set that threat response that gets set up in childhood, for good or for ill, over time, the exposure to chronic unpredictable stress and trauma in childhood actually turns on genes that up the stress threat response. Over time, we can see in kids who experienced adversity when they were young, that the genes that oversee the stress response and should turn it on and off appropriately, they get stuck in the on position, you might think of it kind of like a dimmer switch in the dining room, you know, where you can turn that dimmer switch to high and low light shine higher.

So we want with the stress threat response, we want to be able to respond to things that are scary appropriately. And then the dimmer switch turns off. That's how the stress response is supposed to work as nature intended. But in kids and teens who grow up with chronic unpredictable stress, and many different types of adversity, from poverty to a parent with a mental health disorder to losing a parent, they all have in common, putting a child in a state of not knowing what's coming in the next moment or the next moment or the next moment. And when that happens, it signals the immune system to perk up and it causes these epigenetic shifts to genes that oversee the stress response. So this fills water in the barrel, right? That just water goes higher.

Our brain and body are talking 24 seven, Are you safe or not safe? And if the answer is you're not safe, and the reason is emotional, our brain doesn't distinguish between that as a reason to respond on an immune level, from whether or not that hit is a physical head of physical trauma or an infection or exposure to a toxic chemical.

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Nancy TAPE:

Is it true that according to in our brain stress is stress, emotional, physical, biological, it's, it's all the same, but we as humans have labeled it as something different?

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Donna TAPE

To speak to that I have to take you all the way back 300 years if you want to want to go that far with me to when we can thank early philosophers

Descartes for the idea of Mind Body dualism that the body and the mind function as church and state entities. Early anatomist agreed with him. When they began to go in and look at the body, they found two things which convinced them that the mind and body were not connected. And that is a, constellation of dense red blood cells at the base of the brain called the blood brain barrier. And it was thought that because of this dense constellation of cells, it was nature's way of preventing the immune system in the body, from communicating with the brain in any way, immune cells and signals couldn't get through. And then of course, although we know that our body is this immunological organ, all of this thinking led to the idea that the brain was categorically what we call immune privilege. If you are hanging a picture in your house, and you hit your thumb by mistake, it's gonna get red, hot, painful and swollen. That's inflammation. That's literally how we define inflammation, red hot, painful and swollen.

However, early anatomist thought well, the brain can't be ruled by the immune system, it can't be talking to the immune system, it must be immune privileged, because it has this hard cap on top of it, right, it has a skull, unlike any other part of the body. So if the brain we're going to be ruled by the immune system, it must have the power to swell and recede, swell and receive like every other organ in the body. But because of the skull, anatomist and philosophers who agreed that the brain was immune privileged.

100 years ago, Spanish neuroscientists found they were looking at cells other than neurons in the brain. So neurons, of course, fire and wire together, our thought patterns, our neural neural pathways, our neural circuitry, we can think of neurons which are the flashy darlings of the neuroscience research world.

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But about 100 years ago, researchers started looking at four glial cells in the brain, they're non neuronal cells, one of them is called micro glia. And these little glial cells make up almost 10% of our brain cells. But no one really knew what they did. And Spanish neuroscientists kind of looked at them shrugged and went, looks like they're just catering to neurons. They're like helping neurons and they're like a support system, kind of like an entourage around a movie star. But just seven years ago to kick butt female researchers at Harvard took a deeper look at these cells. They went way out on a limb, they really investigated them, and they found out that these little glial cells microglia are actually immune cells in the brain. And when they are activated by stressors, all the same stressors we talked about be that physical, infectious, chemical, or emotional stressors.

They morph and puff up into these big fat hairy Pac Man like cells, and they begin to munch and eat away at synapses. And researchers at Mount Sinai in New York, they found that these little glial cells actually break off their immune cells that break off from our white blood cells on the seventh or eighth day of gestation, in utero, and they rise up to the brain. And they rule brain immune health, they communicate 24 seven with the immune cells in our body, and all of science miss this for the past 100 years.

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Donna Jackson Nakazawa: None of this understanding that what affects us emotionally affects our brain connectivity, which affects our behavior, our feelings, our thoughts, and how we communicate with each other and our relationships and how well we feel about the world.

No one understood that this was being shaped by our intersection between ourselves, our brains and our environment, on an immune level on a brain immune level, until very, very recently.

Nancy TAPE:

So can you explain from a scientific perspective what a feeling is?

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Donna Jackson Nakazawa: Feelings and emotions arise in response to the world around us, and that in response to the thoughts that we're having. Anything that is happening without and within, that stirs, a strong response is going to lead to a feeling, but a feeling is also a physical thing.

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So again, we didn't use to understand that we thought of feeling within the mind. And everything else happened in the body. But a feeling is usually something that feels a little flooding, like flooding, or overwhelming, it fills us, it fills our mind. But what we forget is that it's also filling our body our body changes, it enters into a slightly different state, depending on the feeling if the feeling is happy, our body floods with oxytocin and other feel good hormones that are actually neuro protective.

A feeling that's negative is that fight flight freeze response, where the body goes into this escalation of stress hormones, and chemicals, and those flood the body. And that's why when you're really stressed, your heart rate goes higher. The little hair on your hands and arms stands up, you, your muscles get very tense to either fight or flee. Your blood all rushes to your arms and legs. It's why you get butterflies right? Because all the blood does it your body doesn't care about digestion, right? Then it just cares, do I have to run?

Or do I have to fight. So a feeling is emerging from this 24 seven dance we're doing with our environment and with ourselves in our own minds. So it's an intersection between a thought or an event and our mental state.

At the same time, it's a biophysical response because the two cannot be separated. And I think that's what's so important to understand about the biology of emotion is that your emotion, if we look at it through the lens of what we call psycho neuro immunology to break that great term down, psycho is psychology. neuro is neuroscience. immunology is your immune system. So a thought is really something that enters into this process of psychoneuroimmunology, the psychology of thinking, that neuro immune response in the brain and the immune response in the body you cannot separate those three ever, whether it's in response to an event outside you or within you, and all of them are biophysical responses that occur in the body, and over time begin to change the body and the brain.

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Donna Jackson Nakazawa: We think that what's happening in our mind is not happening in our body, and what's happening in our bodies not happening in our mind. But in fact, our body and mind are two ways superhighway communicating 24 seven about one central question, Am I safe? Or am I not safe? That is your brains job, your brain is a detective. That's what your brain cares about. We are the drivers of this conversation that we're having with ourselves and with the world around us.

Nancy VO: That stressed out feeling I talked about in the story at the beginning of the episode? My body tensing up, my mind racing, my heart beating fast-- that physical response is all wrapped up in my emotional response. And THAT affects my immune response too. The arthritis flare I mentioned? It could have to do with the stress I was feeling.

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Nancy VO: So now that we know that all of this is connected, the mind, body, and immune system-- how can we use that knowledge to feel better, physically and mentally?

Donna Jackson Nakazawa: So there are many things we can do to clean up our environment. We can add in, you know, meditation, and yoga and movement and dance and all kinds of different things. But we also have to begin to rewrite and re-narrate the way in which we talk to ourselves and the way in which we communicate with ourselves about the threats that exist in the world out there.

Nancy VO: That idea of telling the story of your stress to yourself differently is totally key. And Donna actually developed a course to do just that-- it’s called: Your Healing Narrative: Write-to-Heal With Neural Re-Narrating.

Donna Jackson Nakazawa: We can literally rewire our conversation about how safe we are so that the immune system and the brain can calm down the immune system and the body can calm down and we can create a narrative that's literally on paper of our story, giving it meaning

Nancy VO: When we’re able to understand our story, and tell it to ourselves with more compassion, it can calm us down emotionally, which makes us feel better physically.

Donna Jackson Nakazawa: I really developed this course, to help bring down that stress threat response, particularly for those with chronic conditions. And rewire some of those neural pathways, away from that heightened stress threat response, so that we can flourish even when we're dealing with adversity. There's a saying in the trauma community that trauma healing happens when we understand our story. And we give meaning to it, and we create meaning through it for who we are now and long into the future.

Offer yourself every opportunity to take this time to ask yourself about that intersection between the trauma that you faced in your life or now as an adult and your ability to go within and the narrative that you have of yourself and your own worth, and your ability to wake up on your own side.

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Nancy VO: As I think we’ve established, it’s hard for me to give myself compassion. Especially when my Monger is running the show. What I didn’t realize before, is that by re-framing the conversation with myself kindly, I’m actually creating a new neural pathway. A new groove in my brain for my mind to trace, that might lead me to a less stressed-out place.

ACT III: Learning to re-narrate

Nancy VO: Where we last left off, I was walking my dog on a beautiful morning. But I was also wearing that itchy, uncomfortable Monger sweater. Letting my Monger berate me for an arthritis flare that was affecting my ability to get work done.

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Nancy VO: Suddenly, I thought: STOP. This it isn’t helping! I took a minute to ask myself: What are you feeling? Sad, scared, overwhelmed, tired, lost. I am feeling like a mess. Then, I got tears in my eyes. I immediately softened and I heard a quiet voice say: "It is ok to be a mess, Sweet pea. It is hard right now. You are doing just fine." And my whole body relaxed. I let the tears flow... And for the first time in a week, I took off the Monger sweater.

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This time—I didn't say to myself, Oh, you’ve turned a corner. I didn’t put that much pressure on myself. I recognize that as much as I want to put this anxiety stuff behind me, as much as I wish the minute I notice my anxiety, I could acknowledge my feelings and all would be well... that isn't the case. My Monger still wins for way longer than I want her to. I still play her silly games of justifying my stress. And I wear her sweater, which repels any messages of self-loyalty for days and weeks at a time.

The good news? I do have the antidote. I know acknowledging my feelings helps. I know that owning what I am experiencing and not trying to justify it or belittle it helps... It isn't instantaneous. It isn't magical. It takes WAY longer than I want it to.

My High Functioning Anxiety wants to find a hack, a system, a guaranteed 5 step plan. A plan that I will want to do and will only take a few minutes, and BAMMO I will be fixed. And it just isn't realistic. For now, dog walks, slowing down, acknowledging my feelings, talking to friends, being kind to myself, and having my own back. That’s what helps.

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Outro

That’s it for this week! In our next episode we’re going to tackle a mental health buzzword that can really tick me off: gratitude. What is it? Is it really realistic to try to feel it all the time? We’ll find out next time, on the Happier Approach.

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Nancy VO: The Happier Approach is produced by Nicki Stein and me, Nancy Jane Smith. Music provided by Pod5 and Epidemic Sound. And if you like the show, leave us a review on iTunes! It actually helps us out a lot.

Special thanks to Donna Jackson-Nakazawa for speaking with us today. If you’re dealing with unresolved childhood trauma or feeling chronically stressed and want to learn how to rewire your brain for health and build resilience back into your life, you can find Donna’s books and courses at donna jackson nakazawa dot com. That’s Donna Jackson N-A-K-A-Z-A-W-A dot com.

The Happier Approach will be back with another episode in two weeks. Take care, until then.

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Episode 138: The Catch-22 Of "I Got This"

In today’s episode, I talk about “I got this” a behavior that we engage in when our monger is chatting at us and we’re stressed and anxious.

My Monger is always in my ear, saying: You got this. 

And while, to some, “I got this” might sound like empowered thinking, when it’s coming from my Monger, it certainly is not. 

Instead, it’s a clue that I’m on auto-pilot mode. 

Here’s what I mean:

Recently, after a full day of work, I was making dinner for my husband and doing a load of laundry at the same time. Telling my husband to plate up, I rushed downstairs to “flip a load,” as I call it. 

This is when my Monger started chiming in. “Hurry up!” it said. “You told your husband dinner was ready and now you’re downstairs messing with the laundry!”

And it struck me: I’d worked all day, cooked dinner, and now I was doing laundry—and my Monger was STILL going to shame me for not doing it fast enough?!

Good grief! 

But stories like this are common for me. For years, I lived in that message. I call this the catch-22 of “I got this.”

Listen to the full episode to find out:

• 3 ways to avoid this endless spiral of “I got this” thinking

• Why operating on autopilot is harmful—especially with high functioning anxiety

• How our Monger distorts our perspective

• And how that can affect our relationship with ourselves and with others

Resources mentioned:

• Coach In Your Pocket

+ Read the Transcript

Nancy: Last week after a full day of work, as I was making dinner, I decided to throw a load of laundry in the washer. I finished dinner and told my husband to dish up his plate. And then I would be right back. I wanted to run down to the basement and put the laundry in the dryer. As I was in the basement, flipping the laundry as I call it, my Monger was chiming in.

“You told your husband dinner was ready and now you're downstairs, messing around with the laundry?!?” and it struck me. Are you kidding me? I worked all day cook dinner, and now I'm doing laundry and you're going to shame me for not doing it fast enough. Good grief.

You're listening to the happier approach the show that pulls back the curtain on the new to succeed, hustle, and achieve at the price of our inner peace in relationships. I'm your host, Nancy Jane Smith.

This story is a common one. Four years. I lived in that message minus the realization at the end of that story, I call this the catch 22 of I got this. All this month we're talking about things that keep you stuck in one of those things. It's the myth our Monger constantly tell us I got this. So let me back up a bit and explain what I mean by I got this. I got, this is a behavior that we engage in when our monger is chatting at us and we're stressed and anxious. The more stressed we get, the more control we seek, and it is like the perfect match.

I want to unpack the laundry example a little bit, because it is such a common example and honestly, feels pretty benign, but can have some nasty side effects. That day had been stressful. I had a lot going on and my brain had been jumping from thing to thing all day long in squirrel like fashion.

So by the end of the day, my Monger was chiming in about everything. I ran down the stairs from my office, like the Tasmanian devil and started cooking. While I was cooking dinner. I'm sure my monger was there, to be honest, I didn't even notice her because even after years of doing this work, she still plays in my head largely unconsciously I'm familiar with my Monger chatting. I'm not saying it's pleasant or comfortable, but it is familiar. And that is something we forget, like any abusive relationship my line of what is normal or acceptable is skewed while someone else who hasn't lived much of their life with a very loud monger would be ah-gassed at what my monger says to me, for me, eh it's just another day at. The office.

So there I am cooking dinner and my Monger is beating me up because I was supposed to do laundry earlier in the day. I actually needed to do laundry the day before and I had officially run out of clean underwear that morning. This is where our monger get even more hard to shake because she had a point.

I was out of underwear. I needed to do laundry. And because I have an abusive relationship with my monger in my mind, I deserved her shame because I had dropped the ball and not done the laundry. And this is where it gets even stickier because I have a husband, a kind caring, super capable husband who could cook dinner or do laundry.

He would be willing to do anything I asked him to do. In fact, he had even offered to do the laundry earlier that day because he knew I was busy and also out of underwear. But did I ask him to help and actually put the laundry in the washing machine? No way I got this. My monger tells me you can't ask for help. That would be weak, or he wouldn't do it right.

So don't bother asking him anyways, I got this, our monger winds us up so much that we become consumed with being in control. As I said, it had been a stressful day, so I was already full of anxiety. One of the challenges of high functioning anxiety is the more anxious you get the more you push yourself.

When I came downstairs from my office and started manically making dinner and thinking about the laundry, I was primed for my Monger to jump all over me. At that point to the idea of taking a break or taking a breather was out of the question. It was perfect. We needed to eat, I need an underwear and I am the only one who can solve all these major problems.

I say that tongue in cheek, because that is what our monger does. She simultaneously punishes us for doing it wrong. Also convincing us we are the only ones who can do it. It's an abusive power trip. I'm an awful person for not being able to do it all. And I'm the only one who could do it. I ran downstairs to switch the laundry.

And my monger starts shaming me and here is where things changed here is where my biggest fan stepped in to say, wait a minute, what is happening here? Why are you shaming yourself when you're doing the laundry for your family? Now, before I go down the road of the biggest fan, I want to share what happens frequently in relationships I'm downstairs.

And my monger starts telling me to hurry up and rather than my biggest fan, who is the voice of kindness and wisdom, my BFF steps in that voice of false self-compassion. And she says where is your husband? And all this, it must be nice that he could just relax on the couch while you run around like a chicken with your head cut off.

So then my BFF gets me all fired up. I head upstairs and I start yelling at my husband about how the power dynamic is off and I do everything and he's too lazy on and on. See what happened there. My Monger was chatting so much. I couldn't take it anymore. So my BFF stepped in to protect me and put the blame on my husband, just in this simple benign example, you can see how the monger and the BFF can run a muck and really wreck havoc in our lives.

But this time, my BFF didn't step in before my biggest fan reminded me that this was a storm of my creating. Interestingly, as this insight was happening to me, my husband came downstairs and I shared it with him and he said, how can you think that I would be mad at you because you were downstairs doing laundry instead of being upstairs with me, that is so hurtful that you think of me as that much of a monster. I stood there, stunned. He was right. My husband is the most laid back kind, forgiving, gentle guy. And my monger can make him out to be a cruel judgmental jerk. I said to him, it has nothing to do with you because when my monger is talking to me and saying, hurry up, you told your husband dinner was ready.

And now you're downstairs messing around with the laundry. My mind is not picturing my husband yelling at me. My mind is picturing some distorted version of my husband yelling. So it isn't about him, which goes to the insidiousness of all this work. It is not a victimless crime. Now I have spread my self hatred onto him and he certainly doesn't deserve it.

In fact, he finds it downright hurtful that I would think of him as a monster. Okay. So how do you avoid this endless spiral of I got this thinking. The very first thing to realize is that I got this thinking creeps up most often when we're running on autopilot, this whole laundry dinner husband situation is a perfect example.

Functioning on autopilot. I had been pushing all day and I'd gone on to autopilot. Autopilot means my Monger is running the show. My to-do list is king and my worthiness is all tied up in my productivity. I let my monger go unchecked. And by the end of the day, she was in full. Control. If we want to stop, I got this thinking in its tracks we need to prevent this autopilot behavior. So here are three ways you can do just that.

Number one, put in regular stop gaps in the day. Taking regular breaks, going for a walk dancing in the office. Generally checking in with yourself and slowing down.

Number two, Acknowledging your feelings. This is important, especially right now, we have a lot going on both on a micro level in our day-to-day lives and on a macro level in the world at large, we are being challenged in our everyday lives, by a pandemic that is largely unknown and on a larger scale, our assumptions and biases around race and privilege are being challenged. We are seeing the world shift right before our eyes. This is anxiety provoking. And because of those of us with high functioning, anxiety are masters at avoiding our feelings.

It is easy to tell ourselves that what is happening in the larger world doesn't affect us or more so shouldn't affect us. It does. I have been reminding all my clients that even if you aren't actively engaging in what is happening in the world, it is still affecting you and your emotions.

Number three, be kind as you can see by the laundry example, these voices are insidious wily and persistent. We have to be kind to ourselves. I will regularly repeat to myself. You don't have all the answers and that's okay to borrow from the movie Frozen II “what's the next right thing to do now?”. So how could I have done that laundry day differently? I could have paused more during the day. I could have taken five minutes to mark the end of my workday and the start of my cooking dinner.

I could have acknowledged that my anxiety was high earlier in the day. And pause to see what was going on. I could have taken my husband up on his offer earlier in the day to start the laundry, I could have reminded myself that I didn't have to rush to move the laundry. I could have eaten dinner and then moved it.

Those are just a few ways I could have done it differently. Regular breaks, acknowledging feelings, and being kind notice your tendency to take over control to say to yourself, I got this. Our monger is insidious and it is challenging, but she doesn't have to win.

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Episode 137: Redefining Self-Care and Reclaiming Sovereignty

In today’s episode, I am talking with Mara Glatzel, MSW, an intuitive coach, writer, and podcast host about self-care and owning our needs.

Which of these examples looks like a day of self-care for you?

A hike through the woods with your nearest and dearest and a picnic lunch.

A rambunctious night of games, drinks, and pizza with friends.

Sleeping in and having coffee in bed, followed by a granola bowl on the back deck.

A chance to read your new fiction book, some yard work, and a barbeque on the grill. 

Canceling plans to go canoeing because you just don’t feel good and need to rest.

Staying in bed all day, watching movies. 

We have a set definition of what self-care should look like. But the reality is that any and all of the above ideas can be self-care! 

For those of us with High Functioning Anxiety, we struggle with self-care. I mean, soul-nourishing, true downtime, really-giving-back-to-ourselves kind of self-care. 

And yet our lack of self-care keeps us stuck in over-functioning and a lack of self-loyalty. 

Sound familiar?

That’s why this month we’re talking about what keeps you stuck and how self-care (and lack thereof!) is one of those things. 

My guest today is Mara Glatzel, MSW, an intuitive coach, writer, and podcast host who helps perfectionists and people pleasers reclaim their sovereignty. She’s a queer, femme wife and mother of two, recovering control freak, and a human who deeply understands the impulse to relegate her needs to the bottom of a very long to-do list in an attempt to prove her worth. 

Mara also teaches everything she knows about identifying, honoring, and advocating for your needs in her 9-month online program, Tend. You can access her free training Revive: Self-Care That Works, hang with her on Instagram, or tune in to her weekly podcast, Needy.

Listen to the full episode to find out:

• 3 ways to avoid this endless spiral of “I got this” thinking

• Why operating on autopilot is harmful—especially with high functioning anxiety

• How our Monger distorts our perspective

• And how that can affect our relationship with ourselves and with others

Resources mentioned:

• MaraGlatzel.com

• Revive: Self-Care That Works

• Needy Podcast

• Tend 9-month online program

• Instagram: @maraglatzel

• Facebook: Mara Glatzel

• Coach In Your Pocket

+ Read the Transcript

Mara: That becoming your own sovereign leader of your own life means really turning towards yourself for confirmation, for information, for validation, for approval, and being the owner of your own. This,

Nancy: I have a question for you. Which of these examples is a day of self-care for you. Number one, a hike through the woods with your nearest and dearest and a picnic lunch followed by a rambunctious night of games, drinks, and pizza with friends.

Number two, sleeping in and having coffee in bed, followed by a granola bowl on the back deck and a chance to read your new fiction book, some work in the yard and a barbecue on the grill or number three, canceling plans to go canoeing because you just don't feel good and you need to rest. Staying in bed all day and watching movies, the correct answer is any and all of them can be self-care.

We have set a definition of what self care should look like the right way we talked about last week.

Your listening to the happier approach, the show that pulls back the curtain on the need to succeed, hustle and achieve at the price of our inner peace in relationships. I'm your host, Nancy Jane Smith.

What is self-care? According to my guest, Mara Glatzel self care is deep daily tending. I just love that!Oour theme for June is things that keep you stuck and self-care, or our lack of self-care is one of the things that keeps us stuck. Those of us with high functioning anxiety struggle with engaging in self-care?

Soul nourishing, true downtime, really giving back to ourselves self-care. Our lack of self-care keeps us stuck in overfunctioning and a lack of self loyalty. As Mara says, we have a hard time tending to ourselves. Mara Glatzel has a master's in social work. She's an intuitive coach writer and a podcast host of the podcast Needy, and she helps perfectionist and people-pleasers reclaim their sovereignty.

She's also a queer femme wife and mother of two, recovering control freak, and a human who deeply understands the impulse to relegate her needs to the bottom of a way long to do list in an attempt to prove her worth. Her superpower is saying what you need to hear when you need to hear it. And she is here to help you believe in yourself as much as she believes in you.

Mara has been one of my teachers for years. Her work takes a simple concept, self care and dives deep into it. Her Instagram feed regularly reminds me to pause and check in with myself. And she totally walks the talk. So I was thrilled when she agreed to share her wisdom on my podcast, Mara and I talk about her tagline, redefining self-care and reclaiming sovereignty, and what that means to her, how to prioritize yourself when you have overly prioritized others, how self-accountability is an act of self-love and why needs is such a bad word in our society and how she is reclaiming needs as a good thing.

I am so excited today to have Mara Glatzel on the podcast. I have followed Mara for a long time and just love her work. And I think you're going to love it too. So I'm just going to dive right in if that's cool. Your tagline is redefining self-care and reclaiming sovereignty.

What does that mean to you?

Mara: I've been working as a coach for a long time and about four or five years ago. I really pivoted my work towards helping people care for themselves, which of course is about the care. It's about meeting your needs on a daily basis. And it's also about healing the work in your relationship with yourself to know that you are deserving of having your needs met.

Much, it means that you're worthy and that you matter, and that you deserve a space in your own life, not only a space in your own life, but a space at the center of your life. And what I found was that a lot of conventional traditional self care advice was very prescriptive and really it's you would see this listicle of like here's 10 ways to take better care of yourself today.

And those things never really got to what I find most humans actually need in terms of support on a daily basis. And so by redefining your care, repurposing the idea of what it means to care for yourself so that it's not this prescriptive list of things that you check off, but instead the daily action.

It becomes the daily actions of being in relationship with yourself. So your care is responsive to whatever it is that you have going on. So whether that's, calling your insurance company to figure out something about your deductible or pouring yourself a glass of water, or, that calling up and talking to your kid's teacher, it's whatever the, your life requires that becomes the care.

That for so many of us we don't understand ourselves to be the sovereign leaders of our own lives. So instead of, looking outward for approval permission somebody else to say, you've done enough. Why don't you sit down and rest? Which of course never happens. We're all waiting for it.

Becoming your own sovereign leader of your own life means really turning towards yourself for confirmation, for information, for validation, for approval and being the owner of your own enough of this. And, it's amazing because in some ways these shifts can be slight, it's like a subtle reorientation.

And in other ways, it's this profound learning because of course we're conditioned to put other people before us to not want to be selfish to that we need to do all of these different things in order to be lovable in order to be worthy. And the shifts in our actions might be small, but the emotional underpinning can be enormous.

So I cover both in my work. I'd like to be both really tangible and also, deal with the messiness of being.

Nancy: Yeah, because, what's what I think I love about your work is that self-care is something, everyone fricking talks about self-care, but in the, and it's like a, one-off like, self-care like, make sure you do self-care, but you've devoted much of your, message to that depth of what self care means. So it's not just this, one-off make sure you take care of yourself thing. You call it daily tending and that idea that this is deeper than just taking a bubble bath, that sometimes it is, it's really showing up for yourself. And I think we give that a lot of lip service, but you really illustrate what that means and what that brings up.

Mara: Thank you. I try to, yeah. I think it's so funny because I'll all the time, we'll have, people are like, Mara, I'm a big problem. I need a big fix. I'm like, but are you drinking water? They're like, no, but I need your big guns. I'm like, what are you drinking water every day? And it's I say that sort of jokingly, but they are not drinking water.

Like we are not drinking water. And while I do think that a lot of us have. Tons of healing to do and tons of personal work to do. All of that requires energy. So if you don't have any energy, you're not going to have the energy to do that personal growth work. And we're continually beating ourselves up for not having the capacity to be introspective well, okay.

We need to work on the actual mechanics of. Of tending to our own capacity, to even have the energy, to have the conversation with ourselves about our bigger hopes and dreams, for example. And I find that people by and large beat themselves up for not having that capacity, but aren't doing the work to give themselves that capacity to begin with.

So it becomes this like tricky feedback loop. And so getting way back to the basics of things that. We already know we need, everybody knows you need it, but I'm really curious about, okay if you need it, why aren't you doing it? And

Nancy: What have you found for that?

Because that's across the board, a problem.

Mara: I've found that a lot of people that I work with are people who assumed a lot of responsibility when they were children. And so they have this feeling. Like I'm tired of taking care of myself. I'm tired of being responsible for everything.

And they tend to be people who are overly responsible for other people's stuff. And this idea of oh, like taking care of myself as one more thing that I have to put on the, the bottom of a very long list and, and met with the fact that we're a culture that is indoctrinated with this diet mentality concept of I need a big fancy splashy, thing we're going to here's my 10 point plan for reinventing myself this spring and daily tending.

So not sexy compared to that, it's boring. It's I'm going to drink my water again. I'm going to drink my water again. I'm going to drink my water again. But what I find is that what we're actually craving isn't that one-off self care, but actually the consistency of mattering to somebody on a daily basis.

And, you can matter to yourself. You can take care of yourself and this doesn't mean that we're islands, I think community care is also really important and relational care is really important, what we're actually aching for is that consistency, it's like we go back to.

I have small children, what they need is knowing, like they're going to get breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I'm going to put them to bed at the same time every day. I'm going to like, keep an eye on whether they're drinking enough water or they're super dehydrated. Did they take their vitamins?

We are, we still need that kind of care, even when we're adults. And that tending to our most basic daily needs provides this internal scaffolding energetically for us to be available, to do all of the things that we want to do. So if we put it at the end of the list, We're burning ourselves out without doing anything, to restore our energy.

And so I like to think about it as, front-loading our own care, which is really tending to our capacity to show up for. Whether I'm working in my business, I'm parenting, I'm gardening, I'm coaching, whatever I'm doing, it requires energy. And if I'm not tending to my energetic capacity, I have nothing left to give.

Nancy: That's what the other thing is the idea of so many times when we hear about self care, it's that idea of. I know the false self-compassion of go ahead. Do whatever you want. Sit in front of the TV, do nothing. But with the idea of daily tending, you're saying there's sometimes there's stuff you don't want to do, like call.

The credit card company or whatever and paying bills and that stuff is also tending

Mara: . Yeah. So it's a slippery slope. Self-love is really tricky because I think that we are, we're fed these kinds of like romcom ideas of self-love oh, like have the cupcakes, do whatever. And like I'm pro cupcakes, but.

I think this idea of love equals letting go of all of the boundaries, all of the things that you need isn't useful actually. And so I like to think about how accountability is love too and how we can be accountable to ourselves. And what's tricky about this for me and I know for other people as well is that we're not taught how to motivate ourselves through, with compassion, through our natural enthusiasm. I was taught I was raised to beat myself up to get from here to there because that's, and I assumed that's what everybody does. It's I just absorbed that from society. I don't, I can't remember anybody modeling that for me directly, but that was like what people do it sucks and you do it.

And. It took until I was in my thirties really, before I started to realize oh wow, I can be nice to myself and get something done, enjoy the process. I can speak to myself kindly. And when I think about that, self-love what that looks like for me now is when I make promises to myself, I'm going to try to move my body every day, or I'm going to try to drink enough water or, I'm going to try to get outside, get some sunshine, which is really important to me right now. And I'm not doing that. That's a time to get curious and have a conversation with myself. That sounds something like, Hey Mara, how'd you do this thing noticed you're not doing it.

Like what's going on. Do you need a different time of day? Do you need support? Are there tools that you require that you don't have, is there a creative approach that we can take to it? For me that self-love is not letting myself off the hook to what I know that I need while also having those conversations in a way that the like tone of my inner landscape is kind and compassionate.

It's assuming that I'm doing the best that I can. And not that I'm like. Some like spec on the ground that needs to be like, prodded from here to there with a lot of cruelty, which is totally how I used to relate to myself. And I find that contrary to popular belief, I actually get so much more done now, which is amazing, oh if I don't, if I'm not mean to myself, I'm going to wake up three months down the line, watching daytime TV, having not done anything and covered in Dorito dust or something like that. But actually it turns out I really like to be spoken to nice.

Okay. Yeah, we can do that thing. Okay. This person who's like running the show cares about me and so when I talk about reclaiming sovereignty too, that's what I'm talking about. It's like reclaiming the tone of what's happening, the quality of conversation in your inner landscape or your self-talk and being a benevolent leader.

Nancy: I love that a benevolent leader. That's amazing. Yeah, because that's a big a big part of my work is working with the title of my book is be kind to yourself, feel happier and still accomplish your goals. So that, because if that was a huge aha for me, when I realized, oh, wait, I don't need the shaming monger voice in my head all the time.

I could actually, and that idea that I get more done, when I. Even like stupid stuff like laundry, if I'm like, I'm not feeling it today. There will be a day in the next 24, there will be a time in the next 24 hours when I'm feeling it because I need laundry or because of oh, go down and do the laundry right now.

And when I forced myself to do it, it's not the same, the energetically it's so different, but it does get done. Yeah. When I release the control a little bit.

Mara: Totally. And also by whatever means necessary, I ask myself too, it's like, all right, you don't want to do the laundry.

That's fine. It's totally boring. You do it. I have two kids, so I do a lot of laundry so much. And I'm like what could I do to make it. Am I going to fold the laundry while watching Veronica Mars? Sure. Why not going to listen to my favorite podcast? It's what can I do?

I think that's the other thing that's amazing to me is that we were so strict with ourselves. It's like doing a good job, means this like Spartan experience where we're like buckling down and I'm like, could you put on some fun music, you have a snack, like good. You make this experience enjoyable.

Like you can do that. And it seems. Silly, but it changes the entire landscape of your experience of whatever you're doing. I hate doing dishes. I really do cleaning up. My kitchen is like my top tier least favorite chore. But I have to do it. That's just the reality of life.

And so then I think about how can I make this sustainable? How can I make this enjoyable? You know what's within my power to. Curate this experience. So that it's well-suited for me personally.

Nancy: Yeah. That's yeah. I love that. That's well said. So you're so the idea, because what it is that you going back, you said the internal scaffolding that this, tending to yourself, builds internal scaffolding.

So then you can move forward and do the other work. The big guns. And I think that is something that we miss when we're just like, oh yeah, self care. We miss that we're really, this will pay off later. I just wrote down internal scaffolding with a big circle around it, in my notes.

Okay. So this morning as I was walking the dog in the pouring down rain, even though I checked the radar and I thought it was going to not be raining I was listening to your podcast, which is called needy. I just remember being so jealous of that title because it's so perfect.

You say Needy is a podcast for humans with needs, particularly those who pretend they don't have them amen to that. I can't relate to that at all. Ha why do you think we, and this is a loaded question, but why do you think we, particularly as women pretend we don't have needs?

Mara: I think because we think people like us better.

And the reality might be that people like us better when we don't. I don't think that's I don't think we pluck that idea out of thin air. Going back to that rom com idea. It's I think, we very early on make the association that certain kinds of people are worthy of love and being needy. Like I love the, I also love the title of my project. Needy is such a compelling word for me because. On so many personal fronts, it's like that idea and don't be needy, and really what I'm saying is don't take up too much space. Don't make it too difficult for somebody to be in relationship with you, which you like if you dig just below the surface, there's this belief that I need to apologize for myself. Somehow I need to make up for myself in some way, by being convenient, by being palatable, by being easy to be in relationship with. And, there is so much hurt right under that surface of, just feeling like you're too much just feeling nobody has the time or the energy to really deal with you.

And. I remember feeling like I, if there was just like one person in the world that I wasn't too much for, that would be amazing. Yeah. So this, my work was really born out of this idea of, we still need other people. We still want to be in a relationship with other people, but what if I became that one person that I wasn't too much for?

And it's hard because sometimes you're like, I think about I was like picking people for Dodge ball or something in elementary school. It's I don't want to pick myself first sometimes, it's I like, I want to pick myself last. So you are just like a total handful.

And I really am a total handful. But that's it, right? Byron Katie says, you're going to argue with what is you're going to lose, but only every time, what is true about me is that I think too much, I feel too much. I need too much by any margin of like appropriate society standards.

And I have been that. Since I was born. So being in relationship with myself means really expanding to accommodate everything that I am instead of constantly shaming myself for not fitting this like cookie cutter. This is what's good, and it's hard because I grew up. In a larger body. I, was told in no uncertain terms directly to my face from like elementary school that I should be lucky, right for any attention that people paid to me. We don't pluck these ideas out of nowhere. We are taught that we are not as worthy as somebody else. We are taught to make ourselves small, and we carry that into adulthood, into our relationships. And we have this real fear.

If I start bringing more of my true self to my life, who's going to be there. Are people still going to be around? And what I found is some people aren't and that, the fear of that, the riskiness of that, the worry of what happens when I allow my needs to enter into the situation and ask for what I really want.

And somebody says, no, thank you. And what I suspected was true, but like really hard to hold onto when I was that afraid was that on the other side, there might be more people who were excited and happy for, like being with me and my truest form. But I have so much compassion for how it can feel scary.

And we are really committed to pretending that we don't have needs because we need to belong. And, that need for belonging is so overdeveloped, because if you think about when you're a baby, your need for safety and your need for belonging are so intricately woven together that, you have to do whatever you deem necessary in order to belong to your family of origin, because your actual survival depends on it.

And then as you grow into adulthood, that's in most cases no longer true, but it still feels so true if you will so risky and so dangerous. So we have to be kind to ourselves. And so much of being that benevolent leader to ourselves is really learning how to belong to ourselves first.

And knowing that the relationship that we have with ourselves supersedes the relationships that we have with everyone else, because that's the one that we carry from when we're born, until we die and, through all of the relationships. In our lives and it can feel lonely. It's I remember one time.

Ah why did I have to stuck with myself? Why couldn't I be somebody cool or less difficult, or I don't know, ah everyone has it so much easier or nobody really has it that much easier. We all have stuff. And so basically it's don't pick yourself last, be that person that you're not too much for.

But that's not something you can pay lip service to. That's something that you. That you show to yourself, you prove to yourself every single day through your actions.

Nancy: And so in the podcast episode I was listening to, which was your story you talk to, there are two things you talked about that were that I was like, like I literally stopped and typed into my phone.

Oh, I need to ask more about this. The one that stopped me in my tracks was Self care is inconvenient or not self-care but self-trust means being inconvenient. And I was like, whoa, that is so true. So dead on. And yet God, that's so freaking hard, like that's a piece. I think that where we give lip service to self-trust and we need to pick ourselves first, blah, blah, blah.

But when we're in the trenches, Being inconvenient. And, you give the example of like being the one that says, no, I can't eat that or no, I need to take a break. And, I have chronic arthritis and I think that's why that stuck out to me. Because I'm inconvenient a lot.

And that is so hard for me. So talk, can you talk to that a little bit and just,

Mara: yeah. Having your own back and. Having your own back is an act of rebuilding that self-trust so much of being our true selves is inconvenient because we know on every level that the world would prefer us.

If we were like the cool person, like I always think oh, if I was like, what would a cool girl say? Oh, it's no problem. When really I'm like, it's a big problem. I just want to feel okay., I just want to not care so much about everything or not, it's like I have a lot of foods that I'm allergic to. And it's never easy. It's never just yeah, sure. Bake whatever, no problem. We are so taught to not inconvenience other people that like being good means making ourselves as small and easy as possible.

And anything that's not Yeah, sure. No problem is a problem. And yet we are, we're humans are inherently problematic because, we get tired, we have health limitations. We have. Preferences and needs, there's so many things about us that don't fit into that, that cookie cutter mold. The societal indoctrination and conditioning is heavy.

And, I think in this case, particularly around productivity, you know what we're seeing now, especially as we're recording this during this pandemic that people are. Scared for their lives and they're still shaming themselves for not being productive, so we just were able to see or risking their lives to go back to work because they need the money.

We see how productivity is king and anything that, that any human part of us automatically makes us less productive because we're not machines, we're not robots, we're humans. And that means we get tired. We, have to get up and go to the bathroom. We have get hungry, like we, we require things in order to keep going.

And in a world that would prefer us to push all that to the wayside in order to just keep showing up in this like excellent kind of way. It's problematic. And whenever we really prioritize those parts of ourselves, that's a revolutionary act. And I think, building up that paradigm shift of it's okay for me to be a human it's. Okay. For me to have needs and preferences and requirements for, continuation the more people that we can have around us that feel the same way. It's like this podcast is amazing, right? This is a great resource. But surrounding yourself, quite literally with voices that reaffirm your worthiness as a human being.

Nancy: Because I like how you say, because it's needs and preferences. It isn't, I know that I, have some stomach issues and I would been in my twenties, I would go and eat out with people that were making meals. I wouldn't tell them what would make me sick. I would just get sick, I would eat it later and then get sick because I didn't want to stand out as having a need.

And that's something that now I would, that is a. It's a medical problem. I'm going to be, I'm going to be more strict about it, but even just preferring not to have pizza, just because it's a preference. Not because anything's going to happen to me. I think that's where, we don't even do that.

If I have a medical condition, then it's okay to say I have a preference, but if I just prefer it because I like pizza or I don't like pizza, it's a whole big thing and our brains, but it's the same thing, but it's justifying

Mara: Yeah. It's so funny. My clients are always like, wait, but is it a need or is it a desire?

Yeah. I see what you're doing here. I see. It's okay, now we've decided that needs are okay, but only needs not a step further are important. And the reality is, it's like somebody is cooking you dinner. They that's an act of love for you, right? Hey, random person let me do this loving thing for you.

It's they want to make you something. They don't want to make you something that makes you sick, they don't want to make you something that you don't like, or we'll see. It's oh, we're going out somewhere. Where do you want to go? I don't know. Where do you want to go? How about Tai in my head?

I'm like, not tai, not do I say not tai? No. And so I think, yeah. It's really important. If we're going to build genuine relationships with other people that we allow our needs and preferences into the conversation, the same way that we would want to know somebody else's needs and preferences, I think about how much allowance and permission, for all of the people in my life to be spectacularly human. And I'm like what do you need? I want to make this extra special, good feeling for you, but why wouldn't I let somebody give that to me in return? Why wouldn't I trust that maybe somebody who, says they want to do that actually means it.

And all of that goes back to believing that we're worthy of that kind of care. And we can't outsource.It's never going to be enough. We could see, receive so much evidence, so much permission, so much, affirmation, which like, we're not going to receive that much anyway, because as much as we need, because like it's not anybody else's full-time job to make us feel good about ourselves, much as I wish it were, so it's it's no, it's never going to be enough. And we have to be the sovereign leaders of our lives and really. Do that internal work to see oh wow, this person's making me dinner. I'm going to assume that it's not because they feel like arm twisted into it. It's because they actually want to.

And so I'm also going to assume that it's safe to say I can't eat dairy. If the shoe were on the other foot, I wouldn't, want to honor that preference for somebody else. Absolutely.

Nancy: Yeah. Because even as you said, please don't make it Tai. My brain was like, oh, but you should try new things and you should be open to, like it was almost immediate.

Mara: We have to be very vigilant. I don’t want to say vigilant because I don't want anybody to be stressed out, but we have to be aware that we're, our social conditioning is such that we're really tricky. This is a very nuanced, the immediacy of how we censor ourselves is really profound.

So starting to walk that back, Oh, wow. And we don't have to beat ourselves up for it. It's oh, wow. See what I just did there. I told myself pretty immediately that what I wanted and needed was impossible here. Is that actually true? It doesn't feel risky. Is there something I could ask for, because we don't have to splay ourselves open at every point.

We can push our edges a little bit and say, how about not Tai today?

Nancy: Yeah, it just is. It's funny how it comes so quick, so then this is a question on your podcast. You talked about self-trust you said self-trust can sometimes disguise itself as following rules. So for those of us that are rule followers, we think we're engaging in self-trust, but we're not.

So I know I'm springing this question on you, but what does that mean? Because I'm a big rule follower and I know a lot of that's something I work on daily is the rules loosening that.

Mara: So it's I like to think about this as, whose rules are we following? I'm a big rule follower too.

And I will say that I am being impeccable with my word is something that is really important to me. Follow through is really important to me. And once I say I'm going to do something, it's put it on my tombstone. I will be there at the appointed time. No matter what, because I just that's how my brain operates and I like steps and I like, clear like paths from here to there.

But what is interesting is how. Unless I'm paying attention. My life is filled up with rules written by somebody else and for somebody else. And, I noticed this in a big way maybe in 2012 because I, I had my whole life was set up and it looked really good. And I had followed a path that I accumulated at some point from the what was good manual. And I hadn't, I never stopped and say is this what I do? Is this what I think is right? Is this what I think is good? And so I think that there's a piece of self-trust that has to do with being in relationship with ourselves and being in a state of inquiry and, following through with what we say that we're going to do but making sure that what we say we're going to do is something that.

Actually works for us. That's in alignment with our own values system. That's in integrity for us. And that's the piece that I was, had been skipping over. I had just been like, oh it says this is good, or right. I was. Constantly polling for opinions from other people and, pulling experts in for somebody better, smarter than me who would know what to do.

And when I was able to realize like there, by and large, almost across the board, there is no universally right or wrong answer. There's just the answer that works for you and make sense to you. And that we're doing the best that we can with the tools that. In the minute, which means looking back on ourselves is always going to disappoint, embarrass us in some ways, because we're always getting better.

So you know that there was no thing I could do that would be like capital G good. That everybody would agree on. And that was a profound disappointment for me because I was vested in being good. And I was really invested in knowing what that was, and so there was a lot of grief associated with giving that up because I don't want to just be right.

I don't want to pick myself for Dodge ball. I don't want to just be me out in the middle of nowhere. I feel so small. I feel so insignificant. I feel like I don't possibly have the tools to make any kind of decision, but, it's really interesting. And there are so many opportunities to rebuild our self-trust in this way, I'm thinking.

During this time, before my governor I live in Massachusetts, before my governor pulled my kids out of school and, shut everything down, like we had already shut down. And that was because in my family, because I was tired of spending my whole day scrolling through finding opinions, trying to figure it out, all these things, feeling scared, wanting somebody to tell me what to do.

And I made the decision like, oh, wow. Okay. I actually have self-trust and I have agency and I can make decisions on my own behalf. And, my partner and I work for ourselves. So we were able to do this, but like we just, we pulled our kids out of school. We were like, we just need to stop and make the decision that we were going to stay here for the next two weeks and see what happens.

And I think we have so many opportunities. Obviously we live in societies. There are certain rules that guide those societies, but there's a lot of room, maneuverability for choice and preference within that. We just have to feel strong enough to do that for ourselves and strong enough. Does it mean, like I still feel small and insignificant and like spectacularly unprepared to make decisions on my own, but that's not, I don't assume that's ever going to change.

And that doesn't mean that I can't trust myself. That's just me. Yeah. It's scary. Who are you to think? I need to be, I feel like that about being a parent across the board. It's am I adult enough to be in charge of these people… I don't think so. I can barely take care of myself but here we are doing the best we can with what we have.

Nancy: Yeah, because I noticed on the opposite when our governor announced he was going to open up. My anxiety went through the roof. Because I was like, oh my, no. Oh my God, we're going to open up. Oh my God. I don't feel, I don't think this is right. And then. You can do what you want to do. Like you don't have to rejoin.

And that was new for me to just switch that. Because that's something on a daily basis, like I'll have a rule about, the right thing to eat for breakfast or the rule for, the right time to eat lunch. Like everything in my life is a rule or a competition. It's all about, doing it.

Is something that I actively work on readjusting. Okay. So then the other question I have is your blog. And I realize it's an old one. But it's still tops on your blog page. And it's one of those blogs that I wish I had written myself: Is Accepting Myself Avoiding Self-Improvement. is the title of it. And I have so many people, a lot of my listeners, they're here because they love self-improvement. And that mix of I can't accept myself because there's still so much, I want to improve on talk to me about that.

Mara: Yeah. That goes back to these weird ideas about self love that we have.

It's if I accept myself as I am, that I'm somehow just like putting a cap on any future growth and I don't want to stagnate. So I better, like be, always fixing, always improving and self-acceptance really says that there may be a lot of things that you want and need to take care of in your life, but that there's nothing wrong with you.

And that there's nothing to fix about you. And, it goes back to some of what I said about that Byron Katie quote about, If you want to argue with what is you're going to lose, but only every time. And I am that too much person that like total handful person that I was when I was three years old.

And when I was 11 years old and when I was 20 years old and now currently I am never going to out life hack or grow myself. I've done tons of work on myself over my lifetime. But I'm never going to not be myself. And so I think that the self-acceptance piece is really about honoring and working with your original factory settings.

Like I have things that are always going to trigger me. I have things that are always going to be harder for me than other things. I have things on the other side that I'm great at. Like these are the things that are true about me and those things may change like on a spectrum, like we're all moving all the time.

Like my capacity is impacted by my care of myself. It's not like things are static. But I'm never going to not be me. And so for me, that self-acceptance is really about honoring who I am and working from that place. It's like thinking, no matter how much I work out, like my legs are never going to be longer than they are.

I have short legs that is true about me. And I could like work to change the shape of my legs, but they're never going to. Longer. They're always going to be short legs. And what am I going to spend my whole life pissed that I have these short legs, and that's what it is for me.

It's we're going to spend our whole lives at odds with our factory settings. One could do that if one wanted to, but it's a miserable way to live because you're always at odds with yourself. And so instead, it might be thinking about like, all right this is, this is the body that I have.

This is the life that I have. This is, these are what I'm working with. And daily tending is more about supporting ourselves. If I know that something is challenging for me, then I have to think about how to make it work for me. So I've been writing a book for an embarrassing long time, and I write.

Like thousands and thousands of words a week, four tons. For coaching programs, for emails for all, I'm writing constantly. Writing a book is really hard for me, pushes a lot of buttons. I have this opportunity to either beat myself up or be in a place of self-acceptance like, Hey, this is hard for you.

So if this is something you actually want to do, you need to find a way to make it work for you. Self-acceptance, isn't this cap on your growth, but it's this acknowledgement that you are, who you are. And if you want what you want, it's got to go through you. Instead of pushing you to the side and being like here's the rules.

This is like the five-step plan. And you say okay, it turns out what I need to write my book is for my little sister to literally sit next to me for several hours a week and holds me accountable to myself. Pour me hot chocolate and like telling me I'm such a good writer. That's what it is, will the book get written?

Yes, there's we don't have to, it goes back to being so strict with ourselves. Like we don't have to do things in this, nobody says like you have to write a book by yourself in a room and it's like very Spartan way with no music, just you and your muse.

Like self-acceptance implores us to work with what we have to get to where we want to go. And not only from my perspective, not only does that put a cap on our self-improvement or, our growth, but it superpowers it. And it's just so funny to me although people say it to me all the time, too, I don't want to accept myself because then I'll just relax into it.

Yes. What a way to be in relationship with yourself. You want to be able to relax into your relationship with yourself. That goes to show you're having all your relationships like that. I don't want to relax into it because something bad might happen. That person might divorce me, die, walk out the door, you're not going to have any of those problems in your relationship with yourself. You're really stuck with yourself. What is that, that deep seated message of unworthiness there that we don't deserve to be loved and cared for and taken care of the way that we are. We always have to be striving to, to deserve that.

And I get why people feel that way. But it's a brutal way to run your life, a benevolent leader would not do that would not believe that.

And it's a process, right? Working to walk that one back and you can start by, by even saying it's okay, there's, let's just say, there's no rules about breakfast just for today. What would I want to eat? Do I want you to Turkey sandwich? Do I want to run some of those? Those choices off of autopilot and really asking yourself, what would I like to eat right now at this meal that we call breakfast, which is, we have an idea in our head of what that should look like, but that's totally arbitrary.

Nancy: Yeah. That, yeah. And that again, goes to the depth of self care and self trust. That is where everything starts from that. If then I can make decisions because my first tendency is to be, oh, I want to write a book. Let me go look outside for all the rules on how to write a book instead of how would writing a book, how do I want to write a book?

What does that look like for me? I immediately go to look for it.

Mara: Yeah. Oh, me too. The other day I was talking to my sister about it because I was writing and I was like, all of a sudden I was like, this needs like a theoretical underpinning and I felt totally intimidated. But then in the middle of the night I remembered I have my master's in social work.

Like I know how to have a theoretical underpinnings. And then she was like cracking up. She was like, yeah. I be like, yeah, you do have the ability. All right. That you already know the theories that you're already working from and your work. And then I came all the way around to it again, and I was like, yeah.

And I can include that, but also I don't have to base my work on somebody else's work. I can just do my own work. She was happy to be on this process with me. But now it's really like that whole art yeah. Giving ourselves that permission and it, it is so funny. Because there are rules. Look, if you want to look outside of yourself, there's always going to be somebody who's going to tell you.

There's always going to be somebody lined up that you can pay to tell you. And I think that getting support is excellent. But we need to run everything through our own filtration system too, it's okay. Mara said that. Is that true for me? Maybe not. Does that work for me?

Maybe not. Maybe I really need to have eat the same thing for breakfast every single day, because that's what helps me, my decision-making process. Doesn't zap me of my decision-making abilities for the rest of the day. It's like I eat berries and cereal for breakfast and that's it.

I don't want to have to think about it. Great. If that's what works for you. That's what works for you? I think that's the piece. It's like these things work in relationship with each other when we are not islands. And also we are the sovereign leaders of our lives, right?

Nancy: Yeah. Thank you so much for this conversation.

It was so amazing. Where can people find you? And what do you have in the works? If anything,

Mara: you can find me at https://www.maraglatzel.com/. You can hang out with me on Instagram. My handle is Mara Glatzel. I have a. Free five-day self-care class called Revive, which you can sign up for on my site, which is pretty fun.

I'll read the prompts to you every day for five days and yeah, just, I'd love to hear from you if you're listening to this and this resonated with you, reach out and yeah. Come hang out with me

Nancy: .Her Instagram is fabulous. She definitely walks the talk, and shows it on display on Instagram, which is really inspiring.

Mara: Thank you so much for having me. I really had so much fun here.

Nancy: Mara gave me so much to think about, especially the idea that self-trust is inconvenient. That is something we don't talk about enough. As we prioritize ourselves, as we build self loyalty, it can build more anxiety. It's important to know and give ourselves some grace around that.

When we start honoring our needs, we can get pushback that causes anxiety. If we aren't careful, we will see that anxiety as a negative thing and start engaging in old familiar patterns, meaning prioritizing everyone else in order to decrease the anxiety. But when we know, oh, that practicing self loyalty initially will increase anxiety.

We can notice that and say, oh my gosh, wow, this is uncomfortable. I'm feeling stressed and anxious. And I'm just going to sit here for as long as I can and notice. Practicing self loyalty is hard, but the more we care for ourselves, the less suffering we have.

---

If you don’t do it, who will? If you’re not hustling, pushing, and keeping it all together yourself, nothing will get done.

Look, you don’t need me to tell you that. You tell yourself every day. There’s that voice inside your head constantly pushing you to do more, be more, and get closer to perfect.

And there are all the people--your family, friends, and random people on the street--who congratulate you on how productive you are.

Mixed messages, am I right?

I know I’m right because I’ve dealt with high-functioning anxiety too. I know what it’s like to relish the accolades that come your way one minute and shame yourself for being so tired and overwhelmed the next.

And, I’ve been working with women like you living with hidden anxiety every day for over 20 years as a coach and counselor.

I wrote The Happier Approach to give you a framework for dealing with your anxiety and start living happier.

The Happier Approach will help you understand the voices in your head and what to do with them. It’s not another woo-woo self-help book that asks you to think positively and live your best life. It’s a practical guidebook for getting out of survival mode and finding a genuinely happy and productive life.

Know someone who has High Functioning Anxiety and a VERY LOUD Monger. The Happier Approach makes a great gift.

Find The Happier Approach on Amazon, Audible, or Barnes & Noble!

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Episode 136: Learning the Practice of Joy

In today’s episode, I am talking with Danielle Brooker, life coach, and podcast host at The Daisy Patch, about the differences between joy, happiness, and positive thinking.

“You should be grateful,” they say. 

“It isn’t that bad. I’m just whining,” you tell yourself. 

“I shouldn’t be so negative. I have so much to be positive about in my life.” 

Man, oh, man! We really beat ourselves up for not being able to stick with positive thoughts all the time. The minute we start to feel negativity—like fear, anger, or doubt—we’re trained to step in with positivity. 

Yet anger, sadness, and doubt have things to teach us. If we skip right over these “negative emotions,” we never get to experience life on a deeper level. 

Today, I’m thrilled to talk with Danielle Brooker who helps busy, always-on women ditch stress and reclaim their joy. She owns The Daisy Patch, where she offers private coaching and group masterminds as well as digital courses. She also hosts the podcast, Let It Shine, and is a Forbes Magazine author. 

In this episode, Danielle and I totally geek out about the differences between joy, happiness, and positive thinking. There is so much good stuff here and I can’t wait for you to hear it. 

Listen to the full episode to find out:

• What the difference is between joy and happiness

• How joy and positive thinking work together yet how they are completely different

• How you can be uncertain and feel really bad and at the same time experience joy

• Why she refers to her online home as The Daisy Patch

Resources mentioned:

• The Make Light Show

• The Opt-In

• Speaking of Racism

• The Daisy Patch Website

• Instagram: thedaisypatchcoaching

• LinkedIn: Danielle Brooker

• Coach In Your Pocket

+ Read the Transcript

Nancy: Before we get into this week's episode, I want to take a few minutes to chat about the recent events with the murder of George Floyd, by the police officer, Derek Chauvin and the resulting peaceful protests and riots. Yesterday as my husband and I were watching the news and seeing the variety of images from police and protestors, walking together in peace to looters running out of broken store windows.

I said, how is this going to stop? I have watched the videos and listened to the news and heard the guttural pain of the black voices. You have protested and screamed at the top of your lungs to be heard and still black men, black women and black children are senselessly murdered. I want to acknowledge your pain and thank you for finding the energy to continue to speak march and demand change. As a white woman, it is easy to fall into overwhelm to watch what is happening on TV and social media.

And think the problem is too big. What can I do? How can I make a difference? And then my Monger steps in to shame and ridicule me for not knowing the right way among many other things. And I become paralyzed. To be honest, I've lived in that paralysis for too long. I have stayed silent for fear of doing it wrong.

If you are a white person and have also heard the pain of the black voices and are tired of living in paralysis, I want to offer you three actionable steps. Number one, read, listen, educate yourself. I recommend you find podcasts, books or other resources written by black people. Three podcasts. I would recommend.

Number one, Make Light number two, The Opt-In Podcast. And number three, Speaking Of Racism, we will link to those in the show notes. The second actionable step. Notice your BFF. Our BFF is always going to protect us from feeling shame, whether from our mongers or from the outside world. I have seen my BFF a lot this week.

I see a post on social media that makes me feel shame. And my BFF comes out to say who does she think she is? Or I have pain too. When I hear my BFF talking, I ask myself, wow, what is that about? Is there something I need to own here seeing privilege? Hard. It makes us feel uncomfortable and we need to get uncomfortable.

We need to see how we are part of a system that perpetuates pain and claims innocent black lives. You know how I always talk about the power of, AND here you go. You are a kind loving person. And you have biases against black color. You have them because they're everywhere in our culture, in our families, in our media, we swallow them every day and we have to start owning them, getting uncomfortable and making corrections. The third actionable step. Talk about it. Find spaces to have honest conversations about these topics. I reached out to a friend of mine this week and we have agreed to create a shame free space where we can challenge each other and say things we feel stupid saying most importantly, create those spaces with other white people do not seek safe spaces or require emotional labor from black people, especially right now.

We need ongoing systemic change. This is not a let's look at the issue of race and privilege hard this week. And then next week, go back to life. As normal situation let's commit to on going systemic change, I will do it wrong. You will do it wrong. We are human. We do things wrong. Remember there is no right way, but here is my new motto.

When you make a mistake, listen, learn. Make corrections.

Danielle: Like you don't stay in a state of happiness all the time. I think that's probably somewhat impossible. Whereas for me, joy is more of a source. It's more like tapping into something deep and inner. That makes me feel like me.

Nancy: You should be grateful

It isn't that bad.

I'm just whining.

I shouldn't be so negative.

I have so much to be positive about it.

Man. Oh man, we really did beat ourselves up for not being able to stick with positive thoughts all the time. The minute we start to feel negativity, fear, anger, doubt sadness. We're trained to step in with positivity.

Positive thinking is something that has been hardwired into us. It's a cultural norm. We don't have the patience for negativity because we've been trained. That negativity is heavy. It's less efficient positivity is light, airy and fun. So it's easier to be around. The negativity, feeling bad. Ignore it. Just look at all the things you should be feeling positive about.

Your listening to the happier approach. The show that pulls back the curtain on the need to succeed, hustle, and achieve at the price of our inner peace in relationships. I'm your host, Nancy Jane.

Positivity and the relentless hunt for it is something that keeps us stuck. It prevents us from getting into the depth of life. It prevents us from making changes, anger, sadness, doubt. They have things to teach us places. We might need to make a change or experience something on a deeper level. If we skip the quote negative emotions, we never get to experience life on a deeper level.

All this month, I'm talking about things that keep you stuck. I'll be interviewing Mara Glatzer about self-care and how those of us with high functioning anxiety struggle with engaging in self-care. And our lack of self-care keeps us stuck in over functioning. Jen Louden will be here to share her new book called Why Bother?, which is what to do when you feel stuck in your life.

And I'll be talking about the high functioning anxiety mantra. I got this, which keeps us stuck in overdrive. Today, I'm thrilled to bring on an expert on joy to talk about positive thinking. Danielle Brooker is a coach who works with busy, always on women to ditch their stress and reclaim their joy. This might be my favorite part of her bio.

I'm also the first to tell you that feeling bad is just as good for you as feeling good. It's just that we've lost touch with feeling good. We spend too much time focused on our stress, our busy-ness and our. Joy gets limited air time in our lives. So when we come to want it, we don't know how to experience it.

Danielle has been an author for Forbes magazine, which is where we met. She interviewed me for an article. She got started in coaching after a decade in government policy, economics and health charity roles. She's from South Africa and has lived in Australia, Japan, and now London, Danielle, and I totally geek out about the difference between joy, happiness, and positive thinking.

There's so much good stuff here. I can't wait for you to hear. Danielle. And I talk about the difference between joy and happiness, how joy and positive thinking work together and how they are completely different, how I can be uncertain and feeling really bad. And at the same time experienced joy and why she refers to her online home as the Daisy patch.

Okay. I'm so excited today to have Danielle Brooker here with me, we are going to be talking about joy, all things, joy. She's a joy coach. And also positive thinking. This month, we're talking about things that keep us stuck. And so I'm interested to hear. Danielle has to say about that topic.

Welcome, Danielle

Danielle: Thank you. I'm really excited to be here and to be having this conversation with you.

Nancy: I know you talk, obviously being a joy coach, you talk a lot about joy. So what is joy to you and what is the difference between joy and happiness?

Danielle: Oh, good question. So we're just diving straight in

Nancy: jumping in girlfriend.

Danielle: It's actually a really good question. And I'll probably start with that distinction between joy and happiness, because I feel like it's almost like the first thing you go to, like you hear joy and you think isn't it just being happy and to me it's really distinctly different. I really think of joy for me personally, is.

More of this deep source. It's more of this deep, almost fuel source that I tap into. It's when I'm feeling personally my most grounded and calm and like crystal clear in my thinking and feeling, and, it's almost like. Source of immense gratitude, immense love. It's not necessarily for me, like skipping down the street with glee, all the time.

Although, sometimes sure. I have been known to skip down the street, but that's certainly not what joy is to me all the time. Whereas when I think about happiness, I think like happiness is more like. It's more like a state of experience like it. And in some ways it can almost be driven by external things.

I am happy in a conversation with my friends. I am, happy about reading a book or like happy being on holiday. It's a short-lived experience almost like you don't stay in a state of habit. All the time. I think that's probably somewhat impossible. Whereas for me, joy is more of a source.

It's more like tapping into something deep and inner that makes me feel like me.

Nancy: Oh, that makes you feel like you. I like that. Okay. So like in my work, it would be like the biggest fan type spots. So that could be one that, okay. That's cool. I hadn't thought about it like that. Because I think of joy as like skipping down the street and you're saying that can be, yeah, but even if you're in the midst of grief or like right now in the midst of, during COVID-19 in the midst of high anxiety and uncertainty, I can still tap into my joy. Yes. And what would that look like?

Danielle: This is really interesting, because I know you had commented on a blog post. I wrote recently.

Which is touching on this point is like, how can I be uncertain and feeling really bad and at the same time experience joy, like how can I, and for me, first of all, I think about, yes joy is on the spectrum of emotions that we can feel. And, in a time of uncertainty, life, at the time of recording now, there's a lot of uncertainty going on in the world.

But there's also uncertainty just every day, you think about like small changes that we make in our life or, bigger changes. Should I shouldn't I quit my job, the uncertainty that that, those sorts of questions throw up for us when there's a lot of uncertainty.

What we tend to do is we want to. Get back in control. Like we want to clean tight. There's oh, like I don't want to feel stressed. I don't want to feel confused about this. I don't want to feel uncomfortable. And when we clean onto that I talk about this in the context of like, why we busy ourselves as well.

But when we clean and this is come me, but I'm tensing my body right now, but it's like this tightness and it's almost like this numbing that we do. Yeah. What I say is like, when we're doing that, we're not even experienced, like we're doing it because we don't experience the pain, but we're also when we're not experiencing the pain, the discomfort, the stress, the busy-ness.

We're also not experiencing the other side of the emotional spectrum, which is things like calmness state of groundedness pleasure, joy love. And when I, so when I talk about if you are, how can I in this moment of uncertainty also experienced joy for me, I guess it's remembering that all the feelings are OK

If that's the simplest possible way that I can put it, it's acknowledging that anything that's coming up is natural and I choose to hold tight and worry about it, or try and fix it or try and control it. Then what I'm actually doing is holding myself back from all of the other emotions.

And the emotions give us our experience of life.

I'm like, don't get me wrong. Like somewhat some emotions for me. I just really not always that welcomed. You're like, please go away. I don't want you right now, but the more that I can remind myself, like in that moment, Hey, this is an emotion like this is not this is not a forever thing. This is an experience, this is to help me experience whatever's going on right now, quicker.

I can move through it as well. Like the more uncomfortable ones. I'm trying to think of like a practical example. All right. So this is what the blog post was about the other day. This is just a silly, small, practical example, but it helps. Yeah. Bring it to life is I was literally sitting on the couch.

We're on stay at home, stay safe policies at the moment. Sorry. There's a lot of at home. I'm in a small place with my Partner working from home. And I'm sitting on the couch and it's Spring and there's this beautiful sunshine streaming through. I'm sitting doing a little bit of work and reading and I'm a sunshine person.

I'm just laughing it up, going, oh, Amazing. And then I start to smell something really gross. It was like the sewage smell coming through and I'm like, oh, yuck. So in that moment, my body tensed up, I was like, I was getting frustrated. I almost wanted to be like, what's going on? Where's that coming from?

Can we get rid of that? Can we fix that? Please close the door. What's going on? What was my instant reaction? And. It just took me a moment to be like notice that tension. And then I was also in that tension. Because I, play around with this in my life. I'm like hang on a second.

The suns really nice too. Do I need to hold tight to this grossness? Or could I just be, could I just breathe through it? Like literally breathe through the yucky smell. And when I did, I realized that yes, it was gross. Then it got a little bit less gross than it got a little bit less gross. And before I knew it, I was back into that kind of Oh, the suns really nice. And isn't this beautiful on my couch is really comfy. Does that does that kind of make sense? It's holding at the same time.

Nancy: Yeah, I think that's an awesome example. Because you also went on, I think to be like, how dare they lay the mulch on, today when I had my window open in a Sunday like then we can get in.

Yeah, we can get into righteous indignation and blah, blah, blah. And it just spins us so much. Sorry. Because I had an interesting this morning, I was I told you before we got on the today has been like a tough day, like started rough. And so I go into what's going on? How can I fix this? How can I get into a better mood?

Where's my monger talking and what can I do to get out of this? And I was walking the dog and I was like, you should be enjoying this, look around it's sunny and blah, blah, blah. And then finally some little voice inside of you, right? Sharing this to be like, I think this is what you're saying.

Some little voice inside of me said, what if you're in a bad mood? Yes. And I was like, yeah. And then everything softened, like as soon as I said what if you're just in a bad mood? It was. And then the next phrase in my came into my head was its so hard to be in a bad mood. Yeah. And that was just such a foreign thought to me to give myself kindness around that instead of trying to push myself out of it all the time.

Danielle: Yes, absolutely. That's exactly what I'm talking about. And I really feel particularly as high achievers, as high functioning, what we want to do when we feel discomfort or stress, or there's a problem at work, or we don't have the answer to something. Yes. I think that's almost like our learned strategy in that moment is oh my God, I'm grumpy.

Oh my God. I'm not supposed to be grumpy. I teach everybody how to feel joy.

quick, get out of it. So I like, and I love your experience there of like when that other voice is hang on a sec, maybe this is just a grumpy mood. Like you're entitled to feel grumpy. What happens even in the acknowledging. Of the feeling. There's a soft thing. And I know it because you have this three-step process on ask, ask.

Yeah.

Nancy: Knowledge is the feelings is the first step. Yeah.

Danielle: Which is so powerful. And sometimes this stuff can sound sorry. I dunno, like esoteric, but like literally genuinely that is my experience sitting on the couch going well, hang on a sec. What if I did. Don't get grumpy about the awful or what if I just acknowledged that, Ooh, this is a bit gross, like what could happen next?

Nancy: Yes. Yeah. I think that it's, we're constantly trying to push ourselves out of it and instead of accepting that it's there and how do I move forward with that? Because I think that is, to go back. You said something that I think is really powerful is the idea that all things.

All things are uncertain. You mean like it's really uncertain now and that's in our face of how uncertain it is and granted, I, it's but when you think about it on a bigger picture, we never know, we don't know what's going to happen in September ever. Yeah. We definitely don't know now, but we certainly, we make plans as if we know, but we don't know.

And I think that's an interesting kind of wrapping your head around that. There's some freedom there.

Danielle: Oh yeah. That's so true. It's so weird. Isn't it? Because if you can just, if I have this expression, like I think we're all control freaks at our core. And I think part of that is going okay. Cool. Acknowledging that I'm constantly seeking this balance between control and certainty in my life. But also if I took away all of the uncertainty, you'd be so bored. Yes. If there was no variety, it'd be like, as much as you're craving that. So it's this weird dynamic that plays out between them both.

And I think it's not so much, it's not so much about not getting control. It's about being really aware or about how you're going about it. Is what you were saying there with that kind of freedom piece or the, how you're going about it. If you're trying to be like, Nope, stop that, push that away.

I don't want to feel grumpy anymore. Let's go and fix it. It's a really short lived feeling of control because in that split second of, no, we don't need that right now. You feel like, yes, I'm digging when I've got this, I've got, and then five seconds later, it's oh my God, I'm grumpy again, right?

Nancy: Yes. Yeah, but that's the fascinating part is that it feels like when I said to myself, What, if you're just having a bad mood? There was a part of me that was like, oh no, we can't accept this because then we've lost control completely. Then you're just to the whims of your mood.

Yeah. Which is not true.

Danielle: Yeah. And it's interesting. Because I imagine like when you start with that, which is what happened when I was sitting on the sunny couch, when I sat with it for long enough, actually. I did get back to my control and I got it back in a much more, I say like sustainable or resourceful way.

Like I could keep running that strategy and it would work really well. But I think one of the things that has helped me so much with this is knowing that physically in our body emotions only lasts for 90 seconds. And I remember where I first learned that, but when I launched, I was like 90 seconds.

That's not long. I can handle 90 seconds. I think that's just a really cool thing to know so that when you are in that pain and discomfort, and you're trying out this new strategy, and maybe you do get the little voice going, hang on, maybe it's okay to be grumpy. Like maybe you get to that level of awareness.

Maybe the next step is going okay. What if I could give myself permission to feel grumpy, knowing very well. As long as you're bringing that awareness to it, like it, that feeling that discomfort, that grumpiness that you don't want could only last 90 seconds. Could you do it for 90?

Nancy: Yeah. Yeah, because I feel like we're constantly when we're like, oh, like the. We're either demonizing the people who are spreading the mulch and making the poopy smell, or were demonizing ourselves for being in a crappy mood. Instead of that's what I felt like this morning and you on the couch, like I saddled up next to myself and was like, what if we support ourselves through this instead of pushing, berating ourselves for having this feeling and.

And, sometimes it does feel, like I could do the righteous indignation, like anyone's business, and sometimes that feels like you're getting control because it's their fault. But in reality, it's not. Yeah. You've just compiled everything by blaming them and slamming the door shut and now the sun has gone.

You’re mad at them too what end?

Danielle: And now I'm trying to pump out work from this really cranky mood and, and I think, so the thing with control as well, which you've just touched on is part of what I'm saying, like about switching it to a sustainable resourceful strategy. Not even part of it, all of it has to do with coming back to you because I think we can try and seek control and others. It's their fault. That's where the indignance comes from. Like they need to fix this. They need to stop with the mulch, but if we're going to try and control what other people are doing in our lives, we're just going to be grumpy all the time.

It just doesn't work. Just think of the last time that you tried to judge, is my boss in a good mood or not today should I shouldn't I ask them like, or like I've done this with my partner before going, oh, he seems in a bad mood. Maybe I'll just, maybe I'll just cheer him up.

I'm like just let it go. Let him but when it comes from you and you choose how to feel about that person's mood, or you choose how to feel about it. The mulch and the smells and being grumpy, like instead of that kind of fix it mentality, actually you do get back, like you get to drive, so you're back in control, right?

Nancy: Yeah. Yeah. Because that mind reading, that's the thing. That's another boat, but that is where, I know that's something. A lot of high functioning people pride themselves on is being able to read, predict what's what people need. And sometimes we nail that but sometimes we don't, and it's just a lot of extra work.

Danielle: Yeah. A lot of extra work, a lot of extra time and energy that could be spent on actually feeling good.

Nancy: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Okay. So let's go back and tell me about how you got into this. How did you become a joy coach? What was your path?

Danielle: Okay. My path is so zig zaggy and I don't want to give you the four hour version. So a couple of like milestones or like realizations for me were things like. One, I've always been like a positive sunny person. Like I've always just seen the good in people, in things and experiences. At some point along the way, I started to hide that a little bit or soften it or not let it shine too much.

Because I was worried about standing out or what would people think if they're in a bad mood and I'm in a good mood, what's going on, by the way, none of this was conscious. This is like from like connecting the dots, looking backwards. So there was that element of it. I was also I'm someone who always did the right thing.

Studied really hard, wanted to get the good job, did get an amazing job. Had this wonderful career, got promoted very quickly. I actually love my job. And from the outside, looking in everything was great. Good job, amazing mentors, wonderful friends and family, good relationship, I could go on and on, but I was coming home, exhausted, stressed out and crying every night.

Like no idea why. I thought I had to fix it by enrolling in a master's degree. Part-time and that's great. This is something I've always been passionate about. Maybe I need to fix it by, I dunno, like hanging out with my friends, more, taking more breaks, going to yoga classes. There were all the things that I was trying to do to cut a long story short.

There was this absolute burnout from all of that. And part of the burnout

Nancy: Burnout from the fixing or a burnout from the crisis or a combination.

Danielle: That's a good question. I guess a combination like by burnout I literally took time off from work, like to a point where I had to stop, like my body, like my heart, my emotions, everything was like, you just have to stop.

Okay. Which was still looking back, one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life tell a busy, always on highly ambitious person to stop and you're taking away their lifeline.

Nancy: What were some the signs that you needed to do, that?

Danielle: That I needed to stop?

Nancy: Yes,

Danielle: Coming home crying every night.

I'm like, what's wrong. I had a lot of digestive issues that I thought were like, related to what I was eating. So I was trying to fix what I was eating. I was getting migraines. I kept going back to the doctor saying, give me something stronger, nothing would work. And I was saying to her I don't understand nothing's working.

And she was like, maybe just breast. I'm like, yeah, no, I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine. And, but there were a couple of other things like. One and to be honest, like it was all around the same time, mushed into one. Another thing was my boss was retiring and he asked me, Hey, why don't you apply for my job?

And I laughed it off. I was like, oh, you're so funny. That would never be me, blah, blah, blah. And I thought that kind of planted a seed of why isn't that the natural next progression? Why you're not even considering it. I also had this somewhat profound kind of experience where I randomly was at work very busy, stressed on a weekend, finishing up a master's degree and got distracted and ended up booking myself on a overseas volunteering program in Kenya.

Oh, my something I had always dreamt of doing, but for some reason I got distracted from the, what I should do. And in that moment was like, oh, let me Google that thing that makes me come alive. Let me Google. It feels really good. And that was another seed. So there were the seeds of going into, hang on, maybe you need to do things differently.

Maybe you need to be asking different questions. Maybe this is not for you. And after that Kenya experience, which was. Yes, time away from work. But I had approached it from a very career oriented that I'm going to do this thing, and it's going to look good on my CV. And so I got back from that and I, they, as part of the program, send you away on this personal empowerment development weekend.

And I love give me any course training workshops. Self-help thing. That was me. I was always like, yes, please give me more learning. But on this weekend I got to actually experience coaching firsthand and these beautiful, incredible coaches were leading the weekend. I got to have a conversation with them, like six of them one-on-one for half an hour.

And I, once again, thought, no, something's not working at work. I'm really stressed. Maybe I need a career change. So that was what the theme of every conversation was. What do I do to progress? What do I do to get to them? Or what do I do to get better? Because you know, I'm not filled up yet. And in one of the conversations, I know this is a really long story.

Nancy: No, you're, it's great. I'm. Keep going,

Danielle: but what, it was really profound for me. So one of the conversations I opened my mouth and I just started balling. She was a coach and a psychologist. And I think something in me was like, she must have the answers or like this. I can trust her or It just opened me up where I lost the whole career conversation.

And to be honest, you probably only asked me one or two questions, but it changed the direction because one of the questions she just asked is what is it you most need right now? And my answer was, I need two weeks off work to do nothing. That was all I needed. And even in saying the answer, the relief in my body, like I just, I was petrified.

I was scared. I was nervous and I was relieved. So all of that was just this combination of art adults. What you have to do, you actually have to completely take time off. Like you cannot come up with new answers. You cannot know what your next step is. You cannot course correct digestion and migraines and all of the stuff.

If you don't stop first, if you don't give yourself space first. So that was my starting point and two weeks very quickly turned into six weeks. Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah.

Nancy: And in that time, in the six weeks, what did you do? Just literally relaxed.

Danielle: Yeah, like I was so fortunate. And I'm forever grateful this particular GP.

And I had seen various GPS over the years about all the digestion and headaches and blah, blah, blah. This particular one was quite new to me. In fact, I don't think I'd seen her at all before. I think I purposely booked like a brand new GP when I got back from that weekend with where the combination was go take two weeks off.

And once again, I open my mouth and I said, ah it was tears and she's what did I write you off for two weeks? Stress leave. I think that's what you need. Oh, wow. That's awesome. But she actually said to me, she's what you need to do is go and do nothing. And she's yes, nothing means sit on the couch.

Yes. Nothing means watch all the movies read all the books. And she said, nothing also means. Go for a walk every day also means get out of the house. It was such an important distinction because the high achiever that I am, I'm on stress leave. I'm not allowed to leave my house. I have to not stress. I have to relax.

I was like, oh my God, I have to do the right thing. Yeah. If someone sold me out, but she, in some weird way, she gave me permission to actually just do whatever the hell I wanted.

Nancy: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And was that hard?

Danielle: Oh yes. Like it was so hard because I'm, I was a highly sociable person used to thriving in a work environment, doing all the things suddenly I was at home, everyone else was at work.

Talk to during the day when everyone's busy at work, there's nothing to do. I had this vision of reading all the books and then I'd sit there and be like, I don't know what book to read. I'm uncomfortable. I don't want to sit still, I got bored of the TV, it was really uncomfortable to begin with

Nancy: I asked that because I know so many of my clients will say, oh, I just that would be their dream.

For their doctor to give them, but then when it happens, it's super stressful. It's not the dream that you think it's going to be, which is why I was pushing it.

Danielle: In my head I was like, oh my God. Yes. She gave it to me—2 weeks off! I celebrate it. I'm like, oh my God. I had to call work and tell them and oh my God, like when you talk about like your Monger coming up like that, I basically have to call my boss and tell him I'm a terrible person that does not have anything together.

I cannot do my job. And my doctor has told me to stay at home and do nothing like and I was petrified. And I don't know how long this will be for maybe two weeks, maybe longer. And it was out of the blue when I eventually did return to work, my boss, like they were like just amazing. Like they took so much care of me, had amazing support in place.

One of the things my boss did say to me was. Maybe next time, could you just keep us updated because yeah. It went from nothing to like extreme and I can totally see that now as well.

Nancy: Which I think is how it works because we're so unaware of our own process and we're trying to fix it.

Danielle: Yeah. So these people want to help us that was a big revelation for me is they didn't think I was a horrible person. They didn't, they still respected me. They still gave me work to do it was actually, they wanted to help. It's just that they had no idea where I was at.

Nancy: Yeah.

Interesting. Yeah.

Danielle: I spent six weeks, like slowly, surely getting used to it. And I did create a routine for myself. I did read, I did watch some TV, but I also went for a walk every single day. Would stay connected, core family or friends and things like that. But one of the most powerful things I did and still to this day I do is I started to take myself out for a coffee at a coffee shop, every single morning by myself.

And I love coffee. I'm like, I love going to Australia. Australia's got this beautiful, like cafe vibe, which is, where I was living at the time I am Australian. You'd probably pick that up from my accent. I'm living in London. I don't know. I haven't shared that with listeners yet, but It was terrifying because I'd never really done it a line unless I was like traveling in an exotic location.

And I had to learn how to be alone, I had to learn how to sit with the discomfort whilst trying to enjoy it and telling myself I must relax. I'm supposed to be relaxing. That's what I did. And it became a ritual and it's been it's a non-negotiable in my self-care well-being.

Nancy: Yeah. That's awesome.

So you do that every day?

Danielle: Pretty much. Yeah. Sometimes. And I say sometimes I invite my partner to come with me. There is a version of it that happens pretty much every day, which to me, like sometimes it's 20 minutes, sometimes it's an hour, which is basically one of the core ingredients for me is spaciousness. There's no preconceived ideas of what that time is for. So sometimes, but it's never in front of a computer.

It's always me and my notebooks. I take about a gazillion notebooks with me to the cafe because I'm never sure what mood I'll be in. And it's just to be with myself. My thoughts sometimes I sit and stare. Sometimes I chat to the person sitting next to me. Sometimes I journal sometimes I like get ideas for blogs and, be creative for work.

But the idea is that it's me, myself and I

Nancy: that's awesome. Yeah. I like that. Yeah. Because a lot of people don't have that relationship with themselves.

Danielle: And I didn't, I'd never stopped for long enough. I didn't know that I didn't. I thought I was, this confident, independent person and I was, but I had never been alone for long enough to really know myself. And I think that's what all the busy-ness had masked is anytime a question of like that might've popped up way back in the back of my heart or mind like, oh, is this job right for you? Should you still be doing this? It would get covered by the next thing, like the, the dinner date I had that night or the project deadline, or so there wasn't ever the spaciousness to sit with it.

My coffee date with myself started to create that space for me to actually, even just allow the questions to bubble the different questions give you different answers. And that really, I know your original question was essentially like, how did I end up being a joy coach?

That was where it started to bubble up. Like it was like how what are the bits of my life that feel really good? What are the bits that bring me joy and they wouldn't have ever bubbled up if I'd never given myself.

Nancy: Ah, I gotcha. Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah. So then how did joy become, because you always had, so then, like you said, I always had this part of me that was positive and happy that you had been stifling or joyful, I guess I should say rather than happy.

So you really tapped into that part or …

Danielle: like I was still that person. I just more and more sorry that when I went down this path of questioning and following what made me feel good and even starting my business journey into coaching and training and all of that, the common thread. Anytime I ask myself what will make you feel good?

What will bring you more joy? Led me closer to coming alive again let me closer to feeling like that spark was always there, but it was like I was flaming it and suddenly I was like more and more I don't know, like I just felt so excited to be doing what I was doing. And even when I was in my full-time job whilst growing my business and during my training, I could say part time, but it was two full times.

People would say, aren't you busy on your stress? How do you do it all? And I'm like, no, because this thing that I'm growing on the side is fueling me because it's coming from a place of joy. That was part of it. And then the other part of it, there was this really pivotal kind of exercise I'd done as part of like a business program, and it was essentially to reach out to friends, family colleagues, and ask them what they believe your super powers are. Ask them what it is. So powerful, like just, yeah, just the most simple, yeah. Incredible question to ask

Nancy: and a hard question to ask I'm sure.

Danielle: Yeah. Like it feels a little bit awkward oh, can you please tell me what you like about me,

Nancy: but I can totally see that.

Yeah. I could see the power though, because so often. They see us so different, like in, can see minus all the crap in our heads.

Danielle: it's like my family who have obviously known me forever, I asked friends from like different walks and stages of my life. And I asked colleagues as well, like professional people and pretty much every single person wrote back and said some version of your positivity, your sunniness, your thoughtfulness.

And I was blown away. What I had to face in that moment was hang on a second. The very thing that you are a little bit holding back on a little bit, too shy to give all of it, because you're worried what people will think. The very thing that everyone keeps telling you, they love most about you.

What gives you the right to hold that back? Like these people are basically saying, that's what we love about you. And you've been to. I don't know, worried about what they will think, what they think has given me more.

Nancy: Right, yes.

Danielle: So that was a big catalyst for me in welcoming it a little bit more as well.

So it was these two sides of, Hey, the question I'm asking is all about joy and feeling good and my positivity and seeing the joy and the a different perspective and a different take on things is actually a superpower, right?

Nancy: Yeah. Because that's the thing. Yeah. Thank you for sharing your welcome, your story and diving into it a little deeper.

I think sometimes do. It's just helpful to hear the whole, what was it like to be to go into overwhelm, but the thing that and I'm just making this question up as I go. So bear with me is it's so nuanced. The part that I think we miss in the personal development world is the nuance of, and that's why, I'm thinking and talking at the same time, which is not my super power. So as you're talking, I'm like, oh, like I don't have that positivity bent.

Like I don't have that. So I have a glass half full, empty, a little bit bent and a little cynicism and that I can really, get stuck in and, but the it's my whole life. I have tried to overcome that by being positive and switching my mindset and changing. But in our conversation, it's coming, it's the realization of what if that bent is no better than yours positivity bent. Yeah. It's just a different bent. Yeah. What are your thoughts on that?

Danielle: There's so much power in that. Isn't that even Hey, hang on. What if I don't resist this thing? That's probably just part of me, like, why allow it? What if I give it permission? And first of all, I'd say absolutely to anyone listening, please start ask that question to anyone in your life. What are my superpowers? What do you love about me? Because I think seeing it reflected back could give you so much truth that you're resisting right now. And it's what I think I love about what you saying, Nancy, like what was coming up for me there is instead of thinking, oh my God, I need to fix the negativity and only be positive. It goes back to what we were talking about at the start of the episode, which is. Actually all of the emotions are welcomed. They're all there to give you a gift. They're all there to maybe teach you something or show you a new perspective.

So instead of resisting it, like maybe what comes up about it? And I say on my website, I say I'm a positive thinking enthusiast. That doesn't mean, I believe that you should only be positive all of the time and only tell yourself the really cool things and keep telling yourself, I, everything is, amazing all the time which is probably a little bit of a myth around positive thinking.

Nancy: Yeah That's what I'm getting at. Yes.

Danielle: And I think for anyone who's not tapped into it a lot. It can almost put you off because you're like, but life isn't really great for me right now. I don't want to just tell myself life is good. Life is good. Life is good, but actually that's not what I'm saying.

And I know that's not what you teach either. That is not what positive thinking is about when you can have a positive mindset, but you also have to do the emotional. You just turn the tap on in saying life is cup is full. You the empty cup picture, the full cup. Actually, you have to sit with both, which goes to what we're saying at the start.

Like you have to sit with both, you have to welcome it all in, in order for you to take on that fresh perspective in order for you to think and feel differently, you have to sit with it. And it takes me to a lot about what I teach around joy as well. And I talk about joy being a muscle and you have to practice feeling good in our life.

And a bit about positive thinking that I come to is what we tend to do is we give a lot of it's what you focus on is what you get. So if you're only focusing on the empty. Then you've got a problem. Yeah. But if you're acknowledging that sometimes it's full, sometimes it's empty, like giving both sides a little bit of attention.

Then you're welcoming a deeper wider range of experiences into your life. Why I focus so much on joy is because I feel like we almost have this kind of push away mentality. No, no things are not good or no things are really stressful. I need to fix the stress instead of hang on a second.

What does it even feel like, for me to feel relieved for me to feel calm for me to feel joy? So if you can practice that, if you can build a muscle around it, so that on your crappy days on your whether it's a high anxiety day or the sewage smell coming through the back all day, because your muscle strength is that because you even know what feeling good feels, right?

It's like you can access that state with more. With more ease.

Nancy: Yeah, I, yeah, because that's what happened. What, what happened this morning? When I was doing the walk-in before I had the aha about let's just allow this. I was like, look at the sky, be grateful, doing all that forced positivity. And, but then after I had the moment of this is hard, what if it's just hard to feel this way? And we're just going to let this go. Then when I was like, wow, look at the blue sky. It's so pretty. Like my perspective did shift. And so the what I think the takeaway is that we lump emotions and mindset, all in behavioral and one big thing. And that we think we can manipulate our emotions by switching our mindset or our behavior, instead of allowing the emotion and acknowledging the emotion. And then that opens us up to a deeper perspective, which is almost exactly what you just said, (laughter).

Danielle: because I was thinking it's almost like in that moment you were thinking. I must think the sky is beautiful today. Like you were trying to think your way into the feeling, whereas actually have to feel like, so, maybe I'm just going to sit in the grumpiness.

Maybe that's okay. Gave you a sense of relief so that when you do then look at the sky, you can say, yes, the sky is beautiful, but you can also feel it.

Nancy: Yes, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's different. And because to your point about practicing joy, because I have been practicing that, perspective, then it does tap in easily.

Yeah. Then I was able to look up and see it easier. But the, but it's not about practicing, that's why I get so caught up in just think positive or just say what you're grateful for, because if you have an acknowledged, what's really going on, that's just a bandaid on top of everything.

Danielle: Yes, I so agree. And I love that you brought up gratitude actually, because if you just say I'm grateful. I'm grateful. Yeah, it's nice. And you can maybe remember more things you're grateful for, but to actually practice gratitude to me is when I say why, when I say, because what is it about those that makes me grateful?

Because you cannot answer that question without feeling. Yes, right? Yeah. I'm grateful. It's a sunny day today, but that's just like a high-achiever. Yep. I'm grateful. It's sunny. I'm grateful. I'm Nancy right now. But when I say so grateful, it's sunny because I feel more alive when the sun is shining. I love that feeling of warmth on my skin.

It makes me feel more energized. I couldn't help, but feeling that right now.

Nancy: Yeah. That, because I was just, I was actually doing my continuing education for my license during COVID, which was like, yay me using my time productively in my high functioning. But one of the guys talked about gratitude and I always say name five things you were grateful for that happened that day that are unique. That's usually my thing, but he said, pick one thing you're grateful for at the end of the day and live it with all of your senses. Oh, what you did, you could feel the sun and the, That, because you know that because then you're immersed in it and it has such a different power than just, I'm happy for my sheets.

I'm glad I have a bed. I'm glad that which is, but he said that it has to be something that's unique to that day, which I thought was just, I love that.

Danielle: What I love about it is it really supports you to go into the immersion because there's five different senses you've got to touch on.

And what it also makes you do is slow down. And take a poll. You cannot rush these things. You cannot rush gratitude. You cannot rush feelings.

Nancy: Yes. Yeah. I'm so glad you said that. That was a good little wrap up there, right there. So tell us, so tell people where they can find you, what you got happen in, how they can work with you, et cetera, et cetera.

Danielle: Ooh. Okay. So I think the best place to come and get a flavor for what I'm all about is over on my website, which is the Daisy patch.co.uk. And I have a ton of content there specifically around blog posts. Very much like what I'm focused on is working with highly ambitious, stressed out women. They tend to be in their thirties and at this like stuck crossroads and.

I really take them from like questioning. Should I shouldn't I quit my job all the way through to living a joyful life, regardless of what life, regardless of what job. So a lot of my blog content is supporting you to feel more human, to bring in joy, but also answer some of those tough questions and my favorite, like kind of social place to hang.

Instagram. So at the Daisy patch, coaching over an Instagram, come and say hi I really love hearing from people in my DMs and the comments. Like I love conversation as you've probably gathered know.

I do have like various offers and from time to time in terms of group programs and like digital courses and things like that. But the best place to be updated is to come and grab my emails. Like just sign up to them. Actually, if you go to the Daisy patch.co.uk/ feel-good, I've got a call list of 99 ways to feel really good.

Which is just like a fun way to say, like when you're stuck in a right, sometimes it's nice to just throw a fresh perspective at you to just pick up something. Maybe I'll try one of these things and it'll just put me on that kind of bridge to joy. So that's probably a really cool place to some people actually.

Nancy: Cool. Because I think it is sometimes, like changing your state in those, can really flip things. I think that's positive. Where did the daisy patch come from?

Danielle: So it's got lots of meaning to me personally, and then symbolically as well. So I just love daisies, the fresh and fun and yellow is my favorite color.

And I grew up with like huge, big Daisy bushes in my grand's backyard, so that it has a lot of familiarity. And then Daisy is symbolically very much. Joy and happiness and like new life and beginnings and sunniness and things like that. The patch is about this kind of metaphor.

A two-fold metaphor around seeing personal growth in your life and taking care of yourself and your own wellbeing. Your garden and really supporting that patch of growth in your life. Like it's always going to take the nourishing and the care, and sometimes you're planting seeds. Sometimes you're pulling out weeds, you can change what flowers you have there.

But it's also to say that we've all got our own patches and it's part of this kind of grand vision I have with the Daisy patch to grow it into all these patches globally, where we can all support and nourish and have that community. So it's got like this multi-filled aspects.

Nancy: Oh,that's awesome.

I'm glad I asked. I was so curious

Danielle: It has been so long since I have talked about it and it brings me so much joy to talk about it.

Nancy: So that was really fun. Okay. Yeah. This was awesome. Thank you so much for being willing to, come on and just talk about this stuff. In a loose way, it was really, I had a lot of aha for me, so that's awesome.

Hopefully all the listeners did too.

Danielle: Thank you so much for having me.

Nancy: Honestly, I hadn't thought about joy in this way. This conversation was an eye opener for me and has encouraged me to find more joy in my everyday life. Since this conversation, I've noticed how I suck all the joy out of things by turning them into duty.

I just talked about this in last week's episode. Number 135, finding joy is a meaningful goal. It brings more authenticity and loyalty into our lives, which is exactly what we need. If you want to hear more about my take on positive thinking. Listen to episode 102 Radical Acceptance Versus Positive Thinking.

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Episode 125: Acknowledging Feelings When They Don’t Seem Appropriate

In today’s episode, continuing the deep dive into feelings. Today, I am going to explore what to do when your feelings just don’t seem appropriate.

When my mom told me she wouldn’t be visiting for Easter this year – choosing to visit a friend instead – I experienced a flood of emotions. 

I immediately felt disappointed and sad.

Easter isn’t a big deal in our family – we don’t even go to church – but I was still looking forward to seeing her. I was bummed. 

And then my Monger started sounding off: “What’s the big deal? She’s allowed to go to visit her friend, and it isn’t like you are a deeply religious family or anything. You are so uptight and rigid! This shouldn’t make you sad.” 

The rest of the day, when I would feel sad or disappointed, the voice of the Monger would swoop in and tell me that my feelings were irrational and I would feel terrible about myself.  

But here is the thing: feelings happen. It doesn’t matter if the feelings make sense or not. You are still having them, and that is more than okay, no matter what your Monger is telling you. 

Today, we are continuing this month’s deep dive into the F word. In episode 119, I introduced the topic of Acknowledging your feelings as a key part of reducing anxiety, and last week, I addressed 2 of the fears we have about feelings. Today, I am going to explore what to do when your feelings just don’t seem appropriate. 

Listen to the full episode to find out:

• What happens when we don’t give ourselves permission to feel and confuse the natural response of acknowledging our feelings with demanding a behavior change.

• How it is a myth that if we feel sad that means we have to take action on that feeling

• Why the idea of”‘changing our thoughts” or “fixing our mindsets” never works

• How when we have High Functioning Anxiety we learn to compartmentalize those feelings, putting them in a box deep inside, never seeing them again

Research and resources mentioned:

• The Feelings List PDF

• Episode 119: Acknowledging your feelings

• Episode 124: The 2 Biggest Fears About Feeling Your Feelings

+ Read the Transcript

My mom won't be here for Easter this year. She's visiting a friend instead. This shouldn't make me sad. I mean, Easter isn't a big deal in our family. We don't even go to church, but regardless I told my husband, I'm just sad that she isn't going to be here for Easter. I mean, I know that's just silly. My husband interrupted me and said, "So what if it doesn't make sense? That's how you're feeling."

It does drive me crazy when he uses my own words of advice against me. But this time, it was exactly what I needed to hear. I took a huge exhale and smiled for the first time that day.

You're listening to the happier approach. The show that pulls back the curtain on the need to succeed, hustle, and achieve at the price of our inner peace in relationships. I'm your host, Nancy Jane Smith.

After my mom announced that she was headed to visit a friend for Easter, I immediately felt disappointed and sad. And then my Monger stepped in. "I mean, what's the big deal she's allowed to go to visit her friend. It isn't like you're a deeply religious family. You're just so uptight and rigid."

My Monger was off to the races calling me too sensitive, too rigid, too traditionalistic on and on and on the rest of the day. When I would feel sad or disappointed, she would swoop in. I admit it; even now, I'm a little embarrassed to share this story with you. My Monger is still hammering me for being too sensitive, but here's the thing.

And this is what I want to explore on today's episode feelings happen. As my husband said, it doesn't matter if it makes sense or not. It's a feeling. Today, we're continuing our deep dive into the F-word. I talk about acknowledging your feelings as a key part of reducing anxiety. And in episode 119, I introduced the topic last week.

I address two of the fears we have about feelings. And today, I want to dive deeper into this idea of feelings when they just don't seem appropriate. When we have high functioning anxiety, we learn to compartmentalize those feelings, to put them in a box deep inside, and never see them again. As I said last week, not only have you buried your feelings, but you take a lot of pride in the fact that you can control your feelings, that you don't let your feelings run amuck, like those needy emotional people who can't control themselves.

Yep. Again, that's a common refrain of our BFS. We do it better because we can control our emotions. Or so we think, but in reality, those feelings come out via our anxiety, anger, frustration, and passive-aggressiveness. The truth is it's not about the feeling. The feeling is a natural response. My sadness and disappointment about mom not being here for Easter is just that it's a natural physiological response.

The problem is that in our society and in our high functioning anxiety brains, we've linked that feeling too. If I feel sad, that means I have to take action on that feeling. That is a myth. We do not have to take action on our feelings. All we have to do is acknowledge they're there and soften it. I can acknowledge the sadness and give my mom a big hug and be thrilled for her to go visit her friend.

Both can be true just because I'll be disappointed that my mom won't be here for Easter. It doesn't mean that anything about her Easter plans needs to change or that she needs to feel bad for going to visit her friend, or that I need to feel shame for feeling sad and discipline. This is the part we get mixed up.

We mistakenly believe that if we acknowledge the sadness, then we need to fix it. We need to do something to not feel sad anymore. Nope. Sadness is a natural response, and when we can acknowledge it and soften into it, we can get to the other side so much faster. Here's what we tend to do. And definitely what I would have done in the past.

My mom announces she's not going to be here for Easter. I feel sad and disappointed and then tell myself to get over it. As the days and weeks go along, I keep telling myself to get over it. Don't be so sensitive. She's a grown woman who can make her own choices, blah, blah, blah. Then right before Easter, she's talking about her trip, and I say something passive-aggressive, like, "Must be nice to be traveling over the holiday. We'll certainly miss you as we color eggs." Or maybe I might even be more indirect and just complain to my husband over and over and over again about how my mom is ditching me for Easter. And it becomes this very big deal. When in reality, it's not. Often I will talk about having a 10 reaction to a two situations when our Mongers are running the show, and we aren't acknowledging our feelings. We will take a benign situation and blow it up to be huge.

So the situation with my mom goes from being simply disappointed to questioning whether she really loves me at all. This is what happens when we don't give ourselves permission to feel when we confuse the natural response of acknowledging our feelings with demanding a behavior. Okay. So what if this is a situation where I do have a response?

What if instead of Easter, which is a minor holiday for my family, it's Christmas, which is a major holiday for my family. What if my mom decided she wasn't going to do Christmas? Again, I would acknowledge the feelings, sadness, disappointment, anger, and confusion. Then, I could step back and react after acknowledging those feelings.

I might decide to talk to mom and hear her thinking behind ditching Christmas. Since I had given myself permission to feel the sadness, disappointment, anger, and confusion, I can relatively calmly listen to her side of the story. And we can figure out a way around it. Maybe she wants to ditch Christmas because she feels unappreciated, or it's too much. Or she just wants to go somewhere warm. Whatever the reason, when we can allow our emotions and recognize that our emotions don't dictate our behavior, we can have a much calmer discussion. The power of acknowledging our emotions is why the idea of changing your thoughts or fixing your mindset never works because all day Sunday, I was trying to change my thoughts and fix my mindset.

I kept telling myself to be grateful for all the years. I had Easter with my mom to give her a break. She can do whatever she wants, and it's just a thought that I want to spend Easter with her. None of those mindset ideas worked until I acknowledged my feelings until that moment in the car when my husband said, so what I hadn't softened into anything.

I was so busy trying to unsuccessfully change my mindset. Once, he reminded me, I had permission to feel and that it wasn't linked to my actions or behavior. I was able to see the whole situation differently. I didn't have to convince myself that I was wrong or that mom was right. Both could be true. I could be sad.

She could go to California, and the world could keep turning grudges drama. Passive aggressiveness is caused by shaming ourselves for our feelings, trying to jump too quickly into changing our mindset, or thinking that having an emotion means we get to react to it. Recently I was watching the TV show Tommy, which is about the first female LAPD chief.

At one point, Tommy's daughter confronts her and says, there's always going to be a part of me that wishes my life was more important than the 4 million citizens you keep safe. And I know their lives are more important, but as your daughter, I wish you put me first, and I feel selfish and embarrassed saying that, but there it is.

And Tommy, her mom, who's played by Eddie Falco, smiled and hugged her and said, thank you so much for saying that. Honestly, I appreciate you sharing it. I loved the scene because the daughter shared all the messiness of feelings, the irrationality, the embarrassment, and her mom just listened. She didn't get defensive.

She didn't start drama or get petty. They both recognize that having a feeling does not mean there needs to be an action or reaction. Sometimes it's just about acknowledging the feeling in all its messiness. I think one of the things we hate about feelings is. They're out of control. They're a major unknown.

So my challenge to you is to own that own, that they're messy and scary. We spend way too much of our time running from them. And all that is doing is causing anxiety. So let's try it a different way. Let's lean into those biological responses rather than futilely pretending they just don't exist.

---

Helping people with High Functioning Anxiety is a personal mission for me. I have a special place in my heart for this struggle because it’s both something I dealt with unknowingly for years, and because it silently affects so many people who think this is just how it is.

Working with me this way is an incredibly efficient and effective way to deal with your anxiety in the moment--without waiting for your next appointment.

I have been doing this work for over 20 years and Coach in Your Pocket is the most effective and most life-changing work I have ever done. My clients are consistently blown away by how these daily check-ins combined with the monthly face-to-face video meetings create slow, lasting changes that reprogram their High Functioning Anxiety tendencies over time.

Over the course of the three-month program, we meet once a month for a face-to-face session via a secure video chat, and then throughout the entire three months, you have access to me anytime you are feeling anxious, having a Monger attack, celebrating a win, or just need to check-in, and I will respond to you during my office hours (Monday through Friday, 9 am - 6 pm EST).

---

Episode 124: The 2 Biggest Fears About Feeling Your Feelings

In today’s episode, I wanted to bring back Abby and hear how she implements A.S.K. when she realizes she doesn’t have enough hours in the day.

Here is a common scenario in my world: I had a lot to get done – back-to-back client meetings and deadlines looming. My anxiety was through the roof!

I kept telling myself, “you need to acknowledge your feelings,” knowing that it helps when I am stuck in anxiety. But it wasn’t working. I kept coming up sad and overwhelmed. No matter how many times I tried, I wasn’t getting any relief.

At the end of the day–-meetings over, deadlines met – I was still spinning with anxiety. I realized I had gone through the whole day without really feeling anything. Every time I had gone through the motions of naming my emotions, they were quickly hijacked by my Monger saying, “Feeling sad is a waste of time. You don’t have time for this nonsense. Move on and focus!”

This is a common experience for many of my clients. We shame ourselves for feeling our feelings. We tell ourselves that we don’t have enough time for them, that we won’t get anything done by feeling things. Or, worse, we fear that allowing ourselves to experience our emotions would open up a bottomless pit of despair that we would never be able to find our way out of. 

In today’s episode, I want to dive a little deeper into the F word. I talk about Acknowledge your Feelings as a key part of reducing anxiety. In episode 119, I introduced the topic, but today I want to dive a little deeper and answer some of the questions that I receive from clients and listeners about feelings. 

Feelings are a big part of my coping strategy around my anxiety. Allowing my feelings and facing them has been a game-changer for me. I KNOW the fear that doing this will open the flood gates, that all the feelings will come out and overwhelm. So, in this episode, I address some common fears about acknowledging your feelings.

Listen to the full episode to find out:

• How to allow your feeling even when you are afraid that it will lead to overwhelming despair

• How to acknowledge your feeling when it seems like that will just add to the stress you are already experiencing

• How our feelings don’t just go away if we ignore them but will show up in other places

• How acknowledging our feelings isn't something you have to DO because it is something your body naturally does – you just have to give yourself permission.

Resources mentioned:

• The Feelings List PDF

• Episode 119: Acknowledging your feelings

+ Read the Transcript

I had a lot to get done. Client meetings, a number of deadlines to make my anxiety was through the roof. I kept saying to myself, you need to acknowledge your feelings because I know it's so helpful for me when I'm stuck in anxiety, and what kept coming up is sad and overwhelmed, but that wasn't working.

It wasn't giving me any relief. No matter how many times I tried. At the end of the day, meetings over deadlines hit and still spinning with anxiety. I realized I hadn't really felt anything. I'd gone through the motions of acknowledging my feelings, but every time I named them, I was quickly hijacked by my monger saying, you don't have time for this feeling.

Sad is a waste of time. Move on and focus. Finally, I realized I hadn't really acknowledged my feelings. I had just named them. And then my monger had shamed me for them. So again, I tried to name my feelings, and I had another major aha. This time when I named them, I actually allowed them rather than shaming myself. My biggest fan chimed in and said, whoa, it's just so hard to feel sad, especially when you don't know why.

Almost immediately. My shoulders dropped. I got a little teary just from feeling the compassion and kindness. And then I moved on with my evening. Yes. Earlier in the day, I was naming my feelings. Yes. I was saying them out loud, but what followed was my monger saying, well, that's not appropriate. That is ridiculous.

How can you be feeling that way? So I wasn't actually acknowledging and allowing my feelings. I was saying them and then slamming them down with criticism and judgment. You're listening to the happier approach. The show that pulls back the curtain on the need to succeed, hustle, and achieve at the price of our inner peace in relationships.

I'm your host, Nancy Jane Smith. This idea of shaming ourselves for feelings, not having enough time for them, or telling ourselves we will enter a pit of despair and never get out. If we feel anything is common for not just me but many of my clients in today's episode, I want to dive a little deeper into the F.

I talk about acknowledging your feelings as a key part of reducing anxiety, and then in episode 119, I introduced the topic, but today I want to dive a little deeper and address two of the fears that clients talk to me the most about when it comes to feelings. As I was writing the happier approach and doing my research on quieting the Munger, I realized the importance of allowing your feelings.

I'd always given lip service to this idea. I mean, I'm a therapist by training, but personally, in my own life, I would run from feelings, push them down, channel them into work and let my anxiety run them. Now feelings are a big part of my coping strategy around my anxiety. Allowing my feelings and facing them has been a game-changer for me.

And I know the hesitancy, the fear that you'll open up the flood gates, and all the feelings will come out and overwhelm you. So let's address some of these common fears about feelings, fear, number one. Okay. You say to allow your feelings, but I'm afraid if I feel my feelings, I will be lost in a bottomless-pit-of-despair.

Man. Oh, man. Do I understand this fear when you've spent most of your life packaging up your feelings, sticking them in a box, bearing that box deep inside. The idea of letting these mysterious sensations into the forefront is scary. Not only have you buried your feelings, but you take a lot of pride in the fact that you can control your feelings, that you don't let your feelings run amuck.

Like those needy emotional people who can't control them. Yep. That's a common refrain of our BFS. We do it better because we can control ourselves. So my first pushback is really, are you in control of your feelings because feelings might not be showing themselves, but all that pushing and burying is exhausting.

So frequently, we are exhausted with headaches, stomach problems. We have lots of anxiety or depression, and we are big fans of numbing with alcohol, food, exercise, TV games, et cetera. Not to mention that we tend to push those closest to us away because true intimacy comes from vulnerability. And when we're cutting off huge parts of ourselves, there is no vulnerability.

So no, you don't have this feeling things mastered. You just think you. Imagine you're standing on the 50-yard line of a football field to your right is the end zone for team-bottomless-pit-of-despair. And on your left is the end zone for the team-I-got-this. If you start in team-I-got-this in the end zone, and you allow yourself to acknowledge a feeling.

And even if you start crying, In response to your sadness, you will have only made it to the 20-yard line. It might feel like you're almost in the bottomless-pit-of-despair end zone, but you're still 80 yards away. The chances of you getting to the bottomless-pit-of-despair end zone is highly unlikely.

The truth is you're not wired to be someone who swims around on your feelings and gets stuck there. It's just not your way. So when you start tapping into a feeling and things come up. Remind yourself that you are nowhere near the bottomless-pit-of-despair, even though it might feel like. I remember the day we found out my dad had dementia.

My first response was to research everything I learned as much as I could about his illness. I figured the more I knew, the more in control I would be. The challenge was they don't know a lot about dementia, and there were many, many unknowns after I'd researched as much as possible. I poured myself a glass of wine and started calling people to share the news.

I called my best friend and shared the data of what was happening. No tears, no sadness, just data. And she responded with the appropriate. Oh my goodness. I'm so sorry. And I responded with, I know this is huge. I can't believe it. And went into the research that I'd found and the data. No feelings, no sadness. We hung up the phone.

I poured another glass of wine, and I sat alone in the kitchen for a minute before I decided to call another friend. Again, the same thing, no feelings, just data, same shock response. Hang up, sit alone, start to feel, rinse and repeat. And when I ran out of close friends, I pour myself another glass of wine, and I reached for the chocolate, telling myself I was engaging in self-care.

In reality, I was letting my BFF run the show, stay hopped up, numb out. Don't feel anything. In my mind, I was doing what I should be doing, reaching out, asking for help sharing my news. But in reality, I was delivering a news report. I was telling people so I could avoid the quiet it wasn't asking for help.

I wasn't letting people in, and I wasn't being vulnerable. I was sharing data each time I told someone it hot me up more. It pulled me out of my feelings and into my anxiety. So I had some wine to offset that anxiety. If I could go back 12 years, I would do it differently. I would still research because I love to research, and it helps me feel in control.

But this time, I would say to myself, wow, this is hard. Oh, sweet pea. This sucks. So many unknowns, so much out of your control. And this is your dad. You're larger than life, Dad, who is going to slowly lose his mind. His worst fear is coming to reality. Allow the tears allow the fear, allow the doubts because by allowing those feelings to be honest with my experience, I wouldn't get stuck in anxiety or solving the problem or doing something I could take action from a calmer, more loving, kind place.

I remember the first time I really allowed the feelings at an inappropriate time. I was driving to work, and I heard a song that reminded me of my dad, and I started to cry. My normal response would be to say, stop crying. We don't have time to deal with this. I was standing at the 20-yard line of the, I got this end zone, scared as hell that if I shed a tear, I would run the 80 yards into the pit.

Get it together. I told myself I could feel the pit in my stomach as I tried to push everything into that box. And then my biggest fan popped in and just whispered, just let it happen. So I did. I cried big ugly gasping tears as I drove to work, telling myself over and over it's okay.

And then, two minutes later, it was gone. The pit in my stomach was gone. My tears dried up, and I felt a huge relief. It worked this whole acknowledging the feelings thing. I got to work popped into the bathroom. Assuming I would look a mess and was shocked to see that I looked fine—no makeup streaming down my face.

It was just me and my sad eyes looking back at me, allowing the feelings feels foreign and uncomfortable, but in the end, it leads to much, much less anxiety and drama. The next fear I hear a lot is I'm stressed out all the time. I need to get out of my feelings, not feel more. So here's a story from Emily.

Someone I recently worked with, Emily, has had a tough year. Her ex-husband harps on her about every little thing when it comes to the shared custody of their sons, her company is going through some restructuring there. So there's a lot of unknowns in the workplace, and her mom's breast cancer just recently returned.

She is overwhelmed, to say the least recently. I mentioned to Emily that she needed to feel her feelings. And her response was, "I have no problem being angry and sad. I'm the first to share all the hard times I'm going through and complain about them. I feel like I get stuck in my feelings. I take them out of my kids. I feel stressed out all the time. I need to get out of them, not have more of them." To which I thought to myself, you do a great job of justifying your feelings and replaying the events that leave you feeling stuck, but you don't ever allow yourself to feel anything. You just intellectualize.

I used to be just like Emily; I would feel stressed and then spend the rest of the day justifying why I was stressed, listing off all the stressors, but never allowing myself to soften into the anger, sadness, and frustration.

Just replaying the things I was stressed about over and over and over. I would argue that Emily wasn't feeling anything. She was simply naming all the bad things in her life. She wasn't allowing herself to feel them. She wasn't owning her anger or giving herself a chance to experience it. She would just label the event that justified her anger and move on.

When we spend our time justifying and intellectualizing our stress, we are dancing in the shallow end. Think of it like entering the ocean. And the water is chilly. As you wade in and you stand in the shallow end, and the cold waves keep splashing, you. You just stand there getting slapped by the cold waves, never actually getting in the water.

Similarly, when we replay our wrongs, we just keep getting hit with the cold waves. But when we wade in all the way in and immerse ourselves in the cold water, when we allow the anger to come over us and feel the pain completely. We will feel better when we soften in to what is happening head-on. We can assimilate and find relief when we accept our anger. It dissipates when we accept the cold water and allow our body to adjust it dissipates, but standing in the shallow end saying how cold the water is. It doesn't feel good. And it doesn't.

Recently, Emily sent me an email. She shared how she did end up losing her job. The company was downsizing, and she was one of the casualties. Emily came home from work and was devastated. She called her partner for support, and he immediately jumped into problem-solving mode, remembering our conversation.

She stopped him mid suggestion and said, "You know what, today? I just want to be pissed off. I just want to be angry because this sucks. Tomorrow I will solve the problem. Today, I'm just pissed." As she was telling me this story, she said, "I was shocked that came out of my mouth, but I did just want one day to be angry."

This is acknowledging your feelings. Emily allowed herself to feel angry because she was legit angry in her email. She shared how skeptical she was about the process but how much better she felt? I didn't feel like a victim like I thought I would. Feeling the anger empowered me. I was amazed at how much it helped.

Acknowledging your feelings isn't something you have to do. It's something your body naturally does. You just have to give yourself permission. So the next time you notice yourself listing off all the negatives in your life, ask yourself, how does this make me feel with each response? Just allow yourself to soften and give yourself some empathy and kindness, such as, oh, that sucks. Or, oh, sweet pea. And then ask yourself again. How does this make me feel? At first, you might have to ask yourself multiple times before you soften into the actual feeling. This process allows you to move past the shallow end and swim into the deep water. Riding those waves. It's life-changing. Here's what I know to be true about feelings.

Feelings are messy. They're individual. Each person experiences them, deals with them, and faces them differently. Feelings are legit. They are biological responses to what's happening in our world. Feelings can't keep us stuck, but our thoughts about our feelings can, and if we don't feel our feelings, they will show up in other places.

They don't go away if we ignore them. When we stay hopped up in our anxiety, we miss the colors of life. We miss the nuances, the connections, the experiences, the feelings. I know feelings are messy, and I know we hate messy, but when you can trust yourself enough to allow this natural process, your life will shift, and your anxiety will decrease. Envision yourself, standing on the 20-yard line and looking way down the field at the bottomless-pit-of-despair, and remind yourself, I'm 80 yards away, just feel.

---

Helping people with High Functioning Anxiety is a personal mission for me. I have a special place in my heart for this struggle because it’s both something I dealt with unknowingly for years, and because it silently affects so many people who think this is just how it is.

Working with me this way is an incredibly efficient and effective way to deal with your anxiety in the moment--without waiting for your next appointment.

I have been doing this work for over 20 years and Coach in Your Pocket is the most effective and most life-changing work I have ever done. My clients are consistently blown away by how these daily check-ins combined with the monthly face-to-face video meetings create slow, lasting changes that reprogram their High Functioning Anxiety tendencies over time.

Over the course of the three-month program, we meet once a month for a face-to-face session via a secure video chat, and then throughout the entire three months, you have access to me anytime you are feeling anxious, having a Monger attack, celebrating a win, or just need to check-in, and I will respond to you during my office hours (Monday through Friday, 9 am - 6 pm EST).

---

Episode 119: The 3 Steps of A.S.K.: Acknowledging Your Feelings

Much of the time when you are feeling anxiety it is tied to feelings you don’t want to feel. In today’s episode, we start our discussion of A.S.K. with the first step of the system: Acknowledge Your Feelings. 

Today, we are starting our month-long discussion of A.S.K. with the first step of the system: Acknowledge Your Feelings. 

But first, I have a confession: I dislike 3 step self-help systems. 

Not because they don’t work but because they overly simplify very nuanced and individualized processes. 

This can be challenging for people with High Functioning Anxiety. We love rules. We love a guide–a simple system that we can follow to the exact letter, making everything feel better. 

A.S.K.–my very own 3-step system for reducing your anxiety–appears to do that. It seems to offer a simple solution to our struggles with anxiety.

But, as you will hear this month, there is complexity below the surface of this seemly simple solution. 

This is why I encourage you to think of the system of A.S.K. as the bare minimum–the basic foundation, from which you can jump off to make this process your own. 

After 2 years of teaching these concepts, I wanted to revisit them and expand on what I talked about previously, adding in some fresh tips. Once you have listened to this episode, you can revisit where I have talked about these 3 steps in previous episodes (episodes 72, 73 and 74), 

Listen to the full episode to find out:

• A basic overview of the 3 steps of A.S.K.

  • Acknowledge what you are feeling

  • Slow down and get into your body

  • Kindly pull back to see the big picture

• Some scenarios of the practice of acknowledging your feelings in action

• What role self-loyalty plays when acknowledging your feelings

• What it looks like when people with High Functioning Anxiety avoid feeling their feelings (are you a brooder of bottler?)

• How owning your feelings after years of avoidance and pushing them down takes time

Research and resources mentioned:

• Emotional Agility by Dr. Susan David

• My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist’s Personal Journey by Jill Bolte Taylor

• Putting Feelings Into Words

• Additional studies

• The Feelings List PDF

+ Read the Transcript

"Feel your feelings. What does that even mean?!"

That was the feedback I got from the guy who groaned as I explained the first step of my system for reducing stress and anxiety during a recent talk I gave.

Feel your feelings. Yeah, I'll admit it: that's a hard one to parse.

For the record, the first step of the process is actually to acknowledge your feelings, but even that is a tough one.

I'm just as tired of being told to "feel my feelings" as the groan guy. Honestly, there was a time when all I wanted was to be able to get through life without my feelings.

Feelings gum up the works. They get in the way. Feelings take nice, solid objective things and turn them into squishy, mushy things--am I right?

And that's exactly why I got into therapy in the first place.

"You're listening to The Happier Approach—the show that pulls back the curtain on the need to succeed, hustle, and achieve at the price of our inner peace and relationships. I'm your host, Nancy Jane Smith."

I joke that the reason I decided to become a therapist was so I could figure out my feelings and be able to justify them away, and then I would never have to deal with them at all. That strategy did not work for me, which is why I am here today talking about feelings.

But it isn't about 'feeling your feelings' because the groaning guy was right. What does that even mean?!? It is a phrase that has been beaten to death and over-used with no meaning. So in this episode, I am going to share what I would say to all those people who would audibly groan if I said, it all starts with Acknowledging your Feelings.

In December, we talked about the 3 characters that play in our minds the Monger (inner critic), the B.F.F. (the voice of false self-compassion), and the Biggest Fan (the voice of kindness and wisdom) when we hear our Monger talking and berating us or our B.F.F. judging other people or sabotaging us. The goal is to bring in the voice of Biggest Fan. All this month, we will be talking about HOW to do that. We will be diving deeper into my 3 step A.S.K. system for calling in the Biggest Fan.

I talked about these three steps in previous episodes, episode 72, 73, and 74, But now, after teaching these concepts for 2 years, I wanted to expand on what I talked about previously and add in some new tips.

First, I have a confession, I dislike 3 step systems. Not because they don't work but because they simplify a very nuanced, individualized process. The challenge is people with High Functioning Anxiety love rules and a guide they can follow exactly to the letter and feel better.

And A.S.K.--my very own 3-step system for reducing your anxiety--appears to do that when in fact, it requires a bit more complexity than it appears on the surface. In fact, for years, I avoided making a system for this very reason, I didn't want to simplify a complex process. So think of A.S.K. as the bare minimum, the basic foundation from which you can jump off of to make this process your own.

Let me define what A.S.K. means.

The A.S.K. system is 1) acknowledge what you're feeling, 2) slow down and get into your body, and 3) kindly pull back to see the big picture.

Let's look at A.S.K. a little deeper.

Acknowledge what you are feeling: When your Monger tries to shame and belittle you, your Biggest Fan acknowledges what you are feeling (e.g., you must be tired, scared, angry, sad, etc.).

Slow down and get into your body: When your Monger tries to speed you up and make everything more intense, your Biggest Fan tries to slow everything down, encouraging you to take a break, pause, breathe, etc.

Kindly pull back to see the big picture: When your Monger just sees doom and gloom and engages in black-and-white thinking, your Biggest Fan sees lots of color. She encourages you to think of different solutions, brainstorm, and see the other colors. Most importantly, your Biggest Fan is kind. We tend to be harsh on ourselves when we are looking for new solutions, so this takes some practice.

Today we are going to spend some time on the first step: Acknowledge your Feelings. Over the next few weeks, we will dive deeper into the other steps.

So, Acknowledge what you are feeling. You might be asking, okay, Nancy, but what do feelings have to do with anxiety? The truth is feelings have A LOT to do with anxiety. In fact, much of the time, when you are feeling anxiety, it is tied to feelings that you are not 'allowing yourself to feel.'

I cannot talk about feelings without pulling back and looking at the bigger issue, which is loyalty to self. Self-loyalty is something I talk A lOT about because people with H.F.A. have a high sense of loyalty to their friends and family, anyone on their inner circle they feel extremely loyal to, they will go to the ends of the earth for their people. Yet when it comes to themselves, they often push aside whatever they are experiencing; people with H.F.A. can push through and ignore discomfort and pain like nobody's business. In fact, being able to push through and soldier on is a point of pride for those of us with H.F.A. it also is a huge reason we struggle with anxiety. This pushing without acknowledging our experience leaves us living a life that is based on surviving the day rather than thriving in the day. A key to this work is building loyalty with ourselves, and that starts with being curious about our experience and acknowledging it.

Here are two different scenarios:

Scenario One:

You wake up in the morning, and you remember a business call with a difficult client you have later that day. You are immediately filled with dread, and your Monger is talking a mile a minute. You tell yourself, "change your thoughts, think positive; it will be fine." And every time the feeling of dread comes up, you tell yourself to change your thoughts and think positive. So all day long, you are pushing the feeling under the surface, ignoring the dread and pretending it isn't here. By the time the phone call comes around, you might be feeling pretty good. In fact, you write at the top of your paper, "You got this! No one can get you down!!" The phone call comes and goes. Although the client was still belittling, and you barely got through it without bursting into tears, you got through it! You did burst into tears afterward and spent the rest of the day bitching about the client and how he is so mean. Your Monger continues to hammer you for feeling weak, and by the end of the night, all you want to do is numb out with a glass of wine, some Oreos, and Netflix.

Things to notice in scenario one: You ignore whatever is coming up for you, there is no self-loyalty, no acknowledging of feelings there is just soldier on, think positive, and get through it. There is a sense that the client knows better, and you are destined to feel like crap anytime you work with this client. In scenario one, you are surviving life. You are moving through life, trying not to get snagged by uncomfortable feelings and white-knuckling it through unpleasant situations. You aren't trying to find a resolution, and you aren't diving any deeper than necessary. This is where many of my clients with H.F.A. live.

Scenario Two:

You wake up in the morning, and you remember a business call later that day. You are immediately filled with dread, and your Monger is talking a mile a minute. Hmm, what's that about, you wonder? And you ask yourself to just label what you are feeling. You are feeling insecure and nervous. You remember that the last time you had this call with this client, it didn't go well, and he was particularly harsh with you. When you arrive at work, you start brainstorming how you can help it go better. You know you are 100% prepared for the meeting, so it isn't your lack of prep it is the client's tone and communication style. You put a post-it note on your computer that says, "He will be harsh. It is not about you," to hopefully remind yourself that it isn't about you. He is just harsh. When you hang up the phone, you don't burst into tears (which is a step up from last time), but you still feel like something was missing. The client was particularly belittling, and the post-it note helped but not enough. On your way home, you kindly re-hash the conversation (meaning you aren't beating yourself up for what went wrong or that you felt uncomfortable, rather you are curious to note when you felt discomfort and what could be done differently next time). You remember it went off the rails when he asked for more details. He is such a detail person, and you just don't think like that. So you decide to ask a co-worker to help you drill down on the details. Maybe that will help for next time? You will be more have better answers, AND the sticky note will remind you it isn't about you.

Things to notice in scenario two: you are being loyal to yourself. First, curiosity is the theme; what am I feeling? What do I do with that? How can I make changes to acknowledge those feelings and do it differently? There is also a sense of fluidity, it isn't about surviving the call, it is about bringing curiosity to the call, being vulnerable, asking for help, and leaning into the discomfort so it can go better. You are more present to the whole situation, you are present to your thoughts, feelings, and actions, and you are present to your client's thoughts, feelings, and actions. You are engaged in your life. You recognize there is no perfect way. This process is trial and error and can get messy. But your overall goal for your life is to be as present and engaged as possible.

Here's the thing. Scenario two is the practice of Acknowledging your feelings. It is simply acknowledging they are there and then asking, okay, is there an action I can take to ease this feeling. Sometimes there isn't. Sometimes you are dealing with things that are out of your control, grief, sadness, change, etc. And in those situations, you are just going to acknowledge the feeling and sit with it in your body. You might ask yourself, what do I need now? Maybe it is to take a walk, or journal or maybe it is to numb. I say this because we have this mystic around acknowledging our feelings that when we do, we will be in this pit of despair, never to come out again.

When it comes to acknowledging our feelings, Dr. Susan David, a psychologist at Harvard Medical School, writes in her book Emotional Agility that there tend to be two types of people: Brooders and Bottlers.

Brooders: They can't let it go. They are flooded by feelings. They tend to keep score of their hurts. Their intention is good. They want to feel happy, so they try to move beyond their negative feelings by thinking through their feelings and experiencing them fully over and over.

Bottlers: Hold it all in, but it usually comes out in other places through misdirected feelings, physical ailments, or numbing. Their intention is good. They want to feel happy, so they try to move beyond their negative feelings by ignoring them and pushing them down.

In my experience, individuals who are overwhelmed by their Monger and struggle with High Functioning Anxiety tend to fall on the Bottlers side of the continuum. They hold it in because they don't want to experience a lot of their negative feelings. They tell themselves the grief is too intense, the regret is too much, and the anger is too strong.

Feelings are messy. They bring up stuff. Stuff we don't want to experience. Here are the patterns that most Bottlers get stuck in.

Stuff it down: We tell ourselves it isn't appropriate to feel that way, so we ignore it, usually followed by some type of Numbing, Soldiering On, or Having a 10 Reaction to a 2 Situation as discussed in the previous chapter.

Analyze it: One of the ways our Monger tricks us into thinking we are "feeling the feeling" is to analyze it. We think we are helping because we are trying to understand ourselves. But when we immediately jump to the why without allowing the feeling, we get stuck in justifying, proving, and defending the feeling, which leads nowhere. Yes, the why is important eventually, but first, we need to acknowledge the feeling and label it without defending it.

Judge it: Based on the why above, we move on to judging if it is okay that we are having the feeling; usually we decide it is not okay, so we circle back up to stuffing it.

Something that REALLY helped me with the feelings piece of the work is the research of Jill Bolte Taylor, a neuroanatomist and author of the New York Times best-selling memoir My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey. She found that our feelings only last 90 seconds. She explains our emotional response like this:

"Once triggered, the chemical released by my brain surges through my body and I have a physiological experience. Within 90 seconds from the initial trigger, the chemical component of my anger has completely dissipated from my blood and my automatic response is over. If, however, I remain angry after those 90 seconds have passed, then it is because I have chosen to let that circuit continue to run."

Feelings are happening all the time. We see someone walking down the street towards us and we feel a certain way. Maybe we feel joyful or fearful. But the feeling only lasts a minute and then poof it is gone. The problem comes in when we judge our feelings, analyze them, and shove them back down because we decide they aren't worthy. When that judgment happens, we end up being punished for our feelings. Not only are we feeling something unpleasant but we're judging ourselves for the unpleasantness and forcing ourselves to feel it for longer than necessary! The messy process is compounded.

If you are a Bottler, this is helpful because you probably choose not to give yourself 90 seconds to feel the feeling. How often do you stop yourself from feeling something? You feel anger, and within 30 seconds, you say to yourself, "You shouldn't feel anger. Be grateful or be positive." So you stop the 90-second process. Later, your husband corrects you in front of a friend, and you go off on him because you are so angry. Holding on to the feeling way too long because we never let it do its thing in our body cuts the feeling at its knees, which leaves us full of anxiety and stress.

For those who are Brooders, this is helpful to know because it reminds you that if you are experiencing anger about a certain event for longer than 90 seconds, it is probably because you choose to keep replaying the event in your brain and triggering the 90-second cycle every time.

Researchers at UCLA found that people have the belief that if they name the feeling they will feel worse. But in additional studies, they found that when we use one or two words to own the feeling, we have less of a biological response. The key is in the labeling.

Many of my clients who are Bottlers live in fear of becoming a Brooder. They think that if they own one of their feelings, that makes them super needy and a wallower. Here's the reality for all you Bottlers out there: the danger of you becoming a Brooder because you start labeling your feelings is highly unlikely. We are less likely to get stuck in the feeling when we label it. We get stuck in the feeling when we start obsessing about the why and justifying if it is okay to have the feeling. That justification often leads to drama and Having a Level 10 Reaction to a Level 2 Situation. When we label the feelings, we allow ourselves the 90 seconds and it is over. That is it. Nothing mysterious or crazy.

Acknowledging your feelings is a process. Owning that you are feeling something after years of pushing it down and avoiding it takes time. So make sure to give yourself a break as you work through this step.

When we have spent our whole lives avoiding our feelings, being able to identify them and label them is like learning a foreign language. In the show notes, I will link to the Feelings Chart that lists feelings and their intensities. Use this as a way to get in touch with what you are feeling.

Whenever I notice my Monger is loud or that low buzz of anxiety is hanging around, I will grab for the feelings sheet and I will name 8-10 feelings. I encourage you to jump around the sheet when you first start labeling your feelings, everything feels like it is a high intensity because you are so uncomfortable with feelings in general, so we only allow for a feeling when it is high intensity. For example, for those of us uncomfortable with anger, we might just be annoyed or upset about something (relatively low intensity) but we have to pump ourselves up and amplify the problem until we are seething because then we can justify the feeling better. There is a big difference between feeling seething and feeling annoyed. Recognizing the intensities and knowing that not all feelings are high intensity is helpful in making us more comfortable with feelings overall.

Just notice your tendency to do hang out in the high intensity emotions and challenge yourself to name as many feelings as possible. By the time you name 8-10 you can really see how the feelings are coming out. For example, with regards to the client call in the scenario earlier you might feel panicky, worthless, embarrassed, unworthy, worried, unsure, intimidated, disappointed, uneasy, insecure. Those feelings included sad, angry, afraid and ashamed, you could even through in relieved and thankful when the call is over.

Acknowledging your feelings is the first step in channeling your Biggest Fan—and one of the hardest. Give yourself lots of time and room with this step. Your Monger is not comfortable with feelings and will give you a lot of pushback. That is okay and to be expected.

As you hear your Monger chatting, practice A.S.K. Acknowledge that this process is uncomfortable.

Own that it is stretching you.

Label that it makes you want to crawl out of your skin. Our Monger loves to distract us from the truth in our life. The more you can acknowledge what is really going on, the better you will feel.

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If you don’t do it, who will? If you’re not hustling, pushing, and keeping it all together yourself, nothing will get done.

Look, you don’t need me to tell you that. You tell yourself every day. There’s that voice inside your head constantly pushing you to do more, be more, and get closer to perfect.

And there are all the people--your family, friends, and random people on the street--who congratulate you on how productive you are.

Mixed messages, am I right?

I know I’m right because I’ve dealt with high-functioning anxiety too. I know what it’s like to relish the accolades that come your way one minute and shame yourself for being so tired and overwhelmed the next.

And, I’ve been working with women like you living with hidden anxiety every day for over 20 years as a coach and counselor.

I wrote The Happier Approach to give you a framework for dealing with your anxiety and start living happier.

The Happier Approach will help you understand the voices in your head and what to do with them. It’s not another woo-woo self-help book that asks you to think positively and live your best life. It’s a practical guidebook for getting out of survival mode and finding a genuinely happy and productive life.

Know someone who has High Functioning Anxiety and a VERY LOUD Monger. The Happier Approach makes a great gift.

Find The Happier Approach on Amazon, Audible, or Barnes & Noble!

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Episode 117: You Aren’t Failing, You’re Spiraling Up

In this episode, we're going to look at how change works and specifically how the concept of spiraling up can be applied to the lifelong project of growth and change. How you can step up to new challenges with a new perspective and remind yourself that you aren't failing–you're just spiraling up.

Do you ever feel like you're repeating the same lessons over and over again?

Do you feel like the stuff you worked on 5, 10, or even 20 years ago has a way of coming back, even though you thought you'd found the solution? 

There's a very good reason for that and, no, it’s not because you're broken.

It’s because change isn’t one and done. It’s ongoing.

It’s because of a concept that I call Spiraling Up. 

It can often feel like we are relearning the same lesson over and over, but really we're experiencing a different level of that lesson–new situations, new challenges at a new level of insight. 

Change is like ascending a spiral stare case that presents us with new challenges the higher we climb. It’s not that we are relearning an old lesson, it’s that through life we are being presented with a new and higher level of that lesson. 

In this episode, we're going to look at how change works and specifically how the concept of spiraling up can be applied to the lifelong project of growth and change. How you can step up to new challenges with a new perspective and remind yourself that you aren't failing–you're just spiraling up.

Listen to the full episode to find out:

• How having to re-visit life-lesson does not mean that we are broken

• How while we do repeat lessons, we don’t unlearn all we have implemented before. We repeat the lesson one step up with a new perspective, new challenges, and new information

• What to do when we get stressed and overwhelmed and our triggers and patterns are more likely to reveal themselves

• What the research shows about the change that results from our life experiences, and how that change often leans in a positive, helpful direction

• How the process of change takes an unpredictable, non-linear path

Research and resources mentioned:

• Brent Rogers’ researcher on change

• Dr. Kelly McGonigal’s Tedx talk

+ Read the Transcript

Do you ever feel like you’re learning lessons over again? Like the stuff, you worked on 5, 10, or even 20 years ago has a way of coming back--even though you THOUGHT you’d found the solution?

There’s a very good reason for that. And don’t worry--it does NOT mean that you’re broken. I’ll tell you why we end up learning lessons over again soon--but first, a story.”

Sarah had worked for months on decreasing her tendency to please people. She had grown up in a chaotic home, and one of the ways she maintained control was by becoming really good at mind reading. Although as a child she walked on eggshells around her Mom, she also had an uncanny talent in predicting what would set her Mom off and worked hard to make sure none of those things happened. She could read her Mom and fine-tuned her skill in knowing when her Mom was upset, figuring out what caused it, and doing whatever was in her power to change the situation. She learned at an early age that mind-reading led to a happy Mom led to a less chaotic life. Sarah figured out that one of the ways to decrease the feelings of anxiety was to make sure everyone around her was happy. So it wasn’t long before her mindreading and people please extended to her friends, siblings, teachers, and anyone else she could come in contact with. Sarah was a master people pleaser, and it was exhausting. So through therapy, Sarah was able to see the pattern, recognize where it came from and why it was such a strong pull for her to make others happy. Sarah was healed, or so she thought, through therapy, she knew where her people-pleasing came from and that it wasn’t serving her anymore. She learned to recognize it, take action and stop the pattern, That is until recently.

“You’re listening to The Happier Approach—the show that pulls back the curtain on the need to succeed, hustle, and achieve at the price of our inner peace and relationships. I’m your host, Nancy Jane Smith.”

Sarah has hit a rough patch at work. To put it mildly, she is overwhelmed. Deadlines looming, staff not cooperating, miscommunication, you name it, it has gone wrong lately. Not to mention all the pressure Sarah is putting on herself for the new year. She was going to work out more and eat better, and try to stop taking everything out on her spouse. Sarah’s anxiety is through the roof, and before she knows it, that old pattern of people-pleasing is rearing its ugly head. Sarah starts staying late to cover for her staff, and when her new boss asks what is going on and why one of her staff is chronically late, Sarah makes excuses for her and explains that she is just having a tough time right now, but Sarah knows she will get it together. Sarah spends way too much of her time away from work analyzing how she can make it better, what she needs to do to change and how she can fix the problems that are plaguing her organization. Eventually, her spouse says to her, What is going on? You have been more stressed than usual and aren’t present at all when you come home. Sarah realizes she is back people-pleasing again. She isn’t saying no, her boundaries are out the window and her anxiety is through the roof. She realizes her new boss is a lot like her Mom, demanding, unpredictable, and unaware of how her actions affect the staff. So Sarah has stepped in to smooth everything over, she knows her staff is walking on eggshells, and as if she were 8 years old again there she is protecting everyone around her and not taking care of herself at all.

Sarah immediately starts beating herself up. I thought I had fixed this problem! I thought I was healed.

Well, here is the truth for Sarah. We all have patterns and triggers, and when we get stressed and overwhelmed, these triggers and patterns come out. The process of change isn’t linear. It isn’t like we learn a lesson, and we are done, we are ever-changing, ever-learning, ever getting triggered. Sarah hasn’t forgotten all she learned in therapy. She hasn’t gone back to zero. She is just learning this lesson again, from a different place. I call this Spiraling Up.

All this month, we are taking a different look at how change works. January is a time when we are inundated with new year, new you, a fresh start, change everything about you, and THEN you will be happy messages. In today’s episode, we are going to look at how change works, and specifically one of my favorite ideas around change, spiraling up.

One thing with change that rarely gets mentioned is a concept I call Spiraling Up. Visualize a spiral staircase and think of that spiral staircase as the lesson of people-pleasing. At the bottom of the staircase is people-pleasing unchecked; this was Sarah prior to going to therapy, she would react unconsciously to stressful situations by going into mind reading and people-pleasing. This was her go-to coping mechanism for her anxiety. After therapy, Sarah can see how her people-pleasing works to decrease her anxiety, that it came from her relationship with her Mom, and that it is something she can stop doing when she recognizes it. As Sarah goes through life, she notices herself people-pleasing, implements the strategies she learned in therapy such as paying attention to her needs, setting clear boundaries, staying in her own car, and she travels up the staircase. She can now interact with her Mom without getting overcome with triggers (it isn’t easy, but she can see when she starts mind reading for her Mom and make a shift)

But at some point, she will get snagged as she did recently with her new boss and work. So it might feel like Sarah is back to square one, but in reality, she has climbed up the spiral staircase and is learning this lesson at a different level. She mastered the lesson when it has to do with her Mom (for the most part), but now she is learning how to implement this lesson with someone different from her Mom.

At this point, you might be asking, is change even possible? Brent Rogers, a researcher from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, believes it is and has done a longitudinal research project to confirm his theory that personality change is cumulative over our lifespan. His study followed people over the span of 50 years, measuring how their personality shifted using what personality researchers call the big five personality traits.

Extraversion: How outgoing, social, cheerful, or full of energy and enthusiasm you are in social settings.

Agreeableness: How warm, friendly, helpful, generous, and tactful you are.

Emotional stability (or its opposite, neuroticism): How calm, content, and unflappable—versus anxious, angry, jealous, lonely, or insecure—you are.

Conscientiousness: How organized, efficient, and committed you are to finishing projects or reaching your goals.

Openness to experience: How curious, adventuresome, and receptive you are to new ideas, emotions, and experiences.

His research showed that change happens in response to our life experiences and often leans in a positive, helpful direction. Researchers found that people’s personalities did change, especially in the areas of emotional stability, conscientiousness, and agreeableness, but they weren’t dramatic changes. They were small, manageable changes made over time.

Change isn’t one and done. It is on-going. We might come back to the lesson, and it might feel like we are relearning the same lesson, but really, we are experiencing it at a new level with new insight, a new situation, a new challenge. And then, when we have that mastered, we will spiral up to another place.

You will have leveled up into a more difficult area, but still, the lesson will seem familiar.

The tendency is for Sarah to get stuck in frustration and disappointment that ugh! She has to work on this issue again in a different setting. This is a time when her Monger, aka inner critic, can get VERY LOUD. Telling her that she wasted money on therapy, she is a loser who never will get this figured out, and she is doomed to be a people-pleasing freak forever. Yep, that Monger is so mean! So at this point, she either decides to give up and admit defeat or bring in her Biggest Fan (her inner voice of compassion and wisdom), who reminds of the power of spiraling up, and the key to change is leaning into that discomfort.

Stanford University psychologist Dr. Kelly McGonigal is an expert on how our brain makes changes, and in her books and Tedx talk, she shares how a key part of change is embracing the discomfort of it. Let’s face it, change is uncomfortable and even more so when we realize that change is on-going. In all honesty, Sarah will be learning and re-learning this lesson of people-pleasing throughout her life. It won’t always be as hard as it is now, but it is a challenge she will face on some level over and over again. Dr. McGonical talks about how we miss acknowledging that most change is uncomfortable, even scary at times, and takes not just a can-do attitude but an element of courage. We have to call on that Biggest Fan to remind us that change is possible. It requires courage, kindness, and slow, mindful changes.

Once Sarah realizes she is spiraling up, she can call on the 3 main lessons she learned from her previous people-pleasing lessons such as:

The first lesson is: how uncomfortable it feels to stop people-pleasing. She knows it is hard to disappoint people, and she also knows because she did it with her Mom, she will survive. It sucks, and it is doable.

The second lesson she learned before: her co-workers are allowed to have their feelings, be disappointed, they can think that Sarah is a bitch (even though that might be unfair), etc. AND Sarah is allowed to have her feelings, insecure, uncomfortable, etc. She learned before that when she tries to control her co-workers feelings as she tried to do when she was younger with her Mom, it does not go well.

And the last lesson she learned before: the image of staying in her own car is very helpful. She knows when she is engaging in people-pleasing when she tries to jump into someone else’s car and is telling them how to drive, feel or respond.

And the last lesson she learned is to be kind to herself. This stuff is hard, and allowing her Monger to run the show doesn’t help anyone. Practicing regularly calling on her Biggest Fan is important to this process.

Sarah is going to take those lessons and any others she learned and use them as she figures out how to decrease her people-pleasing when it comes to a co-worker.

When you think about life lessons as Spiraling Up, it gives a new perspective. While we do repeat lessons, we don’t unlearn all we have implemented before. We repeat the lesson one step up with a new perspective, new challenges, and new information that we didn’t have the last time the lesson came into our lives.

So the next time you have a sense of déjà vu when it comes to a life lesson, don’t beat yourself up. Our Monger loves to think in black and white and be very doomsday about the fact that we are re-learning a lesson.

So take a pause and think back to all you have learned about this lesson in the past. Think back to how you used to handle this situation and remind yourself what you have learned.

Be kind to yourself that you got snagged again, remember this is all part of being human; you aren’t a failure; you are just learning.

Just as a child who is learning to walk falls, so to do we as adults, we lose our balance, we run into a new obstacle, but that doesn’t mean we forgot all we knew before.

Remind yourself that you aren’t failing; you are just Spiraling Up.

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Working with me using my Coach in Your Pocket is perfect for those spiraling up lessons. You have done therapy, you have learned your triggers, examined your past you know you are Spiraling up but your Monger and High Functioning Anxiety are still running the show. Helping people with High Functioning Anxiety is a personal mission for me. I have a special place in my heart for this struggle because it’s both something I dealt with unknowingly for years, and because it silently affects so many people who think this is just how it is.

But this isn't how it is.

There is hope if you struggle with High Functioning Anxiety—it doesn't have to be this way. You can reduce your anxiety and keep your edge. You can have less self-doubt and still get a ton done.

Working with me this way is an incredibly efficient and effective way to deal with your anxiety in the moment--without waiting for your next appointment.

I have been doing this work for over 20 years and Coach in Your Pocket is the most effective and most life-changing work I have ever done. My clients are consistently blown away by how these daily check-ins combined with the monthly face-to-face video meetings create slow, lasting changes that reprogram their High Functioning Anxiety tendencies over time. Learn More

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Episode 083: Live Happier Q&A

I answering an important listener question. If you are struggling with acknowledging your feelings, this one is for you.

+ Read the Transcript

Hey everyone. Excited to be back here for yet another episode of the Happiness Hacks Podcast. Today, we're getting into some of the Q&As that you have all submitted.

I'm only going to be doing one question today because it is a doozy of a question, and so I wanted to take some time with it. The question is around the acknowledging your feelings part of ASK, and that is the first step in ASK when you hear your inner monger talking, or you feel that anxiety is coming on, is to acknowledge what you're feeling. And so, they wrote it and said, "This feelings thing, you know, I'm not a fan. I get stuck in my feelings, so it doesn't work for me. Once I acknowledge the feeling, it goes on and on and on and on. Help."

So I wanted to say I totally understand that. I get what you're saying about the fear around acknowledging your feelings. I don't know for sure, but I suspect that this person that struggles with this, particular acknowledging your feelings, and I'm sure there are a lot of us out there that struggle with this as well, the reason you're getting stuck, and I doubt you're getting stuck in the feeling. I bet you're getting stuck in the analysis of the feeling.

So, the A step is acknowledging your feelings. It's not analyzing your feelings. It's not justifying your feelings. It's not figuring out the source of your feelings. It's not debating whether the feeling is appropriate or not. It's not diving into your past to see where the feeling originated from or where the trigger came from. It is simply acknowledging that you're having a feeling and being able to label what that feeling is. That's it. It's very simple, and in its simplicity, it becomes complex, I realize.

So the simplicity of it is that something happens, and your monger starts chatting, so you start to feel the anxiety. Maybe your chest is tight, or you notice you're pushing, pushing, pushing, kind of in an almost manic state, you're pushing yourself so hard. Or, you notice you're procrastinating big time on something, and so you stop, and you acknowledge your feelings.

So let me give you an example. Let's say you're getting ready for a review at work. You've done your part of the review, and you're waiting to hear from your boss and have the meeting about how the review's going to go. And your monger steps in and is like, "This review is going to be terrible. You totally dropped the ball on this and this and this." And starts labeling all the stuff that you've done wrong or starts saying, "You don't have enough work right now, and so maybe they're going to notice that they're going to need to fire you." And is just sending you all kinds of messages.

And so if you stop and you acknowledge what you're feeling, up is going to come fear that you're going to lose your job, but also a feeling of lack of control, a feeling of insecurity, a feeling of unworthiness, a feeling of doubt. Those feelings are what's coming up for you. And so, that's all you need to do is acknowledge that you're having those feelings.

What we tend to do is say, "Oh, I'm feeling doubtful." Or, "I'm feeling insecure." And then we jump in with a justification as to why we shouldn't be feeling insecure, why it's silly to feel insecure, why that feeling isn't appropriate. Or, we jump in the other way in justifying exactly why we should feel insecure and all the reasons that prove we should feel insecure, so we get stuck in this debate of whether the feeling is valid or not.

And so, as much as you can, I want you to stop doing that and acknowledge, "Wow, I'm feeling insecure right now." That's it. The power of being able to say, "Wow, what I'm feeling right now is _ what's happening for me." That is the truth. Because what happens is, we don't trust ourselves, and that is the main reason that our mongers have so much power. We listen to this inner critic voice telling us how wrong we are, how terrible we are, how we missed the mark, where we've failed, what we haven't accomplished that we should've, and on and on. It's constantly being vigilant about everything that's going wrong.

And so, if we trust ourselves, we can honor what's happening for us. Because our monger puts us in this trance-like state, we don't trust what's coming up for us, and that's the point of ASK because the more we trust ourselves, and the more we respect where we're coming from, the less we need this voice telling us how terrible we are.

So part of the reason the monger is there is because we've unconsciously allowed it to run the show, and we're taking back control by learning how to quiet the monger. We're taking back the control, and I use the character of the biggest fan to represent what that control looks like. Part of the way we take back control is honoring what it is we're feeling, honoring our process, not constantly trying to hijack it and justify it. That's why, in the Happier Approach book, I talk a lot about gratitude and think positive, and have self-compassion, and how those exercises have, in a lot of ways, hijacked our ability to trust ourselves. Because instead of allowing the feeling to come and go all the way through, to say, "Yeah, I am feeling insecure. Oh, insecurity. Ick." That's hard to feel. Instead of allowing us to have that feeling go all the way through, we immediately jump in with, "Be grateful you have a job." Or, "Think positive. It's not going to be that bad. Come on. It's just a review. What's the big deal?" And that is not what the A acknowledge what you're feeling step is for.

That step is merely to simply say, "I'm feeling this." And so for me, as I've said in the past, that's why I like the idea of Oh Sweet Pea, because that's the voice of my biggest fan, and I get her started in the acknowledging piece. I bring her in with the phrase, "Oh sweet pea." And the minute I say that to myself, 'cause I've said it so many times, my body literally relaxes because I'm like, "Oh, I don't have to be on guard here. This is going to be nice and kind and accepting. I'm ready to get into that space." And so she says, "Oh Sweet Pea, no wonder you're insecure. This is a tough thing. It's a review. No one likes to be reviewed. Those are hard." That's it. You don't have to justify why it's hard. You don't have to prove that it's hard. The point is, you're feeling insecure, and that's all that matters.

So, you're feeling tired. You're feeling sad. You're feeling scared. Yes, you are. That's okay, and you don't have to get stuck in proving that it's okay or proving it away. You just have to acknowledge that that feeling is there, and so that is why to acknowledge is just one piece of this puzzle. A, acknowledge what you're feeling. And then you slow down and get into your body 'cause that allows you to relax a little, get into your body, see the world differently, and then it's K, kindly pull back to see the big picture.

Pulling back to see the big picture is then the place where you can say, "Okay, it's one review. Could it go that bad? Probably not. You just talked to your boss. He was friendly. It's probably going to go fine, and if it doesn't, this is what we can do." And you can pull back and see that big picture.

But if you have done that before you've slowed down and got into your body and before you've acknowledged what's going on, all you end up doing is fighting with your monger, and you end up getting in an argument with them. So yeah, you do get stuck in the acknowledge what you're feeling stage because you're justifying what you're feeling. You're not simply acknowledging it.

So that's the challenge, and that's why I wanted to give you some time on this subject. I've talked about it in the past, I realize, and this might be repetitive, but I think it really deserves a repeat. I'm so glad you asked the question because this is a key step in rebuilding that trust. Recognizing, I don't have to talk myself out of my feelings. I don't have to pretend they don't exist. I can acknowledge what they are and not be scared of them because they are signs. They are things that are happening in the world.

Now, that doesn't mean I need to act on them. That doesn't mean I need to jump out and say, "I can't take this. I can't do the review. This can't happen." No, no, no. You're just acknowledging. You don't have to take action at all. And so that's what happens, I think. A lot of times, we think if we acknowledge the sadness, or we acknowledge the anger, then immediately, that means we're going to have to go do something to express the anger, and that's not what I'm saying. I'm only asking you to acknowledge it. Simply label it, and see where that takes you.

So, I hope that that helped answer that question and gave you some different ways of thinking about it. Understanding that feelings are about trust and paying attention to what it is we're feeling because, for those of us who have a loud monger, we have spent our whole lives running from that feeling. We haven't acknowledged it. We haven't built that trust, and so that's what the ASK system is helping you do, is rebuild that trust.

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Episode 078: Riding the Waves

Feelings. They get such a bad wrap. If there is one thing the psychology world has a lot of contradictory opinions on, it is feelings. Today I look at the benefit of stepping into the deep water and riding the waves of your feelings.

+ Read the Transcript

Today I am doing things a little bit differently. I wrote a blog instead, and today I would like to read the blog to you because I know it will be helpful. So a little different format, same great content :)

Feelings. They get such a bad wrap. If there is one thing the psychology world has a lot of contradictory opinions on, it is feelings. Advice ranges from:

You HAVE to feel your feelings.

Don't let your feelings run your life.

Don't be overly emotional.

Don't stuff your feelings.

Anytime there is information coming from 2 extremes, the answer is somewhere in the messy middle. For so many years, that is why I avoided feelings because they are messy. There isn't a hard and fast way to deal with them; there is no 'right way.

Here's what I know to be true:

Feelings are messy

They are individual; each person experiences them, deals with them, and faces them differently.

Feelings are legit. They are signs of our internal wisdom.

Feelings can't keep us stuck, but our thoughts about our feelings can.

If we don't feel our feelings, they will show up in other places. They don't go away if we ignore them.

So given all that, how are we supposed to deal with feelings? Here is a story from Emily, someone I recently worked with (name and details have been changed)

Emily has had a tough year. Her ex-husband harps on her about every little thing when it comes to the shared custody of their sons. Her company is going through some restructuring, so there is a lot of unknowns in the workplace, and her Mom's breast cancer just recently returned. She is overwhelmed (to say the least). Recently I mentioned to Emily that she needed to FEEL her feelings. Her response was, "I have no problem being angry and sad I am the first to share all the hard times I am going through and complain about them. I feel like I get stuck in my feelings. I take them out on my kids. I feel stressed all the time. I need to get OUT of them, not have MORE of them." My response was, "You do a great job of justifying your feelings and replaying the events that leave you feeling stuck. But you don't ever allow yourself to FEEL anything. You just intellectualize them."

I use to be like Emily. I would feel stressed and then spend the rest of the day justifying why I was stressed, listing off all the stressors. But never allowing myself to soften into the anger, sadness, and frustration, just replaying it over and over. I would argue that Emily wasn't feeling anything; she was simply naming all the bad things in her life. She wasn't allowing herself to feel them. She wasn't owning her anger or giving herself a chance to experience it. She would just label the event that justified her anger and moved on.

When we spend our time justifying/intellectualizing our stress, we are dancing in the shallow end. Think of it like entering the ocean and the water is chilly. As you wade in you, you stand in the shallow end, and the cold waves keep splashing you. You just stand there getting slapped by the cold waves, never actually getting in the water. Similarly, when we replay all our 'wrongs,' we just keep getting hit with the cold waves. But when we wade all the way in and immerse ourselves in the cold water when we allow the anger to come over us and feel the pain completely, we WILL feel better. When we soften into what is happening head-on we can assimilate and find relief. When we accept our anger, it dissipates. When we accept the cold water and allow our body to adjust, it dissipates. But standing in the shallow end saying how cold the water it doesn't feel good and it doesn't help.

Recently Emily sent me an email. She shared how she did end up losing her job. The company was downsizing, and she was one of the casualties. Emily came home from work and was devastated. She called her partner for support, and he immediately jumped into problem-solving mode. Remembering our conversation, she stopped him mid suggestion and said, "You know today, I just want to be pissed off. I just want to be angry because I am. This sucks. Tomorrow I will solve the problem today I am pissed." As she was telling me the story, she said, "I was shocked that came out of my mouth, but I did just want one day to be angry." THIS is acknowledging your feelings. Emily allowed herself to feel angry because she was legit angry. In her email, she shared how skeptical she was about the process but how much better she felt. "I didn't feel like a victim (like I thought I would) feeling the anger empowered me. I am amazed how much it helped."

Feeling your feelings isn't something you have to DO it is something your body naturally does, you just have to give yourself permission. So the next time you notice yourself listing all the negatives in your life, ask yourself, "How does this make me feel?" With each response, just allow yourself to soften and give yourself some empathy and grace such as "Oh, that sucks." or "Oh Sweet Pea," and then ask yourself again, "How does this make me feel?" At first, you might have to ask yourself multiple times before you soften into the actual feeling. This process allows you to move past the shallow end and swim in the deep water. Ride those waves. It is life-changing.

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Episode 068: My Dad, Grief and Living Happier

Today I am sharing my story about the loss of my Dad and my grief over the past few months. It is something I haven't talked about much, so I wanted to share what I have learned about grief. It was a hard podcast to record and hopefully will be helpful if you are dealing with grief or know someone who is.

NOTE: The sound is a little goofy at times, I apologize for the mic issues.

Links Mentioned:

Megan Devine Website: http://www.refugeingrief.com/

Megan Devine book: It's Ok Not to Be OK

+ Read the Transcript

Today as I sat down to record my podcast, I realized I'd been putting it off and hadn't been 100% in my diligence around the podcast. Part of that is just that I've been writing a book, as I've mentioned to you guys before, and so that's taking a lot of my energy and hopefully going to be coming out the first part of 2018. I will keep you posted as I start unveiling that and showcasing that more and more because it's going to start happening, building up to it in the next couple of months.

As I was sitting down, trying to think about what I was going to talk about today, one of the things that popped up was grief. It is a big part of my life right now that I have not been sharing about in my blog or newsletters or anywhere on my social media, talk about here and there, but for the most part, I avoid bringing the grief around my father and into my professional life.

Today I just kind of wanted to touch base on that. I think part of the reason I've been kind of stuck and what I want to talk about and share about is that this kind of huge thing is left there, and I'm not talking about it. I tend to be very authentic and open in my life when it comes to what's happening, and transparency is a big part of what I think is live happier is all about.

Unfortunately or fortunately, I haven't been showing this part of my world, mostly because I just want to keep it kind of private and because it's a very personal event, but I thought it might be helpful just to kind of share my experience and just give my personal take on stuff. I'm taking off the counselor hat for a little bit. I mean, everything I do kind of has a counselor hat, but I'm not coming at this like an expert because I am by far not an expert when it comes to grief. There are many fabulous experts out there who know so much more, but this is just my personal story, and I'm hoping to share it that it will help others out there who are dealing with grief and all that encompasses.

Okay, so my dad died on January 29th of this year. I had shared openly about his disease with Parkinson's, with Dementia, that he had for many years, and he fought very diligently, and did regular exercises, and was a warrior when it came to this disease, and he was a warrior his whole life. So not surprising that he was a warrior when it came to this disease. We were, he wasn't in the greatest of health, but it was a definite surprise when my brother pounded on our door at 3:00 a.m. to tell me that he had died and just really wasn't expecting it at all and actually he had gotten up to go to the bathroom and fell and didn't live much longer after that.

Fortunately, he died very quickly and in his home, which is where he wanted to go, and all those things were really fabulous that he got to die where he wanted to and pretty much how he wanted to. I don't know that he wanted to die quite then, but he was ready to go, and watching him suffer from Parkinson's and Dementia it was very much a blessing to us and also very hard to lose him. He was very important to me. He still is very important to me. My dad was just kind of like my person.

This process. That was in January. Here we are, almost October, and the whole thing has just been really surreal. I think that's the hardest part, is sharing that with people and helping people understand that the person dies and the funeral happens, and everyone rallies, and it's, family and friends came into town, and everyone rallied. And then, as everyone says when you read grief, everyone just disappears and goes back to their life, as they should. I'm not saying that something is wrong with them, but everyone goes back to their life, and here the person that's grieving, here I am, and I still have this giant hole where this larger than life person was, and he's gone, and I'm supposed to figure out how to function in the world without him. Meanwhile, the rest of the world keeps moving on. That is such a surreal experience. Here I am months later, still trying to reconcile that.

The death of my dad wasn't traumatic; it wasn't unexpected. I just keep thinking about all the people in the world who have traumatic deaths of 20-year-olds or 30-year-olds or babies, and that person is just ripped out of their life. One day they're perfectly fine, and the next day they're gone. I can't imagine trying to make that fit into your schema when I'm struggling so hard to fit into my schema that my 78-year-old dad died. It was his time. He was sick. It was a shock the day he died, but that he died was not a shock.

But the level that it has taken me, and still I struggle with accepting it, and still I struggle with facing it every day and being like, "Oh, my gosh, he's never coming back," and having that thought on a daily, multiple times a day basis is jarring. So my empathy for those who are listening, or those that you know who have traumatic deaths that are just out of the blue, is just even more so.

My biggest takeaway from this experience, there's been a ton of takeaways, to be honest, but my biggest takeaway is now when I know someone who has lost someone, I regularly, I know to check in with them, regularly months later to call and just say, "How you're doing? What's happening," checking in, because the tendency is you don't want to check in with them because you don't want to remind them that someone died, which is just so ironic. And I catch myself doing it too. I don't want to email this friend because she might be having a great day, and then if I email her how you're doing, she might be like, "Oh yeah, my dad died," and it may jar her.

Here's the thing. It isn't ever going to jar the person. They are always thinking about the fact that someone died. Maybe not always, but in the day, they are thinking about it, especially if they're in the first year or two of dealing with the grief. So you calling them or checking in with them isn't going to suddenly remind them and make them feel like, "Oh my gosh, you're right, I forgot, my dad died." No, it is going to be like, "Oh, wow, you are really thinking of me. Thank you. I appreciate that."

What is fascinating to me is how even though I know right now how important that is and how powerful that is when someone reaches out to me, I'm still hesitant to do it. I think we convince ourselves that we don't want to be too out there, we don't want to be pushing them, we don't want to remind them. And that's crap. We just need to be reaching out to people and touching base with them and seeing how everyone is doing in the world, but more so when someone is dealing with grief, because there's nothing more lonely in the world than grief and feeling like you're the only one in the world who is suffering or you're the only one in the world who is dealing with this. To recognize, know there are a lot of other people out there who are going through their day-to-day lives with a giant hole in their heart and trying to figure out how to keep going, even though this huge piece of their lives has gone.

There has been a quote that has been really helpful to me, thinking about the idea that what grief is is taking something that you had on the outside and could touch and feel and talk to, and moving that person so that they only exist on the inside. That's the process of grief, is transforming them from an outside person to an inside person, and I think that is just so powerful. That process takes a long time because here, 44 years, I had my dad. I could call him. I could hug him. I could chat with him. I could tell him my day. And then suddenly he's gone. To figure out how I am going to move him to the inside is hard.

I wanted to talk about this today a) because I feel like it's a big part of my life that I'm not sharing, but also because I think as a society, we need to get better about talking about grief. We need to get better about talking about our losses, and our pain and that grief is a big part of living happier. It doesn't have to be losing a parent, or a child, or a friend, or sibling. It could be divorce, or a loss of a relationship, or a loss of a job. We go through little griefs all the time, but we also go through these bigger griefs, which losing a parent or losing both of your parents or the traumatic deaths I mentioned. All of those are impactful in our day-to-day lives, and we want to move on, push it down, keep moving, keep checking, keep soldiering on, suck it up, buttercup, and that isn't how this works.

This grief has strongly influenced my work in the sense of realizing we have to be acknowledging what we're going through; we have to be feeling what we're feeling, we have to because this one, my friends, was so huge. I can't not.

The other thing I would say is here I am, almost nine months since dad died, and in so many ways, it feels like it was just yesterday. I can remember three months in being like, "Okay, so in six months I'll feel better," or, "In five months I'll feel better." And now the thing that I feel better, I guess if I could say I feel better about something, is that it's just the acceptance that this is just going to be here. This giant hole and daily shedding tears, and that may cease, but that hole is always going to be there.

I think I thought, "Oh, once I hit the three-month mark or once I hit the six-month mark, I'll go back to life as it was," and the recognition sets in that life will never be what it was. Figuring out that new normal and all that stuff, that all the grief people talk about, which as you can tell I find annoying because I don't want there to be a new normal, I want it to go back to the way it was, and I think that resistance is hard in grief of fighting the new normal and fighting the reality.

I guess I want to say if you are going through grief right now and have lost someone close to you, whether traumatic or a natural death, I'm sorry, and I feel you, and I hope that you can find some solace somewhere. And if you are not, and you know someone, I encourage you to reach out to them and just say, "I'm here. How you're doing," just to check-in.

For months I had a friend who would just text me and say, "How you're doing," and I would unload how I was doing, and she would just respond with, "I love you." It was just absolutely perfect because I just needed to be able to dump how I was feeling and she was just and know that I didn't have to then justify it to her or explain it to her. I just was going to throw it up at her, and she was going to respond with, "I love you," and we'd move on. It was just awesome.

I never knew when she was going to send the text. I think she set an alarm to remind her to send the text, which was even more amazing because she just, she planned ahead. I didn't find that offensive. I actually found that heartwarming because she knew she wouldn't remember, and so she reminded herself, which is even cooler. Really show up for people.

Then the last thing I really want to say is if you are grieving or know someone is, Megan Devine, and I will put her link to her website in the show notes, is an amazing resource around grief. She actually lost her finance in a drowning accident, super traumatic. She is a therapist who has done amazing work and just actually came with a book on It's Okay Not To Be Okay, and her work has really given me the permission to just be wherever I am and feel whatever I'm feeling and just kind of do this messy, messy, messy, messy, messy process of grief in my way, and it has really been freeing. So I highly recommend her, and back when I talked about an expert on grief, I believe her to be one. That's my recommendation if you want some additional resources on this subject.

Thank you for listening to this unusual podcast. I realize, and I appreciate it. I'm hoping to, as I move through this, it's still really raw for me and hard for me to talk about my dad and the reality of what happened. As this moves on, I think I will come back and revisit this in a different way. I'm still really in the middle of this process, and so sharing about it is hard to be that vulnerable.

I think that is wisdom is knowing when to share and when not to share. I wanted to share today to kind of showcase like, hey, this is what I'm going through, but I'm not all the way through it. So sharing super honestly and openly and showing all the raw details isn't where I'm at, but I am at a place to be able to share this is what helped, and this is what didn't help, and this is what is helping and this is what is not as helping. Hopefully, you can gain some wisdom from that and some comfort from that if you're going through this as well.

+ Weekly Ritual Challenge

One thing that has really helped me reduce anxiety is adding regular ritual practices to my daily life, so each week, I am going to be sharing a ritual with you and challenge you to complete it.

This week's ritual: Alternate Nostril Breathing

This week's weekly ritual challenge is a yoga technique that was recommended by a reader after she saw it on the Today show. Take your thumb and cover your right nostril and exhale and inhale through the left nostril. Then cover your left nostril and repeat the inhale and exhale through your right nostril.

Try this weekly ritual when you first get in the car in the morning, in the morning before you have your coffee, or before a stressful meeting.

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Episode 057: The Slippery Slope of Emotions

So many of us believe like feeling our emotions will send us down a slippery slope into wallowing and negativity.  In reality, NOT feeling our emotions leads us to more negativity and drama.

+ Read the Transcript

Hi, everyone. I'm excited to be here today to talk about emotions, feelings, that dirty F word that none of us want to deal with, and I'm guilty of this as well. It's one of the things I definitely work on, and one of the keys I have found to living happier is acknowledging what it is I'm feeling. Recently, in one of the groups that I work with, we were talking about emotions and the slippery slope. How it feels when we start to feel sadness or anger or resentment or any of those, what we consider to be yucky, ugly emotions, it feels like we're heading down this slippery slope. Into this pit that we're never going to get out of, and so we'll stop ourselves from heading down the slippery slope, and we prevent ourselves from feeling the emotion.

You know, I think of the visual of someone that's headed down into a hole, and they have all their arms and their legs are up bracing themselves and preventing themselves from sliding all the way down. The ironic part of that is that bracing that causes us so much more pain. A couple of episodes ago, I talked about how emotions are like the beach ball that we keep trying to push down into the ocean instead of letting it pop up and flow freely. I love these visuals because they help me figure out where I am in my desire and quest to allow myself to be more comfortable with feelings and emotions and whatever comes up. One of the things that that slippery slope implies for us is the idea that "Oh, if I head down into that feeling, then I'm going to be stuck in wallowing and I'm going to be feeling sorry for myself or I'm just going to get stuck there."

There are many reasons for this, for this feeling of, "Oh, I can't go there because I'm going to get stuck there." It's very normalized in our culture that we're supposed to be positive all the time and not be feeling any emotions and not be processing any negative stuff, so we are culturally pushed to be happy all the time. What happens, I think, is that piece, that slippery slope; the fear of going down that slippery slope leads us to getting stuck. When we get stuck, creating drama is socially normed to be okay and more comfortable. That drama creation is what prevents us from going down the slippery slope.

What happens is, we head down the slippery slope. Something traumatic happens. One of my easy examples was in my 20s. I was constantly in a relationship, and it'd be going poorly. I wanted to be in a serious relationship, and I would be upset that it didn't go well. Instead of feeling the sadness and the fear of and the, "What if I'm alone," and, "How am I going to do my life if it doesn't work out the way I wanted it to?" and sitting with those emotions of fear and sadness and anger and disappointment and all that stuff that came up. I would pretend that I was sitting in those emotions, and if you asked me, I would have told you I was, but I was sitting in drama. I was in my head constantly figuring out what I did wrong and what went wrong and what he did wrong, and why it didn't work out. There was all this analysis and drama and feeling sorry for myself, but it was all in my head.

There wasn't any actual acceptance of the emotion. There wasn't any actual, "Oh, baby, this is hard. This breakup thing and this insecurity thing is really hard." When you feel yourself heading down that slippery slope, the thing that is missing is a) permission, and I've talked about that in previous podcasts with just owning it, so just owning, "Okay, here we go. I'm feeling sad. Here it goes," so owning it, then the second piece of that, real acceptance and love for yourself of, "Oh, gosh. This is sad. This is painful. I understand I am resentful of this experience that I just had. That's okay," so giving yourself that love and acceptance will kind of cut that idea of, "Oh, if I go down the slippery slope, I'm going to be wallowing, and I'm going to be feeling sorry for myself." That feeling sorry for yourself that wallowing piece is the drama. That's when we're in our heads.

Yes, we all know the people we get tired of talking to because every time we talk to them, they discuss the drama they have in their lives. We're like, "Oh my gosh, I'm so tired of their negativity. I'm so tired of hearing about what's going on." That isn't processing emotions. That is sharing your drama intellectually, intellectually analyzing, and just that idea of watering your hurts. "I'm just going to keep bringing up the pain, never really dealing with it. I'm just going to keep bringing it up." Someone might ask, "Okay, I get that. I understand the difference between negativity and being in your head, and I don't want that. When we head down the feeling of the slippery slope, that's where we're afraid we're going to go, so really, what's the difference between what I'm talking about and that yucky mental drama gymnastics, you know, watering your hurts?"

For me, the big difference is love and acceptance. Someone who is the negative person at work constantly talks about how everyone has done them wrong and creates drama, and being negative and judgmental about themselves and other people is missing the love and acceptance. When we pour on love and acceptance, that is when we're like, "Oh. I'm feeling sad. Okay. I'm feeling sad," and we allow ourselves to cry, we allow ourselves to journal, we allow ourselves to just express that emotion, just to name it and own it and not figure out why or is it justified or is it okay? Just to be like, "Okay, I'm angry today" or, "Wow, I am so resentful for how long my to-do list is compared to my husband's." We don't have to justify that. We don't have to explain it away. We just have to say, "Oh, there it is. There is that resentment. Oh, I hate feeling resentful. It's really hard. Let me own how I'm feeling."

Instead of creating a passive-aggressive argument with our husband because we're resentful of the to-do list, to own, "I'm resentful of this. What can I do differently here?" There is a difference, in recognizing when we are headed down that slippery slope, to give ourselves permission to head down the slippery slope and not put up the brakes of our hands and our feet, and not brace ourselves for, "Oh my gosh," and secondly, to give ourselves a lot of acceptance and love, and recognizing, "This is okay. This is just a feeling. This isn't the end of the world." But that monger in our head tells us, "Oh. No, you don't, girl. Do not go down there. You're going to be just like the annoying person at work that's negative all the time, and no one wants to be around the negative. No one wants to hear it, so just keep sadness and your resentment and your anger, and just shove it, shove it, shove it so no one can see it."

What happens is, we get with our girlfriends, and we create all this drama, and we analyze things, and we get all fired up in our heads, and we're never really dealing with the emotions. Those are the moments when we're eating a pint of ice cream, not knowing what happened. We were having a perfectly good day, and then all of a sudden, we're eating a pint of ice cream sitting on the couch, crying our eyes out. Yes, because we haven't dealt with the emotion in a loving, kind way. Instead, we have stuffed it down, and we continue to stuff it down with the pint of ice cream or whatever it is.

For me, my thing tends to be food. Still, it could also be that you're on Amazon going online shopping or you're buying a new purse or whatever the thing is that you do. We all have them that keep us from really feeling and accepting ourselves and what's really happening, and then recognize, "Oh my gosh. Here I am, and I'm eating this pint of ice cream, and I'm not hungry. Oh, babe, what's going on? What do you need right now? What's feeling?" Start naming those feelings that are coming up, and that has radically shifted things for me when I can recognize, "Wait a minute. You are not hungry, and you're eating" or, "You are not hungry" or, "You don't need anything, and you're shopping. What's going on here?" I can recognize that I'm trying to brace myself from that slippery slope.

The more we can be kind to ourselves when we head down that slippery slope, and we can feel, "Oh my gosh, we're hitting into emotions," the more we can give ourselves love and compassion and kindness, the easier it'll be. Secondly, the more we can show up for other people and normalize, "Hey, what's going on here? What's underneath?" When our girlfriend comes to us and is upset about her relationship, to say, "Wow, that must be scary not to know what's going to happen next in your marriage" or, "That must make you angry to recognize that your husband's cheating on you again." To name the feeling instead of getting stuck in all that drama that's up there.

When we can show up for other people and let them know it's okay to be feeling things that aren't always positive when we can do it for ourselves and we could do it for other people, the world will shift, I swear. We will have less drama and less negativity and all that stuff because we won't be in that endless cycle of, "Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh." We'll be talking about stuff that's going on, that matters: the fear, the anger, the sadness, whatever that is, so I encourage you to head down the slippery slope. Just pull off the braces and just go down, and see where it takes and give yourself lots of love and acceptance in that process.

+ Weekly Ritual Challenge

One thing that has really helped me reduce anxiety is adding regular ritual practices to my daily life, so each week, I am going to be sharing a ritual with you and challenge you to complete it.

This week's ritual: Take a Social Media Break

Now and then I notice that I am spending more and more time on social media and a break is in order. So this week I challenge you to step off social media (FB, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.) Each time you notice yourself reaching for your phone or opening the website, take a deep breath and stretch. The goal is to get out of your head and into your body

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Episode 044: Holding Both the Messy Middle

A few thoughts on the election. Doesn't matter who you voted for, we all need a reminder that the key to healing lies in embracing the messy middle.

+ Read the Transcript

Hello, there. Welcome to the podcast. It is the Friday after election day, and I knew I wanted to do a podcast this week; and it has been a crazy week, as most of you are experiencing with the election. So I was trying to come up with what I wanted to talk about for this podcast because the nation and people I know and everyone are reeling from this election in various ways. Whether you voted for Trump or Hillary, people are just feeling this election more strongly than in the past.

I kept coming back to my struggle. My struggle this week is how do you do both? How do I hold my sadness? To be blunt, I voted for Hillary. How do I hold my sadness and grief that the election didn't go the way I wanted, the country isn't headed, in the direction I want it to go? How do I hold that, and how do I keep moving forward as the person I want to be? Who is compassionate and curious. And also wanting to know about the people in my life who voted for Trump and believe the country is headed in a positive direction with him?

Here we are, holding these two extremely different roles, and I think even if you voted for Trump and you won the election, and you might be blissed out about that, it's still coming back and trying to be, how do we heal this country? How do we heal each other and listen to each other and be open, instead of just sitting in this gloriousness of, yay, I won, or, oh, I'm so sad I lost? That messy middle. Honestly, that's what I keep coming back to because living happier is all about being honest and intentional about that messy middle.

Right now, that's where we are. As a country, we're here. As individuals, we're here. We're all kind of like, what comes next? The counter to that is living in a place of blame, shame, ridicule, making fun of, demonizing, and other-ing people. What's happening now on both sides? The Hillary supporters blame the Trump supporters, and the Trump supporters blame the Hillary supporters for not making it better. We're all just sitting in this place of other and blame and shame.

I wanted to talk today about the concept of holding both. Holding both is that I can be sad and upset about the results of this election, and I can walk into the world with compassion and love. I can be doing both of those. I can be celebrating that Trump won and being kind and considerate and curious about those around me who picked Hillary. I can be doing both of those. I can stretch myself to be doing both.

So often in life, we don't want to do both because it's messy. We'd rather just sit in our happiness and our joy that Trump won. We'd rather sit in our pain and our sorrow. And live in the blame and shame. Or live in the joy, and the bliss of "We won. We won," rather than sitting with the "Wow, this is a messy situation." The problem with the whole election is that it's a messy situation, and both candidates were messy. No one was talking about the tough problems here and the hard solutions we need as a country, and this stuff is not going to be fixed easily.

"There is no magic button" is one of my favorite quotes because there is no magic button. In our lives and our quests for happiness and joy and being authentic and intentional, there is no magic button. In the country's problems of trade and immigration and job loss and taxes and racism, all of that messy stuff, there is no magic button for that stuff.

One of my Monger things to do is to beat myself up because my life is small, and my message is about healing the individual instead of working on a more significant social justice issue. But I keep coming back to, if we could heal ourselves, we can heal the world. If we can show up individually and be kind and generous and compassionate, we can reach out across the aisle, as they say. We can reach out to those around us and get to know them. The world is not absolutes, and right now, we are living in a world of absolutes. If I am a Trump supporter, that means one stereotype. If I am a Hillary supporter, that means other stereotypes. We are not our stereotypes. We are so much deeper and complex than that.

Not only when we're looking at others do we need to be aware of that complexity and depth, but when we're looking at ourselves, we need to be aware of that complexity and depth. I can say I voted for Hillary, and there are things on Trump's platform that I agreed with. We have a messy middle. Until we start looking at that messy middle and embracing that depth and complexity and the fact that there is no magic button, we start holding both, which means holding that messy part. Holding the idea that I want one direction for the country, and the country is going in another direction right now. That I am sad, and I want to be compassionate and kind.

Both of those are very true. We can be holding two completely opposed ideas simultaneously. When we can start stretching ourselves and practicing that idea of really pushing to two separate areas, we can live happier. It doesn't matter if we voted for Trump or Hillary or if we like vanilla or chocolate ice cream; these things are preferences that are dividing us. So instead of having the curiosity of what that means, let's start having a conversation about what that means for you.

Yesterday, I had a client in my office, and it was two days after the election. I was still feeling pretty bruised, and she was a Trump supporter. We had an awesome conversation about what that means, and what it meant for me, and how she'd struggled in the past with different candidates. It was a juicy, complex conversation between two women who strongly believed in their candidates, strongly loved this country, and wanted to have compassion and kindness. Those are the conversations that need to be happening all over the place. Be curious and understanding and practice holding both. I can talk to you and listen to you and understand where you're coming from because I've taken the time to have empathy and compassion.

It's not just about get out there and love the world. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying we need to be taking care of ourselves and honoring where we're coming from, and we need to be compassionate with ourselves, with other people, with those around us. That can mean saying, you know what? I can't talk about this right now. I can't have this conversation. This is too much for me. I'm going to get off Facebook. I'm going to get off social media for a while. I'm going to get off the news for a while. All those things are valid.

We need to be taking care of ourselves, and then we need to be reaching out to those around us, and in a larger context, trying to heal ourselves and other people. The only way we can do that is if we start embracing the mess and holding both. Holding those two completely different sides of the world and figuring out how to reconcile that.

+ Weekly Ritual Challenge

One thing that has really helped me reduce anxiety is adding regular ritual practices to my daily life, so each week, I am going to be sharing a ritual with you and challenge you to complete it.

This week's ritual: Name 5 Things You Are Grateful For

This is a repeat of one I've done in the past, but it is a good one to implement. What are the five things I'm most grateful for? Just to remind myself that the world isn't all terrible, back to that black and white thinking, and there are things every day that I'm grateful for that stretch me. I do this ritual before I go to sleep each night. I try to, anyway, to look back on my day and just name the five things I'm grateful for. It's a great way to end the day. A great way to fall asleep. A great way to review the day. I encourage you to practice this week naming five things you're grateful for.

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Episode 038: The Complexity of Empathy

Something we hear a lot is that we need to be more empathetic.  Empathy is not usually our first reaction.  Today I dive into the complexity of empathy and why it is such an important part of living happier.

Link Mentioned:

Brené Brown Empathy Video

+ Read the Transcript

Today's topic is going to be empathy. We hear a lot about empathy, Renée Brown talks about it a lot, a lot of self-help stuff talks about the power of empathy and listening. It's one of those topics, as are a lot of topics around psychology, that gets a lot of wordplay. But now a lot of, "Wow, that's hard to be empathetic." To go a little deeper into how hard it is to show up for someone in an empathetic way. For me, this has become a personal mission because, as many of you know, my father has dementia with Parkinson's. Which is extremely challenging, and talking about it is challenging for me.

They always say when you're grieving or going through something hard, the responses you get from well-meaning people are just mind-blowing how off the mark they are. That is so true. I found that to be very true for me, that people really mean to be comforting, kind, and try to help, but their responses are so far off the mark of empathy. I could be sharing how hard it is to watch my dad doing these things that he does that are totally out of character for him, and someone will say, "Well, that's just his dementia, though, that's not him as a person." Yeah, I get that, but it's still my dad. This is still really personal to me. As if I'm going to be like, "Thank you so much, you're right; it is just dementia." That's the problem with those trite statements.

This is a personal example to me. Dealing with the grieving of a loss or anything like that is an extreme example of having empathy. Still, we do it every day in the little empathy statements of, "I've had a hard day," and then we reach in to try to fix it, or, "This person's driving me crazy," and we jump it to try to make it better. Struggling, losing weight, "Let me give you the latest diet I'm trying." Every day things are coming at us where we could practice empathy. But, nine times out of 10, we jump into problem-solving, or we jump into advice-giving, trying to normalize it and make it better.

There's a Brené Brown video, which, if you haven't seen it, is amazing. It's a little cartoon; I'm going to put it on the podcast page, where the show notes are. But, even if you have seen it, I highly recommend you watch it again; I think I've seen it 50 times, and every time I get something new out of it. In the video, she talks about our desire to try to fix it. When you think about a problem you've had and when you're going to a friend, and you need some empathy, and you need some understanding, them coming back with, "You should try this," or, "When I did it, this happened to me," that isn't helpful.

What's helpful is someone saying, "Oh my gosh, thank you so much for sharing. That must be hard," or, "I'm so sorry that's happening to you," or, "I can't imagine going through this. That must be a struggle." Those ideas of, we're going to fix it by giving advice, it doesn't work. The only thing that tends to work is being present for people. The question is then, why is this so hard? empathy, it sounds so easy, the idea of just saying, "Thanks so much for sharing that," or, "This must be hard," or, "I'm so sorry." Those statements are very easy to say, but the idea doesn't pop into our heads.

This is deprogramming a little bit. It's first thought wrong, that our first reaction is to, "Let me fix this. Let me make this better. Let me give some little advice that can make it better," because we as the listener do not want to go into that pain. We don't want to go there with the other person. That self-protection that steps in is what gets us out of empathy. If I go back to the example of my dad, when I say to someone, "It's hard, I'm struggling," that other person most likely is going to go into their head about their father or their parents or death in their family or someone that they know that has dementia. They're going to get into their world, and that's going to be painful, and that's going to suck, so they don't want to go there.

They're going to try to immediately make me feel better so we can move on from the conversation. It's not a character flaw; it's just a human reaction that I don't want to go into the pain. So I hear the push-back on that, but I'm not perfect when it comes to empathy, and I have my hits and misses. The thing that has helped us to recognize, this isn't about me. Someone shares about their divorce and their struggle in their relationship; even if I've gone through a divorce or been in a crappy relationship, this story isn't about me; it's about them.

I need to be present to what they need, what they're thinking, what they're feeling at the time. So that reminder to myself of, "This is about them," lets me drop down and be present to them without getting stuck in my stuff. Because it's really hard to drop down and be with someone in their pain when we're all wrapped up in our pain, it's next to impossible. So the common humanity that comes up is, I know what pain feels like, and I may know what going through a divorce feels like, but I don't know what going through a divorce is like for you. I don't know what going through a divorce is like for your situation and your background and everything you bring to it. I know what going through a divorce is like for me, but my job here in this relationship is to be present for you, not share my stuff, not get all caught up in what I'm doing but to get present for you.

When you think about it, we do a few things in response to someone sharing something challenging with us, something emotional, something they're struggling with. We try to give them advice, to make it better, usually unsolicited advice, which is never good. We give them unsolicited advice. We say, "At least," which is in that Brené Brown video as well. "Well, at least this isn't happening," or, "At least that isn't happening." For a long time, people would say to me, "At least your dad knows who you are," and that felt so crappy because do you know how much other stuff is happening? Yeah, I am thankful that he knows who I am, but that doesn't mean the other stuff doesn't matter.

When we say to someone, "At least," then all their feelings are discounted because that one thing isn't happening, or they have that one thing to be grateful for. We give advice, we say, "At least." We tell them something they should be grateful for; that drives me crazy. "You should be grateful you have this time to spend with your dad." Yeah, I am grateful, but it's also really hard, people. This is really hard. Telling someone to be grateful or think positive or flip it around is not helpful.

The fourth thing we do is we end up relating. We'll say, "I went through a divorce too, and this is what happened," or, "I can relate because this happened with my divorce." We get caught up in our stories rather than listening to what's happening with them. When we're caught up in our stuff, it's not empathetic. It's not helpful. It's not there for them. The reason I think that the power of dropping your stuff and being able to be, "This is about them," is really powerful. Because please hear me, and my biggest message is compassion, compassion, compassion. We have to be bringing self-compassion into our own lives if we're going to make any changes at all. The more I work with self-compassion, the more I realize this is the holy grail, not that I believe in the holy grail, but the practice of self-compassion is life-changing.

If we cannot be empathetic to other people, we cannot have self-compassion for ourselves. They go hand in hand. That's why I wanted to talk about empathy today because empathy and being there for other people is a great practice in showing how we can be there for ourselves. Because when we find ourselves judging other people or saying, "Look at her over there whining again about her freaking divorce, like who cares? I went through a divorce, and I didn't whine all the time." Eek, that's yucky empathy and yucky self-compassion. That judgment pulls us out of both of those, and we can't be empathetic, and we can be self-compassionate if we're in judgment.

The idea of empathy and self-compassion go together. So when we can show up for other people and be present to them, we start flexing that muscle that allows us to show up for ourselves and be present for ourselves. So I think those go hand in hand, so start practicing more of that empathy, more of that showing up for other people and finding out what's going on with them.

One quick caveat that I did want to say is that a lot of times, we get stuck. For those of us who excel at empathy, the key to empathy is that there's a boundary there. If you're telling me about your divorce, I don't have to pick that up and carry that divorce emotion with me. I can listen to you and be present to you, but that doesn't mean I've got to pick it up and run with it, and then all day long, I'm carrying around your pain. That doesn't mean that I have to fix your pain. That's the beauty of empathy. That I can sit and be present for your pain without having to fix it or change it, make it better, pick it up, carry it. It's on you that pain, and that's what sucks about it. The more I can recognize, there is nothing we can do here to help this person other than really be present and listen. That's where the change is; that's the life-changing juice.

The people that sit with me and say, "This must suck. It is miserable to watch your dad going through this, and there's nothing we can do," yeah, that's right, there's nothing we can do. We just have to sit here in this and implement things, yes, and try our best, but at the end of the day, it's a crappy situation. These crappy situations happen all the time in life. In empathy, I'm not saying pick it up, run with it, or carry the other person's burden. I'm saying, put that boundary there so then you really can be present to what they're carrying around.

+ Weekly Ritual Challenge

One thing that has really helped me reduce anxiety is adding regular ritual practices to my daily life, so each week, I am going to be sharing a ritual with you and challenge you to complete it.

This week's ritual: Notice how often you jump in to fix a friend's pain

Pay attention this week and notice how often you jump in to fix things. For example, pick a conversation that you know will be intimate and notice how often you jump in to fix, or how often you say, "At least," or how often you try to have them spin to be on a more positive note.

Be cognizant and intentional when you walk into a conversation to see how much you jump to fix. Then you can always rewind, you can always circle back and say, "I said, 'at least,' and I didn't mean to," or, "That was crappy that I said you should be grateful about this when I just want to thank you for sharing that with me because that had to be hard." The key with empathy is that you always have permission to circle back and say, "I did that wrong. Can I do it again?" It's fair, and that's how we learn.

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Episode 032: Addicted to Busy

How to recognize when you have an addiction to busy and tips to get yourself on the wagon.

+ Read the Transcript

So we're going to get it kicked off with a bang with one of my favorite topics, which is addicted to busy. And the reason this is one of my favorite topics because I am in recovery; on my addiction to busy, one might debate if I'm really in recovery or if I'm simply just trying all the time. But it is something that I work very hard with is my addiction to busy.

So one of my favorite quotes is if you want to be happy, then just be, and. So yeah, I love that quote, and I believe it to the core of my being that it is the truth that, if you want to be happy, then just be present, be in the moment, be where you are, and things will show up and appear and, we can embrace the happiness that is right now.

A couple of podcasts ago, I talked about how meditation is not for everyone and confessed that I am not a big meditator. Because just being still for long periods is the last thing I want to do.

So I confess I'm a busyness addict. I know that when I get stressed, overwhelmed, or tired, I move quickly into run, run, run mode, and run, run, run road means you don't have to think, feel engaged or be you're just running from to thing to thing to thing. You run to the next item on your to-do list, and you run to the next event, you run to the next thing.

It doesn't matter what it is you're running towards as long as you are running. And I know so many people that suffer from this addiction to busy. But, unfortunately, it's become an epidemic in our society that we wear busy as a badge of honor.

And so I confess I'm a business addict in recovery, meaning I'm aware that I have this problem, and I try to put rituals into place to catch myself. And that's why, on these podcasts, I always have the weekly ritual challenge because I believe those rituals are a way to get out of the busy.

We can catch ourselves. And if we have this tendency to be pulled into busy, we can build in the rituals that put a stop in place there. So when I fall off the recovery wagon and into the temptation of busyness, those weekly rituals pull me back into the present. So here are some signs that you might be addicted to busy.

One, your emotional reaction to life is not congruent with the events of your life. So, for example, you're going through something painful, sad, or even joyous and happy, yet your affect is flat. You aren't really feeling anything. That's the beauty of busy in some ways, beauty being a tongue-in-cheek term because it keeps you flatlined. You don't have to feel anything.

Number two, you become obsessed with checking things off the to-do list. And you're often telling yourself, once I get everything done, then I can relax. Once I finish this project, or once I get the lawn mowed, I'll feel better and relax once I do everything.

And here's the shocking fact. You won't ever get everything off the to-do list. That is a number that has become my number one sign. When I start telling myself, once I finished this, I'll feel better when. You'll get the lawn mowed, or once I finish this podcast, or once I write that blog, or once I finish up with all my clients for the week, then I can relax, and then I'll feel better.

Usually, that is not the case because there is always something else to be done. Always something else to be there. The third sign you might be a busyness addict is you are always multitasking. If you're watching TV, you're on the computer. If you're talking on the phone, you're making dinner. You can't stand to do one thing at a time and just engage with that activity. So you're constantly trying to get more than one thing done.

And I do a lot of speaking on this topic of stress management and how to deal with busyness. And one of my tips is to avoid multitasking and the groans from the audience that come up from that one because we are so addicted to multitasking, and it is one way that keeps our brains and permanent busy status all the time.

And then the last one is you're obsessed with checking your phone, email, Facebook, whatever you constantly have to be checking in with the outside world. And I know for me, this is another big one that when I have to, just be constantly tuned into what's happening in the outside world, it usually means there's something on the inside I don't want to be dealing with.

And my busyness has taken over. Because the number one thing that all of those traits have in common, all of those signs that you have an issue with busyness is they pull us away from ourselves. They pull us into the busy, and we don't have to feel anything when we're in busy mode. Which sadly is the goal.

That's what we're going for. The busyness has a numbing effect on what's happening in our life. And the price that we pay for not feeling it is that we can't engage with our life. We can't show up, be present, be grateful, be intentional, be engaged in life. Basically, we can't live happier because we're always chasing something, and we're never succeeding.

It's like the laser light that I use to entertain my cat, and she's chases and cheeses and chases and never catches anything. That's what we're doing to ourselves. It's a lesson in futility. We're never getting anywhere. So what can you do to get on the recovery wagon of busyness?

The first one is to recognize your busyness signs. What activities do you engage in when you get overwhelmed? For that. I just suggested there are all my busyness activities and ones I've seen in my clients. But you may have other ones that you do that showcase your need to be busy.

That's the first tip. The second tip is to put in some natural checkpoints throughout the day. These are the weekly ritual challenges, three deep breaths at a stoplight, five minutes of downtime in the morning body scans throughout the day. And as a heads up, when you are in busyness. The last thing, the absolute last thing you will want to do, is to stop busyness mode.

So I have found it best to add the rituals throughout the day that forced me to stop. They forced me to stop because I don't voluntarily want to stop because the busyness feels good because it keeps you out of your head. The third tip is to ask friends and family to help you stay accountable and ask them to share when they feel you have entered busyness mode. That's a tough one, but it's helpful.

The fourth step I would have is once you recognize you're in busyness mode and you've maybe the natural checkpoint pointed out, or maybe you just realized it yourself. Take a second just to write down everything that's running through your brain. And if you can get specific about what you are feeling in the moment. I will write the prompt I'm angry about __, or I'm sad about _, or I'm joyful about _, and I write it out. I may not realize that I'm angry. That's why I give myself the prompts. Having those feeling prompts allows me, who isn't very aware of my feelings, to stretch and figure out, oh, this is what I'm angry about, or this is what's going on. This is why I'm stuck in busy because I'm pissed off at my husband.

And rather than dealing with that anger, I'm going to stay in busy. So the tip of once you recognize you're in busyness mode, give yourself some prompts of I am angry about and then let it rip. I am sad about let it rip and give yourself those feeling prompts so that you can start building awareness of the feelings because 99% of the time, the reason we're stuck in busyness mode is because we don't want to feel so.

And then the last tip I have is to remember this, and everything I talk about is a process. I have come very far in my recovery, and I still fall off that wagon. But each time, the fall is shorter, and my recovery period is longer and longer. As someone in recovery, I know that life is so much better when I'm not in that addiction.

I'm happier, I'm more engaged, I'm more peaceful, and I'm more present in life in Technicolor and bright. It's just so different.

+ Weekly Ritual Challenge

One thing that has really helped me reduce anxiety is adding regular ritual practices to my daily life, so each week, I am going to be sharing a ritual with you and challenge you to complete it.

This week's ritual: Take 3 Deep Breaths at a Stop Light Bringing out an oldie but a goodie this week. This one has changed my life taking 3 deep breathes at a stoplight has made all the difference in breaking the addiction to busy.

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Episode 024: Stop Fighting Yourself

In this episode, I answer a listener's question: “In previous episodes, you say to allow all my feeling but, how am I suppose to let go of an unpleasant feeling that I don't want to experience? How do I not get stuck in it?”

+ Read the Transcript

Today I want to talk about a question I received from a listener, and it was about last week's podcast, episode 23. And I was talking about being authentic, and there is no right answer and so just accepting where you are and how to show up truly in that way.

And so this listener contacted me, and she had some questions about feeling fear and how to feel fear when you don't want to. So I need to give you a little backstory. Recently in our town in Columbus, Ohio, there was a guy who took a machete into a restaurant and randomly started just cutting people.

We didn't know if it was a guy who was a terrorist or if it was a hate crime or what it was. And it was an extremely traumatizing event for Columbus, Ohio. This was a sleepy restaurant, and here, all of a sudden, this guy's coming in with a machete, and it was traumatizing.

And for this person that contacted me, she was like, it struck in me just the randomness of life and that at any one time, we could die and something bad could happen. And that fear got triggered for her because of this incident. And she'd been proud of herself because fear has always been a big theme in her life, but she'd been able to push it down and keep it out of sight and not give it a lot of fuel.

And then this incident happened with this machete guy, and she just found herself getting triggered. And she said, so I listened to your podcast about, there is no right answer. And that was helpful, but I don't know. How do I sit with this fear? Should I be talking to myself out of it, or what should I be doing not to be stuck in fear

And so it got me thinking on how often we fight ourselves on whatever it is that comes up for us. So how often we hammer ourselves for the fact that we have a feeling. And so I said to this listener, what if you just sat with your fear? What if you own the fact that this is scary and life is unsure, and you are afraid? And she paused and looked at me and said, Yeah, I guess? with a puzzled look on her face.

And I said no, like really, what if you just gave yourself permission to feel the fear? Because it is scary. This is crazy that you could just be sitting at a restaurant, and some random guy could come in with a machete and just starts cutting you or someone you love. So that's a very scary thing. So to embrace the fact that fear is there.

And she did this long exhale and was like, yeah, I guess that would be more comforting. And later she contacted me, and she was like, you're right. Like the more I sat with the fear, the less strength it got, and I think it dissipated on itself. And I think that's what happens is we fight ourselves so hard against having a feeling, whether consciously or unconsciously, we fight ourselves.

"You shouldn't be feeling like that. That's silly. Why are you feeling afraid? There's nothing you could do about it. And you can't just, what do you do hole up in your house, the rest of your life. Like you got to get out there, you can't be feeling afraid. That's just stupid." We just hammer ourselves for whatever comes up for us instead of pausing it and owning it and saying, "oh, I am scared. Oh, this world is scary." That's a fact. It is.

We do have to find a way to live in the world and engage in the world and get out of our homes and do things despite the scary, but it's still is a scary place. And so owning that truth because it is a truth. It's a fact. That's what she's feeling.

She's feeling scared, but we try to run as fast as we can from whatever it is that comes up. And I have been practicing in my own life. The concept of it is this is what's happening right now. Accepting what is happening and all my gosh, it has been revolutionary for me.

It's not like this is a new message, except for what it is. It's a very Buddhist Zen message, and I've just never been able to do it. And I think the biggest reason I've never been able to do it is because of the fear of what's on the other side. Just with what this listener was saying, "if I embrace the fear, then I will never leave my home. The fear will just consume me." And I think that's where we have to trust that if we stopped fighting ourselves and just allow, it gives some room for that feeling to pop around. So if I say, yeah, I am scared, or I am sad right now, or I am angry at that friend for saying that to me.

That's okay. It dissipates rather than constantly having this mental dialogue of you shouldn't be feeling that way. That's silly to feel that way. You're so stupid. You shouldn't be feeling that way. So it builds up the energy around whatever the feeling is.

So for this listener, who's saying I'm feeling stressed around this fear I'm having. If we just give ourselves the exhale of Yeah, that's scary is way different than the energy of "You shouldn't be feeling that way. You got to get out there. You worked really hard to get over this fear thing. And now it's back again, and this is terrible", keeps building and building.

This example could be used in a thousand ways. Like I said if a friend of ours says something that upsets us. And instead of just owning the fact of, I'm angry about what this friend said. But that doesn't mean I need to go to the friend and yell at them or tell them she's a bitch or go off on her.

I can just own the fact that it is a truth for me. I'm angry about what this friend said, and then I can decide what to do based on that anger. Maybe I do nothing based on that anger. Maybe I just let it go and just notice that I felt angry. Maybe I lovingly confront my friend, or maybe I lash out at my friend, and then I regroup and come back and say, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done that. I was upset about this.

We have a choice in how we deal with the feeling. We don't have a choice on what the feeling is. And I think that's where we get mixed up. We try to stop ourselves and talk ourselves out of having a feeling cause we're so afraid of what the result will be, rather than allowing ourselves to feel.

And after we've had the feeling and embrace that, then to give ourselves a break around, what am I going to do with this feeling? So we spend all of our time fighting ourselves, trying to prevent ourselves from doing something inappropriate. So this listener was trying to present or prevent herself from feeling the fear cause she didn't want to get stuck in that fear thinking anymore.

So she was fighting herself so hard. In the past, when she had felt fear, her action on that fear was to stay in her house, stay small, not branch out. And so, at this point in her life, she was excited because fear wasn't taking over her body. But feeling the fear that came up after the machete guy did not necessarily correlate that she was never going to leave her house again. Feeling the fear was not the problem. It was the choice she decided to make after she felt the fear. And when we let the feeling run through us, the choices become much less volatile. That's the beauty of it. When we allow ourselves to just be with whatever the feeling is, the feeling loses some steam. It loses some of that energy.

And so the choice isn't so dramatic. The option of what comes next isn't so dramatic. So a lot of times, once we feel the feeling, that's it, we're done. We don't need to make another choice. So that listener may get scared every time she decides to go out to dinner in Columbus, Ohio because this machete guy did this random thing.

And the more times she allows herself just to feel that fear and say, "yeah, this is scary. It's okay. This is scary. And I'm still going to go out anyway and just honor my fear." The easier it'll be for her to go out. Then if she just sat there and said, "you're an idiot for feeling this fear, you shouldn't be feeling this way. This is stupid. This is bad." All the crap we tell ourselves. That isn't going to inspire her to go out, and it will not inspire her to feel good about herself.

So I'm encouraging all of us, including me, because this is relatively new for me to be practicing. I've been preaching it for a long time and, in true transparency, practicing it as a totally different beast.

And I'm gaining so much from practicing it. So I am on the bandwagon for this big time. But I know when I allow myself to feel the feeling and stop myself from fighting myself and let that feeling run clear, the action that comes next is much simpler and easier.

And life becomes happier. So that's my 2 cents on stop fighting with yourself.

+ Weekly Ritual Challenge

One thing that has really helped me reduce anxiety is adding regular ritual practices to my daily life, so each week, I am going to be sharing a ritual with you and challenge you to complete it.

This week's ritual: Brush Your Teeth with the Opposite Hand

Use your right hand to brush your teeth? Switch to your left. This activity is an excellent way to create mindfulness around an activity that we do without thinking. Also, a creative way to challenge your inner perfectionist. REMINDER: doesn't have to be perfect just clean ;)

Bonus Points: Do other activities with your non-dominant hand: e.g. eating, cleaning, using your computer mouse, etc.

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Episode 023: There is No Right Answer

I want to start a revolution, a Listening Revolution.  It starts with a ban on unsolicited advice.

+ Read the Transcript

I want to chat a little bit about the idea that there is no right way. Let's take setting boundaries is a big part of living happier, and learning how to do that is a big way to live happier and reduce stress. Because when we have good boundaries in place, it decreases our stress, our resentment, and it helps us just be happier people.

When I'm teaching people about setting boundaries, there is no right way to set a boundary. And so it's a hard one to teach because people want to learn the A plus B plus C concept of teaching boundaries. Here are the steps you have to take to set a boundary. So it's super clear that I'm going to immediately know when I need to set a boundary. I'm going to know how to set a boundary. I'm going to be able to have that conversation and have it go smoothly. And then we'll be able to reset the boundary if I need to.

As soon as I learned the formula, a plus B plus c Poof!, that will be great. And that doesn't happen, unfortunately. So boundaries it's a messy process, and it's individualized; each situation is individualized. And so it's a hard one to learn a plus B plus C. I have a great example of that that happened earlier this week. I teach a class, it's an intense group called the deep dive, and we have a Facebook group. We meet for a teleseminar once a month. And so this month, we're meeting this week, and I messed up the time.

So I thought the time was at seven, and it turned out it was at 6:30. So I posted the information about the teleseminar on our Facebook group and said, 7:00 see you there. And someone chimed in and said, "oh, I thought it was at 6:30?" And I chimed back and said, Do we need to move it to 6:30 or does 7:00 work better? What are people thinking?" And another participant chimed in and said, "7:00 works better for me." So I went along with that just fine.

Figuring we were going to do it at 7:00 pm. Meanwhile, the client who had said is it at 6:30 called me and said, "I have something at 7:30. So it has to be 6:30. I can't make the seven o'clock time because I have to leave to hit my 7:30 appointment." I immediately started feeling triggered because I messed up the time.

I'm the one that failed. I'm supposed to be the leader of this group. I'm supposed to have this all together. I'm supposed to be clear and concise and not mess up. One of my inner critics is a perfectionist. And so my perfectionist is going bananas that here, I'm not only the leader of this group. So I'm supposed to know how to handle all situations perfectly.

I messed up a time. And that was a pretty big deal. So I suggested that the client post again on Facebook, telling the group that she requested the 6:30 time. Fortunately, the "trauma" or the problem ended did just fine. The woman who had said she liked the seven o'clock time chimed in and said, that's totally fine. Let's just make this easy on Nancy and go back to the 6:30 time. Because she's, stressing out and trying to make all of us happy. And it was an awesome lesson for everyone that there is no right way. And the last post that I put on Facebook was to say that the time is at 6:30. And to share that this was a great example of where there isn't a right way to do this. That was a messy situation, and there was no right way other than owning. Hey, I messed up, and I picked the wrong time, knowing that I did that. How can we fix this and make this go a little smoother? And I think that's the crux of living happier, just being honest with ourselves that this is what's happening right in front of us. And that's something I'm trying to implement more in my life, both personally and teaching it professionally, is just accepting what is and accepting that this is what's happening right now.

Right now, I'm in a really bad mood, and I don't want to be. Right now, setting this boundary is hard, and I don't know what to do next and recognize it. There is no right way. There's no right way to set the boundary. There's no right mood. I need to be in. There's no right feeling I need to be having right now.

This is what's happening. This is the truth of what's happening in my life. And when we can just own that truth, we can feel better. And so when I owned the truth to the group of, Hey, I'm not perfect. I may lead this class and teach this deep dive program, but I don't know everything a hundred percent.

And that's hard to admit that, that authenticity, it can be hard just to say, I don't know here. And I think that is. The one lesson that is the crux of living happier is recognizing; I don't know. I don't know what the right way is here. And that's okay. Being comfortable in the uncomfortable is the key to living happier because life is uncomfortable and learning this stuff is hard. Getting in there and figuring out where you set a boundary and where to speak up for ourselves and where we're people-pleasing and where our perfectionism is getting in the way can be challenging and complicated, and messy. And so, recognizing that I don't know is okay. Step one is just recognizing, I may not know how to do this, and that's okay. There is no right way. And let me go back to the stuff I know and the stuff I can implement right now.

So yeah, if I could go back and redo the timing of class and get the time right and figure it out. Not just hurry to post the thing on Facebook, but check the time and make sure it was 7:00 and not 6:30. Yeah. Life would be a lot easier, but I didn't do that. So I need to move on and work with what I have and be honest with where I am. And I think that radical honesty of recognizing there is no right way I messed up, or I'm not feeling the way I want to be feeling right now, or this day isn't going the way I want it to be going.

And that's okay. And we get so tight and hold onto the reins so hard to make sure that our perfectionism stays. And that our great exterior is seen by everyone that everything is awesome, that we hold on to that facade so hard that we miss out on the growth that comes from being authentic because that's where the real growth comes.

Not from immediately knowing the answer or immediately knowing what I should do next. The growth comes from recognizing, I don't know here, and I'm going to give myself a break. And I'm going to own the fact that I don't know where to go next and I don't know the right way. So let me be honest and authentic and ask for help if I need it or take a break if I needed or take some time to figure it out and ask for advice or ask for help, or just pause here because there is no right way.

And I got to figure it out on my own, and that's engaging in some messy work. Recently, I had someone say to me that I needed to stop using the word messy because it had such a negative connotation. And I bristled because I love the phrase messy because I think that messy isn't negative. When we think of pure joy in kids, it comes from getting messy and playing with finger paints or getting in the mud and rubbing all over themselves, like that messy.

It is where real joy comes in, and real sorrow and all of it mixed together in one giant mud bath of mess. And I think that's the marrow of life. That's what we're going after here. That's what we want to be accomplishing. So anyway, I'll get off my rant here, but I wanted to just, that has come up multiple times this week, the concept of having a right way.

And what do I need to do next to live happier is a question I get a lot, and I want to say there is no plus B plus C formula to living happier. I wish I could give you one and give myself one too, but there isn't one. It is just getting quiet, taking the pause, and remembering that it's okay that we don't know. Remembering that it's okay not to have the next step and giving ourselves a lot of compassion around that. We're human. And we're trying to figure this out, and that's okay.

+ Weekly Ritual Challenge

One thing that has really helped me reduce anxiety is adding regular ritual practices to my daily life, so each week, I am going to be sharing a ritual with you and challenge you to complete it.

This week's ritual: Take 3 Deep Breaths at a Stop Light

Breathwork is one of those areas I KNOW is good for me and yet struggle so hard to implement into my life. The more I study happiness and stress management the more I can’t avoid the power of the breath. This is an oldie but a goody but it is an easy way to introduce deep breathing into our lives.

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Episode 022: A Ban on Unsolicited Advice

I want to start a revolution, a Listening Revolution.  It starts with a ban on unsolicited advice.

+ Read the Transcript

You're having issues with your relationship. You're frustrated. You don't know whether you should stay or go, and you just really want to vent. And tonight, you're excited because you're finally going to be able to meet with a friend for drinks.

You can cut loose, have fun and vent some of your frustration. So you go to meet your friend and halfway through your glass of wine and your vent. She starts sharing her story about her relationship or a past relationship that she feels is somewhat similar or offering you tips on what you should be doing.

Worse yet, she starts telling you, at least you have a man. As Brené Brown says, no loving statement ever starts with the term, at least. Do you feel supported? No. Do you feel loved? No. Do you feel annoyed, insulted, or anything? Most likely, are there times that we need advice? Yes.

However, most of the time, we just need someone to listen. So when we're coming to someone to vent, even if we know what we should do or what we want to do, we probably aren't quite ready to do it, thus, why we are venting in the first place. But when someone says to us, here's what you should do. It immediately implies that whatever we are doing, we're handling it wrong.

It immediately implies that we're doing it incorrectly. Unsolicited advice isn't support. Unsolicited advice is there to make the advice-giver feel like they are helping unsolicited advice. 90% of the time makes the person who's venting feel like crap. Unsolicited advice is a connection killer. It shifts the power and completely stops any chance of connection. Unsolicited advice might feel like it's coming from a loving place of "I'm just trying to help" or "I've been there, so I have some wisdom to share." True.

The advice-giver might have the best intentions, but when she shares her unsolicited advice, she isn't allowing you to have your own journey, to struggle with your unique relationship, to figure it out, to learn, to grow. Instead, whether it's true or not, she is telling you, I know better about your life and your story, and here's what you should do. So why do so many of us give unsolicited advice? And I do mean us, cause we're all guilty of this one time or another, even I who pride myself on listing and do it for a living, I've fallen into this bad habit from time to time because it's easy because we do want to.

Because watching someone else struggle is hard and challenging, especially if we've been there before. And we feel like we know the way out, but we know the way out for what worked with our life. We don't know the way out for them.

So when you think about your own life in this example, what was more helpful? The friend who hugged you and said, "I love you," or the friend who said, "Hey, here's what you should do..." Because we all get stuck. We all don't move through transition as fast as we want to or as fast as our friends want us to. And in those moments, it's the people who have said to me, "I believe in you. You will get through this." And "Wow. That must really be frustrating." Those were the most helpful.

What can we do about this epidemic that's killing relationships because we are not listening to each other? So I ask you to join the unsolicited advice ban. The first step is to catch yourself as you give unsolicited advice. At first, you won't notice it until after the interaction.

And then gradually, you will start noticing it in the interaction. For example, you'll start noticing how uncomfortable you get when someone starts talking about their pain. And you'll start noticing that your Monger comes up and tells you, I don't know what to say and what should I do? And so you start blurbing out advice because that fills the space, drops your anxiety, and makes you feel more comfortable.

You eventually will catch yourself doing this. And whether you catch yourself before, during, or after the interaction, acknowledge it and own it, apologize to the person you tried to fix. Simply say, "I'm sorry. I want to help. And I realized that giving unsolicited advice might not be the best way. So I'm just going to listen until you ask me for advice.

Asking for advice is very different than unsolicited advice. Asking for advice means I don't know what to do, and I'm coming to you to find out. Unsolicited means I'm just throwing it out there because I'm uncomfortable with my own crap, and I need to take care of you. So pay attention to how you feel when someone is sharing their venting with you, how you feel that, how you want to fix it, notice that feeling, and catch yourself as often as possible.

When you have to apologize and say, "I'm sorry, I'm trying to get better about this." And all you have to do is say, "thank you for sharing. I'm really honored that you're sharing all this with me" or,

"oh my gosh, that must be terrible to be stuck in this relationship where you don't know what to do" or "wow let's try to figure this out. Let's really think this through together."

So there are a lot of ways that we. Interact with people other than just, "huh? Yeah." We can actively listen to people and mirror back what it is they say. I find that in my practice all the time, but the number one way I help people is simply by being there to listen.

So if we could listen to each other and get rid of my job, that would be awesome because we would all be giving each other loving support instead of this unsolicited advice. So step two in the unsolicited advice ban is to speak up when someone gives you unsolicited advice.

So similarly, at first, you probably won't notice it until after the interaction because we're so used to someone giving us unsolicited advice and then gradually. Then, you'll start noticing it in the interaction. You'll notice it in your body. How harsh it feels when someone says, here's what you should do.

Or, you'll notice it as you're driving home thinking. Wow, that was totally unfulfilling. All I did was her about her crappy relationship. I didn't have any time to vent about mine. And when you figure it out that person has put unsolicited advice on you, simply say to your friend as lovingly as possible.

"I know you're trying to help, and your heart is in the right place. And right now, I just need to vent. I just need you to listen. And when I'm ready for advice, I will ask for it." And that's key; there's a lot that goes around; oh, men, they only give advice. They don't listen. They only give unsolicited advice.

And so, if you're in a relationship with a man. This is going to be key; you're going to have to tell him, you know what, I just need you to listen, or I need some advice. Can we brainstorm some solutions? And I do that with my husband all the time. I sit him down, I'm getting ready to vent, and I'll say, "okay, I really just need you to listen."

Or "I need us to come up with a solution to this." And so then he can shut off the part of his brain that's constantly looking for a solution. Unsolicited advice isn't evil. It just isn't as helpful as we intend it to be. So together we can. Listen and love in a whole new way.

Just listen. Don't fix, don't give advice, and don't help by thinking you know better. Just listen, just support, just have empathy. Just say, "Wow, that really sucks. Thanks so much for sharing that with me. I'm honored that I'm someone you can trust to share it with me. "

I think listening and empathy are all key to living happier and better quality connected relationships. So I wish you good luck with your ban on unsolicited advice that we'll be right there with you.

+ Weekly Ritual Challenge

One thing that has really helped me reduce anxiety is adding regular ritual practices to my daily life, so each week, I am going to be sharing a ritual with you and challenge you to complete it.

This week's ritual: Celebrate Your Wins

Each day pick 3-5 priorities for the day. Maybe they are making a home-cooked meal, taking a walk, and helping your kids with their homework. (I know your day is FILLED with much more than these 3 things but these are your priorities for the day). When you have successfully completed these priorities...celebrate them. Do a dance in the shower, jam to your favorite song in the car, give yourself a high five. Too often we don't acknowledge our wins so this week give yourself a little daily celebration.

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Episode 018: Bigger isn't Always Better

My take on New Year's Resolutions and Shiny Object Syndrome.

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Welcome to 2016. I hope you're ready to embrace 2016, which is what the topic theme is about this week with a bigger isn't always better. And when I'm talking about that, I'm talking about new year's resolutions. I'm almost annoyed with myself that I'm doing a new year's resolutions podcast because I feel inundated with tips and tricks on new year's resolutions, which is why I wanted to do one to ease back on all the pressure.

At the beginning of the year, we feel that we need to change and do big things, and everything needs to be bigger and better. I struggled with it last week and telling my husband we need to do bigger and better things this year. We need to get out of our rut. And he was like, But I like our life.

I'm happy with where we are, which is true. I am happy with where we are. And so that's why I just wanted to offer a couple of my thoughts on resolutions and how I think we can make resolutions differently and have more success around them.

Because with every article, there is about how to set successful resolutions. There's a follow-up article on how frequently we fail at doing resolutions. How the beginning of January, the gyms are full, and the gyms are empty at the end of January. I want to encourage you to do something different, and that's the whole spirit of living happier change takes time.

Change takes intention, and change is about showing up in your life every day. So bigger isn't always better. Sometimes those small changes are where it's at. Wanting to do big things is not a terrible thing. Sometimes we want to make a significant change in our lives.

Maybe we want to move or change our jobs or get out of a relationship that isn't fulfilling us anymore. And those significant changes are necessary. And we all go through those big transitions. Even if you want to make a big change, it takes small, tiny steps. I see it so often that we get so caught up in the vision of where we want to be that we don't back it up to recognize this will take intention every day.

The most common resolution is I want to lose weight. So let's say you want to lose 50 pounds. And you think about I'm going to lose 50 pounds, and you dream about what your life will be like when you lose 50 pounds and what outfits you'll fit into and how you will do that.

You have these big ideas of eating healthy and working out and all this great stuff. And then when it gets to the nitty-gritty, the day-to-day the, I came home from work, and I've worked a 10 hour day, and I'm exhausted. And I just want to pick up a pizza on my way home. Or I didn't make it to the gym today because work got in the way or the kids are driving me crazy.

And I want a couple of pieces of chocolate to get me through. The big change of losing 50 pounds happens in the little individual small changes that we make every day. So my theme for 2016 is that maybe depth is more important than breadth.

What I mean by that is that even if your goal is to lose 50 pounds, which is an amazing, awesome goal, let's look at what I can do in my life that can help me build a deeper relationship with my body. How can I build a deeper relationship with this vessel that takes me through my life? That's where the changes happen.

So if my theme for the year is I'm going to build a deeper relationship with my body, then that means I'm going to pay attention A. I've worked a 10-hour shift, and I'm freaking exhausted. And so I haven't managed my energy all day, but B. if I am exhausted and tired, the last thing my body needs is more carbs and sugar and grease that comes in a pizza box.

What my body needs at that moment is something nutritious and healthy, and maybe a pizza will work for the family. It's an easy solution to the problem at the end of the day, so maybe I will throw a salad with my pizza because I am working on this relationship with my body.

So I think that thinking of all of your goals and re-examining them to be, how can I make some depth here? Instead of saying, I need to make these big sweeping changes. Because big sweeping changes are fantastic, but they don't always last.

If I had a dime for every life coach or counselor, or self-help guru that has sent me an email in the past two weeks telling me that I could design my perfect life, I wouldn't need to work anymore. That's the message design your perfect life in five easy steps. It drives me freaking crazy because designing your perfect life takes intention. It takes every single day. Sitting down and figuring out and making choices and being intentional.

It takes a level of depth. You have to look at your life in a deeper, more meaningful way. One of the common things I hear is I want to have a different relationship. I want a better relationship. I want bigger and greater things. And so the first thing people think of is I want to blow this all up.

I want to get divorced. I want to dump my partner. I want to find someone new and shiny. I deserve that. And sometimes, what we need is a little more depth. There, we need to look at ourselves and how we are showing up in the relationship? What are we asking for?

What do we need? Are we setting appropriate boundaries? Are we taking ourselves into every relationship we go into? So yes, have many times before I met my husband, I've dated people that did not fit me. And I was glad I got out of those relationships. So I could find someone that did fit me, which is my husband.

But yeah. I also learned a lot about myself in those relationships and how maybe I failed and didn't show up appropriately or didn't speak my needs or expected them to mind read. And by building the depth of my capacity for relationships and building my relationship muscles when my husband came along, and he was a match for me, we were able to succeed.

Even if my husband and I had met 20 years ago, I might not have picked him because I wasn't ready for that. My depth and my ability to speak up for myself and speak my needs weren't there. And so I couldn't have had the relationship that we have right now without doing all that work.

So think about where in your life you attempted to blow it all up and where you can pause and go a little deeper. Maybe it isn't always the shiny new glamorous big when I lose 50 pounds; maybe it is today at this moment when I'm feeling worn out and exhausted; what could I do to take care of myself? To take care of my body in this amazing, beautiful vessel that I'm railing against all the time because I want to lose 50 pounds, but if I start taking myself care of myself now at this moment, those 50 pounds will come off. Because in self-care, every single day, we're taking care of ourselves and giving back. It's about making intentional change.

Yes, we can design our own lives, and we can make amazing beautiful lives. And that takes work. It's not five easy steps. It's five challenging steps of showing up every day with intention with self-care with compassion, empathy, a desire to be different, and depth in our lives.

So that's my tidbit on resolutions and my contribution to the voices out there that are talking about resolutions that bigger isn't always better. And sometimes, it is more about depth and more about looking at ourselves. And as you can tell, I have a lot to say on this topic because it gets me fired up.

Because I know in my own life, when I started being more intentional, when I started embracing the depth and looking at things from a deeper, more intentional perspective, my life got happier. It was more exciting and rich. I wasn't blaming everyone. I wasn't stuck in drama. I was responsible for my own life, and I'm making daily changes to make that as powerful and as passionate as possible.

+ Weekly Ritual Challenge

One thing that has really helped me reduce anxiety is adding regular ritual practices to my daily life, so each week, I am going to be sharing a ritual with you and challenge you to complete it.

This week's ritual: Stop Multi-tasking

Multi-tasking causes your brain to go into hyperdrive, you get less done and you are less focused. When you concentrate on one thing at a time A. you get more done in less time and B. you are more relaxed. I

We have lots of easy ways to be present and do mini-meditations throughout the day.

Pumping gas? Just pump gas (don't check your phone)Brushing your teeth? Brush your teeth (don't walk around picking up dirty laundry)Blow drying your hair? Just blow dry it. (don't clean the bathroom while you do it)Standing in line. Just be there.

My challenge to you:Catch yourself multi-tasking.Pick one task and be fully present for that one task.

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Episode 016: Tips to Live Happier During Thanksgiving

As I prepare to pause from the rush I wanted to offer some tips on Living Happier During Thanksgiving

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In the United States, we officially kick off the holiday season with Thanksgiving. I love the idea of having thanks, being grateful, and gathering with friends and family to eat a big delicious meal. This holiday was founded on the idea of taking time out, pausing the rush of life to reflect and be thankful.

So as I prepare to pause from the rush, I wanted to offer my tips on living happier during Thanksgiving.

The first one is to make a plan, not just arrival times and what to bring, but a plan on what to do when it's getting too stressful. Such as a key phrase or gesture you can say to your spouse or friend when you're done D O N E done. Or a reminder to yourself that it's okay to leave, take a walk, head to the basement, spend a little extra time in the bathroom. Just because you have always done something a certain way that doesn't mean you have to do it that way. This year make a plan and have some creativity around it.

Think back to where the holidays took a wrong turn in years past, and try to figure out ways to do it differently this year. With a little honesty and creativity, everyone can have a great holiday season. We need to be able to sit down with the intention to help each member of our family show up, be seen, and have a wonderful holiday.

My second tip is to have compassion. If you do nothing else this holiday season, have compassion for yourself and those around you. Families put the buttons there in the first place, so they certainly know how to push them. Give yourself a break.

One of my favorite mantras is: "They're doing the best they can with what they have." It is a phrase I repeat a lot around the holidays. It's a loving reminder to myself as well. A reminder that I'm doing the best I can with what I have and that it may not be perfect may not be as great as I think I could be doing, but it is the best I can given all that's happening.

Remind yourself that sometimes you have to dig deep for gratitude. For some people, my clients, and my friends, even myself, gratitude this time of year can be a challenge from time to time. Sometimes we have to dig deep to find the gratitude in our lives. Perhaps in the past year, you've lost a loved one, a job, or maybe you're going through a divorce.

Sometimes life deals us a bad hand, and sometimes we're frustrated, discouraged, and just downright exhausted. When we're feeling lost and frustrated, the simple reminder to be grateful and count your blessings can get old. No matter how much we know, we should count our blessings. Sometimes it is just plain hard.

If you or someone you know comes to this Thanksgiving holiday not feeling quite thankful as last year. That's okay. Maybe all you can muster for your gratitude this year is that you're alive or that you have a place to go for the holiday. That's okay. In my opinion, the point of this holiday isn't to make us feel bad because we don't feel as jolly as we should. It is to remind us to pause our lives. So give yourself a break if you have to dig a little deeper this year to find the gratitude.

My next reminder, pay attention to the little things throughout the day. Pause, breathe and notice the little things. Thanksgiving reminds us to take stock of all the little things that make up our lives.

The small everyday blessings including:

*a warm bed,

*the smell of coffee in the morning,

*listening to your favorite song,

*wearing your most comfy sweater.

So throughout the day, pay attention to the little things that are making up your day:

*Your child's laughter,

*your husband's smile,

*your father's hug

*the taste of the mashed potatoes.

I find it helpful to set the alarm on my phone, and each time I hear the chime, pause, breathe and notice. Anytime you can slow down and notice what is happening around you, it will help you live happier during the Thanksgiving holiday. So those are my tips for living happier.

During the holidays, make a plan, have some compassion, remind yourself it's okay if you have to dig a little deeper for gratitude, and pay attention to the little things. This Thanksgiving, take a chance to breathe in the natural pause. The time to gather with friends and family and reflect on what the past year has brought, both the joys and the sorrows.

+ Weekly Ritual Challenge

One thing that has really helped me reduce anxiety is adding regular ritual practices to my daily life, so each week, I am going to be sharing a ritual with you and challenge you to complete it.

This week's ritual: Be Fully Present in the Stolen Moments

Little dead spaces during your day can be used for mindfulness. Be mindful of exactly what is taking place right now, even if it is tedious drudgery. Take advantage of moments when you are alone. Take advantage of activities that are largely mechanical. Use every spare second to be mindful. Use all the moments you can.

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