Episodes 039: To Be Me

The danger of getting so stuck in blame and resentment we don't fully show up for our lives.

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Today's title for the show is a little different than normal and a little questionable. To be me and not what's convenient for others is why many clients come to see me.

They're tired of not being themselves, of trying to squeeze themselves into a round hole when they're a square peg. They've spent all their lives doing that. They have this little bit of an "Ah-ha" of I want to be myself. I'm tired of pretending. I'm tired of not showing up in life the way I want to.

What keeps us stuck and prevents us from intentionally living and being authentic to ourselves is that we blame everyone else for why we aren't ourselves.

When you look at the phrase, "To be me, and not what's convenient for others," there's this underlying tone of blame that other people are the ones that have kept us down. When in reality, we are the ones that make a choice every day to keep shaving down our square pegs so they'll fit into that round hole. We are the ones that go out into the world and decide, "I'm going to continue to use my perfectionism and my people-pleasing as a shield from showing up in life."

The only way we're going to start changing ourselves and allowing ourselves to be me is when we stop blaming other people for keeping us down and stop blaming them for why we've shaved off the corners. They're the reasons why I've spent so much time stuck in this people-pleasing cycle. In reality, we have chosen to do that.

I can hear the pushback. We have chosen to do that based on the feedback we've gotten. We might have gotten more approval and more love because we were people-pleasing. When we're living our lives for other people, we will get more approval and more love. That's how it works. When we have lived our lives entirely for other people, then when we start changing that, there will be push back. That's human nature. That's the way it goes.

If we continue to live our lives looking at the other person and pointing outward, saying, "They are why we are down. It's his fault or her fault. It's my mom's fault for teaching me this, or it's my brother's fault for always making fun of me, or it's my husband's fault for never showing up." Then we're continuing to do the same thing.

Instead of people-pleasing and perfectionism to get approval, now we're blaming and angry. We're still not showing up authentically. We're not showing up authentically by people-pleasing and perfectionism. We're not showing up authentically when we're living in blame, and resentment, and judgment.

The only way we can show up and be intentional in our lives is when we start owning our stuff. I know when I engage in people-pleasing with my husband, he doesn't want all the stuff that I'm sucking up to him around most of the time. He doesn't care, but I am feeling insecure. I am feeling out of whack, and that's my go-to, is to people-please.

That is also my responsibility to check that. It's my responsibility to notice when I am projecting on to him everything my inner critic is saying to me, which I do a lot. If my inner critic tells me that I've put on weight or look bad, I will frequently assume my husband feels the same way. Nine times out of 10, he doesn't. He's just like, "You look great. You're my wife. I love you." He's not paying attention to that sort of thing.

We project onto other people. We assume that they are keeping us down when in reality, they may be our biggest fans. We let our inner critics put the lens over the camera that skews our whole way of thinking about things. I want you to be thinking of this as you go through life, and you're going through your day-to-day stuff, and you're looking at, "I want to show up more intentionally, and I want to take responsibility for what's happening in my life."

That responsibility can be yucky sometimes. Then we have to wake up and say, "Wait. This isn't everybody else's fault. I created this dynamic too. I have made my husband super dependent on me." Or, "I have created an unhealthy dynamic with my mom where she thinks she can call me at all hours of the night with whatever it is she needs." I have helped create that, not solely. I'm not flipping the blame totally on you.

I'm also asking if we're going to live intentionally; we have to be willing to say, "Hey, some of this might be my fault. Even though I resent that this dynamic, what have I gotten out of this dynamic?" One of my favorite questions by Dr. Phil, who I'm not necessarily a huge fan of, but the question is how is it serving you?

Every action we are doing is serving us in some way. When we say, "I want to be me and not what's convenient for others, the question to turn around and ask is how is it serving you not to be you?" Man, it's serving you in a ton of ways. It's serving you by being safe and protected, and you're not vulnerable, and you're loved and approved of. People think you're amazing.

Then there's the price you pay for that, which is a pretty heavy price, which is you don't get the chance to show your round peg. You don't get the chance to show your round peg. You're spending so much time shaving off those corners you miss out on a big part of life, letting go of some of that blame and that resentment, and allowing yourself to show up fully and take responsibility for what it is that's happening in your life.

The quote, "To be me and not what's convenient for others," is a wonderful quote. I picked it intentionally. I think it encompasses why a lot of people come to see me. I also think to be me and not what's convenient for others means you have to be willing to embrace the mess and to embrace that messiness of life, that messy middle part where you've created a dynamic with someone else that is forcing you not to show up fully.

How do you look at that instead of always pointing the finger at them? While also looking at yourself and how you've contributed to it? That's my ramble on that quote. I hope it gives you some pause. I think the idea of blaming, resentment, that anger piece, a lot of that comes in. We're so mad at other people for keeping us down. In some ways, we're mad at ourselves for keeping us down.

We have to have a piece of forgiveness around there. That is where self-compassion is just so important; it is to recognize we're getting hammered by our inner critics all the time. Sometimes we turn that inner critic external on our partners and our family members, and our friends. That's where we can get into trouble. When we can start turning that self-compassion around and saying, "I just want to be me and show up." It's so hard to do that without being frustrated with other people.

When we start changing dynamics, people start getting wiggy. They start getting freaked out. We need to be able to stand strong in our stuff even though the people around us are getting wiggy and not revert to our default patterns of starting to shave back our square peg.

We have to stand there proudly with our round peg saying, "You can have that reaction. It's going to suck while I stand here while you have that reaction, but I don't need to change who I am to make that okay for you." That's a very different energy than, "I'm going to be mad at you for not accepting my round peg."

+ 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: Pay attention to when you start feeling resentment This one goes along with the theme of really showing up. I want you to be paying attention throughout the week. This is a little more advanced ritual than I normally have. I want you to be paying attention to when you start feeling resentment. That resentment is toxic. When you start feeling resentment, just notice that in your life.

You don't have to do anything around it. You don't have to yell, or scream, or get it out. Just start noticing how often resentment, blame, and frustration show up in your life and how often you resort to blaming when you have resentment or frustration. Just start noticing that. I'll start unhooking a little bit.

If you can, for extra credit points, add in a bit of self-compassion. Add in a little, "Sweetheart, this is so hard. I just really want to blame so and so for this, but we all have a part in this. We've all created this dynamic." Making some wiggle room around that resentment and frustration and not immediately resorting right to blame.

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Episode 034: Why Pay Twice?

A question that changed my life and gave me a different way of looking at mistakes.

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So my dad is full of different pieces of advice, short sentences, packed with big wisdom. And one of these wisdom phrases that we say a lot in our house is why pay twice? So let's say you go to the movies and you pay $25 for tickets and snacks, and halfway through the movie, you're mad.

The movie's terrible. It's loud. The plots weak, no characters, just plain bad. So most people would say I paid for this movie. I'm going to sit here and get my money's worth. But my dad would say, why pay twice? Why pay the $25 and then pay the fee of your time and energy to watch a bad movie, get up and leave.

And I love this piece of advice. I tell you has been life-changing for me. And I wrote this blog piece in the first book that I wrote, .Juice Squeezed. So people will come up to me who read the book and say, oh my gosh, the idea of why pay twice changed my life.

And it shows up so much in our lives that we get stuck in this. I've already done this. This is the way I've already gone. So I got to keep continuing on the same path, and this gives us permission to turn around and be like, wait a minute. Why am I doing this again? Why am I paying twice? So the spirit of this advice can apply to so many aspects of our lives. Not just financially that I paid for something. And so why am I going to sit here through a terrible thing, but often, like when we. We have to stick with something merely because we've paid, whether financially or with our time and energy.

So let's say you're in a job. You hate, you go every day, thinking how much you hate it. And you justify that by saying I've already put in 5, 10, 15 years. I can't quit now again, the idea of why pay twice. Yes. You've paid your dues, and it hasn't worked out yet. So why keep paying. This gives us permission just to turn around and say, why am I continuing to throw money or throw my energy into something that isn't working out?

An example I see a ton with the clients I work with is people who have paid to go to school. And for whatever reason, they've picked a degree that doesn't fit them. So here they are 2, 4, 10, 20 years later, and they can't find the job they want. Or they have a job, and they're totally miserable.

And many of them know what they want to do next. They know what it is specifically, but it requires more schooling. And they'll say to me, I can't go back to school, I already paid for one degree. So I have to use the degree I paid for. That's true. They did pay for one day. But just like in the bad movie analogy, if it wasn't the right degree, it isn't going to be satisfying, or it's not going to get them what they want in the end.

So why pay twice? Why pay for the first degree and then pay for your misery, the rest of your life? Because you made a human mistake and selected the wrong day. Frequently in life, we make mistakes. We choose incorrectly. We choose something that we thought should fit. Or we tried something that someone else told us would fit, and we ended up unhappy, miserable, and quote paying for the mistake.

The point is the mistakes. We chose wrong, but we keep suffering because we picked wrong. Why pay twice? Why continue to suffer? Figure out a way to make a change, do it differently. Just because you chose wrong, to begin with, doesn't mean you have to keep suffering. We continue to pay the price well beyond what we need to.

And so we've paid twice instead of having the recognition of wait a minute, I made a mistake here, and that's okay. I need to figure out a different way of doing this. I love this piece of advice because it's opened up my life to be like, oh yeah, I don't have to do this. Just because I already said I would, for example, my husband and I went to a concert this weekend, and we rented a hotel cause it was a couple of hours away from us.

And as we were pulling out of the parking lot, I was like, oh, maybe we should just go home. I didn't want to go back to the hotel, and we could get home late tonight, but we get home and sleep in our bed. And then I said, we already paid for the hotel. And he was like, what?

We haven't dropped off her stuff at the hotel. We paid for it. But that doesn't mean we have to sleep there. If you'd be happier sleeping at home, why would we pay twice? And it was just a great pause for me to be like, oh yeah. Why pay twice? When there are options here. And I think that's the beauty of this.

Why pay twice is it gives us options. We ended up going to the hotel anyway, and I was glad we did because I was exhausted. But it still gave me a chance to see other options. I get stuck in that black and white way of thinking where I've already paid for this. So I have to keep going down that path. I already chose whatever it is.

So I have to keep going down that path, instead of saying, wait a minute, maybe you could choose differently and not mess everything up. And it would be okay. So this advice allows me to get creative. It allows us to figure out a different plan. So life has meant to be enjoyed. It's not meant to be stuck in one decision the whole way.

We're not meant to pay for our mistakes forever. We're allowed to admit we messed up, make amends, find a different way. So, where in your life are you paying twice? That's what I want you to ask yourself and have that paying twice mentality tossed it around in your brain a little bit to make you give you more creativity and more openness.

+ 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: Go for a Walk Around the Block.

Take a small walk when you are feeling overwhelmed and stressed. Get out and get moving.

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Episode 033: Whose Carrot are You Chasing?

In this society, get so caught up in the chase we forget what or why we are chasing in the first place.  We get so use to going after 'the goal' we forget to ask ourselves--do I really want this goal in the first place?

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Today, we're going to be talking about that darn carrot. And what I mean by the carrot is that I think there's a state farm commercial showing a man in fishing gear. He has a dollar bill on a fishing rod, and the girl keeps grabbing after it, and he keeps pulling it back and pulling it back.

That's what I'm talking about, the carrot that is on the fishing pole, and we're chasing after it thinking if only we can catch it, running through life, checking things off the to-do list, being on top of things, looking good. That ever-elusive carrot, the holy grail that has you thinking if only I could get the carrot, then I would be okay.

I just need to keep working for it, but the carrot keeps changing, growing and moving, and we never actually get it. So the carrot is the college degree, the spouse, the kids that have enough money to be comfortable having enough money for retirement, sending the kids to college, being happy in your career, getting a vacation home, the carrot list goes and on.

It never stops. It is always there. In theory, The carrot could be awesome. It represents our end goal and represents the priorities. What matters most is the direction we want our life to take. The problem with the carrot is when it doesn't represent anything except the next "thing."

When you're unclear on what the carrot represents in your life, then you're just chasing an imaginary object. You might never reach. It sounds insane, but I know many of us, me included, at one point have fallen victim to mindlessly chasing the carrot.

I was spending all of my time chasing something that I couldn't define. I didn't even know if I would want it in the first place. We get so caught up in the chase. We forget what or why we're chasing it.

We get so used to going after the goal; we forget to ask ourselves, do I want this goal in the first place? So today, I want you to take a pause from all that carrot chasing for a moment and ask yourself to define your carrot.

What does success look like to you? Is success a big house, a new car being able to eat out every night of the week, or is it having a flexible schedule to spend time with family and friends?

Maybe success is having a community of friends who gather and chat about politics, art, and activism, or maybe success is more about having an education. Success can have a million definitions, but what does success mean to you? Not your parents, not your neighbors or your partner, but you.

For years we get so stuck in the comparing. My favorite saying is you're comparing your insides to somebody else's outsides. And we walk around the world, look at what other people are doing, and think, oh my gosh, they have it all together. They have the perfect partner. They have the perfect house. They have the perfect job, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. They don't have any of the insecurities that I have. They don't have any of the doubts that I have. And so I just have to keep pushing and pushing, and I'll be just like them.

And we never pause to think, do I want to have this perfect everything or what is important to me? Because all of this stuff that I'm chasing may not even be the point. I know so many clients that come in, and they're just like, I'm tired and done. I'm exhausted from pushing and pushing to what end for. Why am I pushing?

And that is a pivotal point in our lives to recognize. How will I know when I have made it? What is my life vision look like? What does your carrot look like? And what exactly are you chasing? And do you still want to be chasing it? The point of the questions is to help you take stock of your carrot and get clear on your goals and priorities to help you stop just reacting to life but start getting real about what you want from you.

This happens to me now and then. It's related to self-doubt and insecurity. When we get doubt and insecure, we look outside of ourselves to see what other people are doing to compare and get some ideas. So I will compare myself to other entrepreneurs or other people that are online teaching about stuff, and I'll think, oh, I suck so much.

I should be doing this and this and this and this. And I litany off all this stuff that I should be doing. And I start chasing this random carrot. Because I think that's the next great thing. And then eventually I'll stop and be like, wait, I don't want to be doing that. That doesn't fit my business.

I don't want to be doing all these things. So when we can get clear on, I don't want to be doing that right now, and we stop wasting time chasing these carrots that lead us nowhere. Maybe having a big car is important to you. That's okay. Go for that. Or having the second home and the vacation is important; that's awesome. And you want to find a job where you can make enough money to support you and your family and send your kids to college and have the house and the second home and the cars. That's great. Maybe for you. It is. I'm going to go back to school because going back to school and getting my Ph.D., that's what's important, or going being creative that's what's important. And maybe I'm going to have to downsize to do that. Maybe I'm going to have to cut back to go after that dream that I want to go after. And maybe in doing that, I'm going to disappoint someone. Or I'm not going to live up to what I thought I was supposed to live up to, and I have to let that go.

And so, there's going to be some grief when we realize that we were chasing things that may not be our top priority. And we realize, wait a minute, I have options here. I don't have to work a job I hate to get the house in the car when I don't value the house in the car.

I value education. And so I need to go back to school, and that's going to cost me money. And so I'm going to have to downsize, and oh, what am I going to tell people when I have to downsize? But when we start living life from what we want and what we value, and what's important to us. We consider other people's insights, but at the end of the day, you're the one that you're going to have to be living with.

You're the one that's going to look back on your life and say, did I make decisions based on how I wanted to do my life? Did I chase the carrot that I wanted to be chasing? That's the most important part.

+ 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 and Smell the Flowers

Literally! Get outside and smell some flowers : ) Take the time to look around and embrace the beauty of the season.

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Episode 030: What’s Underneath Your Procrastination

Today we are turning the problem of procrastination on its head. Easy strategies to help you work through the problem of procrastination.

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So I'm excited about today's topic? I want to talk about what is underneath your procrastination because I think we get so caught up and beating ourselves up about procrastination and hammering ourselves. And I even recently had a client who came into her session with this heavy sigh and was just like, I just need to get motivated.

She went on to talk about how procrastination had become her M.O, and she was just great at procrastinating. And she just wanted to get past that she had this long list of stuff she wanted to accomplish, and her motivation was just short. And so it got me thinking about that.

This lament is a frequent one for my clients. Maybe you can relate. There's a lot you want to do; you desire to do, to accomplish in your life. And at the end of the day, you just feel lazy and stuck in a rut. So what are you supposed to do? You do what we all do.

You set a goal, you set up a reward system, and you hammer yourself into submission because somewhere, we've learned that the harder we are on ourselves, the more productive we will be. And the problem is that over time, that idea usually fails. We aren't more productive the harder we are on ourselves, because why would we be.

Goals are great. They're fantastic. They inspire us to do new things and accomplish tasks and live our dreams. So it isn't the goal that's the problem. It's our approach to the goal. So I'm going to go with an easy example, and I use this one a lot but exercising and working out is something almost all my clients want to add more to their life.

And so I'm going to do the goal of you want to walk 30 minutes every day. So that's the goal we're going to be talking about for the rest of this podcast. So here's rule number one, telling yourself how much you suck is not motivating.

So pay attention to how you talk to yourself about a goal. For example, when you set a goal to fix yourself, or because you're broken, it usually doesn't go over real well. But when compassion is mixed in there, that's when it gets a little better.

So the goal to walk 30 minutes a day is a great goal. Good for your health. It's good for your heart, but your motivation for doing it, you tell yourself, is because you're fat and you're out of shape, and you need to get in line. You're going to be old and decrepit. Your motivation is coming from a place of lack. It's not coming from a place of compassion.

So that's a hard message to get motivated around because telling yourself that you need to take a walk. So because you're fat and out of shape, you're just going to be like, okay, I'm already fat and out of shape. Why should I walk the message? It doesn't motivate you. It keeps you stuck. So changing a habit to walk every day for 30 minutes a day is a hard habit to change when the whole time you're telling yourself how fat and out of shape.

Yeah. What are you supposed to do? I have two questions. I want you to ask. One is to ask yourself, why is this goal important? And then I want you to dig for the answer. Your first answer will probably be a little negative because I'm fat and I'm out of shape, and walking 30 minutes a day is what they recommend will probably be your first step.

Then I want you to dig a little deeper. What's the more personal answer. How does this goal of walking 30 minutes a day fit your values? Because I want to play with my kids or grandkids and not be out of shape. Because we're headed to Disney World, and I want to enjoy my time and not worry about walking because I enjoy being outdoors.

And I miss exercise because I feel better when I move my body. When you dig deep, you unearth the real motivations that fit your values, and these motivations can then be used when you're full of excuses for not doing the work.

So the second question I want you to ask yourself is why you don't want to do this goal? This question is a little harder, and I know it sounds counterintuitive, but trust me again, you're going to dig deep. So an easy answer for this one is because I'm fat and I'm out of shape, and walking will be hard and painful at first, but I want you to keep going. So what else is underneath that?

And some answers might be because I'm afraid to have all that time just to let my thoughts. What if I fail? What if I don't feel any better? I don't want to get up early because I lack enough sleep already, and yeah, walking. That's just not enough. I need to be doing more than just walking. I need to be strength training, and I need to be running, and walking is just too easy.

So by asking why you don't want to do this goal, you start noticing your resistance. And when you pay attention to the resistance, you can productively deal with that. This step is often the part we miss, we diminish our resistance, and we simply try to will ourselves out of it. We tell ourselves I shouldn't feel any resistance because this is a great goal, but when resistance steps up, that's where grace and compassion come in.

When you can pay attention to the resistance, you can set goals that are accomplished based on where you are right now. So, for example, I'd say you resist waking up and immediately heading out the door to walk. So you decide you're going to walk during your lunch break, and then you decide it's getting hot.

I don't really like walking during my lunch break because I get too, I get too sweaty, and I don't want to be doing it. So you decide you're going to start walking after dinner every night, and when that happens and you get busy, and it gets darker at night, and you're like, oh, this isn't working.

I need to go back to maybe getting up first thing in the morning or maybe doing it at lunch now that it's getting cooler in the year. So paying attention to, when am I going to be doing this? When, what? Is the resistance that's popping up that's keeping me from doing it. And what pivotal changes do I need to make to keep the goal moving?

Maybe it's. I'm going to walk 15 minutes at lunch and 15 minutes before dinner. So I don't get super sweaty, and I have time to spend with the kids at home. Or, if you're afraid of letting your thoughts wander and you get anxious about all that, then pick out a few podcasts or books on tape that you can listen to that help reel that in and keep your brain occupied with something else.

So when we look at resistance, we can then create a goal that fits us. They aren't as narrow or fixed, and our goals have more expansiveness to them. The question also opens up to what lies underneath the goal. The fear of failure, the fear of success, but the fear of change is general resistance. So we can give ourselves more grace and compassion as we embark on a change.

That's the big thing we can say. Yes, I might fail. And the fear of change is okay. And I'm going to be, keep putting one foot in front of the other, despite the fact. So I do have a final reminder about these two questions. And when I say the word compassion for a lot of people, that brings up, oh my gosh. If I give myself compassion, I won't do it.

I'll just stay in bed. Yeah. Here's the thing that is misunderstood about compassion. It doesn't mean you always get a pass. The opposite of beating yourself up for not walking. Isn't not walking. The opposite is walking while honoring that it's uncomfortable and hard. Compassion means you honor where you are.

So you honor that you don't want to get up. You honor that you're afraid of failing. So talk to the voice in your head that says how much you suck, and you kindly ask it to move along. And when you do that, it makes getting up out of bed that much easier, because what is meeting you on the other side isn't some mean bully telling you how much you suck, but rather a loving, kind friend telling you, Hey, come on.

I know this is hard. But we can do it. We got this beating yourself into submission and calling it motivation will not work. It will lead to procrastination. The only way to change your behavior is to honor what comes up and move through it. And as I said to my client, you don't need more motivation. What you need is more compassion.

Now I would be remiss if I didn't give just a couple of easy things to move through that resistance. One of them is compassion, obviously the way I talked to myself, but it's also simple tricks. Like I, encourage myself to do the activity for five or 10 minutes. So I'll say, okay, you just need to walk for five minutes today, or you just need to roll out the yoga mat and maybe do some stretches, or you just need to make one phone call on your list of phone calls, or you just need to write for five minutes, just write anything for five minutes you want.

And so, giving myself that easy five to 10-minute entry point into whatever it is, I'm feeling resistance. Sometimes I just ride for five to 10 minutes, but sometimes it inspires me to keep going. The other tip I have is I get into analysis paralysis.

So I keep thinking what's the best way. What's the best way. And so, I never move forward. And so I have a rule that I'll tell myself, you have to be decisive today is a decisive day. And so I have to pick yes or no. I have to move forward. And if I don't know the answer, that's okay. That means I need to ask for it.

So I either need to make a decision. Yes or no, or I need to ask for help and how to best move forward. And so that gets me out of that analysis paralysis procrastination piece because a lot of times, what's keeping us, stuck there is the desire for perfectionism, and we don't want to ask for help. We don't want to admit we don't know.

And a lot of times, we are just giving ourselves permission. So I either have to say yes or no or ask for help, which makes that go away a lot easier. Okay. So I hope that was helpful and giving you some easy ways to move through procrastination because underneath procrastination is really where the good stuff is.

+ 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: Engage in an Evening Ritual

Many people have a morning ritual, even if it is a simple as brush your teeth and make coffee. We do the same set of things every morning to wake up and start the day. But when we end the day, we expect to be able to brush our teeth and fall into bed. Which, for many of us, leads to waking up in the middle of the night unable to shut off our brains. Research has shown that if you engage in an evening ritual and prepare to fall asleep, the middle of the night wake up is less likely.

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Episode 029: The Ways We Get Around Speaking Up For Our Self

Speaking up for ourselves is challenging. Being direct and specific with our needs doesn't always come naturally. In this podcast, I talk about some of the unhealthy behaviors we engage instead of speaking up for ourselves.

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One of the things that I have found I call it working it backward. It is to notice a behavior that I'm engaging in and see why it is showing up.

So really being intentional and building awareness in my life, noticing some habits I have or some patterns that I engage in, and then getting curious about why I am engaging in those patterns? Sometimes, it's easier to see the "bad behaviors" that we're doing and then work it backward than just start trying to do a new behavior.

And so today, I'm going to talk about some common ways we avoid speaking up. And what I mean by this is that to engage in life, we need to speak up for ourselves. We need to speak our needs. We need to show up and ask for what we want in a clear, direct, and specific way.

And we all know this, and we all might strive to do that. But what we tend to do is go into our old patterns and the ways we've learned growing up that aren't so helpful or direct, they aren't so clear, and we engage in these patterns to get our needs met and in kind of a roundabout way.

So I wanted to just go through some specific ways we do this so that you can start paying attention in your life. Where are you engaging in these behaviors? And how can you start noticing, oh my gosh, I'm doing this?

The first one I want to talk about is super common. And I think almost all of us do this one. That's passive-aggressive. So a common example of this is you're feeling unappreciated at home, and you feel your spouse isn't doing enough to help out. And so you start digging at your spouse for being lazy or reminding them how often you've cooked, or you just sabotage.

So you may get dinner on the table super, super late, or you cook a meal that he doesn't like to eat. So you do passive-aggressive activities rather than speaking up and saying, Hey, I would like to have—dinner tonight at a specific time. And I would love for you to cook it, or I'm tired of cooking all the time. Can you help out once a month? Or whatever it may be to, clearly speak your need.

Another one that we do a lot is keeping score this one. We do it all the time. We do it at work. Recently a client said to me, "My coworker gets to leave early. Why does he get to leave early?"

And what is that all about? And who cares what he's doing. One of my favorite sayings is from Ilanya Vanzant, who says, stay in your own car, stay in your own car, keep track of your life. And do not get worried about what other people are doing. And when we start keeping score, we monitor what everyone else is doing instead of staying in our car.

So one of the ways that keeping score comes up for us is in relationships when we say my spouse got to go out with friends last week, so I get to go out this week. And so rather than asking for the need or being specific and saying, I need a girl's night, we just keep a running tally in our heads that it's okay.

I did this for him, so he has to do that for me. And so you justify the need by keeping score instead of yeah. Having a conversation with your partner saying, Hey, I need a break. I need some time out. We don't need to justify our needs is the key thing here. And keeping score keeps us stuck in the belief system that our needs aren't powerful that our needs aren't necessary. And so we have to keep score to justify the fact that we even have a need.

The third one is called bait and switch. And this is one of my personal favorites. I'm guilty of this one a lot; you can just ask my spouse. We had to work hard to break this one. I had to work hard to break this one.

So you ask for something, and then you fill in what you really need. So your spouse hates going to the grocery store. And so you're like, can you just run to the grocery store and just grab some milk? And they're like, yeah, I can do that. And then, later on, you text them, and you're like, oh, and while you're there, can you get eggs and butter and spinach and bread.

And so you add on all this stuff, so you get them to say yes, by not giving them the whole story. And another way I used to do this one is what I'm was famous for. I'd say to my then-boyfriend, Hey, would you want to go to a party this weekend knowing he didn't like going to parties and he didn't want to go to a party with tons of friends, and he'd be like, okay. And then on the way there, I'd say, and by the way, are there going to be a hundred people there, and you won't know any of them, and it's going to be a little crazy. So it's a bait and switch. He thinks he's getting one thing. And what he's getting is this whole other thing. And so that's an easy way for us to start recognizing that we're not speaking our needs if we're engaging in that behavior. Cause it's sneaky, and it's not direct and specific.

Another common one that a lot of us talk to or engage in is expecting a mind reader. So we say we're fine when we aren't, and then we expect our partner to pick up that something's wrong.

So we hint through our tone of voice or through veiled comments that we need someone to do something for us, but we never actually say I'm upset about this or tired. Can you make dinner tonight? We just hint and pout around, and we expect our partners to jump in and recognize that we need them to do something.

And 99% of the time, our partner is not going to recognize that we need them to do something, so expecting a mind read just makes us miserable because that's next to impossible to have a mind reader. I'm not very good at mind-reading, and this is my job. So we need to get better about saying, Hey, I'm putting the dishes away cause I'm upset that he didn't empty the dishwasher, and I'm banging them around. He's oblivious to the fact that I'm banging them around. He has no concept of what's going on. So instead of just saying, Hey, can you empty the dishwasher? We go into this whole big thing about expecting a mind-reading and going, doing something passive-aggressive because we expect them to step up.

And then, along with the expecting a mine read, we'd go into the shutdown and pout. And so this is another favorite one when mind reading goes bad, and the need isn't met, then you do a shutdown and pout. So this is the classic nothing's wrong. Don't worry about it. And then you don't talk to them for another week.

You go on protest, and you shut down completely, and they're like, what just happened? We were fine. And then you were maybe banging around the dishwater washer. I didn't know what was going on with that. And then, all of a sudden, she's in a room pouting, like oblivious. All of that, the expecting a mind, read the passive-aggressive, the keeping score, the shutdown, and power that is all just creating unnecessary drama in the relationship.

And then when we notice that we're engaging in drama when we notice that we're sitting in a room pouting or we're slamming as we're doing the dishes, or we're constantly complaining to a friend about the fact that he gets to leave early and I don't get to leave early and blah, blah, blah. These are times when we may need to be speaking up for ourselves.

We need to show some needs here and get really clear and really specific on what we need. So some of these things cause so much drama in our lives, and whenever there is drama most of the time, that is a need that is going unspoken. And so, we're engaging in drama to avoid speaking up for the need.

Pay attention to how often in your life there's just drama for no reason at all. And that is usually because we aren't speaking up for ourselves. We aren't clear on what we need, and we're not specifically asking for it. So these are some ways that we engage in that drama. And I encourage you to just pay attention to how often those show up for you in your life and do the, going around the back door when you notice these habits.

Then ask yourself, oh my gosh, where's the need? What do I need here? And that may take some exploration to find out, and that's okay. We don't have to just because we are shutting down and pouting know immediately what we need. Sometimes these patterns are so ingrained that we just have no concept that they're even there.

And so, learning that there is the first step paying attention to how often you shut down and pout is the first. Then comes, how can I be more specific? What is it I need here? How do I show up and ask for that? And then it is getting clear on how do I ask for that? This is a whole new thing, this asking for needs.

And how do I go about doing that and giving yourself a lot of compassion around this new branching out and learning how to speak needs. There's a lot of stuff out there about standing up for yourself, and how do you do that? And it is for a lot of women and men. It's a whole new way of being like that is why drama is so rampant because sitting down and being intentional and figuring out what we need and showing up for life and asking for it is hard.

It's challenging, and it's vulnerable. But when we can do that. Relationships get stronger, you feel better, and you're living in integrity, and all of this great stuff happens. That's the cracks of living happier, really being intentional. So I can show up and ask for what it is I need.

Yeah, I hope that was helpful. The concept of walking through the bag or, and starting to pay attention to what is, what are the behaviors I'm engaging in and then how can I switch them around and do them 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: As You Do a Chore Fully Embrace It.

I hate washing coffee mugs. Finally, when I embraced the idea of washing them and really paid attention to the process I realized how mindful it can be. So this week pick a chore, washing dishes, doing laundry, running the vacuum, or cleaning the bathroom and be fully present for it.

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Episode 027: A Spiritual Principle that Will Change Your Life

When we are afraid of growing because we might make people around us angry or afraid of 'rocking the boat' this spiritual principle will change our lives.

+ Read the Transcript

A spiritual principle a former therapist taught me that has changed my life is that as you grow and change those around you, will either rise to meet you or they will fall off.

It's a terrible principle. As a friend of mine said one time, "it's painful to recognize that." And it is, but it's also super powerful because so many times clients come to see me because they want to make some changes, and they get nervous that as they start making these changes, people are going to get upset.

And most of those people are our spouses or close friends, and they don't want to rock the boat. And or even more explicitly, they want to make changes within their relationship, but their partner doesn't want to come in for therapy. So they're just making the changes within themselves in the hopes that they will spur their partner on and build up their relationship.

And if that's the case, this principle is truly magical. I have seen it happen so many times where once clients start trusting themselves and making changes. Their partner rises to meet them, and it always shocks my clients that they do that. But our partners, if they love us and care for us, will rise to meet us.

And if they don't, the brutal hard truth is we don't want that person around. And that is brutal work. But we don't want someone in our vibes, in our super inner circle that isn't going to support our growth, that isn't going to want us to become better people. And so that is why the principal will change your life because it will open you up to all kinds of new growth.

But it is also very scary to trust in ourselves, our partners, and those around us that the right people will show up. So a benign example of this is, let's say you decide you're going to stop engaging in workplace gossip. And there's one person in particular that just loves to go to lunch and just chat about everyone and dish the dirt, as they say. And you decide, you know what, I'm not doing this today.

This gossip does not serve me. It doesn't serve anybody else. It's just spinning off on drama that I don't need in my life. So you tell this friend, you know what, I'll go to lunch, but I'm not going to engage in any gossip. I'm not going to be doing that. So eventually, you find out that you can't do that with this friend. You go to lunch, and they just keep gossiping. Even though you keep trying to say no, I don't want to talk about this. They keep throwing it out there to you. So you eventually decide, okay, I can't go to lunch with this person because I put that boundary in place. I said I didn't want to talk and get stuck in gossip and drama. And they're not respecting that. So I'm going to have to say I can't go to lunch with them. And so you say that to the friend, you're like, you know what? I can't—the gossiping thing. I thought we could go to lunch and talk about other stuff, but no matter how much I change the subject, we just keep coming back to drama and gossip, and I just can't.

And, let's be honest, that's a hard conversation to have with a coworker or even a close friend. It's hard to say I'm doing something different now. And "your behavior either needs to change, or we're not going to be hanging out in that way anymore" is a tough conversation. And it's going to sting.

And so it's our job. Once we lay that out, here are the new rules to give the other person a chance to respect those new rules, process those new rules, and figure out what happens next with those new rules because they're new to them. So that's a big part of when we make a change; we forget that the other person needs some time to adjust to the change.

They need some time to figure out; huh, what will I do with this new information? That kind of sucks that they're calling me out as a gossip. Now I need to figure out what I'm going to do. And so that's where the spiritual principle comes into play overtime in the next week or two. Your friend may come to you and say, you're right, I've been thinking about it. And this gossip is yucky and gross. And I want to go to lunch and let's talk about something else.

Or the friend may just say, I'm going to find a new friend that I can gossip with and forget you. I'm going to go over there to Betty Sue and chat with her. And either way, you're better off, you're better off because you don't want to have the drama in your life.

You're better off not hanging out with this friend, and you're better off if the friend comes back around, and you can build a relationship based on something else. Once you lay it out there, it's up to whatever that person wants to do and wherever they are on their journey; if they want to pick up the challenge to say, okay, I'm going to do, I'm going to do better.

Like you, and I'm going to stop this drama. Or if they say, right now, I'm not ready for that. And I like gossiping, and that's something that I enjoy doing. And so I'm going to keep doing it. Both are fine, but it's up to you to decide what kind of person you want to be and who it is you want to surround yourself with.

So we get onto a more complicated example when we talk about our specific partners. And so let's say. Your partner has a bit of a road rage issue when it comes to driving. And when they get in the car, they're just super angry, and they drive like a maniac, and it scares you. It scares your kids, and you're just exhausted from the whole process of it.

And so you get to the point where you're like, I'm not doing this anymore. And so you say to your partner, Either you learn how to control your rage, or we're going to drive separately wherever we go, and you can drive in the car, and you can have your rage, but I'm going to be separate. And again, a tough thing to say, I recognize. And also going to be startling for your partner to hear those words coming out of your mouth. But too often, we sit, and we just take the behavior that we are super uncomfortable with because we're afraid to stand up and say something, and it's an easy fix. I'm going to drive myself wherever we go.

I'm going to drive myself, and you need to figure out your rage, and you can rage all you want to in the car, but I'm not going to be there. And my kids aren't going to be there. And so then that gives your partner a chance to say, whoa, I need to do something different here or, okay.

We're always going to drive separately. And as our partners, more so likely than the friend at work, they are going to rise and meet us because they love us. They want us to grow and be better people. We are with them for a reason. We may be stuck in the mire and the crap and the drama. And not being able to see that love, but it's probably there. I have seen it in my clients so often that they come in, and they described these awful, terrible relationships.

And as they start to grow and have the patience to pull their partner along a little by little, their partner comes along, not as fast as they want them to. Maybe not as is in sync as they want them to, but they come, they rise to the occasion, in their way.

Sometimes it isn't fast enough, or it isn't in sync enough. And so the relationship ends. They get a divorce, or they break up. And that happens because we either need to decide, am I willing to wait for this person to rise? Are they showing enough inclination that they want to rise? Or is the truth that we do not want to see is that they don't want us to grow.

And that's a tough realization, but that's where this principle makes everything a little more clear. As I grow, my partner tries to meet me because he wants to see me grow and vice versa. But I have been in crappy relationships in the past. So as I've grown, my partner hasn't grown; they've pushed back.

They belittled me, and they shamed me to the point where they were making me feel bad. And so eventually, that relationship had to end, probably not as quickly as it should have, but it did eventually end because I realized I want more than just having someone belittling me and shaming me for my growth.

So that's the key. I want you to be thinking about this week. When it comes to your change, are you not making changes because you're afraid of, oh my God, they're going to be mad at me, or what will they think? Or what might happen if I make this change? Just remind yourself. The people I want in my life will rise to meet me because they will be happy for my growth, and the people that I don't want will eventually fall off because they won't be able to handle me.

So it's a spiritual principle that will change your life. It has definitely changed mine.

+ 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: Stretch

Take some time in the morning to do a long leisurely stretch. Reach your hands to the sky and then reach down for your toes and hold it. Breathe, stretch and start your day. Feel free to repeat throughout the day.

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Episode 021: Is Just Being You Enough?

What if you don't need to change or get better? What if just being you is enough?

+ Read the Transcript

Welcome to the show! Today. I had this great plan of talking about creating change and the three-step process I had for creating change. I might do that show a little later, but as I was reading it and getting ready to record it, I stopped. And I thought I don't want to talk about that today. I don't want to talk about creating change and what we need to do differently and on and on and on. I feel everything I read and everything out there is basically saying, you're not enough. You need to be different. You need to change. And recently, I've done a lot of researching and looking at what works when it comes to change. And I know with my clients and myself, a lot of the stuff that we're pushing, pushing, pushing so hard to be different than if we get someplace else, we'll be better, feel better, and we'll have less anxiety and be less stressed just as long as we just keep working to grow and change and be better.

And that is the spirit of my business live happier and constantly trying to get better, to live happier. And when I stop, and I pause, and I think about what's my definition of live happier. I think about the sign that sits in my office. That is my favorite definition of peace. And it says peace. It does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble, or hard work. It means to be in the midst of all these things and be calm in your heart. And that is what I think living happier is about, being able to just handle what life comes and just being there and being enough. So regardless of where you are in this live happier process, the goal is about living happier and remembering that you're enough. You've been given wonderful, unique gifts that add value to the world. And your job is to express those in the most loving, joyous manner. That's it.

We keep growing and learning, but no matter where we are in the process, no matter how much wisdom, knowledge, money, success we have, we're enough because this is it. There is enough here, and I'm grateful for all of it. I am grateful for all the blessings I have and all the insecurities, the drive to succeed, the procrastination, the doubt, the insights, the need to clarify constantly. All of that is what makes the unique, nuanced eccentric me. So would my life be a little easier if I didn't feel the need to clarify everything? If I didn't have so many insecurities? If procrastination wasn't a plague upon my work life? Yeah, I might be a little happier. I might feel better, but that's all who I am. I'm this work in progress.

We push so hard to be better and different and healthier and happier. And really, this is life. This is it. So for today, to stop trying to be a better you or gain more stuff or get more insight, today just be you and pay attention to you. What are the unique things that make you, you, and how can you use that to recognize that you're enough. When we can start being truthful about ourselves, we can start being passionate about our truth. Then we stop running. We stopped running so hard from all those things. We're afraid to see the insecurities and the stuff we consider yucky. That stuff is a part of us. And when we turn our backs to it, and when we think I'm just going to think positive about my life, I'm just going to change my story, so that doesn't affect me anymore. We're missing out on a big part of who we are. If there's one thing that I hope that I can teach people and that I can learn myself and continue to learn, we're enough right now where we are.

Our anxiety-filled insecurity-filled stress level, high phone addicted people we're enough. And we just need to keep working on accepting that. When we can accept ourselves for being enough, that doesn't mean we can't change or grow, but that the change in the growth comes much easier when we're accepting it than when we're running from it.

Earlier this week, I heard this wonderful, metaphor or analogy for what I'm talking about. And it was from the psychologist, Steven Hayes. And he talks about those. You remember those Chinese finger traps that were stretchy, and you stick your fingers on either side. We used to call them Chinese handcuffs. They're actually not Chinese at all. When you stick your fingers in them, they get stuck. And the more you try to pull them out, the harder it gets. And that's kind of the analogy of the more we run from ourselves. And the more we run from who we are, the more trapped and stuck we get. And when you can relax your fingers in the Chinese handcuffs when you can relax them and, and push in, then they release and, and you're free. When we can relax and kind of push into ourselves and say, I'm enough, then we can relax a little bit. That acceptance is a key part of change. That is one of my steps. If I was going to do the three steps to change podcast is acceptance. Because if we don't have acceptance for how we are right now and where we are right now, and that we are enough, we can't make any change.

We can't keep running and make change. If there's one thing I would love to change about our industry, ironically, it is the message that you are broken, and there is something wrong with you. And that I'm here to fix you. And I'm telling you, I'm not here to fix you. You're not broken; you're enough. We're all enough. What I am here to do is to help you tap into that acceptance and help you figure out "how can I stop running and tap into the acceptance of myself" because that's where real change happens. That's the end of my rant on, are you enough and acceptance. And I hope that you can gain something from pausing and visualizing those Chinese handcuffs. Ever since I've read that analogy, I've been thinking about that repeatedly and thinking how often in my life I have polled and railed against myself. And when I've paused and taken some time, it's made all the difference—wishing you a great acceptance of yourself today.

+ 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: 4-7-8 Breathing Exercise

This breathing exercise is an awesome relaxation technique and something easy you can do at your desk or in the car...whenever you notice yourself getting stressed.

*Exhale completely through your mouth, making a whoosh sound.

*Close your mouth and inhale quietly through your nose to a mental count of four.

*Hold your breath for a count of seven.

*Exhale completely through your mouth, making a whoosh sound to a count of eight.

*This is one breath. Now inhale again and repeat the cycle three more times for a total of four breaths.

Grab your calendar and make a commitment to yourself. Schedule time to do something you love: read, exercise, watch your favorite show, take a walk, dance. I don't care what you do or how long you do it for but I DO care that you take the time to commit to yourself and honor that commitment.

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Episode 015: A Live Happier Red Flag: I SHOULD be Happy

One of the biggest red flags to me is when someone says, I should be happy.

+ Read the Transcript

Earlier this week, I was with a friend, and we were talking about her and her husband. They had some issues over the years, and they're trying to work it out.

He's trying hard to be there for her. He shows his love by giving her gifts to shower her with love, gifts, and financial support. Over a glass of wine, she said to me, "I should be happy. A lot of women would kill to get all these gifts. A lot of women would love to come home and receive all this stuff I'm receiving. But it's just not hitting it for me. And I feel horrible because he's trying so hard, and I'm just so ungrateful."

She went on about this for a while. And then finally I said to her, "What if, what he's doing to show his love, just isn't hitting it for you? Instead of beating yourself up for, I should be happy with what he's giving me, get clear on what would hit the mark for you. Then express that to him so he can hit the mark better and start giving you the things that you need from him." And she was said, "Oh my gosh, that's so true."

I said, "instead of feeling guilty, recognize it's okay that this stuff isn't hitting the mark. I need to figure out what does." And so she said, "Oh my gosh, that'd be a great podcast. You should consider podcasting about that." And we were laughing, and here I go, podcasting about it. But I think that is such a live happier red flag that we get stuck in.

I should be happy. I should be happy. I have a good-paying job. I should be happy. I have decent benefits. I should be happy. I have a great husband. When we say the phrase, I should be happy. It usually means one of two things.

First off, you're convincing yourself that you should be happy based on someone else's definition of happiness.

Someone else told you that this is the perfect job or benefits are key to all of life or what a dream home is supposed to look like. And so to live up to someone else's standard of what happiness is. You're convincing yourself you're delighted with that aspect of your life. In this option, when we say I should be happy, we're attempting to convince ourselves of something that isn't true for us. So it's important to do a sincere gut check. When we hear that phrase and ask ourselves, according to what standards should I be happy?

Am I living a life based on my standards or someone else's, and are there changes I need to make to live more in line with what I intend for my life? And that's what I encouraged my friend to do. She's living by someone else's standards. Some other woman someplace else would love to get gifts and would love to have her husband shower her with presents, and that's okay. But that isn't what my friend wants. She doesn't want the gifts, and that's okay. She needs to get clear and express that rather than sitting in this muck of saying, I should be.

The second option when people say I should be happy is you're actually living in the messy, and you're holding two very different truths. And that is an uncomfortable process.

*You have a good-paying job, and it isn't really what you want to do.

*You just had a baby that you love and adore, and it's hard being a new parent.

*Your husband is fantastic, and sometimes it's hard to live with another person.

*You have decent benefits, and you're starting to wonder if it's worth the sacrifice to hate your job so much for the sake of good benefits.

One of the many mysteries of life that I'm most struck by is that eternal blend of positive and negative. The idea that life will forever be messy, no matter how much we strive to have it tied up in any little bow. There will always be tragedy and joy intermixed together, and getting comfortable with these two ends of the continuum and bringing them closer together is a lifelong process.

When we're saying, I should be happy to convince ourselves to suck it up, forget the challenges and look at the positive. We run ourselves ragged. And so it's important to embrace the mess and to give ourselves a break. It's okay. To love what we have and to want more. It's okay to be holding both of those.

You have your dream house, and it has a lot of work to do on it.

You have an amazing husband, and he doesn't always hit the mark every time.

And the more we can be truly honest about what's going on, the better off we're going to be. So pay attention when you start saying I should be happy, stop and ask yourself, what's going on here? Am I living by someone else's standards? Like my friend was about what happiness looks like, or am I avoiding the messiness of life? And I think that shows up in other ways. Sometimes by "avoiding the messiness of life," we get stuck in our lives, and we get stuck because we don't want to move forward.

We don't want to decide what comes next. A typical example of this is I don't like my job, and I don't know what to do next. And so we think about all the options.

*I could go back to school.

*I can move to Jamaica.

*I could stay at my current job and ask for a raise.

*I could move companies and do the same job.

*I could do nothing.

Yeah. The possibilities are endless. And then we think of all the shoulds.

*I should be making more money.

*I should be responsible.

*I should stay where I am for the kids.

*I should have a Master's degree.

*I should study something appropriate and on.

We get trapped in those shifts. More often than not. We choose the do-nothing option, not because it's what we want necessarily, but because it's less painful.

Frequently, the wants and the shoulds are contradictory, and we can spin and spin on all the options, contradictions, and possibilities. And we stay put doing nothing. Sometimes that's okay. Sometimes the timing is off, and we know what we want to do, but it isn't the right time.

You don't have the appropriate funding. We aren't quite ready yet. The kids are too young, or we need to do some research, but the danger comes when we aren't intentional about what's happening when we stay stuck. Not because it makes sense, but because the battle between the wants and the shoulds is too great.

When we go back and forth ad nauseum, and we aren't intentional about what's happening, that's when we get into trouble. So when the shoulds overwhelm us. The shoulds of you should get a master's degree. You should do all this. You should be this perfect person and have this perfect job and be making tons of money and love your job too.

No wonder we get stuck. The problem is when we're shoulding all over ourselves, we're not making a decision. So to go back to the debate, I want to find a different job. I'm not happy where I am. The timing may not be right, but I'm going to start applying for jobs, and I'm going to see what's out there, and that's a fair assessment, and you're moving forward slowly but surely.

And you're making decisions as you go. But when we get stuck in, I should be this, and I should be that. And I should be this. We never move forward. We never do anything because we're stuck in what we think we should be rather than facing what's going on. We get stuck in the possibility of where we could be rather than embracing; this is where my life is right now. Right now. I need to be making money for my family. So right now, I'm not going to have a fabulous job that I love. Cause I have a job that makes a ton of money. That's okay. So I'm going to do other things that make sure I add to my life, and I'm going to start setting myself up so I can get there.

I can't take it one more minute. I hate my job so much, and I'm dumping this on my family, and I'm so miserable, and they're miserable. And so we're going to figure out a way to cut back so I can find another job. Maybe make less money and still be happy.

When we're honest, we can develop solutions, whether the decision is large, small, impacting the long-term or the short-term. Whenever we're listening to the voice of the should, we will remain stuck, and we most definitely will not be living happier.

So I challenge you this week to pay attention to how often do you say I should be. Every time you hear the word should check it, check yourself. Because should, is not a way to guide your life. That is not a way to make decisions to move forward.

Whenever we're shoulding on ourselves, we're just spinning our wheels. Basically, we're not getting anywhere. So we need to be paying attention to how often we say I "should be." Because should keeps us stuck.

+ 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: just brush your teeth.

And I'm putting this out there because I am the queen of multitasking while brushing my teeth. I can brush my teeth, fill up my water glass, brush my teeth, and make the morning coffee. I'm constantly doing something while I'm brushing my teeth.

This week, I decided to implement the ritual of just standing in one place and brushing my teeth to be fully present to my teeth and doing a body scan. And it's made a big difference in my stress level. I challenge you to do the same thought. It might be a fun weekly ritual.

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Episode 010: Lies We Tell Ourselves About Stress

Looking at the messages we tell ourselves that keep us stuck in a pattern of stress…how is stress serving you?

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Welcome to this podcast, where I share my stories and lessons. I've learned on my quest to live happier. Today we're going to be talking about lies we tell ourselves about stress.

Now let's get into the show. So in episode eight, just a couple of weeks ago, I talked about reducing strategies for reducing stress and enhancing energy. And in that podcast, I talked specifically about the messages we have around stress. And since then, I've been doing some presentations about reducing stress. And I've been talking about reducing stress in my own life. And I realized that these messages that we tell ourselves around stress are lies that help keep us stressed. So some of the messages we tell ourselves are:

*This is how it's supposed to be.

*Life is stressful.

*You just have to get through it.

*Or grin and bear it,

*or it's better to be busy than not.

*I get more done. The more stressed I am.

*Or my favorite. Just be grateful.

So today, I want to dive into those messages individually and discuss how they keep us stressed and why they are such lies.

So somewhere, we've been raised to have these beliefs that good people are stressed. Stress equals having a lot to do; stress equals staying out of trouble. Stress equals being productive. Stress equals being a good member of society.

Stress does not equal that. That is a bald-faced lie. Stress is not how it's supposed to be.

We are not supposed to be running from thing to thing. It is not a badge of honor that we only get four hours of sleep or that we have to drink wine at the end of the day. And then a cup of coffee at the beginning of the day. That is not a good sign of where we're headed.

Stress is chronic. It causes so many health problems, so many mental health problems. It is the reason that I have full practice because people are stressed, and they're looking for answers on how to stop being stressed. But at the same time, Part of the reason my job is so hard is that we get off on being stressed.

We get a kick out of being stressed. Not really. We hate it. We hate that. It gives us headaches. We hate that it hurts our backs. We hate that we're running from thing to thing, but at the same time, there's a big part of us that has these messages around grinning and bearing it. Or it's better to be busy than not. And the killer, we get more done the more stressed we are. I don't know how many times I've heard that from my friends, from my clients. Even I have said it; I'm more productive the more stressed I am, the closer we get to a deadline, the more productive we are. And so we have this misnomer that we get more done when we're freaked out.

When in reality, we get more done when we're relaxed, and we're focused, and we're concentrating on something. I want to bring some attention to how often you tell yourself a lie around being stressed.

The killer one is the be grateful. I talked about that in a previous episode of this podcast, the being grateful and how it keeps us stuck, but it also keeps us stressed, and you will hear a lot of other people will say that being grateful is the key to releasing stress and releasing worry.

At least we're going to be grateful. But I sometimes think it works. Not even sometimes. I know it works in the other way that a lot of times be great grateful forces us keeps us stuck in stress. So I'm going through my day. I have a thousand things on my to-do list. I'm like, Oh, I wish I wasn't so busy. I wish I wasn't so stressed.

Be grateful. At least you have kids. Be grateful. At least you have all this time and money to spend running from thing to thing. Be grateful. At least you have a job. And that be grateful piece that is just killer because then not only am I really stressed now I'm supposed to be grateful about it.

And that's a kick in the head. I'm supposed to be grateful for being stressed. Being grateful has nothing to do with being stressed. And it is not a way to talk us down. It has been abused. It has been overused. The point of being grateful is for us to pause and stop and look up and see what's around us.

So I'm running around from thing to thing. And I'm crazy stressed. Gratitude should be stepping in when I'm looking up at the sky, and I'm like, Oh, it's a beautiful day. Oh, it's really nice outside. Oh, the sun is shining. Oh, look at my child. My little girl's smiling in the back seat.

That's gratitude. Gratitude. Isn't suck it up and keep going and be grateful. Gratitude isn't put a smile on your face. It could be worse. Gratitude is when we stop, and we enjoy, and we look around, and we see what's out there. That's gratitude. So I think gratitude has really been twisted and demented that we're supposed to be grateful for these terrible things that are happening to us.

I've had people say to me about my dad having Parkinson's with dementia that I should be grateful for what the disease brings. Okay. That's a bit of a stretch that disease does not bring a lot of things that I'm grateful for. That disease has not given me many things I'm grateful for, but there are things around that situation that I can be grateful for.

I can be grateful for the time I get to spend with my dad. I can be grateful for the conversations that we have when he's with it. I can be grateful that I have the time to spend with him. And that time can be stressful, and I need a lot of breaks from it, and it's overwhelming, and I'm angry about it and all the other things that go with it.

So when we use be grateful as a way for us to basically be telling ourselves to stop and shut up, that's when being grateful becomes a problem. As you can tell, I have a lot to say about the phrase, be grateful. The other killer one is, better to be busy than not, or again, more done. The more stressed I am.

And I touched on that one already, but the belief system that if I'm not pushing myself super hard, if I'm not driving myself from thing to thing, I'm going to be less productive, or I'm going to be less of a person, or I'm going to not be worth it. What are we going to do? If we're not pushing ourselves, we're going to sit on the couch and eat Reesie cups all day long.

I don't think so. That would get a little boring. I think we're still going to get a lot done. I think we're just going to get a lot done a lot less stressed. So my challenge is to really be paying attention to how often those messages we have around stress and exhaustion and the secret pride that we take in being stressed and exhausted and gradually unhooking those, because it isn't, like I said, in episode eight, it isn't that we don't know how to relieve stress there.

I believe it's these messages that are keeping us stuck in stress because we get so much out of it. When we have the belief that it's better to be busy than not, why would we ever stop being busy? Now the other messages, if I stop, I will be completely lazy, and I will never do anything. And I think that really gets us into trouble because that keeps us riding on this treadmill.

That is our lives of stress and exhaustion. And so sometimes when we have these messages, I believe, and I know it true for me, it's that I don't want to stop moving because I'm afraid of what's going to come up. I don't want to get off the treadmill. I don't want to stop obsessing about my to-do list because that to-do list is a way that I numb out that stress and that running from thing to thing is a way I avoid the emotions and what's really going on in my life. And I see it with my clients too. The busier we are, the more we're pushing ourselves. Usually, that's a sign that there's something pretty big in our lives that we're trying to avoid. So I know when I am super amped up and super, the to-do list is way huge, and I've packed a bunch of stuff on it.

That's a time when I need to even more. So be pausing. Checking in and seeing what's there, even though it's the last thing I want to do, I don't want to stop when I'm that busy. I want to keep going. I'm running really hard and really fast from something that I'm afraid to face. And what happens is when we stop running, and we turn around, and we actually face that emotional hole, it's never as big as we think it's going to be.

It's never as huge as we think it's going to be always. It's better to face the hole than to keep running ourselves into the ground. So this week, I really want you to be paying attention to what are those messages that are keeping you in stress? What are the beliefs you have that are keeping you in stress?

And are you running from something? Is your stress keeping you from facing what's really going on in your life? Maybe it's keeping you from facing just the fact that you're unhappy or you're unfulfilled, or you don't like your job, or your relationship isn't where you thought it would be, or your kids or you're stressed about them getting into college, or you're stressed about them getting through the eighth grade or whatever.

We all have stress, and that's okay. We all have emotions, and those emotions are okay. But when we're using our stress and our to-do list to numb from those emotions, that's when we get into trouble.

+ 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 Walk

This one might not be much of a challenge, but take some time to get outside, breathe, look up at the beautiful blue sky and the changing leaves if you live near changing leaves. And I'm amazed how a simple walk around the block can just change my thoughts and my attitude.

It can help me reduce stress tenfold, just stopping and breathing and looking around. Okay.

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Episode 007: The Secret to Living Happier...Values

For years, I have been saying that it all comes down to values. Once you know your values you CAN live happier and while I try to live this on a daily basis, it wasn't until recently that I re-affirmed how important values truly are.

+ Read the Transcript

Last week, I wrote a blog post about a professional failure. To make a long story short, I have a place I call the Live Happier Loft, and a little over a year ago, I opened the space because I wanted to have a place where people (specifically women) could gather and have workshops and small groups. In short, the workshop concept hasn’t taken off, but my one-on-one practice is booming! So, currently, I am in the process of figuring out ways to tweak the business model to make it work better.

Admittedly the past year has not been an easy one for a variety of reasons. And I have gone through a variety of emotions; believe me, it has been a roller coaster.

Great, you might be saying to yourself, so what is the live happier lesson in all of this; well, it was a surprising one, and it all comes down to values.

For years I have been saying that it all comes down to values. Once you know your values, you CAN live happier, and while I live this on a daily basis, this recent debacle with my business has called on me to live it in a whole new way and to re-affirm how important values are.

So one of the tenets of marketing your business is or any type of self-help/coaching/guruesque business is “never let them see you sweat.” So for most of last year, I acted like the Loft was doing great. I talked up the workshops I share about what great things were happening there. For the record, I never lied and pretended like there were people there when there weren’t, but I did talk up what a great book club discussion we had when it was only a friend and me.

It came around for me to do the TYA classes---I had done these before, and they had gone ok, and I was hoping for big success with the 2nd eight weeks. And I was met with a wondrous thud of nothing. Few sign up, and not much buzz at all. I was talking about all this with my husband, and he asked what about this process stressed me SO much that I hated it. And I couldn’t put my finger on it. Some of it was I felt like a failure, but most of it was that I felt like a liar. Now let me go back and say one of my key values is integrity. I place a high value on integrity. The idea of what you see is what you get and being transparent and authentic. All of this ‘hey everything is great even though no one is coming’ stuff had slowly taken a chunk out of me. I had grown to HATE the place I loved. And it was because I wasn’t living by my values.

I was doing my work and doing what I was TOLD to do by the marketing experts, but to me, it felt false and inauthentic. Not at all what I teach about Living Happier and not at all how I want to lead my business. So last week, I wrote a blog where I shared with the public the truth, that I wasn’t getting a lot of signups, and I was nervous about that and blah blah blah. Usually, when I press send on my blog, I am worried, what will people think? Did I say too much etc. This blog I didn’t even think twice. I pressed send, and off it went, and I was completely at peace, back to that living by your values stuff.

This living by your values isn’t easy; it isn’t for the faint of heart. It is a full-contact sport. It is saying THIS is what I prioritize highest in my life, and this is what I want to stand or and be about. And the amazing thing was my body was telling me that all along. My body was saying, hey, you aren’t living by your values. I had felt that before in crappy relationships or bad jobs. What if we all lived by what we felt was most important to us? Made decisions from our hearts and not our heads? Mass chaos or responsible, heart-centered living?!?! It would be fun to find out.

When we know our values, we can make decisions about relationships, careers, as well as everyday interactions. When we can name the top five things, we value we will know what ‘fits’ and what doesn’t ‘fit’ into our lives. The struggle with values is coming up with YOUR authentic values. There are many other types of values that show up for us.

Blocking our Authentic Values:

Old Values: What you valued in your 20s might not fit today. I know I valued Status, Appearance, and Recognition a lot more in my 20s. Those values might be around today, but nowhere near my top 5 values. So it is important to check in from time to time and make sure that your values are still current.

Other People’s Values: The power of the SHOULD is so amazing. As we grow up, we learn values from clergy, friends, family, teachers, and coaches, so sometimes it is hard to let those go. For example, your father values loyalty, so he worked at the same employer for 30+ years and encouraged you to do the same. However, maybe you value learning, and you have learned all you can from your current employer, even though you have only been there for five years, and want to find another employer where you can continue to learn and grow.

Then there are the types of values that make living from our authentic values challenging.

Challenging to our Authentic Values

Aspirational Values: These are the values you WANT to have. You aspire towards them. It is ok to have these values in your top 5 list. For example, I have integrity on my list of top 5 values. It is something I strive for every day to be authentic and live a life of integrity, AND there are times I fail at this value. By saying that is my value, I need to make sure I am conscious of when I am not aspiring towards that value–Brené Brown calls this Minding The Gap between our aspirations and our practice.

Conflicting Values: Conflicting values mean you value two or three completely opposite things. When you have conflicting values, it is even more important to look at your life as a whole. If you value family and independence, it is important to make time for both. Make sure you have activities that feed both parts of you, the independent and family-oriented person. If you have conflicting values, you just need to be a little more creative in finding ways to support both values.

Make decisions from our hearts and not our heads; mass chaos or responsible, heart-centered living?!?! It would be fun to find out.

+ 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: Drink a glass of water first thing after you wake up.

Sounds easy enough, but too often, we reach for coffee or tea or pop rather than good old-fashioned water. You can still have your coffee but do the water first. Slowly take 30 seconds to drink a glass of water and just think about the day ahead.

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Episode 005: Life is More than a Pinterest Quote

The world of self-help is inundated with messages about GOING BIG and DREAMING BIG...BE ADVENTUROUS…and it got me wondering when did big get to be the line in which we measured our happiness?

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A few months ago, I had a new client come into my office. We were talking about her life and the changes she wanted to make. And she said to me, “I get so discouraged when I see those Pinterest quotes…want my life to be that...you know...’ live your big dreams, ‘go BIG or go Home’ etc.” “I feel like life passed me by, and I want to do something BIG.” “I want to chase my BIG dreams, move to Paris, be a graphic designer.” But I missed my chance.

As we talked, she shared that a big regret was not finishing her degree in design, she was happily married, and her kids were old enough that she didn’t need to be around ALL THE TIME.

Which left her with a lot of time to think and ponder what’s next. In short, She was feeling lost and overlooked, and when she looked online for answers, the answer was GO BIG.

The world of self-help is inundated with messages about GOING BIG and DREAMING BIG...BE ADVENTUROUS…and it got me wondering when did big get to be the line in which we measured our happiness? Through our work together, we talked about the definition of the word BIG and what that meant for her, and how that would show up in her life.

Eventually, her BIG dreams got clearer--and it turned out that they weren’t so big anymore. She realized what she really wanted was to show up in her life. She had lived for everyone else for so many years, and that had created a great life, but now she wanted to live her life.

The cry of moving to Paris seemed like an easier way to blow it all up than the slow, painstaking approach of showing up. It turns out the BIG change was making small little choices to show up every single day. So over time, we worked on helping her speak up in her relationship and start showing up in small ways in her life (asking for what she needed, saying no, and setting boundaries).

She finished her degree in graphic design and working for a small start-up Marketing company doing design work part-time. At least that is what GOING BIG means for her --dreams, gusto, and adventure all change over time. She said to me recently, “I feel WAY more adventurous now than if I had moved because showing up fully in my life is hard... someday I might want to do something BIG AND BOLD and CRAZY with my husband, but when that time comes, I know I will not be moving in search of something I am moving simply to see something different.”

Sometimes when life gets challenging, and we don’t know what to do next, the temptation is to Blow it All Up, but that point of thinking maybe blowing it up isn’t the answer, is when the real adventure begins. I remember in my early 30s, I too wanted to live the Pinterest quotes (although there was no Pinterest at that time).

But I wanted to do something big with my life. I traveled to Peru with a group of strangers. I drove solo across the country twice (once to the east coast and once to the west coast). Finally, I decided I wanted to move to Portland, Oregon; I wanted to take a BIG BOLD ADVENTURE.

One day while a friend and I were driving around Portland, touring to see if it was a good idea to move there. I pointed at the back of a car and said, “I can’t wait until I have an Oregon license plate on my car because THEN I will be happy. THEN I will know that I have lived my big adventure.” She simply smiled and nodded.

Over time, like my client, I realized that living my big adventure had nothing to with moving to Portland (although it is still one of my favorite cities). The adventure of Portland wasn’t going to ‘fix me. The adventure of Portland was just that, an adventure. But another equally adventurous decision was to stay in Columbus and show up for my life. To learn how to speak my needs to my friends and family, to set healthy boundaries and stop saying yes to everything, to fully show up in my life as me, vulnerable, imperfect me. Because in Portland, I would still be me---different city, same baggage.

A few years after I decided not to move to Portland, my friend gave me a present. It was an Oregon license plate.

As I opened it, I smiled, and she looked at me and said, “Just wanted to remind you that THIS license plate isn’t what makes you happy. You make you happy.” That license plate sits in my office to remind me every day that for me GOING BIG means fully SHOWING up for my life: the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Don’t get me wrong; I love a good adventure. I love big risk-taking, adrenaline-pumping adventures. But somewhere along the way, we were sold a bill of good that adventure and risk are directly correlated to being better people; that a great life is only achieved by living great adventures, which means taking big risks and doing great things.

But I am here to argue, sometimes doing big means,

Being fully present and empathetic when your child comes home from a bad day when you are exhausted yourself.

Telling your spouse that you are struggling and need some time to decompress. Even after you were invited to a neighbor’s happy hour, and he really wants you to go.

Holding the hand of your aging parent, looking them in the eyes, and telling them how much you love them as your heart breaks wide open.

Admitting to a friend that you can’t do it all anymore.

Giving yourself self-compassion for the hard time you are having at work.

One quote that gets tossed around in the world of Pinterest is from Thoreau “I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life”

What I truly love is Professor Keating’s clarification of Thoreau’s quote in Dead Poet’s society. “Sucking the marrow out of life doesn’t mean choking on the bone. There is a time for daring, and there is a time for caution. A wise man understands which is called for.” That is the challenge of vulnerability, trusting yourself to know when to be open and when to be cautious.

The point is we have a choice.

Our lives aren’t necessarily Pinterest quotes. But our lives are uniquely ours. How do you want to show up in yours?

Today think about where could you be more open to life, where could you tear down some walls and allow some light in? Where could you drop the illusion of control and relax a bit into your humanity?

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