Episode 101: Positive Thinking Vs Radical Acceptance

I’ll be sharing the tools and resources I use with myself and clients to quiet the cacophony of positive thinking messages that come our way on a daily basis--and listen in to our own inner peace.

Listen to the full episode to find out:

• How the self-help industry is especially dangerous for those of us with High Functioning Anxiety

• How I almost single-handedly kept her local Borders afloat (spoiler: I didn’t)

• Why “radical acceptance” changed everything for me--but what I had to do first before I could fully accept myself (you can start this today)

• Why leaning into your value for loyalty is the key to building a new relationship with yourself and your anxiety

Research and resources mentioned:

• The Science Daily research study

• Tara Brach’s book, Radical Acceptance

• And Tara Brach herself

• Nancy’s books on living with High Functioning Anxiety

The solutions the personal growth industry sells leave women living with hidden anxiety--women like you--with more stuff to be anxious about. Even worse, it can turn you off from getting help completely.

I want to help you dial back the overwhelm and overthinking with a set of tools designed just for people like you. It’s not woo-woo. It’s not trying to positively think your challenges away. And I’m certainly not going to tell you to start living your best life.

I work one-on-one with women like you to deconstruct why anxiety creeps up on you and give you something to do about it. Click here to learn more about working with me through on-demand coachinng.

+ Read the Transcript

Things have gotten out of hand. Live your best life, think positively, high vibes only! Frankly, it's become toxic. Just yesterday on Instagram, I saw one of the classic posts saying, "Train your mind to see the good in every situation" or another personal favorite, "life is too good to be anything but happy.'

The self-help, personal development, self-improvement industry, whatever you want to call it, has gotten out of hand. I would even argue that parts of it have become toxic. Over the next few episodes, we will be taking an in-depth look at specific messages shared by this industry that might be making your anxiety worse.

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

Researchers at the University of Montreal found that consuming self-help books actually makes people more stressed. Lupien, one of the lead researchers, said, "It seems that these books do not produce the desired effects. When we observe that the best predictor of purchasing a self-help book is having bought one in the past year, it raises doubts about their effectiveness. Logically, if such books were truly effective, reading just one would be enough to solve our problems," Not to say that ALL self-help books are crap, there are quality books out there, we need to be discerning of them.

The first glaring issue with many of these books is they boil everything down to the idea that you are broken. If only you were skinnier, had better boundaries, were less of a perfectionist, stopped people-pleasing, or were more positive THAN you will feel better about your life. They are constantly sending the message they have the answer to your problems, and you need to follow their simple system to achieve it. Of course, you feel more broken, more defeated, and more lost after reading it. So you pick up another book hoping THIS one will free you of all your ills.

The self-help industry is especially dangerous for those of us with High Functioning Anxiety because, at our core, we believe we are unworthy. This belief of unworthiness manifests in anxiety. We hustle, overanalyze, ruminate, worry and overperform to keep those feelings of unworthiness at bay. So yes, we are ripe for reading self-help books. My bookshelves used to be covered in them; I might have helped my local Borders bookstore stay in business for as long s they did because in my 20s and 30s, I was there every weekend looking for a book that would heal me. That would finally make my pain go away. I know if I could just find that simple answer, everything would be better. Self-help sells quick answers, another thing those of us with HFA love. Simple solutions, and then we find afterward we can beat ourselves up when those simple solutions don't work.

So you can see the cycle, feel broken, have LOTS of anxiety, recognize that is all this bad behavior you are engaging in, look for a solution outside of yourself via books, courses, or gurus who are offering simple, easy solutions. When that solution inevitably doesn't work, you blame yourself more and head out looking for the next solution because maybe THIS one will give you the peace you are looking for.

Make it stop! A few years ago, I started listening to Tara Brach; she wasn't a guru, she wasn't making tens of thousands of dollars, charging hundreds of dollars for her program. She was a Buddhist practicing psychologist who was open and honest about her own struggle with Radical Acceptance. I was hooked. She was the first person to introduce radical acceptance to me and how it would look if I practiced it. In fact, this quote changed my life ("This moment ask yourself, do I accept myself just as I am? Without judging yourself, simply become aware of how you are relating to your body, emotions, thoughts, and behaviors." Talk about a breath of fresh air.

Her message was like a drop of water in a sea of self-criticism. I couldn't believe in the power of radical acceptance because I was so very broken. I had swallowed the lie that I couldn't be accepting of myself because if I did, then I wouldn't be a 'good person. I would be giving up on myself, doomed to be broken forever. But I kept reading her book, listening to her words and It took me a few years of dabbling in radical acceptance, dipping my toes in the idea that acceptance of myself was the key. Eventually, I realized the idea of pure acceptance was just a bit too radical for me. If acceptance was Mt. Everest, I had spent the past few years stuck at base camp 1. I decided maybe I should try being kind to myself first.

I started with what seemed like a radical idea at first, "You are not broken, you do not need to be fixed". Yes, you are human. Yes, you are put on this earth to be the best version of yourself and learn as many lessons as possible, AND you have been brainwashed into thinking you have to always be improving to be accepted. What if rather than going outside of ourselves to find the most effective simple solution to fix yourself, the journey is to go inward and be kind to what you see there.

Rather than beating yourself up for having soft boundaries, be kind to yourself. You learned soft boundaries over time, maybe in your childhood, maybe in your first marriage. But having soft boundaries has served you, AND learning how to have more rigid boundaries might serve you. Learning how to set boundaries is challenging and takes a long time. It isn't a simple solution. It isn't one and done, it is repeated baby steps over time, and each time you mess up (which is inevitable), it requires more kindness from you.

One of the values almost all my clients with HFA share is a high loyalty value. They are VERY loyal to anyone in their inner circle, and yet, they frequently turn their backs on themselves. The only way to make change, the only way to come to peace with your anxiety is to stop turning your back on yourself. Stop ridiculing, belittling, and fighting who you are. When we can build loyalty with ourselves, be kind to ourselves, have our own backs, we can see the hustle, ruminating, and control is all a ruse to hide our own flaws. And when we accept our flaws, the need to keep that ruse alive becomes less.

Will you always have anxiety, probably. The need to hide our flaws is hard wired and strong. But that doesn't mean we have to fall victim to it every time. That means that when we notice our anxiety, we can say, "Oh yes, there you are again. Trying to protect me from myself, right? This time I don't need protection, I see me and I am kind to me so keep moving." Yep, that sounds simple, and it is anything but simple. Building a relationship with yourself with kindness and loyalty as the foundation is counter to everything we have been taught. It takes time, and that time includes repeated failures, periods of getting stuck in looking outside of yourself, reminders that you can do it and cycle and repeat. But this work is 10000 times better than the constant unfulfilling need of thinking I am broken and THEY can fix me. Now I want you to say I am NOT broken, and I do not need fixed. I am human, amazingly wonderfully human.

And if you want a book to read, pick up a copy of Tara Brach's book Radical Acceptance it is unlike any self help book you have read. You can also listen to her weekly sermons via her podcast and or her website. They are full of stories, humor, and wisdom.

It's no secret that I have a bone to pick with the self-help industry. The solutions it sells leave women living with hidden anxiety--women like you--with more stuff to be anxious about. Or worse, it turns you off from getting help completely.

I want to help you dial back the overwhelm and overthinking with a set of tools designed just for people like you. It's not woo-woo. It's not trying to positively think your challenges away. And I'm certainly not going to tell you to start living your best life.

I work one-on-one with women like you to deconstruct why anxiety creeps upon you and give you something to do about it.

Here's how it works:

First, we meet for an extended 90-minute session to uncover your stories and habits. You know, the ones that keep you stuck.

Then, you continue to work with me on-demand through an app that lets you leave a message for me any time you start to feel anxious or whenever you feel the Monger attack. I'll get back to you with action steps for moving through the discomfort and finding peace. Plus, you'll continue to meet with me for monthly sessions, too.

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

Like the show? I would love for you to subscribe on your favorite podcast player and then head over to Apple Podcasts and leave a review. Do you know someone who struggles with High Functioning Anxiety? Tell them to listen as well. I am so excited to share with you the Happier Approach.

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It's no secret that I have a bone to pick with the self-help industry. The solutions it sells leave women living with hidden anxiety--women like you--with more stuff to be anxious about. Or worse, it turns you off from getting help completely.

I want to help you dial back the overwhelm and overthinking with a set of tools designed just for people like you. It's not woo-woo. It's not trying to positively think your challenges away. And I'm certainly not going to tell you to start living your best life.

I work one-on-one with women like you to deconstruct why anxiety creeps upon you and give you something to do about it.

Here's how it works:

First, we meet for an extended 90-minute session to uncover your stories and habits. You know, the ones that keep you stuck.

Then, you continue to work with me on-demand through an app that lets you leave a message for me any time you start to feel anxious or whenever you feel the Monger attack. I'll get back to you with action steps for moving through the discomfort and finding peace. Plus, you'll continue to meet with me for monthly sessions, too.

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

Like the show? I would love for you to subscribe on your favorite podcast player and then head over to Apple Podcasts and leave a review. Do you know someone who struggles with High Functioning Anxiety? Tell them to listen as well. I am so excited to share with you the Happier Approach.

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Episode 100: Looking Back My Favorite Episodes

Today I am celebrating Episode 100!  Yippee!!  I am looking back on my top 7 episodes and giving you some behind the scene look at what I was feeling/thinking as I recorded them and a bit of back story. 

 Show Notes and Links:

Episodes I mentioned:

Episode 003 Why Positive Thinking is Keeping You Stuck

Episode 022: A Ban on Unsolicited Advice

Episode 034: Why Pay Twice?

Episode 068: My Dad, Grief and Living Happier

Episode 072: The Power of A.S.K.

Episode 082: The Warm Cozy Sweater of Our Monger

Episode 094: Lessons Learned in Iowa

+ Read the Transcript

Hey, gang. So glad to be here again. I have made it to episode 100. I cannot believe it; this is episode 100. Today, I just wanted to share some of my favorite episodes and give you a little tidbit behind the scenes about each of them, and also to share some behind-the-scenes of what's happening here. I've hinted around that I'm doing some changes, but I haven't come clean with them, so I wanted to give you a little sneak peek behind that and what I've been dealing with and feeling, how loud my Monger's been chatting, and how I've been dealing with that. So, we will dive right in.

After this episode marks the end of an era. No, not really, the end of the Happiness Hacks podcast. Don't panic. I'm still going to be here, but I'm kind of switching things up after this episode. I'm going to be taking a short break while I switch things up, just probably a month, not the six-month break that I took earlier, while I get clear on what this new thing is. Since my work focuses on type A personality and hidden anxiety that I call high-functioning anxiety, I want this podcast to reflect that in a more succinct way. I've always been talking about those messages, but it's less about hacking happiness and more about living with hidden anxiety, and I want the podcast content and the name to reflect that. That's going to be coming up.

At the end of this episode, I'll be sharing more about my process with that and how my Monger has been raising its ugly head. I think it's just fascinating, and you may relate to how our Mongers are so freaking sneaky. They are so sneaky. Even I, who am a professional Monger slayer ( I like to think), struggle with how wily my Monger is.

But first, let's dive into the seven episodes that I love the most or have the most fondness for in of the hundred that I've done over the past few years. The first one is Episode 003: Why Positive Thinking is Keeping You Stuck. If you've listened to the previous 99 episodes, you know I'm not a fan of positive thinking. But when I specifically did this episode, this was early on in my podcasting, obviously, just Episode 003. It was scary to say positive thinking keeps you stuck because many people, in my profession, love positive thinking. It is a big factor in the wellness industry to think positive and be grateful, and I believe those are keeping us stuck and prevent us from really feeling the feelings, at least for my clients and the people I work with. When we get stuck in positive thinking and gratitude, we use it as a weapon against our feelings and against what's happening. So if something bad is happening in our lives, we turn it into positive thinking, or we try to switch our brains.

Just yesterday, I posted something on Instagram. It said, "Choose Happiness." And then it said you can't choose happiness because it's a feeling and we can't control our emotions. I believe that's why positive thinking keeps you stuck because it doesn't allow you to deal with what's happening. As someone who said on the Instagram post, choose acceptance. That is precisely what I wanted people to be doing, choosing the acceptance of whatever is happening with them rather than just trying to do positive thinking. So tune into Episode 003, and you will hear more of my thoughts on this.

My next favorite episode is Episode 022, A Ban on Unsolicited Advice. This episode was originally a blog post, and I wrote it years ago. Honestly, I wrote it because I was so overwhelmed by a particular friend's advice. Because I am conflict avoidant and was conflict avoidant at the time that I wrote this, I wrote this blog post to get all my feelings out. My friend realized it was about her, and we had a great conversation about it afterward.

But, this is one of my favorite episodes, and it's one of my favorite blog posts because I do believe we need a ban on unsolicited advice. It is the first thing we do when someone comes to us with their suffering is we offer tips to help instead of offering empathy, instead of just saying, "Wow. Thank you for sharing that. I have no clue what to say to you right now, but I love you," or, "I appreciate you," or give them a hug. We don't need to be fixing everything. I love this episode, one, because it has a personal story behind it, but mostly because I love the message. I think we all can get better on giving advice, and not offering advice, and just being there for people when they show up.

Then, Episode 034 Why Pay Twice? is my third pick. This is a sentimental pick. This is advice from my dad that he gave me years ago. Not just to me. It was a general philosophy of his of why pay twice. The general example I give is if you go to the movie and you pay for the movie and then the movie is terrible, why sit through the movie when you have already paid for it? Why pay twice by sitting through the movie?

In this podcast, I get into a lot more examples and why this is just a deeper piece of advice than don't pay for a movie and then sit through it if you hate it. It is about the choices we make in our lives and that we will convince ourselves we can't do something because we've already made a choice. That's a concept you're paying twice. You're doubling down on your misery. And why do that?

I love this podcast because it's written for my dad. I love this because this was originally an article, and it appeared in Juice Squeezed, which is the first book I wrote. The number one thing that people quote back to me is people will say, "I read your book Juice Squeezed, and I loved the why pay twice advice. It changed my life." Then, people will give me examples of how it's changed their lives. So not only is this a sentimental pick because it was my dad who gave me the advice, but it also is such practical good advice. It's rare that you hear something and you're like, "Oh, yeah. You're so right about that," and then you can apply it deeper, and deeper, and deeper. I highly recommend you check out this episode because it gives some deeper level advice on the concept of why paying twice.

Then we are at number four, and this is Episode 068, My Dad, Grief, and Living Happier. This is by far the most personal episode I've ever done. I recorded it in October after my dad died in January of 2017. His death rocked my world. I still feel the aftershocks of his death. He was just my biggest fan and my rock. I just love my dad so much, and I miss him so much every day.

I wanted to do an episode about grief because I wanted to have that conversation. Because so often after someone dies, we forget that there's still suffering. We're still trying to adjust to life without the person who died. That goes on, and on, and on for years, we're still trying to adjust to that. I think in our culture the more we can talk about, "Yeah, I'm still missing him. Yeah, there are days that I still cry on my way to work," because that's normal. After a friend of ours loses someone, we forget that they're still grieving years later and we forget how hard it is. Grief can be such a lonely thing, and so this episode was kind of how to help other people that are grieving, how to help you if you're grieving, just an honest conversation about my process and what it was like after my dad died.

His death profoundly shaped my work. I think if he had not died, I would never have written The Happier Approach. A friend of mine said that The Happier Approach was like a love letter to my dad, and in so many ways it was. It makes me tear up just thinking about it now. Because he dealt with high-functioning anxiety and he had a very loud monger, and so that book was a way of helping him and me and stopping the pattern that had profoundly affected his life and trying to help other people so that that pattern doesn't continue. I'm very grateful for him, and what he's taught me, and how he affected my life so that I could continue this work that I'm doing.

Then, number five is Episode 072: The Power of Ask. I love this episode because this is the first time I chatted about The Happier Approach. I chatted about Mongers, I chatted about inner critic and anxiety, but I'd never really talked about the system of how to call in your Biggest Fan and what that looks like. This was my first step into talking about The Happier Approach, and talking about ask, and getting into the nitty-gritty of my work, and the work of The Happier Approach.

Now, I will say this is the first in a three-part series. So I did cheat a bit because all the parts don't count as three episodes. I just posted the first episode, but there's also two more that follow this, episode 73 and episode 74. They continue the conversation of ask. So technically, I guess I have 10 favorite episodes. You can head on to episode 072, The Power of Ask, and dive into the concepts in The Happier Approach.

Then, number six was Episode 082, The Warm, Cozy Sweater of Our Monger. I struggle with the idea of the warm, cozy sweater of our Monger. It's not my favorite analogy, but it is one that gets repeated back to me a lot. Clients use it a lot, so it stays with people, but I wish there was a better way of saying it. But, I wanted to show how the Monger isn't all bad, and it does provide us comfort because she keeps us safe and prevents us from taking too many risks. We put her on like a warm, cozy sweater. When we first put her on, she's warm, and cozy, and makes us feel safe and protected, and oh yeah, I don't have to do that. I don't have to be putting myself out there. Then, over time, the sweater gets itchy, and she, the Monger becomes harmful, and annoying, and belittling, and is keeping us stuck. We realize that the sweater that was warm and cozy has turned into the super itchy straight jacket, and we want to get it off as quickly as possible.

That's why I came up with the analogy was a way of illustrating we first start listening to the Monger; it can be comforting. That's why she's so hard to break up with because she is comforting. Even when the sweater gets itchy, at that point we don't know how to take it off, and we get stuck, thus we go back to episode 72, and we hear about the power of ask. But really, this monger sweater idea is a powerful analogy. I wish there was a slightly better way of doing it because it doesn't fit 100%. So if you have a better way of coming up with that, that illustration, please let me know. You could send me an email. But, a lot of times clients will come into my office, and they're like, "I keep wearing the sweater. I keep putting on the sweater. I keep putting on the sweater." That's just a great way of recognizing how the Monger, we keep wearing it. We keep choosing it, even though we know it's going to keep us stuck.

Then, the seventh episode that is my favorite is episode 094, Lessons Learned in Iowa. This episode was different than all the other ones I'd done before. I mean, I received a lot of notes and emails about this podcast, and so that's why I included it in the seven top episodes because it touched a lot of people. I wanted to highlight it again.

For me, Lessons Learned in Iowa, it was about a trip. My mom and I took a trip to Iowa to visit some family friends. They're farmers in Iowa. We used to visit them when I was a kid. The husband served in the military with my dad, and so they'd been friends forever. He knew my dad. There was a lot of sentimentality to the trip. But more so than that, personally, it was just all these lessons I learned about how to be a human and how to be whole-hearted. It was just an amazing trip that I hadn't planned on having all these a-has that I had there. I highly recommend you tune into that episode to hear a different way of doing things. I think in our current climate culturally we are so quick to judge and be outraged that this episode was just kind of warms the heart and gives you hope that there is good out there in the world and that we can be useful, and we can do better. So, I highly recommend episode 94.

Those are my seven episodes from the past 100 that I have enjoyed the most and wanted to give you a little insight to each of them so you can go back and listen to them if you like. I appreciate everyone that has listened for the past 100 episodes, who have emailed me, or Instagrammed me, or gotten in touch to say how this podcast has touched their lives. That is incredible to me because this podcast was something I just started. I call it my garage, garage band podcast because I just did it in my office and edited it myself. It's been very piece together and fly by the seat of my pants, and this is what I want to talk about, so I'm just going to start talking. That's been fun.

I want to up my game when it comes to the podcast, so this is where my Monger has been coming in. I teased at the beginning of the episode, that I want to talk about high-functioning anxiety, and hidden anxiety, and the stress and overwhelm that we're all dealing with. But, I want to do that differently with this podcast and make it a little more professional, take myself a little more seriously, not just fly by the seat of my pants all the time and be editing it on the fly, but intentional about what the message is. I'm going to be doing interviews, and more research, and just having it be a little more professional and a little more in-depth so you can get more out of it than just hearing me chat, which is excellent. I love hearing me chat, too, (ha!) but to have a little more depth to it.

Ever since I made that decision, which was months ago, I have been paralyzed by my Monger. It wasn't until recently a friend of mine has just been like, "I think it's your Monger. I think it's your Monger, and she's holding you back. You're taking your podcast out of the garage, and you're making it a professional thing, and that's scary." It was like, "Oh, yeah. That's why I'm procrastinating. That's why I'm spinning out on perfectionism. I'm getting in my way all over the place with this thing." It was a humbling moment to recognize how much our mongers play there and we don't recognize it.

I wanted to share with you all that something new is coming, that I'm working on this more in-depth, more professional, more focused podcast. But also, I too have been struggling with my Monger. I think any time we're trying to level up, go to the next place and be more intentional about our lives; our Mongers get louder because it's scarier. That's why it's crucial then to practice ask, and acknowledge what you're feeling, and slow down and get into your body, and pull back and see the big picture because our mongers keep us with those blinders on, and it's just very paralyzing.

So if you are getting ready to do something big or you have some great idea, and your Monger is in your way, I'm here with you. I feel you. We can do this together. We can make changes. We can grow, get our Mongers out of the way, and bring in that biggest fan, and do it differently. I will see you guys soon. I don't know exactly when that will be, but I will be coming down the pike with episode 101 with a new look and similar message. It's just going to be on a deeper level with more interviews, and research, and more oomph behind it. I hope you will keep listening and tell your friends about it. I will see you when I'm back with episode 101. So in the meantime, though, here's to living happier.

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Episode 096: Resistance or Procrastination

Today I am sharing my personal story of both Resistance and Procrastination when it comes to the Happiness Hacks Podcast. Sometimes it is hard to tell which you are experiencing. I hope this episode helps!!

+ Read the Transcript

Hello, everybody. Woo, it has been five months since I have been here recording a podcast for all of you. I just vanish. I completely vanished. I didn't say I was doing a season end. I didn't wrap it up. I just completely vanished. And so, in today's episode, I'm going to be sharing what's been happening behind the scenes, why I completely vanished, and how I dealt with both my resistance and my procrastination around this podcast. Because the number one question I get when I talk about the Happier Approach is figuring out who's talking. Is it my BFF? Is it my Monger? Or is it my Biggest Fan?

Before I get into all that, I want to revisit those three voices and go over those definitions again because it's been a minute if you get that information from this podcast. So, our Monger is that inner critic voice, the critical voice that's constantly telling us that we're not doing enough, we're not living up to enough, where we failed, has a memory that goes on forever, and can always bring up where we need some work and what our failures are.

The BFF is our counter to that. So, the BFF is the pressure release valve when our Monger has been pushing us way too hard. Then, our BFF steps in to be like, "Do whatever you want, honey. Have that third drink. Binge-watch Netflix. Eat the bag of Oreos. It doesn't matter. Take a break. You deserve it." So, the BFF gives us a lot of slack and eases that pressure that the Monger's been putting on us.

So, the middle road of those two voices, and the place that I like to live from, is the Biggest Fan. The Biggest Fan is going to be the voice that's saying, "Phew, I know this is hard, but we're going to keep on going," or, "I know you messed up there, but it'll be okay. Let's see how we can improve for next time." The Biggest Fan, I like to say, is that voice of kindness and wisdom that both the BFF and the Monger are missing.

So today, as I said, I want to talk about my journey over the past five months while the podcast has been on an unexplained hiatus and why you haven't been hearing me chat here in the podcast. The last podcast episode I recorded was September 23rd, I think, to be precise. I would say I was white-knuckling through podcast episodes starting probably in August. By white-knuckling, that means my Monger was in charge, and I was recording episodes because she was telling me that I needed to do it. It was purely from her shame, and her belittling, and the voice in my head telling me that I was a loser if I didn't record a podcast. That was the only reason I recorded those last five episodes. So, my heart wasn't really in it, but I was coming to the microphone because I felt like a loser if I didn't.

So, what happened because I had was running purely on Monger motivation is what always happens when we're running purely on Monger motivation. I got burnout. I got tired of hearing that voice. The shame, and the belittling, and the criticism just became too much. And I would associate the microphone and this podcast with shaming and belittling. So, who wants to record anything if the constant message running in your head is that it's imperfect, that no one's listening, that no one cares. All that criticism that my Monger was giving me built to a head at the end of September.

So, I decided to pull away, and I nowhere near was planning on taking a five-month break. So, that's why I wanted to share what happened to me in that process because I think it might be helpful for you to see how the Monger, and the BFF, and our Biggest Fan's show up and how we choose to deal with them is the key to this whole process. So, I want to explain how I dealt with them. And it was by in no way perfect. Just to give you a sample or a behind-the-scenes look at how it works, we're doing this work, actively doing this work of the happier approach.

So, I would say all of September, October, and November was a full-on rebellion against the podcast. I was judging all podcasts. I was very much living in the space of the BFF, and the BFF was like, "Take a break, girl. We're done with this podcasting. We're just going to take a break, and we're just going to do whatever we want." So, I've very much lived in a world of justifying why it was okay that I wasn't doing a podcast, ignoring the fact that I felt like I wanted to be doing a podcast. I was just in this place of rebellion and judgment and full-on not touching it. And so, very much the BFF was in control of my decisions at that point when it comes to the podcast.

I think that happens a lot in our lives that we push ourselves so hard with our Mongers, and they run the show, and so then the BFF has to take over. You know, and a common example of this would be if you're on any diet. A diet is a great example of if you're restricting. Your Monger's coming in and judging you based on what you ate, and if you're a good person or a bad person based on what you ate or how much you've worked out. It's easy to fall into that Monger world within that type of situation. So, you can do that for a prolonged period. Then, it gets too much, and so your BFF in and says, "Eat whatever you want. This is too hard," and so all the weight that you might have lost, you gain it back, plus probably a little bit more, which is why there's so much controversy about the diet culture working because that dynamic plays out very strongly in that particular example.

But, it shows up all the time. It shows up any time that you are pushing yourself or white-knuckling yourself to do a project or to do something even you love, like I love this podcast. If the Monger has taken over, your BFF will eventually step in, and you'll pull back completely.

So, September, October, November, completely BFF was running the beast. She was in charge of my podcast recording, or lack thereof. Then, in December and January, a few of my colleagues and friends started asking me what was going on, like why was I so resistant to the podcast. And I started getting curious about what was happening. I realized I still didn't want to record the podcast at that time. I was very much in the BFF world. But what started coming up for me was resistance. A lot of times, we call resistance procrastination, and they're two different things.

I have learned in the past year that a lot of times, when I slow down and listen to that resistance, I can grow to another space. But, so often, we don't sit and listen to the resistance because our Mongers step in to tell us that we need to be doing something differently, or we need to be doing it better, or we need to be whatever we need to be doing, period. So because we need to be doing, we don't allow the space for the resistance. That is the hardest part about resistance, especially for those of us that have high-functioning anxiety.

Because if you have high-functioning anxiety, you want to be doing, doing. Tell me how to do it, and I'll do it. Tell me how to feel my feelings. Tell me how to acknowledge what's going on. Tell me how to slow down and get into my body. This resistance piece is a little fuzzy, and so that means we need to slow down and be curious and create space for what's going to come up.

So, fortunately for me, December and January are slow times in my world, so I was able to have space. People aren't expecting me to be recording podcast episodes and having my podcasts go gangbusters. So, I was able to slow down and just observed the resistance. I would talk to my friends about it. I talked to my husband about it. And as stuff started coming up, I started just noticing it wasn't that I hated the podcast. It wasn't that it was a terrible thing. It was just I needed to make some adjustments to how the podcast was going.

This leads me to another thing that happens very commonly when we're dealing with Mongers, and BFFs and all this stuff is like I said, the Monger will take charge. It'll be telling you what to do. That gets to be too much, so you bring in the BFF, and the BFF is like, "Do whatever you want." Then what happens is we are like, "Okay, I got to reenter the force. I got to get back into the podcast," or, "I got to get back into my workout," or whatever the project is for you. I got to get back in there. I got to get back into the arena. A lot of times, we'll tell ourselves, I can't get back into the arena unless I do something totally different. I can't come back to the same podcast and just say, "Hey, guys. It's been five months. Sorry." I have to do a new podcast, and revamp everything, and come up with a new plan, and change how I've been doing everything. Sometimes that is true. You'll notice over the next couple of months; there are going to be some changes here.

And sometimes you just have to come back and be like, "Okay, I'm ready. You know, it was burnout. I took a break, and here I am," and that you realize there are little changes you can make that can improve the process. So, it isn't that, going back to the diet analogy, it isn't that I need to restrict my calories to 1,200 calories or that I need to be working out five days a week every day for an hour. I can make some slight changes. I can start eating more fruits and vegetables and noticing how they make my body feel. I can, you know, try to move my body every day, see how it feels when I move my body, and have some curiosity around that.

So, I don't have to be living in these extremes of black and white and good girl and bad girl that my Monger tends to put me in. I'm a good girl if I record my podcast every week, and I get it out on Tuesdays, and it's super militant, and I share it in all my social media channels, and I put it in my newsletter. All of those rules I had for the podcasts were weighing me down was one problem.

And then, the idea that I couldn't just come back in, I couldn't just step back into the podcast. You can't just come back into a new workout plan without a whole big workout plan. Nope. I could just start walking, see how that goes. So, I can just come back here and start recording my podcast and see if anyone listens. Because what happens is our Mongers tell us, "No, no. It has to be perfect. It has to be relevant." You know, I had a lot of Monger messages this morning when I knew I was going to record this podcast about how it was going to go poorly, and what it was going to get messed up, and all that stuff. So, paying attention to the BFF and the Monger.

Okay, but I've gotten a little sidetracked here on the whole resistance piece because the resistance piece is where it's at. It's what I want to be talking about. I like to think that the resistance is what makes the pearl in the oyster shell. And what makes that pearl is time, and grit, and just things happening and allowing that space for that curiosity in that space and that whittling down and shining to occur, we need to take a step back, and we need to honor the resistance.

So, what's the difference between resistance and procrastination? That is the big question. And so how I found out that answer was when I worked with a colleague of mine, and we brainstormed a new plan for the podcast, which you'll be seeing that coming out in a couple of months. I'll have a lot more details on that later. I still wasn't recording any episodes. We agreed to a new plan, and then I was going to come back here and record episodes. This was probably a month ago we decided this, and I haven't been here. You know, every day, it's on my to-do list. Every day I push it back. The bottom line, it wasn't getting done.

So, this week I was talking to this friend of mine, and she said, "Hey, I haven't, you know, no podcast. What's going on? I haven't heard of yet." And I was like, "Yeah, you know, I just need to do it." Now I am in the place of the Biggest Fan needs to step in here. Now I am just procrastinating because my Monger is telling me, "You're not relevant. No one wants to listen to you. It's not going to be perfect. You've been gone for five months. Who do you think you are?" All of the messages that she tells me.

So, I realized that my Monger was running the show. So, we're out of resistance. Resistance is no longer in the game. It was pure procrastination because I had a plan. I knew what was happening next. I felt good about what was happening next. I'm excited about the direction that I want to take the podcast. That is just pure procrastination that was preventing me from turning on the mic and coming here to chat with all of you.

So, what's the difference then? What's the difference between the resistance that I was feeling this fall and the procrastination that I was feeling? Well, the biggest thing is the resistance was bigger. It was louder. I felt stuck. I couldn't record a podcast even if I forced myself to. I was just well beyond the white-knuckling of the Monger. I was burnt out. So, that is a different level of resistance than the low-level procrastination of, "Oh, I'll do it tomorrow. Oh, I'll do it tomorrow. Oh, I'll do it tomorrow." I mean, in the fall, the podcasts didn't even hit my to-do list because I just knew I couldn't do it. It just wasn't happening. So, that resistance voice was very firm, and I knew I had to start listening to it because it gave me no other choice.

So as I always say, the best way to tell whether it's resistance or procrastination is to practice ASK. When I would practice, ASK in the fall around this topic of the podcast, and I'd call in my Biggest Fan. I acknowledged what I was feeling; I would acknowledge the annoyance, doubts, and insecurity. I would slow down and get into my body, and I'd pull back to see the big picture and try to figure out new ways of doing the podcast, I couldn't move forward. My Biggest Fan would step in and be like, "I don't have anything for you. We're just going to keep hanging in this resistance and see what happens."

Now, when I practiced ASK yesterday around the same topic after I talked to my friend and was like, "What's the problem?" my Biggest Fan was like, "You just got to do this, girl. We got to get on the mic and make this happen." So, there wasn't that stuckness. By practicing ask, I could get to the other side and see, "Okay, this isn't just resistance. This is procrastination."

The biggest reason I was able to figure that out is because I trusted myself. I knew that if I listened to myself if I was calm that it would work. Years ago, that wouldn't have happened because I would have been so worried about what does everybody else think? I need to be consistent. This needs to happen. Oh my gosh. I'm such a loser. And I would have been looking to the outside world to see what would happen. What I would have done is I probably would have just blown the whole thing up. So, the same resistance would've come in, and I would not have had the patience to sit with it, to see what comes up, to brainstorm other ideas, to look around and see the little changes I could make. I would have just ended the whole thing.

So when I look at my past, I have a lot of history of that, that I'll start a project, I'll hit resistance, I'll blow it up, and then I don't come back to it. So, that's where I realize now when I see this in my clients, too, that we miss out on little things in life because we do that blow-it-all-up thing rather than really sitting and calmly facing the resistance.

So, I tell you this story, one, to explain where I've been and why I haven't been here. But, I also tell you this story so you can start recognizing that this stuff isn't linear. It isn't like you master the Monger and the BFF voices, and then they don't snag you, or you practice ASK, and everything's okay. No, no, no. That is not it. It's not a nuanced process. It has a whole lot of ups and downs.

I was able to share this with you today in a pretty linear way. In September, this happened. In October, this happened. In January, this happened. But it didn't happen like that. I was all over the board. I mean, I doubted everything, was doubting myself. I did a whole big spiral down into the rabbit hole, as I say. So, it wasn't linear and smooth. For the sake of sharing the story now, I can look back on it and tell you how smooth and linear it is, which is how these stories go.

But, I want you to recognize that this process is messy, and it takes us all over the board. But if we're willing to go into the mess, we can come out with something new. And that's the piece that I had missed years ago that I was never willing to go into the mess. I was never willing to see the gray. I would just go in. If it didn't work out, I blow it up. If I could push my way and white-knuckle my way through, I would. So, paying attention if that's a pattern for you. Is that something you're doing that instead of just being willing to sit with the uncomfortableness of the resistance, are you pushing past it and blowing it all up?

Secondly, I want you to recognize when you're in resistance and when you're in procrastination can be tricky. I know the more you pay attention to what you're feeling, the more you can figure it out. Because like I said, resistance feels like a block, like a stuck. It's a hard no, and it's sometimes unexplainable. That's uncomfortable because we are used to pushing ourselves through anything. So, procrastination is usually covering up shame and criticism.

I knew the feeling was different these past few weeks because I wanted to do it. I had the intention. It was on my to-do list. But then, the shame and the criticism would come up, and I couldn't face it. So, I needed to practice with my Biggest Fan and make sure she was there by my side as I was doing this and getting ready to record this so that I would be okay with that.

So, that is my summary, my explanation, not justifying, but just sharing where I've been and what I've been doing in the past five months. Hopefully, you can hear yourself and see if there's a place in your life where you're facing some resistance to being able to slow down and take that in and see what it brings up. Because in our culture, when we hit resistance, we either plow through or completely back off. And sometimes, we need to sit there and see what comes up. So, that's what I encourage you to do if you're in a place of resistance.

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Episode 095: Feeling Invisible

So many of my clients talk about feeling invisible. The issue isn't that they aren't showing up in their lives or that they don't feel seen. The problem is they feel seen not for themselves but for how they SHOULD be performing. Do you agree? Listen and let me know.

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Hey, gang. I am so excited to be back and chatting with you guys today about feeling invisible, and this is a trait I've seen frequently in my office and something I've felt myself. A lot of my clients will say, "I just feel invisible." A lot of people will say that in the sense that no one sees me, or I can go through my life, and no one is paying any attention whether I exist or not. There's a song in the musical Chicago called Mr. Cellophane that talks about how people just see right through him. But that isn't what I'm talking about because the people that I'm talking about have very active lives. They're very engaged; people respond to them and show up. They're very powerful in their positions. They're very active in their communities, but they still, in the depths of their being, feel invisible.

The reason for that is not that they aren't loved and supported by family members, not that they aren't seen and appreciated for all they do. It is that their Monger convinces them they have to perform a certain way, and so they can't show up in their lives just as they are, just for who they are in all their idiosyncrasies and mistakes, and traits, and being human-nesses. They have to show up as the perfect whatever, so the perfect mother, the perfect sister, the perfect friend, the perfect bridesmaid, the perfect board member, the perfect worker, the perfect boss. Whatever fill in the blank, perfect role, and that's why they feel invisible because they're not showing up fully for who they are. They're showing up as a role, so they never really get to be seen for who they are.

It developed as a defense mechanism. As we're growing up, we get a lot of attention if we follow the rules and if we do everything right. If we get straight A's, if we are quiet in school, if we do the right things, we get rewarded, and so growing up, we learn how to fit ourselves into the different roles that we play. We morph and change and shift ourselves to make sure we're pleasing others, and when that happens, we forget who we really are. In essence, we're like, who we really are doesn't matter as long as I can keep getting the approval from the outside world. But then, at some point, we wake up, and we realize, wait a minute, I'm performing all the freakin' time. I'm constantly scanning the environment, trying to find out what I should be doing next. What do they expect from me next? We do that all the time, and that leaves us feeling exhausted, and it leaves us feeling empty because we're doing all these things for everyone else.

By the time my clients come in to see me, their anxiety is high. They have high functioning anxiety, and they get to the point where they just can't keep pretending anymore. They can't keep acting like they have it all together, acting like they can fit into these different roles perfectly.

I wanted to talk about this trait because I've seen it more and more, but also because I think it is an under-appreciated problem that a lot of us high-functioning people have, that we are so good at reading the environment. We're so good at walking into a room and reading what needs to be done next that we miss out on what we want to do next. What is it that we feel is most important?

I want to let you guys know, A, it's normal if you're feeling this way. I get it. I can relate in so many ways. But also, I wanted to talk about how to start unhooking that for you because it's a process to start unhooking it. Obviously, the first step is to recognize that it's happening, so to recognize that you're feeling invisible and then to start recognizing where that is happening. It might be everywhere. It might be at work, it might be with your kids, it might be with your spouse, that you've gotten so good at putting on the hat of mother, or the hat of wife, or the hat of daughter, that you forget to ask yourself what is it I really need here?

This has come out for me really strong recently, and this is a personal example I'm going to give is that I've been having some stomach issues and have been dealing with some health problems when it comes to stomach pain. It's been going on for a couple of months, and I've been trying to get it figured out, running tests, et cetera, et cetera. But the thing that keeps coming up for me is that I need to be the perfect patient. I need to be a good patient, and a good patient doesn't make waves. A good patient goes along with what the doctor says. A good patient is agreeable. A good patient is calm.

They keep saying, "We can't find anything. Everything's fine. You're fine." But I know everything isn't fine, so that fight, I've had to tap into trusting my intuition. I've had to tap into my own wisdom to fight for myself to say, "No. I don't care that I'm not the perfect patient. I don't care that I'm not playing the role that I think I should be. I'm fighting for myself because this isn't right that I'm feeling this way. This isn't okay."

That has thrust me into this area of really kind of fighting for myself in a way that makes me uncomfortable because I have to get out of the good person role, the good patient role. Anytime I start to fight, my Monger comes in to be like, "No. Don't fight. We all know you're just faking this. This isn't a real problem. Just be quiet. Sit down quietly and shut up, and it'll be okay. You can't be making waves like this."

Because remember, our Monger is there to make sure we don't make a mistake, we aren't too vulnerable, and we don't stand out. All of those are what I'm doing when I'm standing up for myself when it comes to my health concerns. I'm standing up for myself. I'm being a little vulnerable, saying, "I know you can't find anything, but there's something there, and I'm demanding more action." I'm demanding people look at me. I'm not invisible anymore.

That's a big example of it, but it also can show up in little ways in your home. That you decide, "You know what? I'm going to take Sunday afternoons off, and I'm going to sit on the couch and watch a movie, and you guys can join me or not; I don't care, but Sunday afternoons, I get the TV. It's my time to sit in front of the TV and do a movie." You're kind of demanding showing up and being present and being fully there.

As I said, the first step is showing up and recognizing that you're feeling invisible. Then the next step is really getting in touch with your feelings. And I know you guys get tired of me saying this, but it is kind of acknowledging what's coming up, acknowledging those feelings. How does it feel to recognize that I'm invisible? Do I feel scared? Do I feel angry? Do I feel happy that I finally figured out what's going on? Just going through what it is I'm feeling right now, so you notice that this pops up.

And you're at work, and you notice that your boss asks you to do something that isn't really in your job description. Instead of being like, "Yeah, sure. No problem," you start being like, "Wait a minute. This isn't in my job description. This isn't something that I need to be doing." Then you start acknowledging the feeling of, "Wait a minute. I have been taking on way more than my job description for a long time now, and I'm really angry about this."

Feel that anger. Let it go. Just acknowledge that that anger is there. Ninety seconds to biologically feel that anger, and then slow down and get into your body, and figure out, okay, what am I going to do next? How am I going to start confronting this bit by bit by bit? How am I going to show up to my boss, and how am I going to say to him, "You know, this isn't really in my job description, and I'm not comfortable doing this." And then, bit by bit by bit, you start taking on those different roles, noticing where you're not showing up, where you could be more visible, how you are playing it safe and calm, and just going along with what everybody else needs.

I guarantee you, preparing you, what will happen as you start noticing how often you play the perfect role, anger will start coming up because you'll start getting mad about how long you've been playing the perfect role. I tell you the anger's going to be there because I don't want you to get stuck in the anger. The anger is a perfectly normal response. It's a feeling. You should feel it, absolutely. We tend to get stuck in anger and then start blaming everybody else for why we are feeling invisible, and that they've kept us here, and blah blah blah.

I want to be clear. It isn't that anyone forced you to be invisible. It isn't that you forced yourself to be invisible. It is a survival mechanism that you have used to excel in life. It has left you very high functioning. A great way to calm your anxiety is just to concentrate on the other person and to look at them, and figure out what they need, and give it to them. As long as you're not concentrating on yourself and you're concentrating on them, your anxiety can go down.

It's a two-fold problem. On the one hand, we've developed this idea that I can please other people by figuring out what it is they need and giving it to them and playing these different roles, and remaining invisible. But on the second part, and that's the part that we tend to miss, is then why are we doing this? Why has this defense mechanism kicked in?

I argue the reason this defense mechanism has kicked in is that we have so much anxiety, and because we have so much high functioning anxiety, the way to calm that is to start concentrating on what everybody else needs, and then I don't need to pay attention to my anxiety.

As you start recognizing, oh my gosh, there I go again. I'm wearing the hat of whatever they want me to wear, and I'm acting how they want me to act; you will start then to recognize, oh, if I start paying attention to myself, I have more anxiety. If I start paying more attention to myself, my Monger gets louder. When I start paying attention to myself, my Monger and my BFF fight more, so then you're going to need to start pulling that apart and practicing ask and acknowledging what you're feeling, slowing down and getting into your body, and pulling back to see the big picture. You're going to need to start recognizing where the anxiety is showing up because you've developed this defense mechanism of playing the role for everybody else and being invisible to keep your anxiety at bay.

I think that is why, a lot of times, we hear this, "Don't be invisible. Speak your needs and show up for yourself," which is awesome. That's what we should be doing, so yes. But when we start speaking our needs and showing up for ourselves, the anxiety comes ten-fold, and that's when we get into trouble because then we jump in, right back into, okay, I can't handle this anxiety anymore. I'm going to start going back to being invisible and playing a role because that squelches my anxiety and numbs out my Monger. It is, again, back to Mongers, back to BFFs, back to figuring out what that Biggest Fan is saying.

Because the Biggest Fan is going to say,

"Oh sweet pea, this is hard. You've got to figure out what you want at this moment, and we've got to be calm and collected. How are we going to confront the boss and say, 'Dude, this is too much work. I can't do anymore. I need you to help me figure this out because I am well outside of my job description right now, and it's hurting my relationships at home, it's hurting my relationships at work. I'm struggling.' We need to be able to figure out how to do that without all the anxiety."

I guarantee, as you start this process, you're going to start listening to this podcast, and you'll be like, "Oh my gosh. I totally do this. I totally wear these hats, and I totally feel invisible." And then the next feeling you're going to feel is probably anger when you start recognizing, "Oh my gosh, why do I keep doing this? I'm such a loser. I can't believe I'm doing this." And then your Monger's going to kick in, so don't listen to your Monger. Slow down, practice A.S.K. get into your body, pull back to see the big picture, try to bring in your Biggest Fan, and be like, "Okay. I developed this defense mechanism to squelch my anxiety and it's not working for me anymore, so I need to start feeling my feelings and trusting what comes up for me because I have the answers within me, I just have to start getting used to saying them without all the anxiety."

It's a process. It's not like you can simply flip a switch and suddenly 30, 40 years of a defense mechanism is going to go away. You need to be intentional about how you handle this, and that is why it's so important to be kind to yourself and give yourself a little room around learning a new way of doing it in the world. But I wanted to do this podcast to give you a different way of thinking about this invisible thing because I think it's a problem for a lot of people out there, women and men. We play a role, and we put on a hat, and we pretend like we've got everything okay when inside we are just not connected at all to what's happening in the world around us.

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Episode 094: Lessons Learned in Iowa

In early August my Mom and I took a trip to visit friends in Iowa. The trip brought me so many ah-ha's about life priorities and living happier I wanted to share a few of the lessons I learned.

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Hey friends. I am, as always, excited to be back. Today I'm talking about (I think I've promised this for a couple of episodes now) my trip to Iowa, which was back in early August. I think it took me so long to talk about this trip because, A, it was impactful to me, and B, I couldn't unpack why it was so impactful. And so it took me a little time to gather my thoughts and figure stuff out and be able to share it with you all in a somewhat organized fashion, so I'm going to try my best. I still don't think I have it down, but I think I have the lessons synthesized and organized, so it'll make sense to you, even though you didn't go on this trip with me.

So back in early August, my mom and I headed to Iowa to visit friends of our family, and years ago, when we were little kids, we would go to Iowa every year and visit this family farm. And the husband, his name is Ron, served in the Army with my dad. They were close friends, and my dad loved being on the farm. He grew up on a farm, and so, ironically, we would go to the farm, so my dad could take his "vacation," working with Ron on a farm.

And we would go and hang out as kids and run around the farm, and my dad and Ron would work together. I have a lot of fond memories as a kid. I hadn't been there in a long time. I mean, literally, I hadn't been there since I was a child, so it was fun to go back in time and to see this place and to hang out with these people that I hadn't seen in probably close to 30 years.

So the first thing I want to share about the trip was the stereotypes of, "Hey, we're going to Iowa." And the number of people that said to me, "Oh, Iowa, wow. They must be huge Trump fans." Or, "Be careful going to Iowa; you're going into the Red State there." I heard all these stereotypes about people in Iowa. And I just found that so fascinating, because when I got there and arrived there, they were just regular people. Some were Trump fans; some were not. And we had some great cultural, political discussions. And that was the first takeaway for me was how quickly we are to judge other people based on assumptions and based on stereotypes. And so, to check that. And it was a powerful lesson for me on that, is that we make up these stories in our heads about people and ourselves, and learning how to have some respect and curiosity about where people are coming from.

So that's the first thing I wanted to get out of the way because I realized that people make a quick judgment when they hear Iowa, and so I challenge you to check that stereotype and open yourself up to some curiosity around that.

The second thing I learned and figured out while I was there was the number of things they did that just brought them joy. They did it for no other reason than it brought them joy. And this came as an aha to me because I realized in my own life how little I do that brings me joy for no reason. It's not helping someone. It's not benefiting anyone. It's just because I enjoy doing it. And one of the things that brought this to my attention was, they had a beautiful, I mean absolutely gorgeous flower garden that was just right outside their kitchen window. It was a gorgeous flower garden that Marilyn planted every year from seeds, and it was full of bees and butterflies and just so amazing.

And the first thing I thought of was, "Wow, if this group was younger, and they were big on Instagram and Facebook, this flower garden would be all over Instagram." Like, "Look what I'm doing for the bees! And look how I'm benefiting the world with planting flowers, and I'm helping the butterflies." And all of this "Look at me!" tendency about it. And really, they just planted the flower garden because they loved the flower garden. And yeah, they wanted to support the bees, but that's just what they've always done, for 50 years, is planted this flower garden. And the bees came, and it wasn't this big ecological, climate change, taking back the world kind of thing that we all get into, that even if we love doing something, we have to explain it as that it's doing something better for people. It's strengthening the world. I'm helping the world. I'm giving back. "Look at me! I'm giving back!"

Instead of just, "I'm doing this because this brings me joy. I'm making homemade muffins and homemade rolls because it brings me joy. It's not because I'm going to post it on Instagram later and have everyone see how amazing I am in the kitchen. Or it's not because I'm going to take them to all my neighbors, and they're going to tell me how amazing I am. It's just that I like doing this because it brings me joy."

So I want to challenge you guys, and I've been challenging myself on doing things simply for the reason they bring me joy. And paying attention to that intentional joy that pops up in our life. You know, I talk a lot about being intentional, about our feelings, and feeling the sadness and feeling the anger. But we also need to be feeling the joy of the little things in our lives that we choose to do, whether that be spending time with family or planting a flower garden or baking bread or knitting or coloring. I don't care. Anything that you can do that's just purely for the sake of doing it because it makes you happy. And that was something I saw a ton of when I was visiting Iowa.

The other takeaway I had was the clarity of their values and living them. I always say the test for, "Are you living by your values?" is if I was a fly on the wall, observing your life, could I find your values, based on what I observed, being the fly on the wall? And it was striking to me the clarity of their values. They were very clear that it was giving back to the community. It was their religious beliefs. It was family. It was the farm. Everything was very simplistic. And so, if it didn't fit into their values, they didn't do it. And they didn't even question if they should have. They just were like, "Why would I do that? That's not part of my value system."

And so, that piece of living their lives based on their values, in a thousand little ways, just brought so much clarity to me. And it was such a simple way of living. And they weren't caught up in, "What should I be doing? What would so and so think of me doing this?" They were living by their values, and it was simple and clean. And so that was a powerful thing.

The other piece that I took away was the power of community. It was clear that community is very important to them, from their family to their larger community to the church community to asking for help and being there for others. They valued where they came from, and they valued giving back. And it was again simple because "This is what I'm supposed to be doing. I'm called to do this." There wasn't this overarching feeling of "I should be." Or "I'd be a better person if I." Or all of that sort of stuff that we get caught up in. It was just very simple and values-based and was just so refreshing.

Ron was sharing with me about how he went out with his friends, and they would do these tractor rides, and just spend the day doing the tractor rides, and they stop for lunch one place, and you'd stop for a snack. And the joy on his face of describing this ride, which honestly, to me, does not sound appealing. I don't want to ride on a tractor all day, but I don't have the love of tractors that Ron does. I didn't grow up riding tractors and knew every in and out of a tractor and love the community and the people. And he just explained it with such joy. You had to love it too. You just felt that love for it.

And I think, "How often in my life do I not share the things I love with other people because I'm afraid of being judged or ridiculed or made fun of?" Or because I shouldn't be doing that, I think in my head, because my Monger takes over. And so to recognize, I'm going to start talking proudly about the stuff that I value, what's important to me, and sharing that with people. And that idea of, we need to stop editing ourselves so frequently. We need to stop dismissing ourselves and saying, "Well, no one wants to hear about that." Or "No one wants to talk about that." We need more conversations about what our passions are and what our joys are, and what our values are. And what's important to us. We need to be sharing that with each other, rather than the constant complaining about being hurried and rushed and too much to do and checking on that to-do list all the time.

I would love if my conversations were more about, "These are the things that get me jazzed," and less about, "This is how long my to-do list is, and this is all the stuff I have to get done." But more about the joys of our lives.

And then the last thing that I wanted to touch on that was key to this whole thing. I did a Happier Approach Book talk while I was there, and I said to the group, "You know, I could get a bus and say, 'I've figured it out. I've figured out where happiness is, and it's in the middle of Iowa. Like Field of Dreams. And I'm gonna take you all there, and everyone's gonna arrive, and they're gonna be like, 'Oh, this is it?'"

Because this life is hard, they were struggling, and they were in the middle of a drought, and they were struggling with water and getting their crops ready, and they were by no means rolling in the dough. They lived very intelligently and frugally and all that good stuff. And so it was hard. And it didn't mean that living by what brings them joy and living the clarity of values and knowing the power of community, that didn't mean their lives were easy. And that wasn't my takeaway. Because they still had major Mongers showing up. They still were very worried about were they irrigating, right? Were they irrigating wrong? Were they doing the right thing? Were they doing the wrong thing? Were they good Christians? Were they not?

And they still had all of their struggles, but at the end of the day, the piece that I found was comforting was they were very solid in how they knew what mattered to them. And so that solidness, that's the only word I can think of to describe it, that total security in this is how we live our lives. These are the values. Returning to those roots, back again and again and again. That was the piece that I took away. It doesn't mean life is easier. But it does mean it's more solid, and it's more simple. And you know what's important.

So those are some of the lessons I learned in Iowa. I really wanted to share them with you because you go on these vacations sometimes, and they're wonderful, and they're fabulous, and then you go on a vacation where it just uproots everything you've been thinking about and turns your head around in a different way. And that's totally what this trip was for me. So I'm still trying to process what I learned in Iowa and apply it to my life, but I have been striving to slow everything way down and checking in. Does this fit my values? Is this bringing me joy? Why am I doing it, then, if it isn't? And being clear on what's the priority here? Because I think it's so easy for us to get caught up in "I should be" and orchestrating our lives for social media or an imaginary audience. You know, I always joke about the imaginary cameras in my house, that someone's going to see if I'm doing it right or not.

So when we get stuck in that orchestration, remember what's most important here. Where are my values showing up? And what brings me joy? Gaining clarity on that is priceless, and I hope that I have inspired you to kind of look at your life a little differently.

And I want to say thank you to Ron and Marilyn for taking us into their farm and allowing my mom and me to crash at their house and spend the long weekend with them, and for being such amazing friends for our entire lives. And also just letting me see their lives in such a wonderful way. And I'm so thankful for that weekend. It has radically shifted some stuff for me. And I hope it's given you some ah-as too.

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Episode 093: Anxiety and Acceptance

This week's podcast came out a little late, listen to find out why. Sharing my own 'default patterns' and how slowly but surely we can change them.

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Hey, everyone. Today I want to talk about anxiety and acceptance. I think last week I promised I was going to talk to you about Iowa, my trip to Iowa. But, this week, a personal thing happened, and I wanted to share it with you guys because I am committed. The one thing I am so committed to on this podcast and in the work that I do is to showcase how living happier is not something that is just a simple one-two-three process. It is something we need to be committed to on a daily basis and make a focus of our lives, if that's something we want to be doing, because it isn't just like you can, poof, fix it. It is an ongoing process. So, something happened this week that really showcased that for me. I wanted to be able to share it with you guys because I think it will also hopefully help you and give you a new way of looking at stuff.

But before I get into the story, I want to talk about anxiety and how I believe that anxiety is caused by how we talk to ourselves and the Monger voice that we have. I always say the Monger has three missions: don't stand out, don't be too vulnerable, and don't make a mistake. This story that I'm about to tell you is really about the don't be too vulnerable piece, which I think is a big one for those of us with anxiety because we don't like for people to see us sweat, and we don't like people to see us not at our best. So, that's where the anxiety comes from, as a way to make sure our external image looks better than how we're feeling on the inside.

So, I wanted to talk about not being too vulnerable, but I also wanted to talk about that the danger of our Monger is not so much that we have this negative voice talking to us (which is annoying), but the danger of the Monger is that the Monger makes us think someone else knows better. The Monger pulls us out of ourselves and pulls us out of our own loyalty to ourselves. That's where we get into trouble, and that's where anxiety comes from, is the idea that someone else knows better, and if we can just find that answer, everything will be okay. It's counterintuitive to turn it back into yourself.

Using those two things, don't be too vulnerable and the idea of self-loyalty, and I want to tell you a personal example of what happened to me this week. It actually happened to my husband, but it also happened to me. If you've been following me for a while, you know that my husband is dealing with seizures and has had epilepsy since he was around eight years old. It's a regular part of our lives. It's something that affects us on a daily basis. While he doesn't always have grand mals, he frequently has what we call little mini seizures and the side effects of his meds. It's just a very complex disorder.

But this week, out of the blue, he had two grand mal seizures. It was a real big blow to us because we were trying to get his meds regulated. We had this delusion that we were going to get his seizures under control, and he wasn't going to have any more grand mals. So not only was it a blow because he had the grand mals, it was a blow because the grand mals came differently than they normally do. They were harsher than they normally are. So, there were a number of setbacks from these two grand mals that happened this week, not even to mention the setbacks of what they do to my husband and how crappy they make him feel.

But when the grand mals hit this week, I was in the midst of a very busy week, and a lot of stuff was going on. So, I didn't deal with it and told myself to soldier on and suck it up, and it wasn't that big of a deal and an all that self-talk that we say to ourselves. What happens when we do that, and what happened to me was then the anxiety comes out in other places. I was very fired up about stuff that is totally out of my control. All of this stuff that was not related to my life at all, I was super opinionated about and extremely aggressive about.

I noticed that pattern for me that I do the drama, drama, drama. If you've read the Happier Approach, that's in there, that one way we deal with our anxiety is we put it onto something else. So, we create drama around stuff that isn't there. Every time my Biggest Fan this week would kind of say to me, "Hey, sweetheart. What happened to your husband is a big deal. " Whoa, that's a lot to handle. I would quickly come in with, "No, no. Think positive. This is no big deal. We expected this. It's part of the meds," and I would tell myself to, you know, suck it up and move on.

I see that all the time with clients that no matter how hard we try with this acknowledging-your-feelings piece, the default is so strong. The default of, "No, suck it up. We don't have time for negative feelings. We can't feel sad. We're supposed to feel happy. Be positive. Be grateful." All of those messages are so strong, and there's nothing wrong with those messages. Absolutely nothing wrong with the messages. The problem is when we only listen to those messages is when we get in trouble. So, this week, I was pushing, and pushing, and pushing, and working, and working, and working, and ignoring how hard and how devastated I was by these seizures. How painful it is to see my husband struggling, how sad it makes me, and how defeated I felt, and all of those negative, yucky emotions I did not want to feel because I was soldiering on and I was positive.

I wanted to share this story because last night, I had this aha. Three days later, I had the aha that I was doing that, that I was ignoring my feelings, and I wasn't acknowledging them as soon as I realized, "Oh my gosh. I am totally ignoring my feelings, and I'm not acknowledging them," I thought, "I have to share this on my podcast," because that shows the power of the default. My default is very strong toward the soldier on and think positive, very, very strong especially when it comes to repetitive feelings.

We've been dealing with these seizures for a long time, and so my Monger steps in to be like, "Babe, you know this is happening. This is your life. You have these seizures. Just suck it up and move on. You can't be getting upset about it every time, or you'll be upset every time." I didn't give myself any grace. There was no room for kindness, or acknowledgment, or any of that. It showcases the strength of the defaults, and I wanted to share that with you because don't give up. Don't stop this work because your default is strong. Don't pretend that it isn't important because your default is strong because it works.

I can tell you that because last night, literally last night, I was saying to my mom in a tongue-in-cheek way, "Oh my gosh, this feeling stuff, like really? I'm supposed to acknowledge my feelings about how hard this is with Doug and how much I'm struggling with it, and to what end? To what end? Why is that helpful to acknowledge it? I mean, I know I say that's what I'm supposed to do, but why is that helpful to acknowledge it?" I swear to God, just that little piece, just that little window of acknowledging how hard it was for me, even though I was being tongue in cheek and bantering with my mom, that little window allowed me to feel how hard it was.

When I hung up the phone, I started crying and was like, "Oh my gosh. This week has been devastating. It has been challenging. I have struggled this week." Being able to say that out loud loosened my neck muscles. It loosened my chest muscles. Everything kind of relaxed a little bit. That didn't mean that instantaneously I was happy again or instantaneously everything felt better. I think that's where this myth of, "Oh, if I acknowledged my feelings, then everything will be magically wonderful and positive again." No, that isn't the case. But what happens is because you are acknowledging your feelings, and once I started acknowledging what was going on, all that drama that I was making up, all those smoke screens, and stuff I was throwing out into the universe to block the feelings, all of that melted away. It was just me, and my feelings, and the loyalty I had to myself, and what am I going to do moving forward.

I think that's the power of acknowledging what's really going on. What are you really feeling? And it gives us this clarity, this crystal clear clarity that comes through to be like, "Oh Babe, this is hard right now, and that's okay. We can move forward." The energy is so much more calm, and relaxed, and less anxious. But when we are putting up all these smoke screens, and we're trying to be like, "It's happy. It's fine. It's no big deal. I mean, I knew we had seizures when I married him, so this is just one more thing we got to deal with. We're moving on. Here we go. We're going to be choosing happiness. Maybe I need to meditate more, and maybe I need to journal more because I got to get through this somehow," notice how my energy goes up like this when I start talking like that. It's anxiety.

When I can be calm and say, "Oh, sweet pea, this is hard right now. We can get through this though, but it's hard," that's such a different, more calm energy. I think that is the key to building acceptance of what comes up for you. I noticed this week that it would come up, and I would be like, "Oh, this is so hard." Then, immediately in would come, "Don't go there. Don't go there. Just be positive. Soldier on. You do not have time to deal with these feelings right now." That message of ignoring what's happening to you, do not have acceptance, keep throwing up the smokescreen that just builds our anxiety tenfold. So, that's why the title of this podcast is called Anxiety and Acceptance because I think part of the key to dealing with our anxiety is having some acceptance of what's happening in our lives because we spend so much time trying to mask that with the shoulds, and the shoulds bring the drama. All of that is why we don't deal with what's going on in front of us.

So, just to recognize the power of acknowledging your feelings and noticing the defaults you have. I know one of my big defaults is I tend to get very hopped up about politics and what's happening in the culture around me when I'm not acknowledging what's going on in my life. So yes, there is stuff to get hopped up about, but it doesn't have to take over my entire life. So instead of dealing with what was really going on in my life, I'm dealing with something that's completely out of my control. That for me, I know that's a default. I can recognize now when that happens. I need to check-in and find out what's really going on.

That's what I encourage you to do is to start figuring out what your defaults are. What are the things you do when you don't acknowledge your feelings? When your anxiety is hopped up, what is it you do? Then, how can you put a stop to that default and start changing the way you're programmed. Because the defaults are there, I believe, the part that's missing in the self-help personal development growth world is we don't talk enough about those default patterns that are hardwired. They were put in when we were kids, and we have just used those methods to survive our lives. They have helped us, and they're hurting us at the same time. So, we need to figure out what those default patterns are so we can start putting in stops and doing a different way, changing the default a different way.

So, where I used to make this pattern that I spoke of today for weeks or months at a time, now I can do it in a couple of days, and I can recognize, "Whoa. You're a little out of control here. Let's slow down." I can go back to the methods that I have that I know that work for me, you know, cutting off social media, taking some time out, doing some journaling. I can come back to the place of acceptance and understanding of my anxiety instead of trying to fight it, fight it, fight it.

So, I hope that story was helpful.

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Episode 090: Can’t Love Yourself? Practice Being Kind

For years I use to teach the common advice that you need to love yourself. And then I realized that the key to loving myself was to practice being kind to myself one act at a time.

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Hello, my friends. I am excited to be back and recording with you. We've done a little traveling, actually headed over to New York and Boston, so we've toured the east coast a little bit, spent some time with some family and friends. It's been an awesome way to spend the summer, and I'm excited to be back and recording episode 90; and today, we're going to be talking about the concept of practicing being kind.

A lot of times, we hear common wisdom; we've talked about this in the past, that if you're trying to get rid of your inner critic or trying to be less stressed or less overwhelmed, you're supposed to love yourself. And if you can't love yourself, no one can love yourself, and there are a thousand pithy sayings around loving yourself.

But when you start unpacking what it means to love yourself, it is counter to everything else we've been taught since we were little kids. You know, our whole lives, we have been taught that we can be better. There's a right way and a wrong way that we should constantly be striving that we should be pushing ourselves to the next level, and you can always build more strength, and you can always get better.

And so it's a counterintuitive message that I'm supposed to love myself, but yet I'm not okay as I am. How can I love myself and accept how I am, and still be striving to be a better person? And that message is whoo, hard to wrap your head around. So I have stopped saying we all need to love ourselves and just started with the concept of being kind, that we need to be more kind to ourselves, and that is a daily task.

So when I think about the idea of loving myself, that's like a huge general concept, that's like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I got to love myself." But when I think about practicing being kind, that's a little more challenging to think on a day-to-day basis; I need to practice just being kind to myself. And I can still challenge myself. I can still step up my game. I can still try to be growing and striving and be kind to myself. And that a-ha for me was mind-blowing, to recognize that I can be striving and pushing and be the best me possible and be kind to myself because my whole life, I had figured out that for me to be striving and developing and getting better, I needed to be shaming and belittling myself.

So what do I mean by practicing being kind? You're like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know what this means," but I want you to think about it. I want you to think about your day so far. How many times have you criticized yourself? How many times have you said I should put the laundry in? I should have driven faster to work. I shouldn't have left so late. I shouldn't have eaten that cookie. I should have had a salad at lunch. I should have finished that report before I left for the day. We do it all the time. We should all the time.

We're constantly reminding ourselves of where we fall short, but being kind is saying, "Oh, I'm going to have that salad because I feel better when I eat my veggies," or "Yep, I had that cookie, and it tasted great. I enjoyed every bite," or "I ran out of time today. That just wasn't in the day to get that report done. I'll do it first thing in the morning," so we can be kind to ourselves and be pushing ourselves to be better.

We practice kindness all the time to other people. You know, we let people cut in line, we hug our kids, we talk kindly to our spouse. We give people a pass all the time, but we don't give ourselves a pass, and so today, I want you to think about ways you are kind to yourself. When you brush your teeth, reframe that, that you are kind to yourself. You're giving yourself the love of taking care of your teeth. It's not checking another thing off the to-do list. Instead, it's I'm practicing kindness.

When I get my cup of coffee in the morning, and I make the coffee, it's one of my favorite things to do in the morning is make coffee, I know it sounds weird, but it's one of my favorite things. One of my favorite morning rituals is making coffee. When I make coffee every morning, that's a kindness I'd give to myself. The warm cup, My animals are around, the house is quiet. It's just one of my favorite times, and I can soak that in as a kindness to myself.

And those little patterns of recognizing when you take the stairs versus the elevator. You're kind to yourself, when you take the elevator instead of the stairs because you hurt your knee, you are being kind to yourself. You are not a loser who's taking the elevator. You are practicing kindness.

So to start rephrasing things in your life because I believe how we talk to ourselves is key to how we see the world. So a personal example of this and how I see it playing out in my life. I got back from vacation on Thursday, and then I hurt my back, and I've been having some stomach issues, and so I've kind of took the weekend off to rest and regroup and try to figure out what's going on with myself.

And yesterday I was beating myself up for being lazy. I haven't worked out. I haven't worked. I've been on vacation, and I'm sitting around watching TV and, "You're such a loser," was the constant message in my head. And then I walked upstairs to feed the cats, and I feed the cats and I'm like, "You're such a loser. You should have put away all the cat dishes. But no, they're just sitting here." I walk into my bedroom to grab a sweater, and I'm like, "Your closet is a mess. I can't believe you haven't cleaned up your closet. I walk past the bathroom and,think to myself, "Oh, the bathroom is such a pit. You haven't even put away your suitcase from traveling. You are so behind." And I recognize as I walked down the stairs and was critical of myself because my knees hurt and my back hurt, that I recognized how mean I was to myself just in that two minute time that I was paying attention and if I really was honest, most of yesterday I probably talked to myself a lot like that.

And it was like, "Wait a minute, you are not being kind to yourself. You were just harassing yourself for no reason." And so to recognize, wait a minute, I am taking this time because my body is screaming that it needs a break and I'm listening to my body and I'm giving it a break. I'm also going to challenge myself and do some yoga and be kind and stretch myself out because that may be why my knees are hurting. I'm also going to make sure that I eat right tonight so my stomach doesn't hurt as much because coming off vacation, that may be why it's bothering me. So I can practice kindness in little tiny ways throughout the day.

And notice how often I'm just critical at myself, just for the sake of being critical. It isn't providing me with anything. It isn't motivating me to do anything. It's just being critical.

So that's my challenge to you in this next week. This is one of those concepts that sounds so simple. "Duh. I know I'm supposed to practice being kind," you might be saying to yourself, because I probably would be saying it to myself if I was listening. But when you really break it down and really start thinking and listening to yourself talk and how much your monger comes out in his belittling of you in times of stress, in times of challenge to recognize, wait a minute, what can I do right now that would be kind for myself and sometimes when you ask yourself that question, the answer might surprise you.

Like I said, maybe you will get the salad because you need to eat more vegetables. Maybe you will work out even though your back hurts because you need to do some stretching. Being kind doesn't mean you always give yourself a pass. Being kind means, you do what's best for you. So I love the idea of practicing being kind because it really keeps my monger and my BFF in check because our biggest fan is always, always kind.

The one thing you can count on her is to be kind, and so when I know that I need to make a decision and I don't know which way to go and I'm jumping between the monger and the BFF, I know that I can simply just say to myself, "I'm going to practice being kind here. What's the kindest decision for myself?"

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Episode 086: You are the Answer

It is human nature to look outside of ourselves for the way to feel more peaceful, content or happier.  But the truth is only you have the answer. Not the next promotion, guru or approach, you have to figure out what works and make it happen for you.

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Hey everyone. I am excited to be back here today. I have been on vacation. We went out to California and had a fabulous time. I was able to do a couple of book talks out there, and it was wonderful. And now I am back to celebrate the long weekend, which is just a mixed blessing.

This holiday always leaves me feeling a little mixed on the one hand, we're kicking off summer, and it's the traditional barbecue and parties and graduation and all those celebrations. And on the other hand, the holiday was really built around remembering the soldiers who have died for our country.

So as I've gotten older, I've grown more respectful, is the word or solemn, I guess is the word around this holiday? Because the real meaning of this holiday tends to get lost in all of the graduation parties and summer fun. And we tend to forget that really we are here and honoring on Monday those soldiers who have served and sacrificed the greatest sacrifice for all of us.

Anyway, little deep thoughts on Memorial day from Nancy today. I really want to talk about the idea that you are the answer and the reason I'm. I keep coming back to that as I'm doing more presentations on the happier approach, and I'm getting more questions about the idea of the happier part. I keep coming back to the idea that you are the answer.

One of the hesitancies I had about writing a self-help book or personal development book, or however you want to describe it was that people would think it was the answer. And I didn't want to give people here is this three-step process that is going to solve all your problems. I'm going to be the perfect answer for you no matter what.

And it took me a long time to get past that and to come to the realization that no book is going to fix anyone. And this is a book that's near and dear to my heart and is my process for how I have worked with clients and how I work with myself in answering the, getting the Monger to be quieter. I struggled with that when I started writing the happier approach, and it's coming out, and people are asking me questions about the happier approach and getting frustrated that ask isn't working perfectly and getting stuck in the minutia of the concept of A.S.K. and being militant about it and getting it perfect. And that is really where the idea is that you are the answer. We specifically look at A.S.K. it isn't how I teach you to acknowledge your feelings or how I want you to slow down. It's what works for you. It is how the process of acknowledging your feelings works for you.

It is how slowing down works for you. You are the only one that knows what your biggest fan sounds like. You are the only one that knows what your B.F.F. sounds like. I can help you figure that out and give you some ways that the B.F.F. and the biggest fantasy. But ultimately, it comes back to you even with the pull back and see the big picture.

You are the only one that can say what your priorities are, what your values are, what's most important to you only you can determine that. And so that ultimately is the frustration. I think with all of this work is that there is no finish line. There is no, once I get there, I'll be done. And I've talked about that before in the idea of, once I get married or once I get three kids or once I get my kids off to school, or once I get my college degree, or once I get a job.

Whatever we can litany those forever, the idea is that the answer is in, within me is a little harder to wrap your head around because we've been living for all these external things. And then the realization is I've hit all these external things. They've all come to fruition, or I've given up on some of them. I've realized the answer isn't there in achieving those external markers.

And so we turn internal, and we try to find some peace through personal development and self-help books and trying to, quote-unquote, lead better lives from that. Sometimes a lot of times leads this idea that I can find a system, a guru at belief, an idea that will heal all my. And will be the magic button, quick ticket way to get out of this pain.

The idea that I keep drilling into your head is that you are the answer. There is no guru. There is no system. There is no belief that can fix everything. You still have to deal with yourself, and you are the one that has the relationship with yourself. And that's what all of this is about is building that relationship with yourself so that you can go out into the world and build a relationship with other people.

It's not about being self-absorbed and looking at yourself and doing all this Naval gazing. But it is about getting comfortable in your own skin. And when we're constantly looking outward, we're constantly looking for the next promotion or the next thing. And when we stop looking for the next thing, we start looking for the next guru or the next belief.

So we're just doing the same action on a deeper level, but it's still looking external. I'm still looking for someone else, something. Just solve my problems. The freedom comes from you recognizing no one else has the answer to my life. No one knows the nooks and crannies and the little idiosyncrasies of your life except for you.

And so that is what I would hope that ask helps people do is to get closer to who they are. To get closer to what their priorities are, to get closer to what their values are, and then start living your life from that place. We don't need to do a ton of naval gazing and live constantly analyzing why is this happening?

And what does this mean? And what's going on here, and why am I having that? And is it okay that I'm having that? And should I be having that? And what's happening. That's all the navel-gazing that is just ad nauseum, and that's not helping anything. All we need to do is get really clear on what are my priorities, what are my values what's most important here?

And how can I live that out in the quickest way, easiest way, simplest way, kindest way possible? Yeah, it sounds really easy to get really clear on your priorities, and it's much more challenging than that because it requires. To slow down to get quiet, to check in with ourselves, to not get stuck in all that hoopla.

That's the analyzing and the navel-gazing, but rather to just be saying, wow, let's look at this in a simpler way. What am I feeling? How can I get into my body? And what are my priorities here? What's the big picture here? How can I look at this differently? So I wanted to come in and do this podcast because I've had so many people coming at me trying to really pinpoint and break down and get really crystal clear on the happier approach and ask and all the concepts in it, which I love. I absolutely love talking about the happier approach. I could do it all the time, but what I'm realizing is that, oh, wait, this is becoming another thing that people are trying to master that's outside of themselves.

If I can master the happier approach, then I'll be happy now, not necessarily. There is nothing to master quote-unquote. It's an ongoing process of looking at yourself and exploring yourself and seeing, having some love and kindness and grace and curiosity about yourself. So you will never arrive quote-unquote at a place where you're constantly happier.

I had a client, a potential client. Ask me. Would you describe yourself as happy? I don't believe happiness is a state that we achieve. I believe we go in and out of, happiness and as I said to this client, if you had talked to me this morning when I was having an anxiety moment with my husband, he would have been like, Nope, she's not happy, but I could get myself out of that.

And that's the difference. That's the piece I want you to be paying attention to is when. Can I pull myself out of it, and can I keep moving forward? It was funny earlier this week I was having an issue, and I was spinning off on something. I can't even, I can't even remember what it was that tells you how unimportant some of this stuff we're spinning off on is, and I was spitting out, and I thought to myself, years ago, I would have said before I got married, I would have said, oh if I was married, I wouldn't have this problem.

I lumped everything. Every issue I had, I lumped into the idea that I wasn't married. And then when I got married, there really was this moment of, oh, I can't blame it on that anymore. I don't have that thing to blame it on. We get something out of having the next thing that we don't have to be able to blame it on.

So I am not happy because I can't figure out ask or because this guru wouldn't take me or I can't understand what it is they're saying, and they have the secret. So the more we obsess and the more we look outside for the answers, it's to recognize, wait a minute, it's in me. It's in me. It isn't about if I'm married or not married or have kids or don't have kids or have a job or don't have a job.

It's about me. Am I living a life that is designed by my priorities? And am I happy doing that? And if I'm not, what changes do I need to make to better suit my own life? And that's how we start to live happier. I'm not saying it's easy, people. I'm not saying it's easy by any means. It's way harder than it sounds, but it's totally possible.

So this week, I want your mantra to be, I am the answer. I just need to have some curiosity and kindness myself, and I can move forward. And that's all that's necessary.

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Episode 085: What does a GOOD Day look like?

Today I offer a simple question to get your mind moving in different ways. We get so caught up in the 'hamster wheel' of life that we forget to ask ourselves are we living a life we want to be living? In this episode I explore the question...what does a good day look like?

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Hey everyone, excited to be back again. Today, we are going to be asking the question, what does a good day look like? I want to unpack that a little bit for you. I've been asking myself this question a lot lately, and it's such a simple question that has a lot of oomph to it. The reason I want to ask the question is in my tour for my book, The Happier Approach, and in working with clients and just talking to my friends and seeing it in my own life, we are so frenzied. I talked about this a little bit last episode of what I've been observing. We have so much coming at us and the number of people that have said to me, "I want some space. I want some time. I want some ability to be able to take an exhale and not have so much coming at us."

I know, even though I don't have kids myself, but I know May is a particularly hellish time when it comes to kids activities and getting ready, the end of the year, and all that stuff coming at us. This might be a fun exercise as you're running from thing to thing to thing with your kids, or it might just be something for you to ponder as we start the summer and hopefully a time where we can get some more space. Traditionally, summer is designed to give us a little more room to do our lives differently.

That was one reason I wanted to bring up this question. The other was the reason I think the question is so powerful because we spend so much time with our heads down, we're on the hamster wheel, or we're on the treadmill, and we don't really look up and look around to ask, Is this what I want to be doing? Is this how I want to be spending my time? Who said I needed to be doing life THIS way? Even to unpack every little thing in your life, looking at different habits I have or different expectations I have for myself to say, who said you need to do that?

You know, last week, I came out and said this podcast is just coming out twice a month because once a week is too much for me. I can't come up with the content and record it and everything. I spent much of the first part of this year beating myself up for the fact that I wasn't hitting the every week mark. Then, to say, well, you're the one that said it had to come out every week. You're putting that expectation on yourself. I think we do that in a lot of ways.

Obviously, there are things in our lives that we cannot control, and there are expectations coming at us that we have to set up, but some of them I think we really can push back on. The idea of, what is a good day, questioning yourself that way, is being able to pull back and say, what is a good day? When I've asked this to clients a lot of times, the answer that comes back involves a lot of space. But it also involves simple stuff of cooking breakfast with family or enjoying a home-cooked meal or going out to dinner together or taking time to go to the park. Those little activities that are built in that allow for connection and space and time and fit their values.

In my world, everything goes back to values. If we're going to decide on how we want to be spending our lives, we need to be looking at our overarching values. When we can see our overarching values, then we can pull stuff apart. I was at a book talk last week, with a group of moms. They were talking about all the expectations they have for themselves and all the different ways that the school tries to stay in touch. There are websites and list serves and messages coming at them.

A couple of the Moms said, "Yeah, I unsubscribed from that service. I am not on that listserve." The moms that said that said, "I can't do it. I don't have the time. It's too much stuff coming at me." The other moms who were still on the listserve, some of them had this aha of, "Oh, I didn't realize I could get off the listserve. I didn't realize I could say no to that."

It was kind of this freeing moment for them to realize, "Oh, I don't have to be checking that listserve all the time. I don't have to be keeping up with everyone on Facebook. I don't have to be constantly making sure that my kids get a home-cooked lunch every single day. That, I can shake this up a little bit. I can change the rules and still be within the parameters of society and my values." That's what I want you to be thinking about when you're answering this question, what is a good day because it gets us back to basics.

It's a different energy to that question than a question I used to ask my clients would be, "What does thriving look like to you? What is thriving?" That idea pulls you way out into this kind of surreal moment of what is thriving. The positive of that question, which if that question is easier to answer then go for it, is I can say, "What is thriving to me," and I can be like, "oh, it's having lots of space and lots of time with my family and tons of open time to think and write." Then being able to bring that stuff, break that down a little bit smaller so that I can say, "Okay, in a thriving world, I would have lots of space. Where in my life can I add more space? Where can I do that?" I can start deconstructing my life differently and looking to add in the stuff that I want to do to be thriving.

The reason I like the what is a good day question, is it doesn't have to be this huge thriving, this gigantic goal. It's just a good day. What's a good day? For a lot of us, I would question if we're having a lot of good days. I think we're so busy on that treadmill and the hamster wheel that we aren't checking in to say, "Is this the life I want to be living? Is this how I want to be spending my time? Do I want to be this engaged in every facet of my life? Do I want to be married to my to-do list? When I look at my to-do list, does it matter half of this stuff? Probably not."

Having the honesty that, if I said to work, "You know what? Every day, I'm leaving at 5:00. I'm not staying after. I'm going to leave at 5:00 every day." That may feel like, "Oh my gosh, I can't possibly say that to them. They're going to be mad at me." Then, when you set that boundary that may be an aha to your boss to say, "Oh, okay, she's going to leave at 5:00. That's what she said. She's going to get her work done because she's going to be diligent about getting everything done in the timeframe because she's leaving at 5:00." That may change how he does it. They may not even have the expectation that you have to stay past 5:00. That could be all in your head. Now, it might not be, but it could be.

That's where, just the idea of, I've been asking myself, "What rule can I bust here? What do I not have to keep doing the way I've always done it?" We get on these tracks of things; this is how I've always done it. This is the way I've always done it, instead of pulling back to be like, "Oh, well, does it matter if every Friday we do pizza night, or can we do Greek on Fridays?"

Then you can start asking yourself, "Oh, do I have to be at work every day by 8:00, or could I get in at 7:30 and leave at 4:30?" Or, "Do I have to make sure that I bring the coolest Pinterest latest snack to this classroom, or can I just be okay with boxed raisins?" Giving yourself some room to question how you're living your life. What are the expectations you're trying to strive for, and if you do want more space and time and more freedom, how can you add that to your life?

Now, something I'm going to talk about in a future episode is the idea that so many of my clients and myself included dream of lots of time to do whatever they wanted, and mountains of books and being able to read and being able to just think on things and journal, and have all this beautiful spa-like existence. When we get the time and when we have the time to do that, we don't take the time to sit and read in the corner or go outside and drink our coffee sitting on the back porch. We fill it with more to do list stuff.

Even when we get a chance to have space and freedom, we don't capitalize on it. That's something I'm going to just tease you about that because that's something I want you to be thinking about is, is that true for you, and why might that be? Why is it that the one thing we say we crave more than anything else is also the one thing that we set up our lives not to have? We crave space and energy, and we tell everyone we want space and energy, but we don't make it a priority. Why is that?

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Episode 084: Things that Have been Annoying Me Lately

There are a lot of things in my industry lately that have just been rubbing me the wrong way, and so they've been making me feel kind of quiet and small. So instead of continuing on that quiet and small mantra, I wanted to air them and see if you guys agreed with me or felt the same way or were equally annoyed or maybe it's just me.

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Hey, everyone. I am excited to be back. I initially wanted to say that I'm sorry because I said I was going to be here every week, and that hasn't been happening lately. And then I remembered something I'd heard from Mel Robbins, who wrote the 5 Second Rule, and if you haven't checked out that book or heard her TED talk or any of her information, I highly recommend it. But she talks about how we need to stop saying we're sorry so much, and we need to say thank you.

So instead of saying I'm sorry, I haven't been here for the past couple of episodes, I'm going to say thank you for continuing to listen even though I haven't been here as promised every week. So I appreciate that reframe in how to communicate because I think a lot of times we have heard the stop saying you're sorry, stop saying you're sorry, but the idea of stop saying you're sorry and instead of that say thank you was a real aha for me. Because a lot of times, we have a hard time changing based on how it affects us, so I know I shouldn't say I'm sorry because it diminishes my power, blah, blah, blah. But in reality, I think it was more motivational for me to change that habit because when I say I'm sorry, it takes away from the gift I'm giving the other person.

So last week, a friend of mine was hosting me for a book party, and she had invited me to come over early for lunch. We both got there a little late, and we were both rushing around, and here she had to come up with lunch. My first reaction was to say, "Oh, I'm so sorry that you're making my lunch. I should have brought my lunch."

And then, instead of saying, "Oh, I'm sorry," I said, "Thank you so much for making my lunch. This was so nice to be able to have lunch with you."

In saying thank you, I was able to give my appreciation. She was able to take my appreciation and feel good about herself that we were able to enjoy lunch. And had I said I'm sorry, I would have been like, "Oh, I'm sorry that you had to make me lunch," and then she would have jumped in to try to save me and make me feel better, and the whole gratitude piece of I'm really thankful that you're here and you made me lunch would have been lost in the sorries.

So I like that example. It took it home for me on how powerful this is. So that's my tidbit. I want you to practice that this week. See if you can make that change and take that pause.

So in that spirit of being transparent on doing it every week, it's probably not going to happen. So I need to be honest with you all that this podcast is going to be coming out twice a month, and I'm going to be doing regular podcasts twice a month. And that is something I can commit to because I really want to get back into writing more blog-type, long-form articles. So I'm going to be doing that, and I'm also if you're not familiar with the website medium.com, I suggest you check that out. I'm going to be over there, but also, there are some great writers on that site. So if you are a reader and like blog-type articles, head on over to Medium and check that out because I highly recommend it as a thing that's kind of cool.

Okay, so today, the theme is things that annoy me. It's an odd theme for me. I don't like to tap into the things that annoy me. I don't like to do that, and I'm finding that the reason I don't like to do that is one of the things that annoy me is the phrase "be positive," and I've talked about that here on this podcast before.

There's a lot of things in my industry lately that have just been rubbing me the wrong way, and so they've been making me feel kind of quiet and small. So instead of continuing on that quiet and small mantra, I wanted to air them and see if you guys agreed with me or felt the same way or were equally annoyed, or maybe it's just me. So it's just throwing them out there and a way of clearing the air for myself and also just to get the feedback from the group to be like, hey, yeah, I'm annoyed by this, too, or you're overly sensitive, which I could own that—all that sort of stuff.

So lately, what's been annoying me, and I wrote down a list of all the things that have been annoying me, and that was cathartic in and of itself. So I'm not going to get to all the things on my list because there are quite a few, but I am going to get to some of the highlights. The main one that has been annoying me, well there are two that are tied for the top, and the first one is "this stuff is simple" and that if only you knew the quick fix and the easy way and the simple methodology, you would be fixed.

That idea keeps us stuck, and it keeps our Monger fired up because of Facebook and Instagram and all of those messages; even Medium that I just recommended to you has the "Seven Ways to Feel Happier." Sometimes those are great and give us some ideas, but other times they just kind of trigger like, "Oh, I'm just supposed to be kind to myself. Poof! It's so simple."

And it's not simple. If you take those articles that say these are the seven ways to be happier and you pick one of those, and you work on it every day for years, you will become closer to mastering it, but you won't have mastered it. So that idea that we need to constantly be making these quick, easy changes and that there's something wrong with us if we can't is keeping us stuck in this anxiety and overwhelm.

You know, so much is coming at us on a day-to-day basis. I've been doing these book talks for my Happier Approach book and just watching these women that are coming that are exhausted and overwhelmed, and so much is coming at them from their kids to Facebook to Instagram to the PTA newsletter to where they need to volunteer to their jobs. I mean, it's overwhelming hearing their stories. And then, on top of that, it's supposed to be simple for you to make changes in your life. And it's not. This is very complex stuff.

So I even hesitated when I wrote my book. You know, I have this simple methodology. "It's just ASK, and you just do these three simple steps, and it'll be really easy." And that is not how it works. It takes diligence and time and looking at it in different ways, and there's complexity to it. So nothing in life is simple. We look at all the world's problems and all the stuff that's going on and racism and conflicts overseas and conflicts in our own country and say, "Oh, those would be simple to solve."

No. They're very complex because they involve human beings who are thinking and feeling and have stories and all kinds of stuff going on in their psyche. Same is true for the personal development stuff. It is not simple, and we need to stop this myth that it is because we use it to beat ourselves up even more. So that's the number one.

And number one A, so the close second, is the phrase "change your story," and that idea is that if I have a story that I'm telling myself over and over again, so a lot of us have money stories. So I'm never going to have enough money for retirement could be a story you're telling yourself, and it's a phrase you repeat over and over again. I'm just never going to have enough money for retirement. I'm always going to have to be hustling and working. I'm never going to have enough money.

And so that idea, and if you go to certain life coaches or therapists, even, or read any personal development, they'll say, "Well, change that story. That story isn't serving you. Move on." And that sounds great, and at the moment, I probably can move past that and be like, wait, that's a story, and I need to move past it.

But I think we need to unpack those stories. Your brain is not a switch you flip. There's a lot more to it. So where did the idea of I'm never going to have enough money for retirement come from, and what's underneath that? I don't deserve money. What are my issues with money? What did I have money growing up? What did that look like?

There's a lot more to it than just change the story, flip that script, that it's going to be something else because it's not that simple. So again, when we can't change the story, or when that story comes back and we're like, "No, no, no. Last week I changed that story. Last week I told myself to stop thinking that, so why am I thinking it this week?" 'Because you're human, and that's what happens.

The overarching theme of my work, of the happier approach of the live happier philosophy, is that we need to figure out how to trust ourselves, and the idea that it's simple or change your story pulls us out of our trusting of ourselves. It stops us from trusting ourselves because I can't trust myself if I have these freaky stories I'm telling myself.

So to recognize, know, I do have these stories, and they are a part of me, and I need to figure out how to do the world with this story. How do I do the world thinking I'm not going to have enough for retirement? I've got to figure out how that story's serving me, how that story's not serving me, and how I can move beyond the story. But it's not just flipping the switch and changing the story. It's moving beyond it, and that takes a little unpacking.

So those two go together because they both run in the same vein of oh, it's simple. Now you've heard me talk about being grateful and think positive and how those drive me crazy, and I think I've devoted a whole podcast to those two, so I won't go into that.

The last one that I want to say is a phrase that I find myself saying a lot to myself and also to other people, and I even know the damage of the phrase, and it's the phrase "at least." It kind of goes with the be grateful and think positive because it's a way to keep us out of our thoughts is the idea of "at least."

So I can go to someone, or I'll say to myself, "Oh, I don't want to go to work today." Or, "I don't want to go to this event tonight," and it'll be like, "Well, at least you can drive." Or, "At least you have a job you can go to." "At least you get to come home and do nothing for the rest of the weekend." Or, "At least you have the finances to be able to do this. Quit your complaining. Suck it up, buttercup, let's keep going."

So that idea of "at least" keeps us stuck in, again, not trusting ourselves. 'Cause I have to cut off the rest of the sentence when I'm like, "Well, at least ..." It's like a hard stop, and so it's telling me that whatever I'm thinking is wrong. Whatever I'm doing is incorrect. Instead of saying, "Wow, I don't want to go to work today, but this and this and this is going to happen at work, and that's pretty cool." Or, "I don't want to go to work today because I'm really scared about this meeting with my boss. Wow, let me look at that. What's underneath that? What can I do to make that meeting less scary?" Not, "Well, at least you have a job, so don't even think about the fact you have this uncomfortable meeting. Just keep plowing through."

See how the phrase "at least" keeps us from trusting our experience and trusting what's going on, and I think that is the main reason that the Monger takes control is if we don't trust what we're feeling, then we can let this voice kind of run the show. And when we start trusting of, "No, wait a minute, I'm scared, and that's okay," or, "I don't want to go to work today, and that's okay." That doesn't mean I'm a miserable person who hates my job. I just would rather stay home on the couch today. It's raining; it's gross; I want to stay home. That's fine. We don't need to be judging everything all the time.

So that idea of making sure that we're giving ourselves the full experience of what's happening and not trapping it with "at least." And we do it to our friends, too. They'll come to us with a problem, and in the spirit of trying to make them feel better, we'll say, "Well, at least your husband loves you." Or, "At least you have two great kids," or whatever we're saying is in a way to be like what you're feeling isn't valid because you have this other good stuff. Let's look over here at the good stuff.

So that's what we do anytime we're pulling ourselves out of the process of what we're experiencing is we're like, "Look over here. This is going to be great." And we skip over the stuff that's uncomfortable, and that gets us into trouble.

So those are some of the things that have been annoying me lately in my industry. I want to be talking more about that stuff because I think it's a danger in preventing people from really being able to move past some of their patterns. The stuff that I talk about is more complex, and it is heavier and harder, and more challenging to do. Absolutely. But it does make real change. It does work, and I think that the "change your story" and "oh, it's so simple" really keep us stuck in these ideas that this is easy to do, and it keeps us cut off from ourselves.

The whole point, I think, of personal development and self-help is that if I'm more connected with myself and I can trust my process, I spend less time spinning out on my process, and I can better serve the world. And I think that's the whole point.

When we're stuck in "it's simple" and "just flip the script," we get more mired down in our crap. And when we do the work, we can then better serve the world.

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Episode 077: Judgment and Jealousy They Are Not ALL Bad

The quote "Stop comparing your insides to other people's outside." is a big ah-ha for people. But comparing ourselves is something we do ALL THE TIME. What can be gained from doing that? Can we engage in comparison without beating ourselves up?

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Today, I want to talk about two topics that are pervasive, and I think something that all of us can have in common, the idea of judgment and jealousy. Judgment and jealousy come from comparing ourselves.

One of my favorite quotes that I'm sure you've heard is, "Stop comparing your insides to other people's outsides." I love that quote because it is such an a-ha of, "Oh, that is what I'm doing. I'm looking at someone's snapshot of their lives on social media, or I'm listening to a story that's just one little piece of what's happening in someone's life. I'm comparing my whole life; I'm comparing my inner dialogue and everything that's going on with my life to the one that little thing that they're showing me."

We can get in trouble doing it. It is a toxic practice. The challenge about fabulous quotes like that is then you're like, "Okay. That's a great quote, and it's a great a-ha. Oh my gosh, that's so amazing, but what do I do next? I keep doing that. I know I need to stop comparing my insides to other people's outsides, but I'm still doing it." I want to dive a little deeper today into two of the things that pop up when we're comparing our insides to other people's outsides, and it's judgment and jealousy. Those two themes are what comes out of that comparison. That comparison can get our monger fired up. To protect us, our BFF steps in to be like, "Don't worry about it. They are this, this, and this."

We come up with all these different judgments on the person that we're watching. A common way that people do this comparison thing is, especially now, Valentine's Day is looking at other people's relationships. I have clients that will come in, and maybe they're struggling in their relationship with their partner. Then, they get on social media, or they go out with another couple, and they're like, "Oh my God. They have it all figured out. They have it all together. They're so annoying. They're all over each other. It's PDA all the time." All this judgment and jealousy starts coming up and raising its ugly head.

It's coming up because our monger is inside of us, telling us, "You should be like them. You should be that loving. You should be that wonderful. You don't deserve a partner that treats you like that. You don't deserve that." Our BFF steps up to protect us and is like, "No, no, no. They're the ugly ones. They're the gross ones. It's ridiculous. No, love like that doesn't exist. I mean, I bet he's cheating on her. He's cheating on her."

Our BFF steps in to ease that negativity that's coming from our monger. Both of those defensive mechanisms, the monger, and the BFF, aren't helping matters. We are still stuck feeling like crap. Now, we're sitting in judgment and jealousy, which doesn't feel that great either. I want to encourage you to use that judgment and jealousy instead of shaming yourself for having judgment and jealousy, to get curious about the judgment and jealousy. To ask yourself, "What is it about that relationship that I'm jealous of? What is it about that relationship that I want more of in my own life?"

Rather than just immediately stepping into judgment of yourself or judgment of the other people, to start getting curious about what is it that they have that I want? There was an interesting article that was written that said, "Envy can help us figure out what's most important to us." It was just an interesting spin on the idea that when we are envious of someone when we have judgment and jealousy, we can then be like, "Oh. What is it about that that I need to add to my own life?"

Sometimes when we dig a little deeper, we don't want what's required to get what they have. A client was telling me about how they were watching on social media someone who was traveling a lot. She was jealous of how much they were traveling. All these exotic vacations they were going on, how amazing it was. It just looked so fabulous. We started exploring like, "What is it about that you want in your own life? How can we start getting more travel?" Also, she came to the realization, "But wait a minute. I really like being home. I'm not someone who loves to travel around and go to a variety of places. I like going on my standard vacation of two weeks a year, but I don't want to be a nomad. I want to have my home base, and I value a home base."

Once she was able to get past shaming herself for the judgment and jealousy, she could start realizing, "Wait a minute. I don't want that in my life. That isn't for me." Once we can step back from the BFF and the monger fighting, we can recognize it's not a terrible thing to be a nomad. I don't have to sit in judgment of that experience. I don't have to sit in judgment of myself that I'm not seeking out different destinations and being adventurous in my life. Right now, that doesn't fit into my life, and that's okay. She decided that when they went on their two-week vacations and their small vacations throughout the year, she wanted to throw in a little bit more adventure. She didn't want to go to the same spot over and over again.

That's just a small example of how judgment and jealousy show up. The biggest way I see it is in judging other people's relationships and being jealous of other people's relationships. Also, judging people's careers and how far they're getting ahead and what they're doing, and how you should be further along with them. That is just a great reminder to be like, "Let me look at this differently."

Let me look at my judgment and jealousy and say, "Okay. A, do I want what they have? What do I want about what they have?" Like the woman who said, "I want to have more adventure and travel in my life in the two-week vacation slots that I have." She was able to discern what is it that I want from my jealousy and judgment? What can I pull from their experience into my own life? Then, what is it I don't want? What is it that they had to do? What are they giving up? What are they sacrificing? What are they willing to struggle with to gain that thing that it looks like I want?

The E-Trade commercials that have been out recently where they show a woman's waiting in line at Starbucks and she's scrolling through her social media. They talk about the person that she's watching and how she's doing. This person's doing all these amazing things and has this amazing life, and #nofilter, and all the sunsets that she watches. The voiceover is like, "You would be happier watching so-and-so on Instagram if you were making more money than her." You might be more jealous of all these things she has, but the bottom line, you just want to be making more money.

It's a tongue-in-cheek example of really getting to the heart of where the jealousy and judgment are coming from. That commercial does an awesome job of showcasing that you can be envious of someone, but that doesn't have to be toxic. It can just be a way to highlight the stuff you want to add to your own life. No, you don't want to be the person that's traveling around and doing all these crazy things and putting your life on Instagram. You do want to be making more money. Both are true, and so what's important when it comes to jealousy and judgment is recognizing what's underneath that.

Instead of going there and asking ourselves what's underneath that, we get all caught up in judging ourselves for being jealous and judgemental. We never get to unearth what it's really about. That is where our monger and our BFF keep us stuck. That's what I love about the power of the biggest fan. The biggest fan can step in and say, "You're feeling that. Let's look a little deeper at what is underneath it." Where our monger and BFF are constantly trying to be like, "Everything's okay. Everything's fine. We're fine, we're fine, we're fine," and keep things just on the surface.

To be happier, we have to be willing to dive a little deeper and offer some wisdom and discernment to ourselves. I love the term grace because we have to be giving ourselves the grace to recognize there's some wiggle room here. The all-or-nothing thinking of the monger and the BFF is not serving us. My challenge to you, as you go through the next week, is to start paying attention to when jealousy and judgment come up. I guarantee you; they come up quite a bit. If you have an inner critic, they are there. I encourage you to take it to the next level, take it a little deeper, and see what happens.

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Episode 071: Holiday Reminder: You Don't Live in a Norman Rockwell Painting

It's the Holiday Season, and our Monger LOVES to remind us of all the ways we aren't perfect. My #1 tip for enjoying the Holidays, getting along with challenging family members, and having a happy Thanksgiving even if you aren't living in a Norman Rockwell Painting.

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Hey, everyone. I'm excited to be back here on the Sunday before Thanksgiving. I just wanted to do a quick podcast to remind you all that the holidays are upon us as if you didn't know. And with the holidays comes a lot of Monger-chatting. So our Mongers love this time of year because it is ripe with people-pleasing, and perfectionism, and getting everything right. And that is our Monger's mantra. So, it's also ripe with family who tend to fire up the Monger because they have put the buttons in us that get us fired up. So, if there is ever a time that we resort to our default patterns and get lulled in by that Monger, it is when we are hanging out with our families.

There are so many tips out there about how to get through the holidays and what you should do. And so, we get all wrapped up in doing the holidays right, from a personal development standpoint. So then we're spinning our wheels the other way. So, we're spinning our wheels because our Monger is making us run 1,000 miles an hour to please everyone in the family and to make everything right. And then, we decide, okay, we're going to be looking at our lives from a personal development standpoint, and we start spinning our wheels that we're not doing that right. So, it's just this Catch-22.

So the main thing I wanted to tell you was a phrase that I was sharing with a client of mine recently that really, radically changed my life, especially when it comes to family, which is where we're going to be hanging this holidays most likely. And that is the idea to remind yourself repeatedly, "You are not eight years old." I will say to myself, "I am not eight years old. I am 44. I'm 44." And it snaps me back to, "Oh, my gosh. I am an adult who has a mortgage and a car payment. And I am doing things in my life. I am an adult."

And so, it isn't so much that the family members in our life, or the people we're surrounded by in our life, make us feel eight years old. We make ourselves feel like we're eight years old. More accurately, our Monger makes us feel like we're eight years old. And our biggest fan steps in to remind us, "You are an adult here. You have opinions; you have needs; you have the freedom to do what you want because you're a freaking adult!" So, I just want that to become your mantra for this holiday season. "I am not eight years old. I am (fill in the blank, however old you are.)."

And it is crazy how often, when I do that, that there's kind of like this, "Oh, yeah." It's like I literally have to remind myself that I am 44. And a piece of my brain goes, "Oh, yeah. You are. You are an adult here." So it is a very simple little quick piece of advice that I just wanted to give you, something easy that you can take into the Thanksgiving holiday and say, "Okay, I'm not eight years old." When you're standing there, and you're trying to mind-read your mom, yet again, or you're beating yourself up because the stuffing didn't turn out perfectly, or your kids are acting up, or whatever's happening. And your Monger is just slamming you to remind yourself, "Wait a minute. I am not eight years old here. I am an adult. And there are lots of ways to handle this. I don't have to go into my default patterns."

+ Weekly Ritual Challenge

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

This week's ritual: Name 1 Thing You are Grateful For

Okay, gang. Now it is time for the weekly ritual challenge. And I really encourage you, in addition to asking yourself or reminding yourself, "I'm not eight years old here," to really engage in a weekly ritual challenge. It doesn't have to be this week's. It can just be touching your toes, or wiggling, or jazz hands. I love jazz hands, by the way. Whatever it is that gets you back into your body, because that's going to be so important during this holiday time, as the reminder to get out of the Monger's brain and into your biggest fan. So, that's what these rituals are all about.

So, in the spirit of Thanksgiving, I'm going to have you name one thing you are grateful for. And that is just going to be simply taking a breath in the middle of making the stuffing or listening to your father ramble on about football, say one thing you are grateful for. And bonus points if you can name three. But sometimes, you can only muster one. So take a deep breath, name something you're grateful for. Make sure that it's something deep if you can. It's better, when you're doing gratitude, to go deep and really be specific.

Let's take the example of you're listening to your dad go on and on about football. Take a breath, and remind yourself, "Okay, I'm grateful for the fact that my dad is so passionate. I'm grateful that he's so passionate, and he's passed that on to my kids. Even though it's football, and I don't really understand football, I'm still really grateful for that personality trait in my dad." So it's a way to reframe the situation and see it from a place of genuine gratitude, not just painting it pretty, but genuine gratitude. So, that's my challenge to you. But, as I said, feel free to do any weekly ritual. Anything that gets you into your body, for five seconds or thirty seconds, will be helpful this week of the holidays.

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Episode 069: I Did Something Good, But...

Learning how to celebrate our wins and not diminish ourselves is the topic today. Too often I hear clients cut themselves down when they should be celebrating their success.

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Before I get started on this week's topic, I wanted to thank everyone for all of the comments. I got text messages. I got people in person, and I got emails that commented on the grief podcast that I just did a couple of weeks ago was the last, it was episode 68.

And that was a very hard podcast for me to do, and I felt very vulnerable and very out there. And so I appreciate it. All the people that commented and how it had helped them and touch them. And it's a topic that we need to be exploring more and being more honest about. So I just wanted to do a quick thank you.

And the more we can share our stories and get them out there and get the support and love that they deserve, the happier workers. So okay. Onto the show. Okay. Welcome. I'm so glad to be back here. I went to the smokey mountains with my mom and my husband last week, and it was an amazing trip.

We were a little early for the leaves, but which is hard to believe. Because it's the last week of October, but we still had a wonderful trip, and we got to go horseback riding, and we did some painting. Super out of my comfort zone and wonderful all at the same time. But today, I want to talk about something that I hear a lot in my office, and that is the phrase of I did something good, but, or I feel like I'm enough, but in that, but comes in there.

Wipes it all away. So I have a couple of examples of what I'm talking about. So let's say you have a great day laughing and playing with your kids at the beach. And after seeing yourself in the mirror, you beat yourself up for how you look at a bathing suit, or you get up early, you work out, you make a healthy breakfast, and you even set an intention for the day, but you don't allow enough time for traffic.

And you end up late to work later. As you sharing your day with your friend, you only talk about how you relate to work. No mention of all you accomplish that. You have a great time with your girlfriends, but you end up drinking too much. And as you share with your husband about the weekend, all you mentioned is how stupid you were for drinking too much.

And the last example I have is you find a great new job, and you're so happy that you left your old one, and all you can keep telling yourself is what an idiot you were for not leaving sooner. Can you relate to any of those examples? I'm sure you can. Because I know, I can. So in all of these examples, something great has happened.

An opportunity at work, putting your health first and during time with girlfriends or getting a new job. And those are all great activities that make you shine. There's something to be proud of. They're fabulous activities. And then you notice, and the retelling of these amazing events, you immediately play them down, focusing on the negative or regret they took so long.

In essence, you're intentionally dimming your light. And I had this happened to me with a client this week. I'm seeing a client, and she was talking about how she'd had this great aha with recognizing every time her monger steps in and tells her where she's failed or brings up some fear or some doubt she steps in and says to herself.

Yeah. And I would argue her biggest fan steps in to say to her, okay, what if I'm enough right now? What if this is enough? And just saying that to herself and returning to that over and over again has made a big difference in her life. But as she was telling me this victory in this thing that needed to be celebrated, because she figured out this way of channeling her biggest fan, and it was defeating the monger, and it was this positive thing.

She would counter everything she said with, I come in, and I say, I'm enough, but I'm not perfect. I'm not doing it perfectly, or she'd say, and then I'd come in, and I tell myself I'm enough at this moment. I'm not saying I have a huge ego or anything. So everything she did, even in session with me, she was still want me to think she had a big head.

She didn't want me to think she wasn't modest. She was dimming her light here. She'd figured out this awesome way to counter her emonger, and instead of celebrating it, she's making sure I know that she's not perfect. She doesn't have any ego when that isn't the point. The point is she figured it out away.

To get through the day without being attacked by the monger. This constant dimming of our light and not celebrating our successes is an epidemic. And it's something that I'm guilty of. It. Something I see in my clients all the time. I see in my girlfriends the number of women who diminished, disregard, and flat-out disrespect.

There wins rather than celebrating through immediately onto the next thing. We're bullying ourselves for how it could have gotten better. We've discussed this a million times. We are our own worst critics. And so when you ask yourself, what are you gaining by diminishing? And so here are some things we say to ourselves, Keep us in the diminishing stance.

One is don't shine too brightly, good girls, quote, unquote, stay humble and small. That's something a lot of clients have that the good girl is humble and small, so we want to be a good girl. So you diminishing your light, playing small, or staying humble doesn't shine the light on someone else more brightly.

It just keeps you small. That's back to the idea, I talked about a couple of podcasts ago about People in Puerto Rico that are suffering from the hurricane. And when we feel guilty that we're not suffering, that isn't helping the people in Puerto Rico, so you diminishing your light isn't helping anybody else.

You're just diminishing your light. So another thing we say if we celebrate a win. Somehow stop striving. And I've talked about this myth before. This is the myth that we need the monger, if we need to keep driving ourselves and if there's something to be accomplish, then there's no room for celebration.

We just got to keep powering through and keep going so that, or doesn't make us accomplish more. She just makes us miserable. Wow, we're doing it. So softening her voice will make us less. But it will make us happier. So keep that in mind. The biggest fan does not stop us from striving. It just stops us from hammering ourselves all day.

And then the last thing we tell ourselves, we believe that we have to be perfect to celebrate that a victory, unless spotless is not a victory. Oh, I can so relate to that one. So there's no such thing as perfect. Like my clients saying I'm enough. I'm not perfect, but I'm enough.

And we had this whole discussion around how enough doesn't have anything to do with perfection. Being enough means you can show up at a situation and you can feel empowered to handle it. You may not handle it perfectly. You may not even handle it no 50% perfectly, but you're handling it. And that means you're enough.

So no matter how hard we strive, we have swallowed the belief. We have to be perfect. And so really keep that in mind that perfection is so dangerous. So here's three things I would say to help unhook this diminishing or cutting out the celebration is surround yourself with celebrators.

Surround yourself with celebrators encourage your friends. Celebrate with you and call you out when you aren't celebrating. And this has been a big thing. My husband has done this for me because I'm not a big celebrator, and he will frequently remind me we should be celebrating this. That's a good thing.

Keep that in mind. He'll call me out on the celebrations. So it's something to do with your girlfriends, or your partner is really to encourage. You to celebrate and also for you to be encouraging them when they need to celebrate, stop, you need to be celebrating this, doing a reminder.

Notice how often you diminish or disregard a win and force yourself to celebrate, no matter how small. So that's another way of bringing in that celebration. Throw a dance party for one in your office. Enjoy a cupcake or tough friend about your victory. Vocalizing it out loud, sharing with other people, allowing the victory to be, and the victory can be, I made it to work on time, or I got up this morning and worked out, or I recorded the podcast.

They can be little tiny things. They don't have to be these huge momentous. I did something perfect. And it was amazing. No, I've got up out of bed, and I got dressed victory. That could be a victory for some people. And then the last thing I want to say would, you've heard me say this before, but it is so powerful.

Remove the word, but from your cab vocabulary and instead use the word. And so if we go back to the example that I talked about, where let's take the, one of you have a great time with your girlfriend. And you ended up drinking too much. So instead of saying, you have a great time with your girlfriends, but you ended up drinking too much.

You can say you have a great time with your girlfriends and you drank too much. So if you could go back, you probably wouldn't drink that much again because you were hungover and you still had a great time with your girlfriends. Both are true. One doesn't take away from the other. And so, adding and into the vocabulary has made a big difference for me and my clients and recognizing I can be holding two opposite truths at the same time and one isn't diminished the other.

+ 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: Clench and Tighten All your Muscles

So scrunch your face up. Squint your eyes, and country fists do that for five, 10 seconds. However long you can hold that. A lot of times, when you're doing that, you're holding your breath. So to remind yourself not to do it too long, or you won't be able to breathe. And then, after you're done, release everything with a big exhale you realize how tightly you were holding your body before you crunched everything. And then B, it allows you to release all that tension.

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Episode 065: You Don’t Need to Make Yourself Small

Recently someone said to me "I am done making myself small for people." It struck me how often we do this and how it is linked to the way we talk to ourselves. Are you making yourself small in your life? Tips to show up in your life fully.

+ Read the Transcript

Today I wanted to talk about the phrase "you don't need to make yourself small." Someone recently told me that she'd heard this phrase, "you don't need to make yourself small," and this was her new mantra. Occasionally I'll hear a sentence that strikes me, and this one, "you don't need to make yourself small," was one of those. I've been thinking about it for a couple of days now, so I wanted to do a podcast. Because I think for a lot of us we do that, we make ourselves small and couch it in the "well I don't want to fight that fight, " or "Oh, I don't want to get into a big debate about something, so I'm just going to make myself small."

And I think it harms us more than it helps us. So what do I mean by you don't need to make yourself small? If you think about it, I think we make ourselves small in a variety of places. When we don't speak up when we know something about a project that we think will add to the conversation and we don't say anything, we don't speak up. At home, when we don't ask for what we need, and we just keep plowing ahead, keeping our head down making the To-Do list just going through the motions of life, and we don't speak up to say we need help or can someone do this or asking does this need to be done?

Those situations are how we play small or just say what I want is to go out to dinner. I don't want to have to cook. Those are ways that we can speak up and then even with our friends when we let's let things slide, or someone says something that we don't agree with, and we just let it go rather than standing up for ourselves. I think there are little ways that we make ourselves small all the time. Sometimes you hear that saying, you think, oh, you know I don't let people abuse me, or I don't let people talk to me that way, and that's not what I want you to think on.

When did you think of the little tiny ways that you don't show up as truly "you" are in a situation in your daily life? So as I mentioned, one of the reasons we play small is because we're afraid of making a fuss and it coming back on us in a bigger way. For example, we say, "I don't want to cook the meal tonight," then we decide to go out, and it becomes a bigger deal than if we would just cook dinner and not have to worry about it. But another reason I think is more important as is to we make ourselves small is because of our Monger. All roads lead back to where Monger. Our Monger shames us and convinces us that we aren't ok as we are. We need to make ourselves small to fit into society, and this can show up in you're too emotional you're too much, or too loud you're too whatever. Our Monger wants us to tone down whatever it is you are.

That's too much. So you can fit in and not have that same feeling come over you. An example of this for me it's small, it's tiny, but it's still an example of when I make myself small is the idea of really showing up to the fact that I am an introvert and I don't really like to do a ton of social things. I am perfectly happy having a weekend of just me and my husband hanging out at the house, in the backyard. Just putzing and around doing my own thing, and I don't need a lot of social activity.

My husband is more social than me, not a ton more, but he's more social. He frequently says, "We should be going out. We should be doing something so-and-so invited us to do this we should do that." And I have a tough time saying no. I just want to stay home. I don't want to go out. I just had a long week. I just want to be by myself at home, and the reason I have a hard time saying that because my Monger convinces me that that is true. I am too sensitive, I'm too quiet, I'm too introverted, and I need to be a good person. A good person would be social and get out there and do stuff.

And because I am such a loser who likes to stay home, that means I need to force myself to do something different, and so for me, a way that I need to show up in my life and not make myself small is to say no I don't want to go out and that's okay. No, I don't want to meet a bunch of people at a bar. No, I don't want to, you know, hang out with these people and spend hours making small chat. I don't want to do it. And so and then not shaming myself for the fact that I don't want to do it. When I make myself small, I go along, and making myself small, I ignore what I need and want, and I do that to the detriment of myself. Because then I go and spend more of my energy that I don't have in making small talk and being social.

So paying attention to the idea that making yourself small means you're just not showing up to the innate traits that you have. You know you're not honoring who you are, and especially as women, we are taught we need to diminish ourselves a little bit because that just makes life go easier. And so we diminish ourselves and don't take up as much space. I know there's going to be pushback on the fact of well, if I am constantly showing up for who I am and I'm constantly not making myself small, isn't that a little selfish.

And my pushback is always going to be no because if you are struggling with making yourself small, you are way over here on the left side of the continuum. You are far-reaching. I'm pushing my hand all the way across the room right now as far as I can stretch, and selfish is clear over on the right hand as far as I can stretch, so the reality of you moving from making yourself small all the way across the room to selfish probably not going to happen. And it'll feel like it in the sense of your Monger will convince you that you are becoming way over here in the selfish world, but you aren't.

So a prime example of this is when I actually stand up for myself, and I say, "you know what? I don't want to go out to that party. I don't want to go just hang out at the bar and make small talk", and I'll tell my husband you can go. You can do that. But I want to stay home. And that to me feels ginormous like I have made such a fool of myself, and my Monger just chimes in tenfold to tell me no you're selfish just suck it up and go. And the more we just "suck it up and go," the more stressed out we get, the more overwhelmed we get, the less we're taking care of ourselves. And that's what this is all about that, in my opinion, is what living happier is all about figuring out how to decrease that stress and overwhelm so we can really enjoy our lives.

And when I don't spend a Saturday night out with a bunch of people making small talk, my Sunday is so much better. And my Saturday is always better because I'm not dreading going out with people on Saturday night. So paying attention to what is it you need to show up for your life? Where are you making yourself small so that you don't have to and face that Monger? As you know, I'm a big proponent of the Biggest Fan. And so when my Monger does attack me for saying no to some event going out. My Biggest Fan usually chimes in to say we don't want to go. And that's OK. You know I tend to make a mountain out of a mole. I tell myself if I say no, I'm a terrible person. When in reality, what I did was so minuscule.

And so when my Biggest Fan can come in and be like, "honey bear, this is nothing. You are not demanding a lot here. You have moved two steps down that little continuum, and you were not anywhere near selfish." So I need to constantly be reminding myself of that. And as I do that, it gets easier and easier and easier for me to show up and take up space and not make myself small. So that is the theme of the day, and I hope you can kind of implement some of that not making yourself small as much as I'm trying to implement that in my own life.

+ Weekly Ritual Challenge

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

This week's ritual: Be Creative

This week's weekly ritual challenge is to be creative. And I got to say being creative is not my strong suit. I'm creative in many ways in my teaching and writing, and I do have creativity. But the traditional ways of being creative of drawing and painting, and coloring are not my strong suit. Just five minutes or even two minutes of getting out of that analytical brain and stepping into the creativity side.

It has been incredible. So I encourage you even if you have many red flags or a lot of resistance as I did which is one reason I picked it. A lot of resistance to this week's weekly ritual challenge all the more reason for you to challenge yourself to do a couple of minutes. And I think that's what's been so powerful about it is I've just challenged myself to do a couple of minutes. When I think of being creative, I believe that it has to be this whole big thing spending the afternoon painting coloring when it's just showing up and flipping your brain a little bit to the other side. And that's what this is all about changing things up.

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Episode 064: The Downside of Gratitude

Practicing Gratitude is an amazing practice that allows us to see the world through a different lens and regain some perspective. Too often I see people take this practice of gratitude and use it as a weapon on themselves. In this episode, we look at the Downside of Gratitude and the 3 ways you can avoid it.

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I’m excited to be here today talking to you about gratitude. It is one of my favorite topics. I also have to confess; I’m a little nervous to talk about gratitude. It is a passionate topic for a lot of people who love the practice of gratitude. Honestly, I love the practice of gratitude and have used it a lot in my life. I use it every day or try to say the five things I am grateful for as I end the day.

I also see it this week as Houston has gotten hammered with the rain and all the tragedy that is happening there; the number of people that have been interviewed that have used gratitude as a way to keep going. To say they’re so thankful to have their family, they’re so thankful they have their health, they’re so thankful they got out. And so, I think gratitude is an extremely powerful practice that we can use to live happier. And I think that for some of us, I was one of these people, gratitude becomes a way that we hammer ourselves. And so I have seen it happen way too often in my office and in talking with friends and family that something comes up that we’re not feeling good about in our lives. Maybe we don’t like our job. We’re unhappy with our spouse. We want our kids to be doing something different, and we meet it with “I should be grateful for my health, or I should be grateful for my job.” “You know for everything I have, I shouldn’t be complaining.” I sometimes think that idea of “I shouldn’t be complaining, I should be grateful” keeps us stuck in these situations that we could change.

So gratitude is great. It works well; as I said with the example of Houston that there is a lot that is out of control in the lives of people being struck by that hurricane in Houston, so going to gratitude is an awesome way to get a new perspective.

Calming yourself down, getting into the moment, and recognizing what’s happening here. That’s why I use gratitude when I go to sleep at night. My brain is firing very quickly, and I have a little insomnia, and I’ll lay there and just slow myself down to think of the things I’m grateful for. It is an awesome way to use gratitude. The way it keeps us stuck is when we use it as a way to shut down our experience. So I may be saying to my husband, “oh, you know I’m stressed out because I have this book deadline coming up and but I should be grateful I have the idea to write the book, and I have the opportunity to write the book, and I should be grateful.” Well, that gratitude just comes in and overrides everything I just said.

You know it just pushes it all away. So I see a lot of times with clients who come in, and they want to make some life changes, they want to stop hustling so hard, or they want to switch their jobs around, or they want to figure out a new way of communicating with their spouse. And instead of making the changes, they’ll just say, “I should be grateful I should be grateful I’m even married. I should be grateful that I have a job; I should be grateful I have a roof over my head.” OK. But you want to make those changes, and you can make those changes if you own the fact that you want to do it. So it’s back to my favorite podcast episode, which was called Own it because I think that is the key that we have to own our experience.

So I have three tips that I want us to look at when it comes to gratitude and its practice. To switch up how you may be practicing gratitude. Implement these three tips. The first one is to go deep, not wide. So when you’re driving home, you’ve had a stressful day, and you think, OK, I’m going to practice gratitude. It’s not so much “I’m grateful for my car, I’m grateful for having a house over my head, I’m grateful that my husband, you know, exists.” It’s getting specific. “I’m grateful that it’s a beautiful day. I’m grateful I can feel the air conditioning on my skin. I’m grateful that my husband is cooking dinner tonight.” You have some depth to what’s happening when we just go wide with “oh, I should be grateful.”

It doesn’t have the same impact and the same perception shift as one we can go deep. Because going deep requires us to slow down a little bit and get present, and that’s where I think the power of gratitude comes in. When we can slow down and recognize the perception shift, that’s where it’s powerful. Just pushing out all the negatives in our life because we should be grateful isn’t making any shifts, but slowing down on the way home from work when stressed out and saying, OK, what happened today that I’m grateful for. Let’s slow this process weighed down.

One of my favorite examples of this as I was at the grocery store. This was earlier this year, and I was bitter about having to go to the grocery store. You know I had to run in and get Cat Litter, And I hate going to groceries anyway, but I even hate it more when I have like two things I need to get. So I ran in to get the cat litter, and I’m standing in line at the clerk, you know, waiting. And as I’m looking around, I’m like, OK, what can you be grateful for here. Let’s slow this down. What can you be grateful for, and instead of just being like, “Oh, I should be grateful that you know I can run in and get cat litter, or I should be grateful that it’s a beautiful day.” I was like, “Oh, I am grateful that I can run into this spot and just get cat litter, or I don’t drive all around the city looking for cat litter like it’s right here. And not only can I get cat litter, but I can also get meat for dinner, or I can get fresh vegetables all the same spot” and so I started then expanding, “I’m grateful for all the people that are here that work here. I’m grateful for all the farmers that create all of our food. I’m grateful for the systems that they have in place to make sure that it’s so easy for me to get it.” And so that depth happens instead of just being, oh I should be grateful cause nowhere I could walk into Kroger. I should be grateful that I can just come in here. Well, let’s go a little deeper. So that’s my first tip. Go deep. Not wide.

The second tip you’ve heard before. It’s one of my favorites. It is practicing the and. So often, we will say, “Oh, I had a really bad day I don’t really like my job. I don’t know if this is the right fit for me, but I should be grateful because I have this job, and it’s bringing me money.” Well, if you can just throw one ‘and in there, “you know I don’t know about this job is it making me happy it’s not fulfilling. And we need the money right now, so I need to figure out a way to do both. How can I switch and keep the same amount of money.” So the and opens your brain up to a little more possibilities. “I don’t like my job, AND I’m grateful that I have the job.”

And then you look at a different way of doing this because this isn’t working. Being stuck at this job. And opens up the possibilities in that one shift of adding AND into my life has just made so much difference to expand. Because I tend to be black and white/ right and wrong by adding in the, AND I can allow myself to be like, “I am grateful that I have all these blessings in my life. And today was a rough day.” Both are true. “I am very grateful for all the blessings, I’m very grateful for the privilege that I have in my life, and I need to be aware of what that privilege is so that I can use it for good, instead of using it for evil. So AND is a powerful, powerful word. I encourage you to start embracing that in your life.

The last tip I have for you is to recognize that it’s OK not to be grateful it’s OK to feel bad. So gratitude rushes in as a way to stop us from feeling those negative yucky emotions that we don’t want to feel. I have this with my Dad and the grief that I’m experiencing with his death. It’s been seven months. And I think OK, I should be past this. I should be moving on, and I’ll say, “I’m feeling sad about Dad or I’m missing dad today.” And then in rushes, “you should be grateful you know to be grateful you had such a great relationship with your father, and so you shouldn’t be feeling sad.”

Well, actually, I might it might be feeling sadder because we did have such a great relationship. And so recognizing that grief is OK, it’s OK to feel that way. I don’t have to push it over with gratitude. And I can throw in the AND there and say, “Gosh, today’s a really hard day I’m missing Dad, and I’m so grateful we had such a close relationship. I’m grateful that he was my Dad.” So both are true. And that’s the practice of AND and recognizing that it’s OK to feel bad. So the downside of gratitude, in summary, is that we use it to push away all of our feelings. We use it not to honor where we already are, and it keeps us stuck because we don’t make changes because we’re just feeling grateful all the time.

So to recognize when that’s happening to you, when you’re not allowing yourself to feel anything because gratitude is rushing in and the three tips I have are to go deep, not wide. So really, get some depth in there on what you’re feeling grateful for. Practice that lovely word AND so take out the buts and recognize it’s OK to feel bad.

+ 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: Start the Day With a Glass of Water

Coffee is my go-to morning drink. On the rare days that I drink a glass of water before my coffee, I feel so much better. This week the challenge is to drink a glass of water first thing in the morning. Bonus points: While you are drinking, take time to tune into your body and set an intention for the day.

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Episode 062: You don’t have to be Zen to fight your Monger

For years I thought I had to be a super yoga zen woman to deal with this nasty inner voice. And being the Type A person I am that wasn't going to work. Today a few thoughts on dealing with your Monger when you aren't Zen.

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Hello, all. I'm super excited to be here for yet another episode. Today I wanted to take a break from the regularly scheduled program talking about myths of our Monger and just address the process of going after and quieting our Monger and what that process has been like for me, and what it might be like for you if you are similarly a type A, non-zen personality. The Monger is that nasty voice in our head that tells us, "Oh, you're not doing it right. You're failing. This isn't working. You need to be perfect. You need to be on top of things."

Today I was going to talk about two more myths that I have unearthed in my working with the Monger, but before I get into that, I just wanted to connect with everyone and thank you for listening to the podcast.

I also just wanted to touch on Monger in general. What I love about the Monger is she is never boring, for sure. As someone who tends to get bored easily, working with Monger has kept me entertained, I guess, for lack of a better word, because the Monger is so wily.

I just wanted to reach through the microphone and say: This work is hard. A lot of people, when they start working with their Monger, and initially they're like, "I don't have a Monger. I don't have that voice. I don't know what you're talking about. I don't have that voice," and then, as they start unearthing it, they're like, "Oh my gosh, I have that voice, and it chats all the freakin' time." Then there's this wash of shame that comes, like, "Oh my gosh, I am constantly just hammering myself."

Once you realize that's happening, you want to fix it right away, and you want to get rid of it right away. The danger of that is: we can't. That's the part I hate about this work the most, is that there is no way to get rid of the Monger completely because it is biologically there, I believe, to help us survive in the world, to help us recognize danger. But it has run amok, and so we've gotten stuck in this cycle of perfectionism and people-pleasing and procrastination and all those lovely "p" words, as well as just beating ourselves to a bloody pulp that we're not experiencing things in our lives the way we want to be. I think everything comes back to the Monger, and that's why I love this work so much.

But to the same point, I think it's discouraging for people to be like, "Oh my gosh, I've done all this work on my Monger, and it's still there." Yeah, it's still going to be there, but I can testify that the more you do this work and the more you channel in that biggest fan, the more it helps and the quieter that Monger's voice gets. When I started this work, I was totally under the trance of the Monger. Tara Brach talks about in Radical Acceptance the trance of unworthiness. It was all-encompassing to me, and I never got out of it. Now, after working on it and bringing awareness to that Monger and channeling in the biggest fan, it's changed my life in so many ways. I've seen it in clients where they've become less engrossed by this Monger voice that's just always there.

The piece of all of this that drives me the craziest, and I wish I could figure it out, to be honest, is how do I love myself. I've been going back through and reading some of the books that I've read on inner critic and compassion and all that stuff as I've been writing my book and recognizing how often I would read things. I will think, "Yes, I agree with this. I need to love myself more, or I need to be more accepting of myself," and then to turn around and be like, "But how do I do that?" It was such a foreign concept to me: How do I love myself?

Even today, it's a bit of a foreign concept. It's not my first thought to pause, give myself a break, own what I'm feeling, get in my body, and do all the things I teach. It is not my first response. Hijacking that first response and recognizing, "Wait a minute, this isn't going to be the first thing I think of. I'm going to have to work at this," is really what radically shifted for me, I think because when you read the books and when you listen to podcasts and when you do the Ted Talks, it sounds really easy. It sounds like, "Just love yourself," or, "Just accept where you are," or, "Notice how often you don't accept yourself and change that," and it's not that easy.

I guess I just wanted to give some support to those who have been doing this work and struggling with this stuff, that it's not like you can just flip a switch and suddenly you love yourself. It is a process of learning what the biggest fan's voice sounds like and figuring out what it feels like to be in your body, and noticing how often the Monger talks to you. All of that stuff plays out and takes some time. So often we'll read these books, and we'll listen to these things, and we'll be like, "Yes," and then we don't implement what they tell us to implement. I'm encouraging you to REALLY implement this stuff.

Part of the reason I'm so excited about it is because it worked for me. I am the test subject of someone who drug my heels kicking and screaming into this work. I did not want to get into my body. I didn't want to pause. I didn't want to do any of it. I just wanted to be fixed and to have that instant gratification of loving myself. These little weekly ritual hacks and figuring out how to channel that biggest fan and what she looked like and how she talked to me shifted everything for me. That's why I'm so excited about teaching it because I was so resistant to it, and if I could find something that worked, I think it might help you find something that worked.

I'm not a yoga girl. I'm not a zen girl. I am a type A, driven, balls-out girl. The idea of slowing down, I knew that was key, but I didn't know how to do that in my life because it wasn't my first response. That's where the weekly rituals came in. That's why the idea of randomly slowing down throughout the day came in. Those ideas were ways of shifting and making the concepts of accepting yourself work for my personality because I am not a zen girl. I don't have it in me. But I have figured out how to tap into that zen in my lifestyle while blaring music on the radio. I think that's what makes this work so powerful for me is that I figured out a way to make it work for me. I hope you can find a way to make this work for you too.

That is the end of my rant on this stuff. Next week I will be back to pick up where I left off and talk about even more myths of our Monger. I just wanted to do this interlude because it's on my mind, the idea of Monger and the challenge of them. I've been getting emails from people saying, "This is harder than I want it to be," and I hear you. I just wanted to be like, "I hear you. Keep at it. This stuff works." I am not the guru. I am just someone who is sharing my process from years of research and study and what's worked for my clients and me. I encourage you to take it and tweak it and make it work for you, is all I'm asking, just to take all the knowledge you have and figure out how it works for you.

+ Weekly Ritual Challenge

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

This week's ritual: Look Up and Make Eye Contact

Now it's time for the weekly ritual challenge. This week's weekly ritual challenge is to focus on making eye contact with people. I notice for myself I spent so much time looking down. I'm either caught in my head, or I'm reading my phone. I'm not engaging in the world around me as I'm walking around. This week I want you to practice looking up and making eye contact with people, and for bonus points, greeting them and saying, "Hi." I tried this yesterday. We went to the doctor's office. It didn't go well because people are not used to making eye contact with strangers, and they're not used to greeting them. It's going to be a continual struggle for me this week. I'm going to have the challenge of: Can I get people to interact with me?

This exercise will get you out of your head and those important thoughts and into your body. Plus, it helps you feel even more connected to the world around you. For me, I ended up "failing" at it yesterday when we were at the doctor's office, but I was able to implement it with my husband because I noticed how often I look at my phone when I'm talking to him. It's pervasive in my life, and I'm sure in other people's lives. I'm sure I'm not alone in that.

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Episode 059: The Power of Language

How we talk to ourselves and others has power. In this episode, I talk about 3 phrases that we use on a regular basis that we can tweak in order to give ourselves more compassion and expansiveness.

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I'm a little late this week. I promised I would do a podcast every Monday, and here it is Wednesday, but in the spirit of compassion, I'm trying to go easy on myself. I just had a hard time coming up with what I wanted to talk to you about this week, and I finally realized that I wanted to talk about language. I remember when I first started my training and my practice, and that was a big theme. A lot of people talked about the power of language and how we talk to ourselves. I was like, "Yada, yada, yada. Whatever, I don't see how I talk to myself makes a big difference. Like you're just kinda splitting hairs when it comes to this stuff."

In reality, I do think some of this stuff is a little ridiculous. But I think there are some key things that we say to ourselves that really can make a difference in how we feel about ourselves and how we make changes and how we move through this, kind of the quest to live happier, as I talk about. One of the big ones is the idea of, and you've heard me say this one before, so this probably isn't going to be new to you, but it's worth repeating, is the power of "and" versus "but." And this one is really powerful for me because it has dramatically shifted how I see things.

I tend to be very black and white. I grew up in a very, "Things are right. Things are wrong. It's set in stone." The idea of using "and" really allows me to open things up to a broader perspective. I started doing this because someone had told me that anytime you say "but," it negates the first half of the sentence. "You're a great friend, but I hate the fact that you never call me." So you're a great friend isn't true anymore because all the person hears is, "I hate that you never call me." They only hear the second part of the sentence. They only hear the negative part of the sentence. That's where it started for me, so I would start saying, "You know, you're a great friend, and I hate the fact that you don't call me." Both are true. It isn't that one is more powerful than the other. It's that both statements are true.

I think that phrasing and language are powerful, and it happens a lot in my marriage that I use it. You know, "I appreciate that you do the dishes, and I wish you would put them away." Both are true. When we throw in that "but," it diminishes the first part, which is equally true as the second part. We say it to ourselves, too, in how we can see possibilities. "I am feeling tired today, and I've got a lot to get done." Both are true. "I'm feeling tired today, but I have a lot to get done," means we diminish the fact that we're tired, and we just push right on through in getting stuff done. Owning both, giving both the same power, I think is powerful. That's one of mine, the "and" and the "but," is the first one I want to talk about.

The second one I want to talk about is the idea of adding a "yet." This has been powerful for me in the idea of, "I am not eating ... I didn't eat all my fruits and vegetables yet." It's an idea that if I want to eat more fruits and vegetables, I still have time to do that. I'll come in and be like, "Oh, I didn't do that yet. I still can do it." Maybe not in the day, but I can still do it in my lifetime. "I haven't worked out yet. I haven't written that book yet. I haven't finished my podcast yet." The idea that there's still room gives us a little more expansiveness. I think that's what's powerful.

Some phrase that I use a lot, my husband kind of makes fun of me for it, is I'll say, "Oh, I've made a lot of progress." Because I am a black and white thinker, because I have that right and wrong mentality, let's say I'm trying to eat better, and I'm trying to get more fruits and vegetables. I'll say, "Oh, I haven't done," if I make a rule like, "Oh, I'm gonna eat four fruits and vegetables a day," and I'll be like, "Oh, I haven't eaten my four, but I'm making really good progress because I've done two yesterday and three the day before." To own kind of what's been happening versus, "Oh, I haven't done that, so, therefore, I'm a loser who hasn't done it," giving yourself some room. That's a double whammy, adding "yet" to the end of the sentence and also doing the, "But I'm making a lot of progress." "And I'm making a lot of progress." Both are true.

Then this last one that I want to talk about is one that took me a long time to see. Now that I'm paying attention to it, I can see the damage that it's doing. That is the idea of saying the word, "I deserve. I deserve this; I deserve that." I remember probably a year ago, or two years ago, my brother and I were talking, and he's very strict and kind of black-and-white thinker, more so than me, and not woo at all. He was saying, "It just drives me crazy when people say the phrase, 'I deserve. I deserve.' You know you don't deserve anything. None of us deserve anything." I was like, "Wow. That is a harsh way of looking at that."

When I started thinking about it, I realized that I tend to say that because when I say that, it takes away any responsibility. I'm not making a conscious decision whether this is a good choice or a bad choice for me or if this decision fits my values, or if this decision is something that I think will support my life. I'm just saying, "Well, I deserve it." This week, I was getting my mammogram, and I ran into my doctor while I was in the waiting room. She said to me, "Oh, I'm so glad to see you're doing this, and it's good for your health, and now you deserve a Starbucks, so make sure you go next door to the Starbucks and get a Starbucks because you deserve it."

I was thinking, "Really? I deserve a Starbucks for taking care of myself?" Yes, mammograms suck, don't get me wrong, but I don't deserve a Starbucks because I did something good for myself. I might want a Starbucks. I might even need a Starbucks, but I don't deserve it. Because if we deserve something good, then naturally, we're going to deserve something bad. I think that's where the word "deserve" and the subliminal messaging get us confused. Because then if someone treats us poorly, we must have deserved it because "I deserved something good," so therefore the counter to that is "I deserved something bad."

To be paying attention to and we do that a lot when it comes to anything we want to do that's good for ourselves or feels good. We'll say, "Well, I deserve this." We'll use it as a justification. "I deserve." You know, Mcdonalds: "You deserve a break today." Or, "I deserve this ice cream sundae," or, "I deserve dessert. I deserve a vacation." No, do you want it? Do you need it? Take ownership, and I think that's where "deserve" hurts us, is we stop taking ownership of our lives. That's the whole point of living happier, is being intentional about what's happening.

If I say to myself, "Well, I deserve an ice cream cone, so I'm going to stop and get one," then I'm just eating that ice cream cone out of a place of deserving rather than enjoying the fact that I decided to get an ice cream cone. So everything becomes kind of unconscious with that deserving. When my brother said he doesn't deserve a new car, he either needs one, or he doesn't is a very valid argument. You know, "I deserve a new car." Okay, but do you want a new car? Can you afford a new car? Does it make sense for you to buy a new car right now? All of those conscious decisions, and when we lump in the "Well, I deserve it," we lose all that ability to be intentional about our lives.

Whenever I hear myself saying, "I deserve," and largely for me, it's around food or taking a break, or, like I said, doing something good for myself, I'll ask myself, "Oh, you deserve that Starbucks?" And I did go to Starbucks after I got my mammogram because I wanted Starbucks, and I'll be like, "I want Starbucks." It's not that I deserve this. It's that it tastes good, and I want a coffee right now, and I got a muffin as well. The deserving, I think, keeps us from showing up for our lives and taking some real responsibility.

Okay, so those are my three and a half examples of the power of language. In summary, I talked about using "and" instead of "but," paying attention to saying the word "yet," and also owning, "I'm making some progress" on certain things that you're trying to change. Then the last one is paying attention to the idea of "deserve."

+ 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 2 Trips

My Monger strives to make me as efficient as possible. Why take 2 trips when you can load yourself down with 1? This week the ritual is to slow down and take smaller trips. Need to carry the laundry upstairs? Take 2 trips. Need to bring in the groceries? Take multiple trips. Have a long list of things to do? Slow down and break it into manageable (more pleasant) tasks. This one is a challenge for me, and I am always amazed how much better it feels to take 2 trips :)

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Episode 051: Own It

A First Step in Getting Yourself Out of a Bad Mood:  Own It.

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Hi, everyone. I'm so excited to be back. It has been a long time, I think the end of 2016, so we have missed all of 2017 on this podcast, and I appreciate everyone that's continued to listen and catch up on the past episodes, and I'm very excited to be back with episode 51. 2017 has been a roller coaster of a year for me. I lost my dad at the end of January, which has been extremely challenging and very, very sad. He was a pivotal part of my life, and to lose him has been very jarring. And it taught me a lot of lessons about grief, and I will give you more on that in later episodes.

I've also re-did my website. So, there is a brand new live-happier.com that you can check out when you have time and a second. Please head over there and see what's happening, and I'm going to be doing a lot more when it comes to ideas around overwhelm, guilt, and getting off that treadmill of life. It's in the same vein that I've been working, but it's just a little more crystal clear for me, and I'm excited to be here.

That is why I changed the name from Stories from a Quest to Live Happier to Happiness Hacks because I have found that the idea of Happiness Hacks is something I resonate with because happiness is practice, and so every day, we have to show up in our lives and practice happiness. So, that's why I came up with Happiness Hacks as a way to illustrate that philosophy in that title. In the same format, these will still be short little 10-minute podcasts, little ways to get across how I am living happier every day and trying to do that even in the midst of grief, change, and transition. This process is a practice, and we have to show up for our lives, and that is the whole philosophy behind live happier, which brings me to episode 51, which is called Own It.

I wanted to do a podcast called 'Own It' because I think that a lot of times, what gets in our way with living happier and happiness, in general, is that we don't own where we are. So we get sidetracked in the idea of where we should be. I've done a podcast on that before. I think it was episode 15 or something that talked about the danger of I should be happy, and a lot of us have that. Oh, I should be feeling better. I should be happy. When we wake up, feel bad, or feel sad or angry or lost, we will find ourselves feeling something else. We'll immediately be like, "Oh my gosh, I should be thinking positive," or, "Oh my gosh, I should be grateful for my life," or, "I should be in a different place." In reality, we need to back that bus way back and own where we are first.

Okay. So, let me give an example of this. You wake up, and you are feeling tired, and you walk downstairs, and you have your coffee, and you're going through your day, and you're just like, "Wow, I'm just tired and grouchy. I'm feeling a little off." Immediately, for a lot of us, what happens is we're like, "Well, you shouldn't be tired." You got enough sleep, or maybe you didn't get enough sleep, and so you're a bad person because you didn't go to bed early enough.

You pile on all this meaning behind the fact that you're tired, and I think the key is just admitting, "You know what, I'm tired." The meaning doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if I went to bed at three o'clock in the morning or if I went to bed at nine o'clock at night. I am still tired right now, so I need to do something about the fact that I'm tired. But when we attach all this meaning and judgment to whatever we're feeling, we just compound it tenfold. So, if you wake up in the morning, and you're feeling off, and you're feeling grouchy, and you're just like, "I'm just not feeling this," give yourself a pause to be like, "You know what, I'm not feeling this today. I'm feeling grouchy, and that's okay. This is my reality. This is what I'm feeling."

Now, given that, what can I do to help myself do the day? If I'm tired, what can I do to power through the day? Maybe it's drinking extra coffee, not always advisable. Maybe I got a couple of meetings at the early part of the day, so I'm going to power through and drink a bunch of coffee. Maybe at lunch, I'm going to close my door, and I'm going to take a nap. I'm going to give myself a 20-minute power nap, and that's how I'm going to rejuvenate myself. Or I'm going to make sure tonight I go to bed early, and I take time to read, and I'm relaxed, and so I sleep better. Maybe it's been a long-term problem, and I need to go to the doctor and figure out what's going on here.

Once we can own, "This is what I'm feeling," and take out the judgment, and the criticism, and the why's, and the what's going on, we can then figure out how to problem-solve it. Just because you're tired and grouchy, that doesn't mean you can do whatever you want, like kick the dog, or scream at the kids, and the day is yours to be grouchy. No, I'm not giving you permission to do whatever you want. I'm giving you permission just to own the fact to feel that feeling.

The action you take is a different story. Whatever you decided to do, once you own it, that's the piece that we immediately go into problem-solving and judgment rather than backing up the bus way back to say, "Wait a minute, I'm tired." That doesn't make me a good person or a bad person. It doesn't mean I'm lazy or I'm productive or whatever. It just means I'm tired. It's all that means. It just means I'm angry. It just means I'm sad. It just means I'm frustrated, whatever it is.

Earlier this week, I had to go to the grocery store on Saturday afternoon. You know, I hate going to the grocery anytime, but Saturday afternoon is especially awful because everyone's at the grocery store on a Saturday afternoon. I just needed to run in and grab some cat litter. So, I go to the grocery store. I get my cat litter; I'm standing in line. I'm annoyed. I had worked all morning, and I was just tired and hungry, as my husband would say, ready for some lunch. As I'm standing there, I'm just getting more and more frustrated because the line is forever and people are just stupid. Why are all these people here? I'm just generally feeling awful.

I kept saying to myself, "Come on, it's no big deal you're at the grocery store. What's the big deal? Stop being so judgmental. Stop being so," whatever. Finally, I said to myself, "You know what, let's just own this. You hate the grocery store, and you hate the fact that you're here, and you're frustrated." Okay, check. Got it. We own it. Now, what are you going to do about it? You're stuck in this line, and you can either stand here and be grouchy, or you can stand here and figure out another way around this.

That week's weekly ritual, last week, I was practicing gratitude, and so I stood there, and I looked around, and I'm like, "What can I be grateful for at this moment?" In my grouchy mood, I couldn't come up with anything. I got nothing, people. There is nothing I'm grateful for here. I'm so annoyed at the world; I just can't figure it out. Finally, after racking my brain for a little bit, I decided, "Okay, I am grateful that I can come to one place and get all my food. That I don't have to make a trip to the butcher, and a trip to the baker, and a trip to the farmer's market. All can come right here at this store." That was the thing I was grateful for.

Once I started switching my mind to okay, what am I grateful for? And let's take it basic. I'm grateful for the people that farm for my food. I'm grateful for the people that raise the beef. I'm grateful for the people that make the cat litter, so we don't have to deal with it. I started to dig in a little deeper, and I was able to play that little game, get out of my head, and improve my mood a little bit. By the time I got up to the clerk to check out, I had this great interaction with her, and she was friendly, and we just hit it off talking about cats. My grouchy mood had dissipated a little bit.

Because I owned the fact that I was grouchy, I wasn't just beating myself up for it; I was able to flip the switch, so to speak, and become less grouchy. We have to do this important step of owning it and giving ourselves permission to feel the feeling. To feel whatever it is we're feeling and then take action. Not pile on the judgment, and the criticism, and then figuring out what's going on, but to be just where we are for a moment, owning what's happening, and then we can move into gratitude or positive thinking or changing our thoughts or whatever the trick is at the time. But if we immediately jump into those areas, we tend to immediately jump into criticism and judgment, which just makes it worse. That is my Happiness Hack for this week. Own it. Just simply own where you are and give yourself permission to be there.

+ 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: Dance

This week's ritual was inspired by the dishes in my sink yesterday. I HATE doing dishes, so and I decided to put on some good music and dance while doing dishes. It made the task 10000 times better. So this week take a break, put on some good, and do a little boogie.

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Episode 043: You Don't Have to Blow it All Up

When life gets challenging the temptation is to blow it all up and start over.  Real change happens when we change the foundation of our lives rather than just re-arranging the clouds.

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Today I want to talk about the idea that you don't have to blow it all up. I am talking about making changes in your life. There are sweeping generalizations that we need to live these big, bold lives, make major statements, tell our stories, and show up authentically. So get out there and do big things.

While all that is great and fabulous; whenever I hear a client come into my office and say, you know they're ready to blow it all up, meaning they're ready to leave their husband and move out west, or they're going to quit their job and work for a coffee shop. They have these dreams of doing things completely opposite of what it is they're doing right now. It makes me want to pause and ask what's going on here because when we're trying to make changes, sometimes we convince ourselves it will be easier if we blow it all up.

For example, let's take a crappy marriage. So you're in your marriage, and it's not going so great, and you're struggling. You look at your divorced friends and have gotten through their divorces, and they're living the single life, and you think, I don't have to take care of anyone if I get divorced. It will be so amazing. I'll just have all this time. I just need to get out of this marriage. I'm just going to blow it all up and do my own thing. And yes, that might be true that eventually, once you get through the divorce and the pain of losing a relationship and not having someone in your life and the struggle and all that good stuff, you might get to a place where you only have to take care of yourself, and that would be fantastic.

Then you get to that place, and you're like, oh, now I only have to take care of myself, and this is kind of lonely. I wish I had someone else here to take care of because now I'm just dealing with myself. The saying of wherever you go there you are is one saying that I think of a lot, and that plays out in this, you don't have to blow it all up phrase, in the sense of when you blow it all up, and you leave the marriage, and you get out, and you're by yourself, you're still the person that was in the marriage. If you haven't made any real changes to yourself, then you're just the person that was in the unhappy marriage. Now you're the person that's single and unhappy because although your husband may be causing some of your problems, he's not causing all of them.

When we get in this tendency to blow it all up, it's a place of blame. That it is the job's fault that I'm miserable. It's my husband's fault that I'm miserable. It's where I live fault that I'm miserable. It's that it's cold, and I hate being cold. Although those things do play out, they aren't the sole reason. So if you are looking to make some changes and your temptation is to blow it all up, I want to take you back a little bit to ask simple questions to ask yourself. They're not simple. But what I think are foundational questions to make changes because if you're in a marriage and you're getting ready to divorce. You know you're done, and you decide you want to get divorced, then you need to start making the changes on yourself in the marriage now, even though it's ending. You need to figure out how to do you differently even if the marriage is over because the next relationship you get into if you haven't learned those lessons will be the same.

We repeat until we learn what do I need to change here. The questions I want you to think of if you're thinking of making blowing it all up, and these changes are "What do you value in your life now?" If you look at your relationship, lets stick with that example: What is it you value in your life? What are your life's values, and how is this relationship serving those values? How is this relationship not serving those values?

If the relationship is not serving your values, or you aren't living a life based on your values, what changes can you make within the relationship that would get you to practice doing that? Let's say you're in a relationship, and you're miserable. You hate it. One of the things that you value is adventure. But that's not showing up in your life right now. You're stuck in a rut; you're doing the same things over and over again. But you value adventure. The small changes that you can make are to start adding more adventure to your life. Start showing up in different ways in your life, from taking a different way to work to taking a skydiving lesson or taking a trip out west. Trying on that adventure piece that you want to try while you're in the relationship. Not waiting for when the relationship gets blown up, then I'll do all these great big things because it's easier to do all these little changes that you want to make within the relationship.

If you want to add more adventure to your life, and your thinking, oh, it's because this job is miserable and I hate my job. I bet if you added more adventure to your life, the job wouldn't be so miserable. Maybe still be miserable. You might still need to leave. But it wouldn't be as miserable.

Being able to tweak your life in these little tiny ways is adds to the changes that we may be seeking in our lives. The first question is, what do you value? The second question is, what do you need? What do you need out of your life? You can look at your values and then play them out. Just say okay, I value adventure, so I need to take more risks in my life. Or I value connection, so I need to work on my friendships. Or I value human touch, so I need to work on the way to find that. I need to ask for that more, or I need to get massages more. Or I need to do something where my husband hugs me, and I implement a let's hug each other every morning. Or something along those lines. These small little changes sometimes can seem insurmountable, and that is why we tend to want to blow it all up.

If I blow it all up, then I don't have to deal with these little tiny individual little changes because you know what happens when we start making these little tiny individual changes? Our inner critic chimes in. When the inner critic chimes in, it's like, why are you doing this different, this won't work? This is so silly. Why are we taking this skydiving? This is so silly. That is the real work. Dealing with that little voice as you make small changes in your life, that's when you start making radical changes. Because when you can stand up to your inner critic and quiet your inner critic as you start living a life that's more intentional, authentic, a life with integrity. The more you start doing that, the more your inner critic's going to chime in a. Then the more you can learn strategies to deal with that, so when there comes a time, and you have to make a major change in your life, you will have better strategies for dealing with those little tiny shifts that happen.

The first question is asking what do you value? The second question is asking what do you need? And then the third question is, where do I need to show up? What am I avoiding? Am I avoiding asking for something? Am I avoiding conflict? Am I avoiding showing up for myself? Am I avoiding someone else? So often, when we have this tendency that we want to blow it all up, we're not showing up. We think if I just make this big sweeping decision, then everything will be better. But, unfortunately, that usually isn't the case because we need to show up for our own lives. We need to show up with integrity and ask for what we need and live by our values, and make those choices, day in and day out, all the time.

One of the biggest things I hear is, and I'll use my husband and me as examples a lot in some stories that I tell, and people will say, "Oh my gosh, I wish I had your husband," or "I wish I had your relationship like you're so lucky." I am very blessed to have the relationship that I have, and we show up every day, or most days. We make little tiny decisions every day to be intentional, ask for what we need, call each other out when we're not present, and live by our values. Those little tiny shifts in how can I show up today? How can I be living by my values? How can I ask for what I need? That's when we make real changes in life. That's when stuff shifts for us.

Yes, the idea of living authentically and being, you know I call it, living in the clouds like I'm going to make all these changes down here and up here, I'm going to make all these changes up here, and life's going to be great. No. It doesn't happen. We need to be making the bedrock changes. The changes in our foundation and those changes come by asking ourselves what do I value? What do I need? Where do I need to show up in my life? What am I avoiding? What am I not asking for? What can I do today to be more intentional, live with more integrity, and be present? How can I show up?

I do this a lot in my life. I'll get stressed, or I'll get, you know. And I'll think, oh my gosh, I'm just going to blow it all up. I'm going to move, you know we're going to travel around the country, we're going to get in an RV, and we're just going to blow it all up. Then I ask myself, where do you need to show up? What are you avoiding here? Nine times out of ten, I'm not showing up for life. I'm skating through. I'm a zombie. I'm just going through the motions.

When I can bring myself back to, okay, what changes do I need to make? Where do I need to show up? Where can I start paying attention more? It clicks, and those shifts start happening. I encourage you to start looking at your day-to-day life and where you can show up more. I swear it will change the way you shift everything. When we start shifting the bedrock of our lives, rather than rearranging the clouds, it gets better because we start shifting stuff, and we are living happier. I promise. Try it. Let me know how it goes.

+ 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: The Taillight Challenge

This week's ritual is called the taillight challenge. I heard about this when I was in a meditation conference that I took a couple of weeks ago. When you are tuck in traffic to look at the taillights in front of you. Take a few deep breaths, relax and breathe and just watch the changing lights of the taillights in front of you. The beauty of this challenge is you can do it when you are in traffic, which is when we're most stressed. It's a great way to focus down on what's happening at the moment and just take some breaths and relax. Get some little mindfulness through the day. Take a break. Check out some tail lights.

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Episode 042: Tips for Channeling Your Biggest Fan

I have received some questions about how to channel your Biggest Fan...today I answer them (or at least begin the conversation).

+ Read the Transcript

So, let's get to talking about today's podcast topic, which is channeling your Biggest Fan. The term the Biggest Fan comes from a couple of episodes ago. In episode 37, I talked about quieting your inner critic. The key point of that is channeling your Biggest Fan. I've gotten some e-mails and a couple of phone calls from people asking, "Okay, I need some help. How do I do this Biggest Fan thing? I get the idea; I just don't know how to do it."

I want to start by doing a quick refresher on what I mean by your Biggest Fan. The Biggest Fan, as I said, is something I use in dealing with the inner critic. We all have countless voices playing in our heads all day, but we have three voices for the most part. One of them is our inner critic or Monger. It's constantly telling us how terrible we are and how much improvement we need, etc., etc.

The other voice is our best friend voice. That's usually the voice we're encouraged to channel when working on self-compassion or liking ourselves. We're encouraged to channel that loving, kind, best friend voice. What I've found in my work is that sometimes that the best friend's voice also gets us in trouble in a different way.

What we need to do is start channeling our Biggest Fan. I'll give you a quick example of this. I had a client recently who wanted to start getting up earlier in the morning. She is retired, and she wants to start her day earlier, not sleep in, but get going. Her Monger voice, when her alarm goes off, says, "Get out of bed, you lazy idiot. Get moving." Her best friend's voice says, "No, sweetheart, stay in bed. It's so cozy and warm, and you're retired, and you deserve this." Her Biggest Fan voice says, "Come on, if we get out of bed, we can get a lot done today. We can go for a walk and do all of the stuff you want to do. You're worth it, so get out of bed. We can enjoy it and have our coffee before we have to head to our next appointment. We really can enjoy getting up."

That Biggest Fan voice is the voice in the middle there. It runs the middle ground. It's kind and compassionate, has our best interest at heart, and wants us to keep moving forward. It's not the best friend voice because a lot of times, the best friend voice can also be the same voice that says, "Go ahead. Have that extra glass of wine. Go ahead. Have that extra cookie". It's the Biggest Fan voice that is the one saying, "Really, if we have another glass of wine, we're going to be hungover tomorrow, or you're just going to get silly if you have another glass of wine. Let's pay attention to what's best for us right now."

Our Biggest Fan has our back and wants us to do what's best for us. But, for those who have lived in an inner critic world, where the inner critic is constantly hammering us, this channeling the Biggest Fan is a new idea. What would my Biggest Fan even say to me? How does this even work? What does that voice even sound like?

Some tips I have for channeling the Biggest Fan, one is to just on a neutral day when nothing's happening, and you're not getting accosted by your inner critic, challenge yourself to come up with what would my Biggest Fan say right now? You can journal those or say those out loud. Do that at a time when you're not getting hammered by your inner critic or your best friend; it's just a neutral kind of day.

Something that worked for me, and this sounds so simple; I think I've talked about it in other podcasts are just signs. People have the What Would Jesus Do bracelets. It is in the same vein, "What would your Biggest Fan say?" Have those posted around your house. You can make it your screen saver on your phone, "What would my Biggest Fan say?" To get your mind thinking of it at random times. A great way of doing that is to set the alarm on your phone at random times. When it dings, the name of the alarm would be What Would My Biggest Fan Say? You can start generating and strengthening that voice. It's not like that voice isn't there, or you don't have a Biggest Fan. We all have a Biggest Fan, but I think for most of us, that voice just gets really, really diminished. It's about channeling the Biggest Fan on-off times.

Another thing I would say is to pay attention to when your inner critic is hammering you. I talked about this last time. You know that warm, cozy sweater effect that our inner critic has on us, making us feel like it's a comfortable sweater that has our back, then it just starts to itch, scratch, and get under our skin. So when you're at that point with the inner critic, where you're just starting to recognize how annoying this inner critic is and how it's showing up and driving you crazy, that's a time for you to start practicing, if you could ease in a little bit of the voice of, "What would my Biggest Fan say right here?"

Start reminding yourself that the inner critic needs some wiggle room there. There can be some. It doesn't have to be hammering us all the time. We choose to listen to that voice. I remember hating when people would say to me, "You're choosing to listen to that voice." I didn't think I was choosing because who wants to listen to the inner critic's voice? The idea of, "I can choose my thoughts, and I am choosing to take the one that is hammering me the hardest and let that one stick around," instead of saying, "You know what, inner critic? I appreciate you showing up today, or I realize you have a message for me, but what would my Biggest Fan say? Let's let her talk for a little bit".

Then, channel your Biggest Fan. Have her speak up and say what she would say. The only way we're going to start getting the Biggest Fan voice to be louder is if we start paying attention to it and allowing it to show up at other times. Whether at times when we're not getting hammered by our inner critic or the neutral times. And then the times when we are getting hammered by our inner critic. So to start paying attention to those times when we're getting hammered by our inner critic, "What would my Biggest Fan say here?" To add some space in there for the other voice to show up. We've got to allow some room in our heads for the Biggest Fan to come there.

Another thing that I just wanted to say that's an aside and something that I did for a long time when it comes to inner critic stuff is I convinced myself that if I was good or if I did it right, then my inner critic wouldn't show up. Back to the client of mine who wants to get up early, in the part of our discussion about her wanting to get up in the morning was the idea that did she want to get up at 7:15 because if she got up at 7:15, then she was doing the right thing. She was a good person, and then her inner critic couldn't hammer her all day long because she got up at 7:15, she did the right thing.

You'll notice if your motivation is that I want to do it right or I'm trying to be good or whatever those mantras are for you, the perfectionism piece, a lot of times we're doing that to stave off the inner critic. It's like, "If I do it right, then my inner critic won't have an argument here. It won't be able to step in." The problem is, your inner critic will always have an argument. If you get up at 7:15 to be a good person, your inner critic will tell you you are bad because you didn't get up at 7:00. Or if you get at 7:15 and to be a good person, your inner critic will tell you you're a bad person because you didn't get up at 7:15 and workout. We're never going to live up to what the inner critic is telling us to do. That's why if our mentality is, "I'm going to be a good person," to keep the inner critic away, it is a losing battle.

The only way you're going to get rid of the inner critic is by really channeling that Biggest Fan. That's just an aside that came up recently, and I wanted to touch on it. I think a lot of us live our lives trying to keep the inner critic at bay. It's never going to be at bay until we directly confront it. Our inner critic will always find a way to tell us that we're doing it wrong. It's its job.

+ 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: Select Your Way of Channeling a Biggest Fan and Practice.

Pick one of the things that I just suggested as far as dealing with the Biggest Fan and use one of those. Decide if you're going to channel your Biggest Fan when your Monger isn't talking, or decide if you're going to start channeling your Biggest Fan when your inner critic is talking. Try some of the strategies I talked about today and use those throughout the week.

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