Episode 030: What’s Underneath Your Procrastination

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

+ Weekly Ritual Challenge

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

This week's ritual: Engage in an Evening Ritual

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yeah, I hope that was helpful. The concept of walking through the bag or, and starting to pay attention to what is, what are the behaviors I'm engaging in and then how can I switch them around and do them different?

+ Weekly Ritual Challenge

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

This week's ritual: As You Do a Chore Fully Embrace It.

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

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Episode 028: Meditation Isn't for Everyone (and that's ok)

Meditation is amazing...and it isn't for everyone. This podcast offers tips and ideas for adding more mindfulness and peace into your everyday life.

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Today I want to talk about meditation, not being for everyone. And I'm a little nervous about talking about it, to be honest, because there's so much buzz out there about meditation and how amazing it is and how it is the key to everything when it comes to happiness and compassion. If you Google, self-compassion the first thing that pops up is self-compassion and meditation.

So I want to start by saying I'm not against meditation. Meditation is fabulous and wonderful. It is a tool that can help us become more centered and grounded. There are a lot of tools to do that. And the reason I wanted to do this podcast is so often I hear from clients; oh my gosh, I just need to start a meditation practice.

So anything that we start discussing or bringing up, they're like, oh yeah, I need to start that meditation. And so meditation becomes this block or this excuse for what, why they're not implementing the things we're talking about, because if only they did meditation, then everything would be healed.

And so meditation becomes that new magic button that you think that, oh, once I start doing meditation, then everything I talk about with Nancy and everything I learned about when it comes to getting centered and compassionate will come true. But until I do that meditation thing, I'm not going to get anywhere near that stuff.

In the quest of being honest with ourselves, sometimes meditation won't work for you with where you are in your life, and that's okay. It is okay not to have a meditation practice. So if you are one of those people, that thinks when I get the meditation practice, then everything will be okay. I want you to stop and ask yourself. Can you implement a meditation practice right now? And if the answer is no, if the idea of stopping for five minutes or two minutes, or even a minute to pause and think, and be calm for five minutes to sit in stillness for five minutes or 20 minutes or 30 minutes makes you want to poke your eyes out, which it does for me right now and that's okay. Find something else.

So this podcast is about figuring out other ways to add mindfulness and centeredness, and peace into our daily lives that may not involve—sitting still for five minutes and doing a traditional meditation practice because a traditional meditation practice may not be for you.

And so, if you are using that as an excuse not to be centered and grounded and find peace every day, then you're just using it as an excuse. It's saying the only way to exercise is to run. And the only way I'm going to be able to exercise is to run—lots of ways to exercise. There are lots of ways to get the benefits that come from running in a variety of ways.

And so that's what I've spent the past few years of my career doing. When I realized no matter how hard I tried, I could not implement a meditation practice sitting still for five to 10 minutes every day. Or every other day, it just wasn't in the cards for me. So I had to get serious about, okay, if I'm not able to do that right now, how will I add mindfulness, groundedness, and peace into my daily life?

Because that is the key to being intentional and mindful about your day, that is the key to self-compassion. It's when we runoff in our day and we let our brains just take over, and those thoughts just become a way of life, and we don't have any way of grounding it into our body.

That's where we get into. And so that's why meditation is so amazing and why everyone says, oh, we should be meditating. But even as I talked to a yoga instructor this week who has an active meditation practice, she said, "I still have to do intentionality all day long. I still have to get grounded. That meditation practices, I love it. It's a great way to start my day. It's a great way to quiet my mind. And I still have to be intentional all day long."

So meditation is not the silver bullet. It's not the only answer. There's a lot of things we need to be practicing in our day-to-day lives. That's why I wanted to do this podcast. I want to talk about some other ways of meditating or adding mindfulness into your life.

So the first one is I want you to think about changing the rules. So let's redefine what meditation means to you? And hands down. One of my favorite ways of getting mindful, and it radically changed my life, is the five senses meditation. It's a five senses mindfulness exercise, it takes 30 seconds, maybe a minute, but man, does it drop me into my body so quickly. And it allows me to get out of my head. And I've talked about it here before, but the five senses meditation simply goes through your five senses to stop what you're doing and go through your five senses. What am I seeing? What am I hearing? What am I feeling? What am I tasting? What am I smelling?

And the beauty of this meditation is it. You can go as deep as you want. You can sit there for as long as you want and get into what am I smelling? And you can just start to smell things you weren't even aware of, or what am I hearing? And you start to hear things you weren't even aware of. So the power of that meditation is that you can do it for 30 seconds, and a quick way to get you back on your body.

An easy way to go a little deeper is to observe what's happening around you. Without going into this, I'm going to go into meditation for five minutes.

Another mindfulness practice is to engage in one activity at a time, limit your desire to multitask. When you're washing dishes, wash the dishes, just be present when you're vacuuming, vacuum, whatever you're going to be doing. Just do that activity one activity at a time. Another great one is, be fully present. The most awesome place to do this is when you're in the shower.

How many times are you in the shower? And you get out of the shower, and you're like, whoa, what just happened in there? Or you'll wash your hair, and you won't be paying attention that you washed your hair. So you have to think do I need to wash my hair again? Practice being fully in the shower when you're drying off when you're in the car, when you're stuck in traffic. Instead of being, oh my God, I'm stuck in traffic, blah, blah, blah, blah, catch yourself and practice being fully present there when you're stuck, waiting in line. How can you be fully present wherever you are? One of my favorite ways of getting into that mode is parking far away in a grocery store or wherever I have to go. If I have to go to Target or the mall, I can park as far away as possible. And that allows me to walk into the mall. As I'm walking, I'm just concentrating on my breathing. I'm concentrating on what's going on around me. I'm not stuck in, oh, we've got to get there as fast it's possible.

And then the last one I'm going to talk about is, there's a big buzz these days about crayons and coloring, but that truly is an awesome way to become more mindful. I've found that to be an awesome way of slowing down throughout the day.

It takes no time at all. Earlier this week, I had a day where I was grouchy, and I didn't know why. I had a break between clients. And I happened to glance over and see the crayons that I have sitting in my office for this very task. I pulled out a picture, and I pulled out the crayons, and within five minutes, I felt better because I was focusing on the crayons and the coloring and being creative.

It works a different part of your brain. And that is so helpful. And that's what we're talking about here, just getting out of your head, into your right brain into a more creative and relaxed place. And there are lots and lots of ways to do that. That isn't necessarily five minutes or 20 minutes or 30 minutes of meditation.

So that is my small spiel on creating an active meditation practice that's a little non-traditional.

+ 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: Jam to Your Favorite Song

Recently I had the house to myself and I decided to put on some music and dance. As I lip-synched my cares away I decided to make this a regular practice in my life. So whether in the car, your living room or office get lost in your favorite song!

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Episode 027: A Spiritual Principle that Will Change Your Life

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

+ Weekly Ritual Challenge

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

This week's ritual: Stretch

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

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Episode 026: Stop Obsessing. You Always Have a Choice

Getting stuck in 'shoulds' keeps us obsessing about what is the 'right thing' to do. How to let go of the incessant thinking.

+ Read the Transcript

In my office, there's been a theme around obsessing, spinning out, and getting stuck. One of the top ways that we get stuck in obsessing is trying to find the right answer. So we get stuck in shoulds: you should do this, you should do that; this is how it should go. And so, something that's helped me stop obsessing is first noticing when I'm obsessing. We get stuck in that pattern, and we have a hard time coming out of it. So noticing when we're obsessing and then paying attention to why we are obsessing. Obsessing comes from a rigidity, like I said, of having a black or white answer. It's right or wrong.

And so, an easy, simple example is the debate to get up early and work out or not to get up early and work out. And there's a lot of rigidity in that debate. A good person gets up and works out, and a bad person doesn't. Allowing ourselves a little wiggle room around that is helpful.

And so we can decide maybe I don't want to get up and work out in the morning, or maybe I don't want to, work out in the evening and working out in the morning is better for me or just to give ourselves some wiggle room is one great way to stop that obsessing.

But let's say we decide the best plan for me is to work out in the morning. And so I'm going to work out, three times a week, every morning, I'm going to get up early and do it. And for whatever reason, you wake up on a Wednesday, or the alarm goes off, and you just don't want to get up and work out. You're tired, you went to bed late, and it's been a tough week.

And so you hit the alarm clock, snooze button, and then you lay there, and you start obsessing. "I should get up a good person gets up. I should get up a good person gets up. I'm so lazy. I can't believe I'm lying here." And then the other part of your brain starts chiming in. "No, it's fine. You've had a tough week. It's okay. Give yourself a break. It's okay."

And this goes back and forth. This little war in our heads goes back and forth. And before you know it, it's time for you to get up. So you've missed your workout time, and you've missed any quality sleep that you could have gotten if you would just made a decision.

And that's the danger of obsessing. We get stuck in one way or the other in black and white thinking. And so one way to help stop that obsessing first, like I said, as soon as you're obsessing, so you're laying in bed and you're like, okay, this isn't getting me anywhere. I'm not doing A. or B. I'm just stuck here.

I'm stuck in this obsessing place. If you decide you're going to sleep in, then sleep in wholeheartedly. Commit a hundred percent to sleeping in. If you decide, Nope, I'm going to get up, and I'm going to do a workout. Even if it's just 15 minutes, I'm going to do something, then get up and do a workout, even if it's just 15 minutes.

But the power of recognizing I'm just going to make a choice here. And commit to that choice will stop the obsessing. So the workout example is an easy one. A harder example would be: there's a conflict at work, and there's someone you need to have a tough conversation with, and you're dreading doing that.

And so you're obsessed about it. I should do this. A good person does this. I should have this conversation, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you start obsessing. So catch yourself obsessing and then ask yourself, What are some creative ways to solve this? What are the choices I have here? There are a lot of ways to have the conversation.

There's a lot of timing around the conversation. Maybe it's not a good time to have the conversation right now. Maybe it's better to wait until a later time. It's fair to give yourself some room to brainstorm. Where is it? And when is it, and how do I want to have this conversation?

And then to give yourself a lot of room and compassion around the fact that this is a tough situation and any choice you make will be challenging. Because you're getting ready to confront someone, anytime you're going to do something hard, give yourself some compassion around making the choice.

And then the last thing is, listen to your gut. What's the choice you want to make? And maybe that choice is, right now isn't a good time to have this confrontation, and I'm going to wait. And it's not because I'm avoiding or being passive-aggressive. It just does not make sense to do this. Or maybe you're like, I've been putting this off for way too long. I just need to step up and do it.

But that full engagement, that full intention of I'm going to stop obsessing, and I'm going to make a choice here. That's how we do it. And it involves awareness that we're obsessing. Getting creative and making some real choices here of my options, giving yourself some intention around how do I want to do this? And then pouring on that compassion to really give yourself some room around that this stuff is hard.

So I know when I get stuck in obsessing, finding the right way, and spinning off on black and white, the key component there for me is compassion. When I can give myself some compassion and notice, whoa, you are stuck in black and white thinking here. What's going on here?

Then I can start pulling apart the knot and recognizing there's way more here than just the black and white should or shouldn't; there's a lot of options. And then I can start being intentional about how I want to do it. What's the choice that's best for me. So maybe working out doesn't happen for me three days a week, militantly, maybe one week I do it five days a week. And the next week I do it two days a week or not at all because there's room to breathe there. I have choices because there's more to me than just a robot who gets up at 6:00 AM every morning and works out. There's stuff that happens. And I get home later. I have to go to work early, or something happens.

But the obsessing is doing no good for anyone. It is not helping us at all. So the more we can start building awareness around the obsessing and the shoulds and the shouldn'ts and getting stuck in our to-do list in that go go go mentality.

Often, we're doing that because we're afraid we're going to do it wrong. And so giving ourselves compassion around the fact that this is hard and that's okay, and I'm going to keep struggling, and I'm going to keep doing it.

+ 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: Give Voice To Your Inner Critic

Something people frequently ask me is how do I deal with my inner critic? One of my favorite ways is to give it a voice. So when I am in the car, or somewhere alone I will talk to myself out loud from the voice of my inner critic. I confess that voice is usually pretty nasty, but hearing it out loud makes me realize how nasty it is and allows me to give myself compassion much more quickly. We get so use to our inner critic talking to us in our heads that we rarely notice it. So by saying the words out loud, we hear them in a whole new way.

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Episode 025: Unraveling Your Need to Please

Looking at the ugly underbelly of trying to please everyone.

+ Read the Transcript

Today, I want to talk about unraveling the need to please. And this comes up a lot in my private practice, but it's come up lately in the intensive group I lead. It's a four-month group called the deep dive. And this month, in our theme, we are talking about people-pleasing. And so last night, we had our telephone call that wrapped up our month of people-pleasing theme. We were sharing stories on how people-pleasing has played out in their lives and how they're learning, how to unravel the need to please.

And one of the themes that kept popping up was the theme of integrity. And I think that's something that goes missing when we talk about people-pleasing. Because a lot of times when we talk about people-pleasing, we see it from a place of being nice and caring and we're giving to other people.

The ugly side of people-pleasing is a lack of integrity that we hold. So if we are wrapped up in people-pleasing, which is basically saying yes when we mean no, it's putting other needs ahead of our own. And when we get into that habit of putting other people's needs ahead of our own, we lose some integrity because we aren't honest with ourselves.

Other people's needs cannot always be ahead of our own. And so, when we live in that mentality, we lose some integrity and respect for ourselves. And that is the ugly underbelly of people-pleasing. And what we found this month, as we were looking at people-pleasing in this deep dive, is there's a lot of ugly underbelly to people-pleasing.

So there's a lot of stuff you need to look at to start unraveling it. And one of those things is the lack of integrity. And what I mean by that is basically when I said people-pleasing is saying yes, when you want to be saying no, like that right there in and of itself is a lack of integrity because you want to be saying no to something, but for the sake of the other person, you say yes.

And so what happens is we develop ways of communicating that are lacking in integrity. And so today, I want to talk about some of the ways to start unraveling this need to please and this lack of integrity. So really benign, simple way that many of us engage in people-pleasing is getting invited to a party at someone's house, and by a party, I mean a Tupperware party or a pampered chef party, or one of those parties, we have to buy stuff.

And so, I'm going to use this example throughout the rest of this podcast. It's a common one where a lot of examples of what happens show up, and this is one that we're all comfortable saying yes when we mean no to one of these parties. It's a simple example, but it's also the ultimate test in people-pleasing and standing in your integrity and learning that I don't have to say yes when I mean no.

So you get invited to one of these parties. Yeah. A couple of things happen, A. you freak out because you're probably don't want to go. And then B, you either lie and makeup, an excuse for why you can't go, which is out of integrity because you're lying, or you go and then sit off to the side with a friend and make passive-aggressive, bitter comments the whole time, or you joke around the whole time, or you're disrespectful to the person that's throwing the party, or you're resentful about the fact that you're there. Or you keep score. And so you're like I came to her pampered chef party, so she needs to come to mind, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so we engage in these yucky gross activities because we are too trade to stand in our integrity.

And we're too afraid to stand up for ourselves and say, you know what, send me the catalog, but I don't have time to go to the party. Or send me the catalog. I don't really want to go to the party or send me the catalog because I'm not going to come. It doesn't have to be; you don't even have to give a reason for why you're not coming.

You just have to say, I don't want to come to the party. I'm not going to come. My RSVP is no. And I think when we can learn how to stand in our integrity, we let go of those other yucky things that happen.

And they happen all the time in, for example, we get a text message from a friend that we don't want to see. So we avoid the text message for a while, and then they text us again, and we're like, oh my gosh, I thought I texted you. I'm so sorry. Liar. We didn't forget to test them. We just didn't text them because we didn't want to deal with it. And so those little ways of yucky, lack of integrity, that show up are signs to you that you are engaging in people-pleasing and it is taking over your life.

And so one of the benefits that the women that have engaged in this program with me have found in practicing less people-pleasing is how much they are living in integrity now. And by practicing less people-pleasing, they feel so much better because they don't have to remember who, what excuse they gave to who, and who they told what to.

And they're not engaged in that petty drama that we all hate of tit for tat and keeping score. You know that Real Housewives drama that happens because we're not standing up and speaking in our integrity. So really keeping track of that, I think, is extremely helpful in this unraveling, the need to please.

Many of my clients come to see me because they have resentment and anger built up. And so they will go along kind and nice to the outside world. And then they come home the resentment has just gotten to the nth degree, and they just are ready to explode.

This resentment usually comes because they are stuck in super giving mode, and super giving mode means I'll give, give, give, give, and give. And I never show you where I have any boundaries. I think I've talked about this in previous podcasts. I never show you where my boundaries are because I'm so wrapped up in people-pleasing.

And then I just hit the roof, and I go crazy with being so upset about the fact that you kept taking and taking and taking and taking from me. When they're taking and taking because we are over-giving and we aren't honoring the commitments we make to ourselves. We aren't honoring our priorities and our values because we're so wrapped up in giving to other people.

So I want you to just pay attention to how often you engage in one of these yucky activities. I even hate mentioning them and talking about them with my clients. Because owning that, we lie, keep score, are passive-aggressive, manipulate, and engage in drama and gossip because we don't want other people to think negatively of us.

And honestly, if a friend of yours who was a true friend said, you know what? I don't have it in me to a pampered chef party this week. I just can't. You wouldn't be angry with her or upset with her. You would just be like. I got it. I understand. You don't want to come to my pampered chef party. That's okay. Maybe we'll go for wine next week. So just remembering that we put so much pressure on ourselves that we need to please other people and make them happy when sometimes being honest and being in integrity is truly the way to make other people happy.

Because if I'm in integrity and I'm practicing that with the world, showing up and engaging in the stuff I want to engage in, and being honest with those around me in a loving, kind way, then they too can do that with the rest of the world.

And that eliminates the drama, anger, resentment, passive-aggressiveness, and all of that other stuff that happens; when we aren't living in who we are and our integrity, we get stuck in that. That need to please creates all of these ugly yucky dynamics.

+ 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: Stand on One Foot

Another brushing your feet exercise :) A little easier than the brushing with the opposite hand. While brushing your teeth stand on one foot. Another practice to get you out of your normal routine.

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Episode 024: Stop Fighting Yourself

In this episode, I answer a listener's question: “In previous episodes, you say to allow all my feeling but, how am I suppose to let go of an unpleasant feeling that I don't want to experience? How do I not get stuck in it?”

+ Read the Transcript

Today I want to talk about a question I received from a listener, and it was about last week's podcast, episode 23. And I was talking about being authentic, and there is no right answer and so just accepting where you are and how to show up truly in that way.

And so this listener contacted me, and she had some questions about feeling fear and how to feel fear when you don't want to. So I need to give you a little backstory. Recently in our town in Columbus, Ohio, there was a guy who took a machete into a restaurant and randomly started just cutting people.

We didn't know if it was a guy who was a terrorist or if it was a hate crime or what it was. And it was an extremely traumatizing event for Columbus, Ohio. This was a sleepy restaurant, and here, all of a sudden, this guy's coming in with a machete, and it was traumatizing.

And for this person that contacted me, she was like, it struck in me just the randomness of life and that at any one time, we could die and something bad could happen. And that fear got triggered for her because of this incident. And she'd been proud of herself because fear has always been a big theme in her life, but she'd been able to push it down and keep it out of sight and not give it a lot of fuel.

And then this incident happened with this machete guy, and she just found herself getting triggered. And she said, so I listened to your podcast about, there is no right answer. And that was helpful, but I don't know. How do I sit with this fear? Should I be talking to myself out of it, or what should I be doing not to be stuck in fear

And so it got me thinking on how often we fight ourselves on whatever it is that comes up for us. So how often we hammer ourselves for the fact that we have a feeling. And so I said to this listener, what if you just sat with your fear? What if you own the fact that this is scary and life is unsure, and you are afraid? And she paused and looked at me and said, Yeah, I guess? with a puzzled look on her face.

And I said no, like really, what if you just gave yourself permission to feel the fear? Because it is scary. This is crazy that you could just be sitting at a restaurant, and some random guy could come in with a machete and just starts cutting you or someone you love. So that's a very scary thing. So to embrace the fact that fear is there.

And she did this long exhale and was like, yeah, I guess that would be more comforting. And later she contacted me, and she was like, you're right. Like the more I sat with the fear, the less strength it got, and I think it dissipated on itself. And I think that's what happens is we fight ourselves so hard against having a feeling, whether consciously or unconsciously, we fight ourselves.

"You shouldn't be feeling like that. That's silly. Why are you feeling afraid? There's nothing you could do about it. And you can't just, what do you do hole up in your house, the rest of your life. Like you got to get out there, you can't be feeling afraid. That's just stupid." We just hammer ourselves for whatever comes up for us instead of pausing it and owning it and saying, "oh, I am scared. Oh, this world is scary." That's a fact. It is.

We do have to find a way to live in the world and engage in the world and get out of our homes and do things despite the scary, but it's still is a scary place. And so owning that truth because it is a truth. It's a fact. That's what she's feeling.

She's feeling scared, but we try to run as fast as we can from whatever it is that comes up. And I have been practicing in my own life. The concept of it is this is what's happening right now. Accepting what is happening and all my gosh, it has been revolutionary for me.

It's not like this is a new message, except for what it is. It's a very Buddhist Zen message, and I've just never been able to do it. And I think the biggest reason I've never been able to do it is because of the fear of what's on the other side. Just with what this listener was saying, "if I embrace the fear, then I will never leave my home. The fear will just consume me." And I think that's where we have to trust that if we stopped fighting ourselves and just allow, it gives some room for that feeling to pop around. So if I say, yeah, I am scared, or I am sad right now, or I am angry at that friend for saying that to me.

That's okay. It dissipates rather than constantly having this mental dialogue of you shouldn't be feeling that way. That's silly to feel that way. You're so stupid. You shouldn't be feeling that way. So it builds up the energy around whatever the feeling is.

So for this listener, who's saying I'm feeling stressed around this fear I'm having. If we just give ourselves the exhale of Yeah, that's scary is way different than the energy of "You shouldn't be feeling that way. You got to get out there. You worked really hard to get over this fear thing. And now it's back again, and this is terrible", keeps building and building.

This example could be used in a thousand ways. Like I said if a friend of ours says something that upsets us. And instead of just owning the fact of, I'm angry about what this friend said. But that doesn't mean I need to go to the friend and yell at them or tell them she's a bitch or go off on her.

I can just own the fact that it is a truth for me. I'm angry about what this friend said, and then I can decide what to do based on that anger. Maybe I do nothing based on that anger. Maybe I just let it go and just notice that I felt angry. Maybe I lovingly confront my friend, or maybe I lash out at my friend, and then I regroup and come back and say, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done that. I was upset about this.

We have a choice in how we deal with the feeling. We don't have a choice on what the feeling is. And I think that's where we get mixed up. We try to stop ourselves and talk ourselves out of having a feeling cause we're so afraid of what the result will be, rather than allowing ourselves to feel.

And after we've had the feeling and embrace that, then to give ourselves a break around, what am I going to do with this feeling? So we spend all of our time fighting ourselves, trying to prevent ourselves from doing something inappropriate. So this listener was trying to present or prevent herself from feeling the fear cause she didn't want to get stuck in that fear thinking anymore.

So she was fighting herself so hard. In the past, when she had felt fear, her action on that fear was to stay in her house, stay small, not branch out. And so, at this point in her life, she was excited because fear wasn't taking over her body. But feeling the fear that came up after the machete guy did not necessarily correlate that she was never going to leave her house again. Feeling the fear was not the problem. It was the choice she decided to make after she felt the fear. And when we let the feeling run through us, the choices become much less volatile. That's the beauty of it. When we allow ourselves to just be with whatever the feeling is, the feeling loses some steam. It loses some of that energy.

And so the choice isn't so dramatic. The option of what comes next isn't so dramatic. So a lot of times, once we feel the feeling, that's it, we're done. We don't need to make another choice. So that listener may get scared every time she decides to go out to dinner in Columbus, Ohio because this machete guy did this random thing.

And the more times she allows herself just to feel that fear and say, "yeah, this is scary. It's okay. This is scary. And I'm still going to go out anyway and just honor my fear." The easier it'll be for her to go out. Then if she just sat there and said, "you're an idiot for feeling this fear, you shouldn't be feeling this way. This is stupid. This is bad." All the crap we tell ourselves. That isn't going to inspire her to go out, and it will not inspire her to feel good about herself.

So I'm encouraging all of us, including me, because this is relatively new for me to be practicing. I've been preaching it for a long time and, in true transparency, practicing it as a totally different beast.

And I'm gaining so much from practicing it. So I am on the bandwagon for this big time. But I know when I allow myself to feel the feeling and stop myself from fighting myself and let that feeling run clear, the action that comes next is much simpler and easier.

And life becomes happier. So that's my 2 cents on stop fighting with yourself.

+ Weekly Ritual Challenge

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

This week's ritual: Brush Your Teeth with the Opposite Hand

Use your right hand to brush your teeth? Switch to your left. This activity is an excellent way to create mindfulness around an activity that we do without thinking. Also, a creative way to challenge your inner perfectionist. REMINDER: doesn't have to be perfect just clean ;)

Bonus Points: Do other activities with your non-dominant hand: e.g. eating, cleaning, using your computer mouse, etc.

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Episode 023: There is No Right Answer

I want to start a revolution, a Listening Revolution.  It starts with a ban on unsolicited advice.

+ Read the Transcript

I want to chat a little bit about the idea that there is no right way. Let's take setting boundaries is a big part of living happier, and learning how to do that is a big way to live happier and reduce stress. Because when we have good boundaries in place, it decreases our stress, our resentment, and it helps us just be happier people.

When I'm teaching people about setting boundaries, there is no right way to set a boundary. And so it's a hard one to teach because people want to learn the A plus B plus C concept of teaching boundaries. Here are the steps you have to take to set a boundary. So it's super clear that I'm going to immediately know when I need to set a boundary. I'm going to know how to set a boundary. I'm going to be able to have that conversation and have it go smoothly. And then we'll be able to reset the boundary if I need to.

As soon as I learned the formula, a plus B plus c Poof!, that will be great. And that doesn't happen, unfortunately. So boundaries it's a messy process, and it's individualized; each situation is individualized. And so it's a hard one to learn a plus B plus C. I have a great example of that that happened earlier this week. I teach a class, it's an intense group called the deep dive, and we have a Facebook group. We meet for a teleseminar once a month. And so this month, we're meeting this week, and I messed up the time.

So I thought the time was at seven, and it turned out it was at 6:30. So I posted the information about the teleseminar on our Facebook group and said, 7:00 see you there. And someone chimed in and said, "oh, I thought it was at 6:30?" And I chimed back and said, Do we need to move it to 6:30 or does 7:00 work better? What are people thinking?" And another participant chimed in and said, "7:00 works better for me." So I went along with that just fine.

Figuring we were going to do it at 7:00 pm. Meanwhile, the client who had said is it at 6:30 called me and said, "I have something at 7:30. So it has to be 6:30. I can't make the seven o'clock time because I have to leave to hit my 7:30 appointment." I immediately started feeling triggered because I messed up the time.

I'm the one that failed. I'm supposed to be the leader of this group. I'm supposed to have this all together. I'm supposed to be clear and concise and not mess up. One of my inner critics is a perfectionist. And so my perfectionist is going bananas that here, I'm not only the leader of this group. So I'm supposed to know how to handle all situations perfectly.

I messed up a time. And that was a pretty big deal. So I suggested that the client post again on Facebook, telling the group that she requested the 6:30 time. Fortunately, the "trauma" or the problem ended did just fine. The woman who had said she liked the seven o'clock time chimed in and said, that's totally fine. Let's just make this easy on Nancy and go back to the 6:30 time. Because she's, stressing out and trying to make all of us happy. And it was an awesome lesson for everyone that there is no right way. And the last post that I put on Facebook was to say that the time is at 6:30. And to share that this was a great example of where there isn't a right way to do this. That was a messy situation, and there was no right way other than owning. Hey, I messed up, and I picked the wrong time, knowing that I did that. How can we fix this and make this go a little smoother? And I think that's the crux of living happier, just being honest with ourselves that this is what's happening right in front of us. And that's something I'm trying to implement more in my life, both personally and teaching it professionally, is just accepting what is and accepting that this is what's happening right now.

Right now, I'm in a really bad mood, and I don't want to be. Right now, setting this boundary is hard, and I don't know what to do next and recognize it. There is no right way. There's no right way to set the boundary. There's no right mood. I need to be in. There's no right feeling I need to be having right now.

This is what's happening. This is the truth of what's happening in my life. And when we can just own that truth, we can feel better. And so when I owned the truth to the group of, Hey, I'm not perfect. I may lead this class and teach this deep dive program, but I don't know everything a hundred percent.

And that's hard to admit that, that authenticity, it can be hard just to say, I don't know here. And I think that is. The one lesson that is the crux of living happier is recognizing; I don't know. I don't know what the right way is here. And that's okay. Being comfortable in the uncomfortable is the key to living happier because life is uncomfortable and learning this stuff is hard. Getting in there and figuring out where you set a boundary and where to speak up for ourselves and where we're people-pleasing and where our perfectionism is getting in the way can be challenging and complicated, and messy. And so, recognizing that I don't know is okay. Step one is just recognizing, I may not know how to do this, and that's okay. There is no right way. And let me go back to the stuff I know and the stuff I can implement right now.

So yeah, if I could go back and redo the timing of class and get the time right and figure it out. Not just hurry to post the thing on Facebook, but check the time and make sure it was 7:00 and not 6:30. Yeah. Life would be a lot easier, but I didn't do that. So I need to move on and work with what I have and be honest with where I am. And I think that radical honesty of recognizing there is no right way I messed up, or I'm not feeling the way I want to be feeling right now, or this day isn't going the way I want it to be going.

And that's okay. And we get so tight and hold onto the reins so hard to make sure that our perfectionism stays. And that our great exterior is seen by everyone that everything is awesome, that we hold on to that facade so hard that we miss out on the growth that comes from being authentic because that's where the real growth comes.

Not from immediately knowing the answer or immediately knowing what I should do next. The growth comes from recognizing, I don't know here, and I'm going to give myself a break. And I'm going to own the fact that I don't know where to go next and I don't know the right way. So let me be honest and authentic and ask for help if I need it or take a break if I needed or take some time to figure it out and ask for advice or ask for help, or just pause here because there is no right way.

And I got to figure it out on my own, and that's engaging in some messy work. Recently, I had someone say to me that I needed to stop using the word messy because it had such a negative connotation. And I bristled because I love the phrase messy because I think that messy isn't negative. When we think of pure joy in kids, it comes from getting messy and playing with finger paints or getting in the mud and rubbing all over themselves, like that messy.

It is where real joy comes in, and real sorrow and all of it mixed together in one giant mud bath of mess. And I think that's the marrow of life. That's what we're going after here. That's what we want to be accomplishing. So anyway, I'll get off my rant here, but I wanted to just, that has come up multiple times this week, the concept of having a right way.

And what do I need to do next to live happier is a question I get a lot, and I want to say there is no plus B plus C formula to living happier. I wish I could give you one and give myself one too, but there isn't one. It is just getting quiet, taking the pause, and remembering that it's okay that we don't know. Remembering that it's okay not to have the next step and giving ourselves a lot of compassion around that. We're human. And we're trying to figure this out, and that's okay.

+ Weekly Ritual Challenge

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

This week's ritual: Take 3 Deep Breaths at a Stop Light

Breathwork is one of those areas I KNOW is good for me and yet struggle so hard to implement into my life. The more I study happiness and stress management the more I can’t avoid the power of the breath. This is an oldie but a goody but it is an easy way to introduce deep breathing into our lives.

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Episode 022: A Ban on Unsolicited Advice

I want to start a revolution, a Listening Revolution.  It starts with a ban on unsolicited advice.

+ Read the Transcript

You're having issues with your relationship. You're frustrated. You don't know whether you should stay or go, and you just really want to vent. And tonight, you're excited because you're finally going to be able to meet with a friend for drinks.

You can cut loose, have fun and vent some of your frustration. So you go to meet your friend and halfway through your glass of wine and your vent. She starts sharing her story about her relationship or a past relationship that she feels is somewhat similar or offering you tips on what you should be doing.

Worse yet, she starts telling you, at least you have a man. As Brené Brown says, no loving statement ever starts with the term, at least. Do you feel supported? No. Do you feel loved? No. Do you feel annoyed, insulted, or anything? Most likely, are there times that we need advice? Yes.

However, most of the time, we just need someone to listen. So when we're coming to someone to vent, even if we know what we should do or what we want to do, we probably aren't quite ready to do it, thus, why we are venting in the first place. But when someone says to us, here's what you should do. It immediately implies that whatever we are doing, we're handling it wrong.

It immediately implies that we're doing it incorrectly. Unsolicited advice isn't support. Unsolicited advice is there to make the advice-giver feel like they are helping unsolicited advice. 90% of the time makes the person who's venting feel like crap. Unsolicited advice is a connection killer. It shifts the power and completely stops any chance of connection. Unsolicited advice might feel like it's coming from a loving place of "I'm just trying to help" or "I've been there, so I have some wisdom to share." True.

The advice-giver might have the best intentions, but when she shares her unsolicited advice, she isn't allowing you to have your own journey, to struggle with your unique relationship, to figure it out, to learn, to grow. Instead, whether it's true or not, she is telling you, I know better about your life and your story, and here's what you should do. So why do so many of us give unsolicited advice? And I do mean us, cause we're all guilty of this one time or another, even I who pride myself on listing and do it for a living, I've fallen into this bad habit from time to time because it's easy because we do want to.

Because watching someone else struggle is hard and challenging, especially if we've been there before. And we feel like we know the way out, but we know the way out for what worked with our life. We don't know the way out for them.

So when you think about your own life in this example, what was more helpful? The friend who hugged you and said, "I love you," or the friend who said, "Hey, here's what you should do..." Because we all get stuck. We all don't move through transition as fast as we want to or as fast as our friends want us to. And in those moments, it's the people who have said to me, "I believe in you. You will get through this." And "Wow. That must really be frustrating." Those were the most helpful.

What can we do about this epidemic that's killing relationships because we are not listening to each other? So I ask you to join the unsolicited advice ban. The first step is to catch yourself as you give unsolicited advice. At first, you won't notice it until after the interaction.

And then gradually, you will start noticing it in the interaction. For example, you'll start noticing how uncomfortable you get when someone starts talking about their pain. And you'll start noticing that your Monger comes up and tells you, I don't know what to say and what should I do? And so you start blurbing out advice because that fills the space, drops your anxiety, and makes you feel more comfortable.

You eventually will catch yourself doing this. And whether you catch yourself before, during, or after the interaction, acknowledge it and own it, apologize to the person you tried to fix. Simply say, "I'm sorry. I want to help. And I realized that giving unsolicited advice might not be the best way. So I'm just going to listen until you ask me for advice.

Asking for advice is very different than unsolicited advice. Asking for advice means I don't know what to do, and I'm coming to you to find out. Unsolicited means I'm just throwing it out there because I'm uncomfortable with my own crap, and I need to take care of you. So pay attention to how you feel when someone is sharing their venting with you, how you feel that, how you want to fix it, notice that feeling, and catch yourself as often as possible.

When you have to apologize and say, "I'm sorry, I'm trying to get better about this." And all you have to do is say, "thank you for sharing. I'm really honored that you're sharing all this with me" or,

"oh my gosh, that must be terrible to be stuck in this relationship where you don't know what to do" or "wow let's try to figure this out. Let's really think this through together."

So there are a lot of ways that we. Interact with people other than just, "huh? Yeah." We can actively listen to people and mirror back what it is they say. I find that in my practice all the time, but the number one way I help people is simply by being there to listen.

So if we could listen to each other and get rid of my job, that would be awesome because we would all be giving each other loving support instead of this unsolicited advice. So step two in the unsolicited advice ban is to speak up when someone gives you unsolicited advice.

So similarly, at first, you probably won't notice it until after the interaction because we're so used to someone giving us unsolicited advice and then gradually. Then, you'll start noticing it in the interaction. You'll notice it in your body. How harsh it feels when someone says, here's what you should do.

Or, you'll notice it as you're driving home thinking. Wow, that was totally unfulfilling. All I did was her about her crappy relationship. I didn't have any time to vent about mine. And when you figure it out that person has put unsolicited advice on you, simply say to your friend as lovingly as possible.

"I know you're trying to help, and your heart is in the right place. And right now, I just need to vent. I just need you to listen. And when I'm ready for advice, I will ask for it." And that's key; there's a lot that goes around; oh, men, they only give advice. They don't listen. They only give unsolicited advice.

And so, if you're in a relationship with a man. This is going to be key; you're going to have to tell him, you know what, I just need you to listen, or I need some advice. Can we brainstorm some solutions? And I do that with my husband all the time. I sit him down, I'm getting ready to vent, and I'll say, "okay, I really just need you to listen."

Or "I need us to come up with a solution to this." And so then he can shut off the part of his brain that's constantly looking for a solution. Unsolicited advice isn't evil. It just isn't as helpful as we intend it to be. So together we can. Listen and love in a whole new way.

Just listen. Don't fix, don't give advice, and don't help by thinking you know better. Just listen, just support, just have empathy. Just say, "Wow, that really sucks. Thanks so much for sharing that with me. I'm honored that I'm someone you can trust to share it with me. "

I think listening and empathy are all key to living happier and better quality connected relationships. So I wish you good luck with your ban on unsolicited advice that we'll be right there with you.

+ Weekly Ritual Challenge

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

This week's ritual: Celebrate Your Wins

Each day pick 3-5 priorities for the day. Maybe they are making a home-cooked meal, taking a walk, and helping your kids with their homework. (I know your day is FILLED with much more than these 3 things but these are your priorities for the day). When you have successfully completed these priorities...celebrate them. Do a dance in the shower, jam to your favorite song in the car, give yourself a high five. Too often we don't acknowledge our wins so this week give yourself a little daily celebration.

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Episode 021: Is Just Being You Enough?

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

+ Read the Transcript

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

+ Weekly Ritual Challenge

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

This week's ritual: 4-7-8 Breathing Exercise

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

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

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

*Hold your breath for a count of seven.

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

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

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

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Episode 020: The Simplest Most Challenging Advice to Living Happier

How to deal with your inner critic...the simplest most challenging advice to be happier and silence those Mongers.

+ Read the Transcript

Hello there and welcome. Today I wanted to talk about a couple of different topics. First, I wanted to give an update back in December. I had done an episode called, I think I'm addicted to my cell phone, and I wanted to give an update on that because I'd had a couple of people email me to hear how that was going.

I'm happy to say that December went well as far as not using my phone and not being as addicted to my phone. One of the great saviors for me was the ultra-power saving mode option on my cell phone. By doing that, you only have access to your phone and texting, which are the only two things I have to use on my cell phone regularly.

Every morning, I'd put it on ultra power-saving mode, and I leave it there throughout the day. And that was amazing in helping me stay less connected to my phone. Because it is hard to get it out of the ultra power saving mode, I wouldn't check it all the time. Now, sad to say that in January, I went back into super use of my cell phone and my iPad, but I have pleased to announce that I've come back to somewhat of a middle where I use the ultra power saving mode, but not all the time. I'm not sitting on the couch all the time with my husband, playing on my iPad while we're watching TV. I allow myself to play a certain number of games at the end of the day. Because it's a great way for me to wind down, and I enjoy it. It's become more balanced for me. Probably a little heavier on the addictive phase, but better than it was back in November, where I practically had the phone in my hand all the time.

When we leave the house now, I tend to leave the phone at home more often. If you are struggling with this, I encourage you to try to break that habit a little bit because it is just a habit, and it has definitely helped my anxiety level because I'm not constantly looking at my phone. I'm more engaged with what I'm doing. I'm more present. And I, now I can notice when I start going crazy with checking the phone, and I can be like, okay, what's going on here? What else is happening? Having that pause has helped me a lot.

Today I want to talk about the simplest, most challenging advice to living happier.

Recently, I've been doing a lot of work with the inner critic, which I call a monger. I did a podcast about it last week about your 4:00 AM visitor. I wrote about it on my blog a couple of times, and it's something I'm working on a lot with clients. I would say since I started working more with the inner critic and talking about that more in my work and with clients, my inner critic has been more intense for whatever reason. I don't know why. But my Monger has been there screaming at me a lot, and I've had a really hard time disconnecting and putting into practice the stuff that I teach.

In my desire to learn more about the inner critic, I've taken out a lot of books, and I have read a lot of blogs online, just figuring out what other people are saying about quieting the inner critic. It is similar to what I've written about in the past that you're supposed to notice your inner critic and separate it from yourself and give it a name and talk to it lovingly and ask it to leave and all these wonderful process things that you're supposed to do.

And I've done that ad nauseum. I have talked to my inner critic a thousand times. I think yesterday, when I was particularly getting hammered by my inner critic, I think I talked to it 50 times. And finally, I just was like, I'm going to practice kindness, and I'm just going to be kind to myself.

And it reminded me that's the bottom line. The bottom line is we need to be a little kind to ourselves. And once I was able to practice, just being kind and compassionate to myself, the Monger went away. Every time it would pop up, her head back up, or every time she would tell me how much I suck. I would think I'm going to practice a little kindness right now. And I think, wow, this is a tough day, and you're struggling right now. And that's okay. Let's keep plowing ahead.

I wanted to throw out that challenge. It is the simplest, most challenging advice is to be a little kind to yourself. When I say to clients, we need to be kind. Clients say I am kind. I'm a very kind person. But we're not kind to ourselves. When you think about it, yeah, I do a lot of kind things to others, but internally I'm downright cruel to myself, and I know my clients are downright cruel to themselves, and I would venture to guess if you're listening, you are downright cruel to yourself.

The life-changing realization is that the anger and the cruelty that we have with ourselves does nothing. When we're unkind to ourselves, we're not serving ourselves. We're not serving the universe. We're not serving anything but our stuckness. And that's what I've been feeling a lot lately is that stuckness, and that stuckness keeps us unhappy.

It keeps us anxious. It keeps us full of dread and fear. It's downright miserable. I am a big believer that sometimes we need to be stuck because from that place of stuckness comes growth and change. If you're stuck in your life between two choices, you're stuck figuring out what's next, or you're stuck.

In the meantime, that's a place to practice being a little kind to yourself because our Monger comes out in full force when we are stuck, or we're feeling unsure, or we don't know where to go next. The counterintuitive response is to be kind to ourselves. Our first go-to response is to beat ourselves up and to tell us to move on, get a grip, pick a choice, do something, don't just sit here, move along.

But when we're gentle and we take that pause. And allow ourselves to breathe. That's when the real change happens; that's when we can find clarity. That's when we can find a place of love and gentleness. That's where I think the key is to all of this Monger stuff, and this inner critic stuff is to be kind to ourselves, and we can genuinely get in touch with what we want by being a little kind.

I think our Monger comes into play more often when we're feeling unsure. That's the nature of the Monger to come in when we don't know what to do next and tell us how much we suck. Or because the Monger gets freaked out because we're doing something different, something new, or we're on the verge of doing something different and doing something new, and our Monger doesn't like that. She tends to get a little freaky, and she yells at us, screaming at us to tell us how much we suck. When we can pull back and just simply practice kindness to ourselves, that makes a huge difference, and the Monger gets more quiet because she's not panicked about what's going to happen next because she knows there's time and space.

I think that has become more of the key for me. And I know when I practice it with clients, it's easy to get bogged down in these are the things you need to do, for your Monger

You need to label them; you need to name them; you need to come up with all this stuff.

But what if it's really just as simple as noticing the Monger and being a little kind to ourselves.

And I think it might be that simple and challenging to do both because, for a lot of us, our Monger becomes a place of comfort. We get comfortable in that hammering of ourselves because we've done it for so long. We don't even notice that we're doing it. Building that awareness of, oh my gosh, I am hammering myself right now and then flipping that on its head by saying I'm going to be kind. And kindness means I'm going to show up for myself, and I'm going to give myself whatever I need right now. So I'm going to say, yeah, this is hard. And this sucks.

Yesterday my Monger was hammering me because I wasn't feeling well. I have this head cold that is just all wrapped up in my head, and it's making me tired and cranky. I had a lot to get done yesterday. I had cleared my calendar to do writing and record this podcast yesterday, and all this stuff was supposed to happen. And it didn't because I felt so crappy, and instead of just giving myself the kindness and the nurturing to be like, okay, we're going to take a day, and we're going to regroup. We're going to feel better. We're going to relax and enjoy. I hammered myself all day long with how much I sucked because I wasn't getting enough done, and now I'm sick. And that means I wasn't taking care of myself. And I was feeling physically and mentally beaten up because I just didn't feel well, and then I beat myself up for it. And that was when I turned it on its head and said, okay, we're going to practice radical kindness. Here. We are just going to say, whew, girlfriend; this is hard. You're not feeling well; you have a lot you want to get done. That's okay. It's not going to happen today. Let's just try not to be beating ourselves up because we've made the decision to relax and rest, which is what we need. Let's give ourselves that. My challenge to you is to see how you are hammering yourself. How you are talking to yourself and just build some awareness around that. And then do a little kindness, that was the weekly ritual challenge for last week was to be kind, and what's gotten me spinning on this.

Maybe it's as simple and as challenging as being kind. That's my challenge for you this week is to notice when you're hammering yourself and then practice turning that on its head. Head and doing some radical kindness and see what happens.

And that's the show. Thanks for listening.

+ 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: Schedule Time For Yourself

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

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Episode 019: The 4am Visitor

Tips for dealing with that nasty inner critic/Monger voice that shows up uninvited at 4am.

+ Read the Transcript

Today I wanted to talk about the 4:00 AM visitors. So let me set the scene for what I mean when I say the 4:00 AM visitor, which sounds much more fun than the actual 4:00 AM visitor I'm speaking of.

Slowly you roll over, and you look at the clock, and you think, Oh good, it's 4:00 AM. I have more time to sleep. That's like the best feeling in the world. And you realize you have to go to the bathroom, a risky proposition because sleep is a valuable commodity these days. And you know that if you go to the bathroom, you run the potential of running into your 4:00 AM visitor, also known as "the, what were you thinking, Monger?"

Now, a Monger is my term for that inner critic or inner bully. By definition, the Monger promotes a specific activity situation or feeling, especially one that is undesirable or discreditable. So your Monger is there to promote the fact of how much you suck.

You're afraid you're going to run into the, what were you thinking Monger? So you stumbled to the bathroom. Careful not to think about anything, run into anything, or wake up more than necessary. And as you lay back down thinking you have successfully dodged the enemy, you have a flashing thought of the party you went to the previous night, and the Monger starts, what were you thinking wearing that dress? You look like you were begging for attention. I can't believe you said "fill in the blank" to Mary. She's going to think you're a freak. You totally should have said more to the host. You're so rude. As you lay there, swimming in thought, your breath quickens, your skin gets clammy, and your chest tightens.

You pull yourself out of bed. Knowing sleep is futile. At this point, the 4:00 AM visitor is a particularly brutal one. It is one thing to deal with our Monger during the day when we were at full capacity, but at night, our defenses are down, and we're completely caught off guard. Not to mention how important the actual act of sleeping is to our systems and how well we feel when we're sleeping.

And when the 4:00 AM visitor comes, we can't get any sleep because we have a more difficult time separating the truth from reality at night. So the messages of the Monger seem even more powerful and even more accurate.

Earlier this week, my 4:00 AM visitor, showed up and I let her just hammer me. My heart was racing. I was freaking out about stuff I'd said and done earlier that day. And I was falling for her words, hook, line, and sinker. She was winning the game. She was beating me down. She told me how much I sucked and how I had totally messed up the situation and how I just had done it wrong.

I couldn't unhook from her. And I was just about ready to give up and head down to turn on the TV at 4:00 AM. When I thought, wait a minute, is this even true? That brief thought turned the, what were you thinking Monger on her toes? But she quickly replied, of course, this is true and spun the story one more time back to how terrible I had been and how I totally messed up and done everything wrong. But simply by asking myself, is that true? I created a gap between her and myself to recognize that she was no longer my voice. She was merely the voice of the 4:00 AM visitor. After creating that gap, I worked to change my thoughts.

She was persistent, but each time her voice filled my brain, I shifted to one of my go-to thoughts. And my go-to thoughts are the saving grace. Getting rid of your 4:00 AM. visitor is two-fold. One recognizing, and this is the hardest part, that voice in your head is not your voice. Instead, it's your inner Monger. Who's there to tell you how much you suck. I believe the Monger is here to protect us and keep us safe.

She is getting fired up by the fact that you might've looked stupid or you might've looked bad the way you handled the situation. Her anxieties are at her highest, and she can jump in there at 4:00 AM and go to town. And it's your job to recognize, "Wait a minute, this isn't even true. You are spreading crap. Here you are, spreading propaganda by filling your own need to be stressed and concerned instead of looking out for what I need right now, which is sleep."

So asking, is this true, is a great way to separate your voice from the Monger's voice. Now let's pretend and say, you're laying there, and you're like, you know what? I didn't mess up. I did make a mistake. I did handle this situation wrong or that situation wrong.

If the Monger's right, then figure out a way to make the situation better. So let's say you did say something inappropriate to your friend at a party, or you didn't bring a bottle of wine when you were supposed to. So make a mental note that you're going to apologize to the host for the fact you didn't bring wine, and you're going to apologize to your friend. But laying there at 4:00 AM letting your Monger hammer you is not okay. It doesn't help anyone.

If you have made a mistake, you can fix it. If you are just laying there and letting her beat you to a bloody pulp over something that you cannot fix or may not even be true, it's time just to let it go. It isn't helpful to anyone. So when you can recognize, is that true?

And let's say the answer comes back. Yes. The next question is, how can I fix it? How can I make this better? Who do I need to apologize to? What do I need to do to make it better? Because sometimes our Monger, even though she does spread propaganda, part of what she is saying is true. And so we can take that tiny kernel piece of truth and make it into something better for ourselves and make amends.

Now I talked about the go-to thoughts. So this is the second step of getting rid of your 4:00 AM visitor, the go-to thoughts, and these are the thoughts I use to help myself fall asleep. You can come up with your own go-to thoughts. It's whatever works best for you. But some of the ones that work for me, and you're going to laugh, but that's okay.

I go through, and I name the 50 States, or I name the presidents or walking through my high school, college dorm, or any other familiar place. I intentionally walk myself through a place that I feel fondly about. I replay a fun vacation and walk myself through the different places we went, or I relive a fun day.

So it allows me to fully activate my brain into a different place by walking through my college campus and walking around and trying to remember what my college schedule was or where I was on a specific day or particular year.

I can fill my brain with other thoughts, and it silences, the 4:00 AM Monger. She isn't there blaring on about how much I suck anymore because I'm putting myself in this completely different place. So eventually, and much quicker than you'll think possible, you can fall asleep. And this happened for me in the example that I'm sharing that I walked through my college campus.

I went through what my freshman year looked like and tried to piece that altogether because it was a while ago. And eventually, I fell asleep. And I woke up the next morning. I was thrilled that I had successfully turned off my 4:00 AM visitor. I wasn't up watching reruns of Three's Company or watching the news at 4:00 AM. I was actually asleep where I should be in my bed, relaxed.

So I encourage you to practice this the next time you have the 4:00 AM visitor.

A two-fold process one, putting some distance between you and your Monger and asking is it true, did I do something wrong? And if I did, then how do I make amends for it?

And then to changing your thought patterns so you can fall asleep. The best way I found to do that is to walk through and relive a part of my life physically, whether that be a high school or college dorm, a familiar place, a fun vacation, or we're living a fun day. So those are the ways I think of getting rid of your 4:00 AM visitor.

+ 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 Kind

Be kind? How is that a weekly ritual? In an ideal world, we put kindness first. But in the reality of life, we are in a hurry, we are trying to get to the next thing, trying to get stuff checked off our list, and the idea of kindness temporarily goes out the window. So this week the challenge is to bring kindness to the front of our minds. Yes, we all think we are kind. We all want to be kind. But this week I want you to be intentional about being kind.

*Hold the door for someone.

*Let someone in your lane even though they SHOULD have planned ahead.

*Give someone the right away.

*Let someone go ahead of you at the grocery store.

*You can take it one step forward and do a Random Act of Kindness.

And don’t forget yourself in your be kind mission

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Episode 018: Bigger isn't Always Better

My take on New Year's Resolutions and Shiny Object Syndrome.

+ Read the Transcript

Welcome to 2016. I hope you're ready to embrace 2016, which is what the topic theme is about this week with a bigger isn't always better. And when I'm talking about that, I'm talking about new year's resolutions. I'm almost annoyed with myself that I'm doing a new year's resolutions podcast because I feel inundated with tips and tricks on new year's resolutions, which is why I wanted to do one to ease back on all the pressure.

At the beginning of the year, we feel that we need to change and do big things, and everything needs to be bigger and better. I struggled with it last week and telling my husband we need to do bigger and better things this year. We need to get out of our rut. And he was like, But I like our life.

I'm happy with where we are, which is true. I am happy with where we are. And so that's why I just wanted to offer a couple of my thoughts on resolutions and how I think we can make resolutions differently and have more success around them.

Because with every article, there is about how to set successful resolutions. There's a follow-up article on how frequently we fail at doing resolutions. How the beginning of January, the gyms are full, and the gyms are empty at the end of January. I want to encourage you to do something different, and that's the whole spirit of living happier change takes time.

Change takes intention, and change is about showing up in your life every day. So bigger isn't always better. Sometimes those small changes are where it's at. Wanting to do big things is not a terrible thing. Sometimes we want to make a significant change in our lives.

Maybe we want to move or change our jobs or get out of a relationship that isn't fulfilling us anymore. And those significant changes are necessary. And we all go through those big transitions. Even if you want to make a big change, it takes small, tiny steps. I see it so often that we get so caught up in the vision of where we want to be that we don't back it up to recognize this will take intention every day.

The most common resolution is I want to lose weight. So let's say you want to lose 50 pounds. And you think about I'm going to lose 50 pounds, and you dream about what your life will be like when you lose 50 pounds and what outfits you'll fit into and how you will do that.

You have these big ideas of eating healthy and working out and all this great stuff. And then when it gets to the nitty-gritty, the day-to-day the, I came home from work, and I've worked a 10 hour day, and I'm exhausted. And I just want to pick up a pizza on my way home. Or I didn't make it to the gym today because work got in the way or the kids are driving me crazy.

And I want a couple of pieces of chocolate to get me through. The big change of losing 50 pounds happens in the little individual small changes that we make every day. So my theme for 2016 is that maybe depth is more important than breadth.

What I mean by that is that even if your goal is to lose 50 pounds, which is an amazing, awesome goal, let's look at what I can do in my life that can help me build a deeper relationship with my body. How can I build a deeper relationship with this vessel that takes me through my life? That's where the changes happen.

So if my theme for the year is I'm going to build a deeper relationship with my body, then that means I'm going to pay attention A. I've worked a 10-hour shift, and I'm freaking exhausted. And so I haven't managed my energy all day, but B. if I am exhausted and tired, the last thing my body needs is more carbs and sugar and grease that comes in a pizza box.

What my body needs at that moment is something nutritious and healthy, and maybe a pizza will work for the family. It's an easy solution to the problem at the end of the day, so maybe I will throw a salad with my pizza because I am working on this relationship with my body.

So I think that thinking of all of your goals and re-examining them to be, how can I make some depth here? Instead of saying, I need to make these big sweeping changes. Because big sweeping changes are fantastic, but they don't always last.

If I had a dime for every life coach or counselor, or self-help guru that has sent me an email in the past two weeks telling me that I could design my perfect life, I wouldn't need to work anymore. That's the message design your perfect life in five easy steps. It drives me freaking crazy because designing your perfect life takes intention. It takes every single day. Sitting down and figuring out and making choices and being intentional.

It takes a level of depth. You have to look at your life in a deeper, more meaningful way. One of the common things I hear is I want to have a different relationship. I want a better relationship. I want bigger and greater things. And so the first thing people think of is I want to blow this all up.

I want to get divorced. I want to dump my partner. I want to find someone new and shiny. I deserve that. And sometimes, what we need is a little more depth. There, we need to look at ourselves and how we are showing up in the relationship? What are we asking for?

What do we need? Are we setting appropriate boundaries? Are we taking ourselves into every relationship we go into? So yes, have many times before I met my husband, I've dated people that did not fit me. And I was glad I got out of those relationships. So I could find someone that did fit me, which is my husband.

But yeah. I also learned a lot about myself in those relationships and how maybe I failed and didn't show up appropriately or didn't speak my needs or expected them to mind read. And by building the depth of my capacity for relationships and building my relationship muscles when my husband came along, and he was a match for me, we were able to succeed.

Even if my husband and I had met 20 years ago, I might not have picked him because I wasn't ready for that. My depth and my ability to speak up for myself and speak my needs weren't there. And so I couldn't have had the relationship that we have right now without doing all that work.

So think about where in your life you attempted to blow it all up and where you can pause and go a little deeper. Maybe it isn't always the shiny new glamorous big when I lose 50 pounds; maybe it is today at this moment when I'm feeling worn out and exhausted; what could I do to take care of myself? To take care of my body in this amazing, beautiful vessel that I'm railing against all the time because I want to lose 50 pounds, but if I start taking myself care of myself now at this moment, those 50 pounds will come off. Because in self-care, every single day, we're taking care of ourselves and giving back. It's about making intentional change.

Yes, we can design our own lives, and we can make amazing beautiful lives. And that takes work. It's not five easy steps. It's five challenging steps of showing up every day with intention with self-care with compassion, empathy, a desire to be different, and depth in our lives.

So that's my tidbit on resolutions and my contribution to the voices out there that are talking about resolutions that bigger isn't always better. And sometimes, it is more about depth and more about looking at ourselves. And as you can tell, I have a lot to say on this topic because it gets me fired up.

Because I know in my own life, when I started being more intentional, when I started embracing the depth and looking at things from a deeper, more intentional perspective, my life got happier. It was more exciting and rich. I wasn't blaming everyone. I wasn't stuck in drama. I was responsible for my own life, and I'm making daily changes to make that as powerful and as passionate as possible.

+ Weekly Ritual Challenge

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

This week's ritual: Stop Multi-tasking

Multi-tasking causes your brain to go into hyperdrive, you get less done and you are less focused. When you concentrate on one thing at a time A. you get more done in less time and B. you are more relaxed. I

We have lots of easy ways to be present and do mini-meditations throughout the day.

Pumping gas? Just pump gas (don't check your phone)Brushing your teeth? Brush your teeth (don't walk around picking up dirty laundry)Blow drying your hair? Just blow dry it. (don't clean the bathroom while you do it)Standing in line. Just be there.

My challenge to you:Catch yourself multi-tasking.Pick one task and be fully present for that one task.

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