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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Episode 089: Making the Beast Beautiful

Recently I read the book First, We Make the Beast Beautiful A New Journey Through Anxiety by Sarah Wilson. And I can't say enough good things about it. Today I explore 5 of Sarah's cruel ironies when it comes to living with anxiety. If you struggle with anxiety or know someone who does, I know you will be nodding your head in understanding as you listen.

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Hey, gang. I am very excited to be back again here at the Happiness Hacks podcast to be sharing with you about this wonderful book that I have found. I found it back in May when I was on vacation. I absolutely devoured it. It is called "First, We Make the Beast Beautiful: A New Journey Through Anxiety." It was written by Sarah Wilson. On the book jacket, she says, "Learning to view anxiety as her finest teacher rather than the enemy," which I just absolutely adored. I gained so much from this book and just new ways of looking at anxiety. She did such an amazing job of really showing what it's like to live with anxiety, giving a new voice to anxiety. It just is an absolutely fantastic book.

If you deal with anxiety or think you may have anxiety or live with someone who has anxiety, I highly, highly recommend this book because she comes from a journalistic background. She does an excellent job of researching and giving a lot of different voices, along with her amazing voice that is just so heartfelt and so authentic in how she describes anxiety. It's not exactly a self-help book, even though she has some great techniques on how she, personally, gets through anxiety. It is just more of an exploration of what it's like to live with anxiety. I bought this book because I got it from the library, and I wanted to highlight so much that I ended up purchasing the book so I could actually highlight it, but every page is highlighted or dog-eared. It just has been well, well worn. It's been a long time since I've read a book this impactful.

The part of the book that I love the most is she has these different things called the cruel ironies of anxiety. She has them spread throughout the book. She has 16 of them. Today, I want to look at 5 of the 16 and talk to you about them in hopes that you will pick up this book. I'm not getting any money from this or anything from Sarah. I absolutely feel like this is a great resource.

The cruel irony, the first one I want to talk about, is actually on page 27 of the book. She said, "Anxiety is rewarded in our culture, so we often miss the diagnosis." She goes on to say that being high-strung and so busy is a badge of honor. I have talked about this before that saying how busy we are has become the new 'fine.' someone asked you how you're doing, answering, "Oh, I'm just so busy." So anxiety and that feeling of go, go, go and push, push, push, and the natural way of living that comes with anxiety is rewarded in our culture, so the behaviors that spring forth because we're anxious are valued, and so it's very hard to get diagnosed with anxiety. I have so many clients that come into me and say, "I didn't know that this wasn't normal. I didn't know that this was anxiety." I think that's true because it's so valued in our culture.

Something I struggled with while reading this book was owning the label of anxiety. It's a word that gets tossed around a lot: "I'm anxious, or I have anxiety," but we don't want to have a label, a diagnosis. There's a lot of stigma with that. A lot of life coaches will say, "I won't diagnose you." One of the negatives of the mental health professional is that they diagnose you. But the part that I loved about this book, and it reframed it for me, was when you know that you have anxiety when you have that label, then you can start making the beast beautiful. It's back to that belief that if you acknowledge what's happening in your life, then you can start building coping mechanisms around living with it.

When we can say, "I struggle with anxiety, and it shows up in these ways in my life," then I can take anxiety and view it as something that's not holding me back but something that I'm learning how to carry and live with. So I think that there is a power in being able to label it and own it and acknowledge it instead of just pretending it doesn't exist and not wanting to buy into the stigma of anxiety. Anxiety is a very real thing, and it is crippling, and so being able to start learning and owning that label, I think, is powerful. Because as Sarah says in the book, it takes 9 to 12 years for people to get the diagnosis of anxiety. The relief that my clients feel when they're like, "Oh, this isn't normal. This isn't just a way of being. There is something going on in my life that's different from other people," that's where owning your anxiety is a very powerful thing.

The next cruel irony she talks about is on page 28. "We suck it up when we feel anxious, and soldier on until we tip off the edge and anxiety turns pathological and even medical." This goes back to what I was just talking about: the idea that we end up blaming ourselves. We blame our poor coping mechanisms well before we blame anxiety. We turn the feelings of anxiety on ourselves, and we blame ourselves, which is why I say for those of us with anxiety, our mongers tend to be very, very loud because our mongers are telling us to suck it up and soldier on and keep going. Our mongers aren't telling us to take care of ourselves and, "Oh, that might be anxiety." That might not be a normal way of looking at the world. We might have a lens that we view the world, but it is more hopped up than most.

So the idea of the happier approach and learning how to quiet those mongers goes hand in hand with this. I wrote the "Happier Approach" for those of us who have excessive anxiety because our mongers tend to be very, very loud. The longer we go without really dealing with our anxiety, the worse it's going to get, as with anything. The longer we leave diabetes or cancer, anything untreated, the worse it's going to get. That's why it's so important to start exploring anxiety and exploring the idea that maybe I don't need to live this way.

The next cruel irony I want to talk about is on page 31. She says, "The more anxious we are, the more high-functioning we will make ourselves appear, which just encourages the world to lean on us more." I mean, can I get an Amen from that one? That is huge. In reality, the more anxious we are, the more we would love for someone to come and take a bit of the load, but we keep sucking it up and soldiering on, is what Sarah Wilson says. I totally agree with that. I see that in my life all the time. I see that in my clients' life. I wrote about that in the "Happier Approach." One of the ways we know our mongers are in charge is the idea of, "I got this." We just say to ourselves, "I got this. I got this. I don't need to ask for help. I can take care of everything. I totally got it."

That mentality of let me keep piling more stuff on my plate is because of anxiety. The more anxious we are, the more high-functioning we become, I should say, the more high-functioning we appear, and so people continue to lean on us because we appear like we have it all together. When in reality, we are just awesome at making ourselves appear high-functioning. When inside, we're just crumbling. That is why I talk so much about the idea of building loyalty within yourself because we're good at being loyal to the people around us. We're good at leaning in and helping them and appearing high-functioning to the detriment of ourselves. The reason we can do that is because the anxiety becomes less because we're focused externally on getting all this stuff done, but in reality, we are spinning out. We're uncomfortable. We're pushing ourselves way too hard. We're getting ready to hit that place where we're just totally exhausted. That is such a cruel irony that we appear more high-functioning, so people lean on us more. When in reality, we need the help of people.

The fourth one I'm going to talk about was on page 121. She says, "We rush to escape what makes us anxious, which makes us anxious, and so we rush some more." We're worried about the future and finding a better life, so we rush ahead, constantly thinking, striving, trying to figure out what does a better life looks like, which only serves us to make us more anxious. So we push and push and push, thinking, "Oh, I just got to check off these things off the to-do list," or "Once I finish this, it'll be okay," and we're pushing and pushing and pushing and becoming more and more and more anxious.

I notice this in my own life when I start going into hyper-pushing, and I'm rushing ahead and not wanting to slow down because I'm pushing so hard. That is when I know I need to practice ASK, which is the acronym for acknowledging what you're feeling, slow down and get into your body, and kindly pull back to see the big picture. Because when you're an anxious person, the last thing you want to do is stop and take a breath, do some meditation, whatever that may look like. The last thing an anxious person wants to do is stop moving, stop working towards that end goal. But it is one of the best things an anxious person can do is to stop moving. That's why I love the idea of the happiness hacks because 10 to 20 seconds of getting in your body and taking a breath or moving your hands or wiggling your body or doing a dance in your office, something that allows you to pull out of that rush, rush, rush, push, push, push that anxiety puts on us.

Then the last one I want to talk about is on page 225 in the book, "I convince myself that controlling my life and aiming for perfection will cocoon me from anxiety, but it only causes more of the dreaded thing." That is another one. Can I get an Amen? We decide, "Oh, I'm going to just aim for perfection. I'm going to aim for doing it right. Once I can do that, then I won't feel so anxious. I'll feed protected." So we're aiming for this thing that is impossible in a way to cocoon ourselves from anxiety, when in fact, it causes more anxiety to be pushing and pushing and pushing for perfection. Again, ironic, catch-22, it's a double bind. It keeps us stuck in indecision. It keeps us stuck in spinning from thing to thing. It keeps us just stuck from moving forward because we just keep assuming that if we can get it right and do it perfectly, everything will be okay. So we get stuck in research. We get stuck in asking people and looking outside of ourselves for information, all with an aim to do it perfectly so we won't have anxiety.

Again, I talk about this in the "Happier Approach." This is why I love the concept of ASK because it allows us to acknowledge what's really going on in our lives and to look, is this a search for perfection? For those of us with anxiety, falling into perfection and the aim for perfection is almost like breathing. It just is such an easy default pattern to fall into. So I have been working on this in my life and with my clients that the minute that you start noticing perfection and the aim for that to be able to pull yourself back and recognize that isn't going to happen. I'm in the midst of anxiety. What can I do to take care of this? What am I feeling? How can I slow down and get into my body? And how do I pull back and see the big picture? So all of those things come in to play when we are living in anxiety.

Those are the 5 cruel ironies, 5 of the 16 that Sarah talks about in her book. I might come back around in a couple of episodes from now and talk about some more of them because I, as I said, love this book and found it very powerful. In the meantime, I highly encourage you to go out and buy the book or get it from the library.

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Episode 088: Are you a BFF, Biggest Fan, or a Monger?

A different look at The Happier Approach characters not just how we talk to ourselves but how we interact with others. Which character are you? How do you interact with those around you?

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Hello, gang. I am happy to be back here. I'm talking about the characters in my book from The Happier Approach in a slightly different way today. So if you have or haven't read the book, I think you will find this intriguing because it's a different way of looking at this concept. I have written a book called The Happier Approach: Be Kind to Yourself, Feel Happier, and Still Accomplish Your Goals. That book is available on Amazon. You can buy it, listen to an audiobook or Ebook or a physical book, whatever you feel like doing.

In the book, I talk about the Monger, the BFF, and The Biggest Fan, and these are the three voices that are in our heads and relate to our productivity and how we talk to ourselves. To give you a quick refresher on the voices and what the characters mean, I'm going to talk about the Monger first. And so the Monger is the voice of shaming and belittling, and this is the voice that a lot of us are used to. It's a voice that's telling us where we're not living up to snuff, where we're not doing a good job. This is the perfectionist's voice, and you could do it better, and who do you think you are and all of those messages that drive us all crazy.

So, the Monger is what a lot of people call the inner critic, and I called it a Monger because it's spreading propaganda and encouraging us to be better by using shaming and belittling. The counter to that voice, which can drive us crazy and make us feel crappy about our lives, is the BFF. The BFF is all about fun. She wants to support you and let you have fun. She's not so much into holding your feet to the fire, and that's why she's called the BFF because she is your best friend forever. She is going to make sure that you're having a good time, you're not taking yourself too seriously, that you can cut loose and do all that fun stuff. So, when the Monger becomes, that shaming and belittling voice becomes too much, in steps the BFF kind of as a pressure release valve to be like, "Screw it, have fun. Who cares?"

We get in trouble when we dance between those two voices. The middle voice that I like to call is the Biggest Fan. The Biggest Fan's voice is there to help us feel good about ourselves and to be kind to us, but also hold our feet to the fire. So the Biggest Fan is the voice that's going to be like, "Oh, sweetheart, oh, that was tough to get that bad feedback, but let's figure out a way to improve. What do we need to do differently? This goal is important. How can we keep working on it?" Whereas the BFF would say, "Let's have a drink, that was too stressful. I don't want to deal with it." The Monger would say, "I told you-you couldn't do that. Who do you think you are? You are such a loser."

So, the three voices are constantly playing out in our heads. Yesterday, I did a presentation. I was fortunate enough to speak at this leadership conference for women, and afterward, a few women came up to me to talk about how these voices play out in their work environments with how they talk to each other. It was an interesting way of thinking about it because I had always taught it from the perspective of the voices are in our heads. But we also personify these voices in how we interact with people around us, and so it's helpful to kind of think about it that way in the sense of in our relationships, am I a Monger to someone? Am I being a BFF? Or am I being a Biggest Fan?

Let me give you an example that might help reframe this. If you think about a Monger, and that is someone that shames and belittles someone, we tend to be Mongers sometimes to those we love when we see they're not reaching their potential or we see a bigger picture for them. So, we can do this with our kids or people we're mentoring, or people we are trying to pull along. We can use shaming and belittling as a way to motivate them. At least that's what our intention is. We think we're motivating them, but in reality, we're just making them feel like crap because we aren't encouraging them. We're just pointing out their flaws, and pointing out flaws is not a motivator.

So, to recognize am I being a Monger to my employees, to my kids, to anyone that I'm mentoring or trying to pull along. To that same extent, am I being a BFF? Am I giving my employees or my best friend a pass and not helping her hold her feet to the fire? Am I saying, "It doesn't matter. That's no big deal. Who cares that your boss said that"? When in our heads, we know it's a big deal. We know it matters that her boss gave her negative feedback, and we know that it would be helpful for us to help her figure out how to work past that. So, when we're acting out of the BFF, and we're just in the, "I want to make you feel better" mode or "I want to whip by this as quickly as possible so we can get back to the fun part of the evening," we aren't doing a service to our friends or our co-workers. Or anyone else that we know that are struggling when we're immediately trying to pick them up and pull them along and get them into the fun place.

This is where, if you've listened to me for a while, you know my favorite phrases of think positive and be grateful step in. So we as a BFFer (that's a new way of saying it) tend to scoot on by any of that negativity or anything that's bad. You tend to pretend it's not happening, and you're the one headed up to the bar to get another round rather than sit with someone and help them move through it. One of the women that came up to me yesterday was talking about the people on her staff and how they are all BFFing each other instead of encouraging each other to grow and learn. They're not giving each other that tough feedback.

I want to talk a little bit about what does that mean to be a Biggest Fan for someone. And the way this works that I hadn't even thought about, which I'm so excited about, is if you can learn to be a Biggest Fan for someone else, you can learn to be a Biggest Fan for yourself, which is the whole point of The Happier Approach. This may be another way of expanding on this concept. By practicing being Biggest Fans to those around us, we can also learn how to be a Biggest Fan to yourself. And so how do you become a Biggest Fan? And it's the same as you do it for yourself. You're going to acknowledge what they're feeling, "Wow, that must have been hard to get that feedback." Or you're going to acknowledge to a co-worker, "Wow, that must be hard to be supervising staff that isn't getting it, and it must be hard to give a negative review about that."

So, to be able to meet people where they are and listen to what it is they're saying without jumping in to give advice. Without jumping in to solve the problem, without shaming and belittling them, just listening to what it is they're feeling and mirroring that back to them to say, "Wow, that must really be hard to be that uncomfortable," or to be that sad or to be that angry or whatever it is that person's feeling. And then to help them pull back and see that there is a big picture, to see that there is more to the story and how can we solve this problem and I'm here with you and we're doing this together. Where do you need to go? Who can help you better than me? Who can give you better resources? How can we get in the nitty-gritty of this situation and tear it apart and look at it?

Another way of being a Biggest Fan is to ask the person you're with, "What do you need from me right now? Do you need me to be a BFF? Do you need me just to cut loose and have fun and let's not worry about this right now, or do you need me to unpack this with you and look at the situation and come up with some, some answers here? What is it you need?" When I come home with a problem, my husband will frequently say to me, "Do you need me to give advice, or do you need me just to listen? What are we looking for here? I need to know before we get diving in." And that's a great way of being a Biggest Fan because a Biggest Fan is empowering. They're going to give you the power back to say, "What is it you need in this situation right now and how can I give that to you?"

Figuring out how you're showing up for people is a powerful way to find out how you're showing up for yourself because those of us who tend to be Mongers to other people tend to have a strong Monger themselves. And to the same extent, those of us who tend to be BFFs for people tend to have a strong Monger for ourselves because we are tired of the Monger, and so we just want to comfort the person so much and give them so much love and have fun and we don't want them to feel bad.

We have a hard time being that Biggest Fan because the BFF is all about making the other person feel better. The Biggest Fan is also all about making the other person feel better, but they're also about helping them move forward, helping them figure out what needs to happen next, helping them solve the problem, not with advice, not with solutions, so to speak, but with kindness and discernment and wisdom and offering them grace and compassion. So, it's a harder concept to unhook the idea of the Biggest Fan, but it's one I want you to be thinking about. How are you showing up for those people around you? Are you being a Monger? Are you being a BFF? Are you being a Biggest Fan? And how is that? How would you like to change that? How would you like to show up for people differently?

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Episode 087: This Isn't Just About The Stigma of Mental Illness

This week my heart was heavy after the suicides of 2 famous people and the release of the CDC report saying suicide rates are at an all-time high. It is time for a revolution.

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This week we lost two successful, famous, life-touching individuals, Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain. But according to the American Federation for Suicide Prevention, every day, we lose 123 people to suicide.

The deaths of Kate and Anthony have left people stunned and saddened. This news combined with the CDC report released this week which said that suicides are up 30%

It is easy to feel saddened. To feel stunned. And to explain it away as a mental illness or as drugs and addiction. Anything to make us feel better that suicide won’t touch us. But at this rate. It will.

This isn’t just about the stigma of mental illness. Over 50% of suicides are by someone who didn’t have a previously known mental health issue.

This is about the stigma of any mental or emotional pain.

The stigma of being sad, depressed, anxious, and overwhelmed. The stigma of experiencing anything less than happiness and joy all the time.

We are so caught up in appearing happy, successful, and accomplished. All that keeping up with appearances keeps us busy. SO busy. Too busy for the real check-ins necessary to connect on a deeper level and see each other’s pain.

Twice this week, I chatted with friends who, when describing their pain, real serious pain, quickly ended their story with, “it’s no big deal. I should be grateful for all I have.”

We are so quick to move past the pain. Hurry right on past it.

I mean, life is good. I should be happy, right?

This isn’t just about mental illness. This is about the stigma of any mental or emotional pain.

We move through life at lightning speed. Too busy for anything beyond data sharing. Too caught up in the next thing on our to-do list to really settle down and check in with ourselves, let alone someone else in our lives. And the anxiety, sadness, depression, the pain just keeps piling on.

This isn’t just about mental illness. This is about the stigma of any mental or emotional pain.

You have chest pain? You go to the doctor. No one judges you for being weak or pathetic, or unsuccessful.

You have emotional pain? You push it down. You suck it up. You soldier on. Because emotional pain means you are weak. You are pathetic. You are less than.

Sounds harsh, doesn’t it. And yet, that is how we as Americans think. That is why we quickly follow any sharing of pain with “it’s no big deal, I should be grateful for all I have.”

This isn’t just about mental illness. This is about the stigma of any mental or emotional pain.

This requires a revolution. This requires demanding more of ourselves.

Here’s where to start:

Listen. Just listen. No advice. No problem-solving. No thinking positive, or be grateful, no brainstorming. Just listen.

When someone says, “this is no big deal.” Remind them it is their life. It is their pain. Therefore it is a big deal. Be curious. Ask them to share more. Show up for their pain even though it makes you uncomfortable or you feel like you are too invasive. If we are going to do this differently, we are going to have to get uncomfortable.

This isn’t just about mental illness. This is about the stigma of any mental or emotional pain.

Re-prioritize. Pause your to-do list and check-in with yourself. Is all this stuff worth it? Are all the to-dos and the mad scrambles worth it? At the end of your life, are these activities something you are going to look at with joy and fondness?

Earlier this month, I did a re-calibration of my priorities. Realizing that I was pushing too much. Scrambling too hard. For what? At what cost? We are prioritizing our to-do list over our friends and family. We are choosing checking items off the list over connecting with others. We are engaging in simply sharing data over sharing our pain, our dreams, our struggles.

This is a two-fold revolution.

First, we need to show up for ourselves. Step off the hamster wheel and check in with our lives, our values, and our priorities.

Second, we need to show up for others. Take the time and the patience to ask people how they are and listen for the answer. And then ask a follow-up question. And another. And another.

It’s time for a revolution.

This isn’t just about mental illness. This is about the stigma of any mental or emotional pain.

Let’s do this.

If you are feeling suicidal or know someone who is call: 1-800-273-TALK

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Episode 086: You are the Answer

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Episode 085: What does a GOOD Day look like?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Episode 084: Things that Have been Annoying Me Lately

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Episode 083: Live Happier Q&A

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Episode 082: The Warm Cozy Sweater of Our Monger

In this episode, I share why Monger attacks are so hard and what our job is when we put on that warm, cozy sweater of our Monger.

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Hey, everyone. Today I want to share a personal story, something that happened to me yesterday. And I thought you all might find it helpful and interesting, and relatable. And what happened was I found myself in a full-on Monger attack. And it wasn't the typical Monger attack. I tend to have the Monger attack of "Oh, you're a loser" or "Who do you think you are?" But this was a Monger attack that was a full-on shame attack. Someone in my life triggered a very old button and accidentally pushed it. They didn't do it intentionally at all, but they accidentally pushed it, and it just sent me down a dark tunnel of a shame spiral.

What was so fascinating about it, I found myself in a shame spiral. I started crying. I said to my husband, "This is a ten response to a two situation. I know I'm way overreacting". But the beauty of what happened was I was in a new spot for me for looking at it. At one time, I could see that I was sitting in the shame, and I could also see there was a choice to be sitting in the shame, for lack of a better phrase. And even though I was in the middle of it and I could recognize I was in the middle of it and I was doing all the stuff that I teach people to do and A.S.K. and could name all my feelings and could pull back and see the big picture. What was fascinating about it was that it wasn't just let's practice A.S.K., and I'll immediately feel better. I had to practice A.S.K., acknowledge what you're feeling, and I could say, "I'm feeling sad, and I'm feeling angry, and I'm feeling triggered, and I'm feeling like a bad person," and I could say all the things I was feeling. My husband and I went for a walk. And did the slowdown and get into your body piece.

And I could see the big picture. I could pull back and give some other reasons as to why it was happening. And see what was going on. But I kept coming back to the warm, cozy sweater. And I love that analogy. And if you've been listening to this podcast, you've heard me say it multiple times. But the warm, cozy sweater is the belief that we need the shame. I wish I could come up with a better phrase for saying it, but it's like finding a warm, cozy sweater in your closet, and you put it on, and then you realize, "Ah, this is so itchy, and I hate how this feels." But for some reason, we're drawn into the sweater. And as I was standing in the park with my husband watching our dog play, I was like, "I can't get out of this." I would do A.S.K., and I would pull back, and I'd see the big picture. And then, eventually, the warm, cozy sweater would wash over me again. And I kept practicing A.S.K., and I kept getting the warm, cozy sweater. I'd get a break from the shame for five minutes, 10 minutes.

But I could very quickly flip the switch and come back to the warm, cozy sweater. Because the tape that I was playing over and over, the shame tape, the thing that got triggered, the incident that triggered me was so familiar. It was so old. It was so used to being triggered. And it was interesting to recognize this is just a tape. You're playing this over and over and over again. It's the first time in a long time that I've been that triggered, that I've been that awash in shame. But it also was really interesting to be able to pull back and just notice how the shame is so comforting and how we believe we deserve it and how it does feel like a warm, cozy sweater. And so it's like pulling yourself out of the muck like your feet are stuck in quicksand. And the shame is like quicksand, and it's just sucking you down. And it's being able to pull yourself out of that. And so I think A.S.K., I know A.S.K. is a great way to do that.

But I also know that it needs to be repeatedly done. I went to bed earlier than normal last night, partially because I was just so exhausted from trying to pull myself out of the muck. And I wanted the day to be over. I was tired of feeling and wearing the warm, cozy sweater, and I knew that when I woke up, I would feel differently because I had done all the work. I had seen the big picture. I was able to see where the other person was coming from and why they said what they said. I could see how I the reaction that I had. And it all made sense logically. But I just needed to have it make sense in my heart. And so my biggest fan was, "Just go to sleep. When you wake up tomorrow, it'll be different. We'll just keep practicing this." And that is what happened that today when I woke up, I could still go back to the same place, but it wasn't there as much.

The cool thing about what happened, and part of the reason I wanted to share this story, was this stuff just keeps happening, and we can either choose to put on the warm, cozy sweater and keep it on and never be able to pull out of it, which is what I did for years. And that was the realization that I had, and I said to my husband, "I wore this warm, cozy sweater all the time, and people could trigger me without them knowing it at any given moment." I was constantly feeling one step away from feeling like I was unworthy or one step away from feeling like a bad person. This is why this work is so important to me because that was such a terrible way of moving through the world. And I want to help people stop that terrible feeling from happening to them. But it also the idea that I recognized that I had a choice. And there was a switch I could flip. And the switch isn't that easy to flip. So, yes, I have a choice, and yes, I could pull myself out of the shame and pull myself out of the monger attack and take off the warm, cozy sweater, but the power of that muck and the power of that quicksand is huge and powerful.

I want you all to recognize how hard this work is and that it is challenging to pull yourself out of it. And if you are practicing A.S.K. and you're like, "This isn't working. I had to practice A.S.K. like ten times today to get out of the shame attack", I get it. And, it does work overtime. You may need to practice it. Yesterday I hit a shame situation. My Monger was in full-on attack. And that was a hard one. And yes, I had to practice A.S.K. a number of times before I could separate it out. But the other thing is that this shame stuff, if we choose to work it, it does teach us. We can learn, and yesterday when I was able to pull back and look at the big picture, I could see the situation so differently because when we are stuck in the shame and our Monger is in control, and we're wearing that warm, cozy sweater, we only see black and white. We are wrong. The other person is right. We're a loser. We're not worthy. We didn't do it right. Whatever it is, there's no gray.

And what was cool about yesterday's event is I, even though I was still wearing the warm, cozy sweater and there was a part of me that was really buying into the attack of the Monger, there was another part of me that was the biggest fan that was like, "You can grow from this. This doesn't have to be your trigger. You don't have to be triggered by this every time." And I think that's the piece that I want everyone to learn here. I just read this amazing newsletter from [Kelly Dials 00:07:43], who was saying how it used to be that we would get confident and be feeling good and be feeling really confident, and we would think, "Oh, I won. I'm confident. I've checked that off the list. I figured out how to have confidence." And now that she's in a different growth period in her life, and that confidence is gone, and she's feeling more insecure. And she was like, "I think it's a mix of both. I think we have the confidence, and then we have insecurity, and then we grow. And then we have more confidence, and then we grow, and we have insecurity."

And hopefully, as we're going through life, that's the key. We are constantly growing and learning new things. As we grow, we're going to hit these spots of insecurity. And right now, I'm going through some pretty hefty growth spurts in my personal and professional life. And my Monger has been louder. I talked about this a couple of episodes ago, but I think that's the point of life is to constantly be juggling that insecurity, confidence, insecurity, confidence as we move up the mountain of life. And the idea that you will get confidence and you will have arrived is not true. And anyone that is selling that to you is a liar.

It drives me crazy that that is out there in the world because that is not how life works. You never achieve happiness. You never achieve confidence. It doesn't stay forever. And what I try to teach is how to get through the periods of insecurity. How to get past the shame attack. How to take off the warm, cozy sweater so that you have strategies on what to do as you're moving through life. And these things, hopefully, inevitably will come to you because you'll continue to grow.

That is my message today and sharing my personal shame attack and all that stuff. I didn't want to get into all the details because I don't think they matter. What matters is how I learned and grew and my observations from the event. Okay, gang. That's the show. Thanks for listening.

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Episode 081: The Love-Hate Relationship with Our To-Do List

In this episode, I talk about the to-do list, our love of it, and how it keeps us trapped in the belief that WHEN we finish the to-do list we will be happier. (That's a lie by the way.)

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Hey gang, so today I want to talk about our to-do list. And this came up last week. I've been doing a book tour for the Happier Approach book, and last week I was in Kentucky at a private women's event. The big theme of that event was the to-do list and how a lot of people did not recognize that our to-do list was the way that their monger was showing up. And so today, I just want to touch base with you on what I call the to-do list black hole.

And so, I think a lot of us have a love/hate relationship with the to-do list. On the one hand, we love it because it keeps us organized and on top of things. And on the other hand, we struggle with falling into the to-do list black hole and becoming kind of a slave to our to-do list. And we attach our to-do list to our worthiness. And that's where we get into trouble.

So here are a few common statements when it comes to the to-do list. My to-do list is my bible. I mean, I can't live without my to-do list. I have a love/hate relationship with my to-do list. I feel chained to my to-do list. I'm constantly checking it. I mean, I can't remember a day without my to-do list. And finally, my to-do list helps me stay on top of my busy busy life; I just can't fathom life without it.

A to-do list is a wonderful tool because it guides your every day, and it allows us to know what needs to be done, what's coming up, it keeps us on top of things. But the problem is, is that it's a tool. It's a tool. That's all it is. It isn't attached to our worthiness. Finishing our to-do list will never lead to satisfaction. It may for a brief moment, but it never fully leads us there because we think that if we finish the to-do list, we're going to get there, and there doesn't exist because the to-do list just keeps growing and growing and growing.

So at this book event last week, one of the women was sharing a story about how she frequently, at the end of the day, finds herself cramming, trying to check everything off her to-do list. And one of the last items is frequently cleaning up the kitchen. And so, when she's in the kitchen scrubbing the counters and disinfecting everything, her husband is lying in the TV room watching TV. And a lot of times, she'll have some resentment against him because here she is, stuck in the kitchen, and he is relaxing in front of the TV.

And it wasn't until I had her go through the ASK philosophy that we talk about in Happier Approach of acknowledging her feelings, slowing down and get into her body, and kindly pulling back to see the big picture that she realized it was her monger telling her how much she needed to get everything done. If she got everything done, then everything would be okay. And she ended every night feeling crappy. Because A, she didn't get everything done, so she still wasn't worthy. And B, she was resentful of her husband because he was lazy and lying around and didn't have the same level of go go go that she did.

And it wasn't until through the group discussion that we pulled back, and she could say, wow, does it matter if the countertops are clean? Is that really what's important here? Or is it important that this is the only time I can hang out with my husband, is this brief hour at the end of the day after the kids go to bed. And so maybe letting it go, the to-do list, and spending time with my husband laying on the floor, easing into some of his rhythms, would be better, because yes, the kitchen is clean. The countertops don't have to be disinfected. It's clean. And so kind of reducing the standards of the to-do list.

And so that was going to be her challenge, was to loosen the reins a little bit around that to-do list and the mentality of everything has to be done perfectly on the to-do list, and I got this, and I'm the only one that can make the to-do list. And so there's a lot of stuff that gets wrapped up in this to-do list mentality, which is why it is one of the most common phrases in my office. Clients coming in to talk about checking stuff off the to-do list and how they are going to get everything done. So I think it's fascinating what our to-do list has come to mean to us and how much it is tied to worthiness and being enough, and that's become the measure of can we get stuff done.

So what are we supposed to do about this? How do we get around? We need the to-do list to get stuff done. And so, I think we need to take some time to step back and see the big picture. I'm a huge fan of that, as you know from my work, to see the big picture and to look at our values and say, does this fit into what's happening in my life right now? Is this really what's important? If I value relationships and I value spending time with my kids, does it matter how clean the kitchen is? Is that an important thing? And so to be able to not only fill the to-do list with our list of stuff but to also be able to rank how important is it that I finish this?

So one of the exercises I've done for years is ranking things by importance. And so I will know at the end of the day, these are the three to five things I have to get done because that's realistic. And so I put those at the top of the list. And each day I have, these are the three to five things I'm going to get done today. And then if something comes along that bumps one of them off, then I move it to the next day. It gets bumped. It doesn't get added. And so it's recognizing what's realistic here? What can I get done? And it's also making sure that you can add some spontaneity to your day, to recognize this is just a list, this isn't the bible. This isn't about my worthiness. If I don't get these three to five things done, life moves on. People may be disappointed. And that's okay.

Because our mongers tend to tell us everything on this list has to be done, it has to be done perfectly; you can't mess up, what will they think if you miss the deadline, you're a terrible person, et cetera et cetera. So we attach so much of our worthiness to a freaking list that is hopefully filled with stuff that fits our values and the stuff that we want to do, and the stuff, if we pull back, feeds our higher good. And if it doesn't and we're just doing the to-do list to check stuff off the to-do list, then we need to check in with ourselves and do a little come to Jesus on what's more important in our lives. Is this that important? And if it is, how do we make time for it and all the other stuff that's that important?

So this week, I want you to look at your to-do list. Have a to-do list come to Jesus to see, is the stuff that I'm filling my life with what I want to be doing? Is this important to me? And if it isn't, how can I start changing things up? Where can I start asking for help? How can I start pushing some stuff off my to-do list? How can I start changing my priorities? Because let's be real. There is stuff on the to-do list that we don't want to do that we have to do, A. And B, our to-do list overfloweth. And so we all have way too much on our plates. And some of that is expectations we're putting on ourselves. Some of that is societal expectations. And some of that is just, I have to put food on the table at the end of every day, and I have to take care of my kids.

And so, we need to get crystal clear on what is most important here. What am I doing because I think I should be doing it, or I think so and so will be mad at me if I don't, or so and so will be disappointed if I don't, or so and so is doing it so I should be doing it? Where are we losing sight of what's most important to us? And then once you've done all that and you've taken your to-do list, and you have fine-tuned it, and it is perfectly packed with your priorities and the stuff that feeds your values and is most important to you, and you're still overwhelmed? Then you have to ask yourself, where can I ask for help? Where can I reach out and get help from a friend, from a coworker, from my boss, from my family? Where can I get help?

And so it isn't that you need to silently suffer in this to-do list hell. We need to start unhooking ourselves from our to-do list equals our worthiness and get control over these to-do lists and make sure that it's fitting our priorities and not what our monger or someone else tells us we should be doing.

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Episode 080: Random Observations about Our Inner Dialogue

In this episode, I talk about 3 random observations about our inner dialogue, what causes our Monger to get fired up, why we have a love-hate relationship with her, and what we HAVE to do to quiet her.

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Hey everyone, excited to back here on a Sunday. Yay, I am back on track on my commitment to doing this once a week and having them released on Sundays. So this weeks' episode is Episode 80. I can't believe that we've done 80 episodes of these little Happiness Hacks podcasts, and today we're going to talk about some random observations I've found about the Monger and our inner dialogue. I was thinking about doing each one as an individual thing, and they might show up individually as I flush them out. But I just wanted to touch on them today as a summary episode.

And so there are three of them, three random observations. Okay, so the first one I want to talk about is the idea that our Monger tends to get chattier when we are taking risks that mean more to us. And so I want to give an illustration of that that comes from a client. She is a performer by nature, actress, and her Monger is very chatty when she's applying for different acting gigs and very, you know, telling her how much she's going to suck or who does she think she is, etc., etc., etc. Not surprising.

So the more she wants a part, the louder her Monger is, and I think that is the illustration of what I'm talking about because the more we are in line with what it is we want to be doing and where our heart's desire is, the louder our Monger's going to get. So this was illustrated clearly when she, on a whim, decided to apply to be in the pit orchestra for a performance. She was going to play her instrument, and she played the instrument in high school as she had experienced. It wasn't like she was a total novice, but she didn't have a ton of experience, and there were people that had more experience with her that were playing next to her. But the performance just needed band members. They didn't care. You didn't have to try out. It was pretty easy to become a member of the pit orchestra.

And she joined it, and she loved it. She had a great time, and her Monger was practically silent the entire time. Like, even though she knew she wasn't good and she knew she wasn't hitting the right notes all the time, she just had a great time. Her Monger was not a player in that activity.

So, it was interesting that we realized that here that activity brought her great joy, but it wasn't really what she wants to be doing. She doesn't want to be playing in the orchestra. It's a fun activity, but it's not one that she is tied to. It's interesting to observe that when your Monger is getting loud, it usually means you're on to something. To pay attention to those times that your Monger's talking up and getting loud.

And I know for me, doing this book, my Monger has been very loud. My husband jokes I don't have a monger, I have a demon because she's been particularly loud. I think my next book will be something about that topic because here I wrote a book on finding your Monger as my Monger has gotten even louder, but I think that is because I'm on to something.

Other people I know are putting themselves out there with their artwork, and they're exploring that particular vein of their work. Their Monger's super loud, and that's what happens. The closer we get to what it is we want to do, the louder our Monger gets. That was random observation number one.

Then random observation number two is as we learn to quiet our mongers and bring in our biggest fans, there is going to be a gap where we kind of miss the Monger. I know this sounds crazy and a little counterintuitive because why would we miss this voice that's totally shaming us all the time. But we miss that voice because that voice brings us drama. It brings us something to do. It brings us something to mull over and think on and obsess about. All of that activity that our brain does, it kind of occupies us, is stimulating and dramatic and kind of fun in a weird way. It's comfortable.

So, once we learn how to get rid of that constant obsessing, there's an empty vacuum that is created where there's like, wait a minute, I have just spent a long time, many years of my life being in this drama place, and now I got to learn how to function without that. So just to pay attention as you're doing this work of that concept, and sometimes we will go into the Monger just to get that drama because it is comfortable. You know, it goes back to that sweater analogy I always use that we put on the sweater of the Monger, and initially, the sweater is comfortable. It's familiar. We know what it's like to obsess and to worry and to constantly be playing all the different scenarios and kind of figuring out the right way, and that feels good.

Then, over time the sweater gets itchy because it's like I don't want to be obsessing about this so much. I don't want to be stressing all the time. I don't want to be checking everything off my to-do list. I want to be living my life. So, the sweater gets itchy, and we have to take the sweater off.

That's the concept of the Monger is that it's not all evil, and we don't want the Monger. We know it's bad for us, and yet part of it is comfortable. It's just like a glass of wine. We know that alcohol has no real redeeming value, and yet we drink it because it makes us feel good. Until we have too much, and then it makes us feel bad, just like the Monger. The Monger initially makes us feel good. It makes us feel safe. It makes us feel protected. It makes us feel comfortable until it doesn't, and then it starts to make us feel bad.

So I want to open up that conversation a little bit in your brain and make some space for that because until we can admit that we need our Monger and that we find it comfortable, it's really hard to quiet it. If we're constantly pushing it away like some evil demon, we won't integrate it into our whole being, and we need to integrate the Monger. It's one of the voices there, and if we learn how to live with that voice and integrate it into the biggest fan, then we can start making some real changes.

That random idea is that the Monger is comfortable, and that's okay, but it still hurts us, and we need to figure out a way around it.

Then the last random observation I have is the concept of intellectualizing versus practice. I think for a lot of us that have this monger work, we're used to intellectualizing. We intellectualize our feelings. We intellectualize a problem. We're problem solvers. We're constantly trying to come up with the next solution. When it comes to the workaround quieting your Monger and bringing in your biggest fan, there's a level of practice that has to happen. It's not just reading about it. It's not just reading all these books and getting all these 'ahas' which is wonderful and awesome.

You have to practice. You have to practice ASK. You have to sit down and acknowledge your feelings. You have to slow down and get into your body. You have to kindly pull back and see the big picture. You have to take it all the way through. And so that idea that it's not just intellectualizing, it's not just sitting there being like, oh I got to practice ASK and not actually practicing it. Or, there's my Monger again, but not actually doing anything about it. That's where we get in trouble.

And so, it's just like sitting around. If we're reading all these books on working out and stretching and how to stretch and the perfect yoga poses, and the great way to eight-minute abs and we weren't doing the workouts, it doesn't do any good. It's the same thing when it comes to our mongers. We have to do the work that is involved in quieting them. That's where the glitch comes from because, for a lot of us we don't want to do that work, and I get it.

Even after knowing that I need to do the work, I still am resistant to it. Earlier this week, I was pushing myself hard, and I had a bunch of deadlines I was trying to hit, and I was just manic in my jumping from task to task to task. It took all I had to step back from the computer, slow down, get into my body. I turned on some music. I did a little dance party in my office. And then I felt a thousand times better.

When I came back to my desk, my mind was clear. I was able to focus; I could get the task done. That's random fact number three, is that I need you not to be intellectualizing this process. I need you to be practicing this process and then bringing that practice and the questions you have around that practice up to the forefront. So then you can figure out new ways around them.

Okay, that's the show.

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Episode 079: Happier Approach Q&A

A new monthly segment for the show the Happier Approach Q&A. Answering listener questions about all things Live Happier and The Happier Approach.

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Today is the happier approach Q & A, and I've wanted to take one episode a month and turn it into a question and answer type format. I didn't put out any call out for questions, but I've been getting some questions. I thought, okay, I'll start it with this episode and turn this episode into the Happier Approach Q & A, and then on my website on the podcast page, I will put a link where you can go and ask a question.

The first question I have is, My Monger keeps coming back. What can I do? The easy answer to that is, yep, your monger is going to keep coming back, and so you can't do anything except keep practicing ASK. That's a disheartening answer, so I will give you more than just that because the bottom line is, your monger doesn't go away. This book, The Happier Approach, and my methodology are teaching you a way to quiet the voice of the monger so that your biggest fan's voice gets louder. It's simultaneously quieting the monger and bringing in the voice of the biggest fan and making that voice a little louder. Your default isn't always the monger; it's sometimes is the biggest fan. That's the idea behind the happier approach is not to get rid of the monger altogether, and that will just send you down a rabbit hole. I have been down that rabbit hole of, oh, my God. I'm practicing ASK. Why isn't this working? My monger is still here.

I can give you a couple of tips around that in the next question. I just really want you to know you are not going to be able to silence your monger completely. It's still going to talk there. I have found that when your monger gets loud, it usually means you're on to something. By on to something, I mean you're stretching your boundaries, you're pulling out of your comfort zone, you're chasing a big dream, you're doing something uncomfortable.

It's usually something good that you're doing for yourself or your life, but your monger is freaked out because it wants you to stay small. Your monger wants you to be protected, so the more you do that puts you out there, the more at risk you are, the more your monger is going to shame you. It's a counterintuitive thought process. I talk about that more next week in next week's episode that's coming up on Sunday. The bottom line is, your monger is going to be there, and the idea of the happier approach is to figure out how to slowly over time bringing up the voice of the biggest fan and diminishing more the voice of the monger is the plan. That's the goal of the work of The Happier Approach.

The next question I have is, how quickly do I move through ASK? If I am sad, do I wait until I'm done feeling sad before I move on to getting into my body? That's a great question. I just want to refresh what ASK is for a very new listener or haven't read The Happier Approach. ASK is the acronym I used to quiet the monger and bring in the biggest fan. When you hear your monger talking, you're going to ASK, which simply means acknowledge what you're feeling, is the A. Slow down and get into your body is the S. And K, kindly pull back to see the big picture.

The question is, if I'm sad, do I wait until I'm done feeling sad to move on, to slow down and get into your body? There is no hard and fast rule for how this ASK works. I encourage you to make it your own. My thought process on that is when I acknowledge what I'm feeling, and I can say, "Oh, I'm feeling sad about this." Then when I allow myself to slow down and get into my body, the emotion tends to come, so whether that's tears or my stomach gets a little upset, or I just feel more blah overall. When I start feeling that way, then I know I can feel the feeling all the way through. It's getting into my body, in the S, slow down and get into your body step, really allows me to feel the feeling a little bit more and to make it more real.

Now, the key is, and this is not in the question, but the key I have found, and I've done this with my clients. Sometimes, they'll just stop there in the process. They won't move on to kindly pull back and see the big picture. They'll acknowledge what they're feeling. They'll slow down and get into their body. And those two are just so hard to do in and of themselves that they don't do K, kindly pull back to see the big picture. The K one is, the kindly pull back to see the big picture, is the real monger fighter. Because when we can pull back and see the big picture, then that's the voice of our biggest fan giving us other options.

This weekend I had my book party. It was fabulous. Thank you to any of you who came out and who are listening. It just was a really fun celebration of the book, and the people, and The Happier Approach, and the whole thing. I was nervous about doing it, obviously. Very nervous about the book party and my monger was very chatty before that event. The idea of, okay, I woke up in the morning and I couldn't fall back asleep, and so I'm like, okay, I'm feeling nervous. I'm feeling excited. I'm feeling scared this isn't going to go well, or no one is going to show up, or it's going to be a failure.

Then, I slow down and get into my body. Then, the next step is kindly pull back to see the big picture. I have to do that because that's where the biggest fan steps in. When I pull back and see the big picture, I can be like, okay, I know five of my favorite people in the world are going to be there, so check that off, like, done. I don't have to worry about no one showing up because I know at least five of my favorite people in the world are going to be there. We have great food coming, and I know that's it's going to be surrounded by love and support. So I can start naming off the big picture of what that book party is going to look like. That's where the biggest fan lives.

I hijacked the question a little bit to really encourage you to make sure you take ASK all the way through to K, and not just stop at feeling sad if that's the feeling you're having. If you have acknowledged that you're feeling sad, and then you slow down and get into your body, the tears may come. You may feel it a little more holistically in your body, but then you can move on to K, the kindly pull back and see the big picture piece.

The last question is, someone asked me at the book party, and she said, is it bad that I want to keep improving? Are you discouraging that in me? Absolutely not. I'm not discouraging wanting to keep improving. I am encouraging you to not beat yourself up for where you are. There's a slight difference, and it's a fine line, but for a lot of us, we feel we're flawed just as we are. We tell ourselves when we get here, then we'll be okay. Believing in that, if I did it perfectly, my monger wouldn't be chatting. If a hundred people came to the book party, my monger would be happy.

That belief system gets us in trouble because it will never be true. Even if I had a hundred people come to the book party, then my monger would be beating me up because I didn't have enough food at the book party to serve a hundred people. There's always something the monger is going to find. It's the idea of, I'm okay as I am, and there's stuff I want to do. There's stuff that I want to accomplish. There are goals that I have for my life. If I don't accomplish those, I'm not a terrible person. Once we can just say, okay, I want to keep improving, I want to keep improving as a therapist. I want to keep improving as a podcaster. I want to keep improving as a speaker.

All of that is great and true, but that doesn't mean that I'm going to beat myself up for where I am now as a podcaster, or where I am now as a therapist. The power of the biggest fan is that it's helping you improve. It's helping you reach your goals. But it is doing that without beating you up, without criticizing where you're starting. That's the big point that you've got to make so that you can swallow is, that you're okay as you are, and your biggest fan is just going to help you keep getting better.

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Episode 078: Riding the Waves

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

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

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

You HAVE to feel your feelings.

Don't let your feelings run your life.

Don't be overly emotional.

Don't stuff your feelings.

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

Here's what I know to be true:

Feelings are messy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Episode 077: Judgment and Jealousy They Are Not ALL Bad

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Episode 076: Sneaky Ways Your Inner Monger Sabotages You

Now and then someone will say to me "I don't think I have a Monger." And my answer is always, 'Yes you do. Your Monger is just sneaky." We underestimate how much our Monger chats at us and how accepting we have become to her message. Today I am looking at some habits/behaviors you might have that are inspired by your Monger.

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Hey everyone, so glad to be back here. Today I want to talk about something that comes up quite a bit when we're talking about the inner critic and the Monger, is that people will say to me, "I don't think I have this inner Monger that you talk about." A lot of times when people are saying that it's either one or two things. One is we all have a Monger; I fully believe we all have a Monger. Sometimes the Monger is quieter than others. For some people, their Monger isn't as loud and belittling and shaming as it is for other people. I have a loud Monger, and she is very vocal in almost everything I do. Some people don't have that loud of a voice. But the other thing is, a lot of times, we have so minimized the voice of the Monger, or I should say normalized the voice of the Monger, that we don't even know it's there. So we don't even know where it is sabotaging us, so where it's keeping us stuck.

Today I want to offer just a little insight into how the Monger shows up in some sneaky ways that you may not be recognizing is the Monger that's holding you back. Today I want to touch on some of those. I was talking with a friend of mine earlier this week, and she was saying that recently she realized how much of a perfectionist that she is. I giggled because I had known for a long time that she was a perfectionist. I just thought it was something she knew. But in her mind, a perfectionist was someone who was prim and proper, and the house always looked perfect, and her hair always looked perfect, and they were perfectly put together. That is a version of a perfectionist, but another more common version of a perfectionist is someone who is pretty disorganized. I call it being an 80 percenter, meaning they do 80% of a job, and they leave the remaining 20%. So they might have a bunch of different projects going, but none of them are finished. Usually, that's a sign of someone who is a perfectionist.

You may be thinking like, "How can that be because they have all these different things going, and none of them are perfect?" That is exactly why they are a perfectionist. They can't finish anything because their Monger is constantly telling them how terrible it is, and so their defense mechanism against that is only to do 80%. Then the remaining 20% is there, and when they get to the task, whenever that may be, they will do that extra 20% perfectly. That 20% will be perfect. Because there's so much pressure on that remaining 20%, they never actually do it. This is one of those sneaky ways that your Monger shows up. If you find that you're someone that can't ever complete a task all the way through, or you struggle with that, then it might be because your Monger is shaming you so much that you can't commit to doing the last 20%. Because if you were to commit to doing the last 20%, the pressure would be too great to make it perfect, so you do 80% of a task.

My husband, he's actually the one that coined the phrase because he will run the vacuum and then leave the vacuum sitting out. So he doesn't put the vacuum away, even though the house looks beautiful, he's run the vacuum in the entire house, but he's Monger is constantly telling him, "Well, you missed this spot, and you missed that spot, and you missed that spot." So if the vacuum is out, he can convince himself that he's not done vacuuming, and so it quiets his Monger. Meanwhile, the vacuum's still out, and he never really gave himself the appreciation for the fact that he vacuumed the whole house, so his Monger still won. That's a sneaky way that our Monger sabotages us, is if it can convince us that we have to be perfect, and it's another form of perfectionism.

In that same vein, if you were someone that tends to be a procrastinator, then you probably have a problem with perfectionism because your Monger is telling you how perfect whatever task you're working on has to be, and so procrastinate on it. This is coming up a lot for me lately because I am trying to do more media and pitch my book and get it out there, out into the world, now that it's been made public. My Monger is constantly telling me the risks of that and the fear that I have around that and telling me how that could go wrong, and I could fail, and so I keep procrastinating on it, and procrastinating on it, and procrastinating on it. That's a way that I know my Monger's running the show because I'm procrastinating.

The last one that falls under this perfectionist vain is indecision. A common example of this would be what color am I going to paint my house? It's a big decision, permanent decision, it's going to be there for a few years, really gotta have to dive into that decision. We can't come up with it because the Monger is constantly telling us that it has to be perfect and we have to come up with a perfect color, and what will people think? So indecision is a big one, and it goes along in the vein of procrastinating because we put off making the decision because we don't want to make the wrong one.

The next behavior I want to talk about is in the perfectionism, procrastination vein. It is in the vein of being critical of other people. This happens a lot. When our Mongers are chatting at us all day long, our BFFs will jump in to ease that pressure valve, "You're not that terrible, Nancy, because look at your neighbor, they're 50,000 times worse than you at this, and this, and this, and this. This is a silly example, but I was driving home today, and it's been snowing here, so our car is covered in salt, and it's just disgusting, and I can't keep up with keeping it clean. I'll drive around and look at other cars to make sure if my car is not as dirty as their car, then I feel a little better because I'm not taking care of my car because they're not taking care of their car worst than I'm not taking care of my car. Which is just silly when you say it out loud, but that's kind of how our BFF works to protect us from this voice of this Monger, is to tell us, "It's okay, their car is so much worst."

These four ways of perfectionism, not finishing something, procrastination and indecision, and the judging of other people are ways that our Monger shows up in sneaky ways. We might not be aware that it's the Monger that's causing us to behave in these ways. To start paying attention to when is it that you are indecisive, when is that you can't finish something, when is it that you're procrastinating on something, and when is it you're super judgmental of other people? And then stop and ask yourself, "Wait a minute, was that my Monger chatting? What is my Monger chatting on about?" Then to go into the ASK process, and you can hear from your Biggest Fans, Acknowledge what you're feeling, Slow down and get into your body, and Kindly pull back to see the big picture.

But I really think the key to all of this anxiety reduction and reducing overwhelm, and all the stuff that I work on is recognizing when our Monger is chatting, so we can reduce that voice and bring in the voice of our Biggest Fan. But when we are constantly allowing the Monger voice to chat unchecked, it weighs on us, and it's heavy, and it's exhausting. The more we can start paying attention to what are the ways our Monger is sneaking in there, what are the behaviors I engage in when my Monger is sneaking in and how can I do this differently, and how can I bring in my Biggest Fan? That's where the real crux of this work is. I know for me that I'm a huge procrastinator; that is more of my favorite go-to than 80% of doing a task. I'm not so much of an 80 percenter, but I am a huge procrastinator; I'm a master procrastinator. I know when I am feeling my Monger overwhelming me, and I'm spending way too much time on Facebook and heading down the social media rabbit hole, that I need to get my Biggest Fan in check. It's been very helpful in my productivity noticing when my Monger is chatting because our Monger keeps us stuck in not only anxiety and overwhelm, but just for moving forward with our goals, it just keeps us out of productivity.

Those are some sneaky ways that your Monger is sabotaging your life.

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Episode 075: A Behind the Scene Look at Bravery

So many people have told me how brave I am for writing and publishing a book. We tend to compare our insides to other people's outsides and think they have it all together. Today I am pulling back the veil on how I successfully (and unsuccessfully) dealt with my Monger attacks the week of my book launch.

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Hey everyone, I'm so excited to be back here. I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who sent me a message and responded via email or called me about the book that came out last Tuesday, January 30th, The Happier Approach. The response has been phenomenal and exciting, and I just was so excited to hear from everyone. If you haven't gotten your copy, head to Amazon, and you can get an eBook or a paperback book, or an audiobook. Lots of different options for ways for you to hear and read The Happier Approach and start implementing it into your life.

This podcast is going to be a little different. I wanted to pull back the mystique of the veil, I guess you would say, of writing this book, and specifically this week of putting it out there into the world. A lot of people have been talking to me and telling me how brave they think I am, and I'm so brave because I've written this book and put it out there, and how brave that is. Yes, I would argue it was brave to stick it out there. I always joke, is it brave, or is it delusional? Who knows?

But I wanted to address that topic because I think we tend to put people upon on pedestals that do things that we deem brave and scary, and we assume that everything is awesome with them, back to that idea of comparing your insides to other people's outsides. I guess I wanted to share a little bit of my insides from this week to let you know that it isn't all sunshine and rainbows. Being brave is a choice, and it is something that we have to do daily, minute by minute sometimes, to challenge ourselves to show up and be present.

In the book, I have a chapter called Knowing When the Monger is Running the Show. The reason I have that chapter in there is because I think a lot of us get so comfortable with the monger, we don't even know it's running the show. That was me, and it is me in a lot of ways, and that's been a big part of my work in this inner critic stuff, is paying attention to when my monger is running the show.

One of the ways I know my monger is running the show is because I go into automatic. I go into kind of a numbing spot where I just run on autopilot, and I don't engage with what's engaging. So, when I wrote this book, and when I started writing it, I said to my husband, "I don't want to go on autopilot when it comes to this book. I want to be intentional and show up all the way, so I'm present for everything that happens."

Because when I do this autopilot, I miss opportunities and I miss ideas, and I'm not fully there. So that's one way my monger lulls me into complacency is by just telling me how much I suck, and it's so hard to face that monger all the time. I just go into this autopilot. That has been a battle this week, is knowing that's what I do. I think that's the first step in a lot of this monger stuff is knowing what it is, your go-to is. My go-to is autopilot. It's also just really getting hopped up on doing right and making sure everything's perfect, and so that pressure that everything has to be perfect becomes so great that I go into autopilot to relieve it.

My monger is telling me everything has to be perfect; it has to be just right. My BFF is like, "Don't worry, let's just sit on the couch and watch some Housewives and have some Reese's peanut butter cups. Everything will be fine. Just relax, no big deal." I don't show up because my BFF is running the show. The more I do this work, the more I recognize the BFF is just as toxic as the monger. We just don't recognize it.

Back to knowing when the monger's running the show. This week, I've tried to be intentional about this numbing pattern that I have and knowing when I go on autopilot. It has been challenging really challenging. To give you a little backstory, Monday of this week was the year anniversary of my dad's death. Not surprisingly, it was a very, very hard day. Those anniversaries are just amazing to me that your body knows what's happening before your mind does. It was a really hard day. I spent part of the day with family and just tried to really soak up what was happening.

Then the next day, Tuesday, was the day my book launched. So, it was a high-energy day, and there was a lot of contact with people, great stories, and so much fun, but an underlying sadness that my dad wasn't there to read the book and hear about the book and be a part of the book. It's kind of in this emotional rollercoaster. Are we going back-and-forth between being super excited about the book launch and then also just this sadness in reliving this was the day of the funeral, and this is what we did this day and all that replaying of a year ago.

That to be said that it was really easy, it would have been really easy for me to numb out, and have the BFF had the perfect excuse. This is the anniversary week of your dad's death, take it easy. You deserve it. Take the week off. I really had made a commitment to myself that I wasn't going to do that. I think that is the key to being brave, is committing to yourself that you're really going to show up this time. You're really going to take whatever the next step is. It doesn't have to be some ginormous, crazy, huge step. This book that I've written was a culmination of a lot of really tiny steps. It wasn't like one day I woke up and had this brilliant idea to write a book, and here is the brilliant plan what the book's going to be about, and here we go.

No, no, no. This was years in the making and years of thinking about it. Years of writing and debating and talking. So, it takes tiny little steps I think when we read these memes on Facebook, we see these inspirational stories, we think, oh my gosh, this has to be some huge, big thing I'm going to do. Nope. Bravery is choosing to show up every day. It's me choosing to sit down at my computer and write. It's me choosing to sit down at my computer and come up with some social media post to spread the word about my post.

So, this brings me to today. Today is the first day that I've really had a chance to just take it all in, and sit down, and make the next steps. Everything had gone up to the launch of the book, and then I didn't really have what's happening next. When I sat down today, one of the things on my list is to record this podcast. My monger was just so loud. You have nothing to say, and no one wants to hear what you have to say anyway. Who do you think you are? That same refrain that monger has for me all the time.

I had practiced ASK multiple times. Multiple times this morning, I practiced ASK. I acknowledged what I was feeling. I slowed down and got into my body. And I kindly pulled back to see the big picture. I was doing it kind of again on automatic. I wasn't showing up and doing the steps of ASK. I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm feeling scared. Let me roll my neck a little bit. Okay, and now I'm going to pull back and see the big picture, and kind of see yeah, this isn't a big deal. There's a lot of other things going on in the world.

It wasn't actually doing ASK. I was on automatic pilot doing ASK. It wasn't helping. I bet I did ASK 20 times, and my monger was just like, "See? This doesn't work. You really can't help people. Who do you think you are?" It just built up more and more fodder for my monger.

Finally, it was 1:00. I was still in my pajamas, and I was like, I need to take care of myself here. I need to work out. I need to take a shower. I need to get dressed. I need to start the day and get serious about this. Within five minutes of my workout, I felt so much better, like I was able to acknowledge like, wow, I am scared here, and I'm feeling really vulnerable and out there. The slowing down helps. I'm going to do some extra yoga stretches.

Then I was able to pull back and be like, okay, this was one week in your life that was hard and stressful. Let's see some other options of where we want to take this. My monger tends to convince me I need to have all the answers, and I need to be in charge. That is one of the biggest complaints I have about the coaching and counseling industry as a whole, and all of the "gurus" out there is that they act like they have it all together and like they have the answers. That was why when I was in the shower, I was like, I'm going to do a podcast about how I don't have all the answers. How I don't know what's happening.

But this is how I did my day, and this is what worked for me. In the shower, I slowed way down. I got in the shower, and I was able to implement ASK in a sincere way. When I came back to my office, it was a completely different day. I checked a whole bunch of stuff off my list. My brain was clear. I was ready to focus. My monger was not in charge anymore. It was my biggest fan, kind of stepped into the lead position. I got a lot done. Here I am recording a podcast showing you how this stuff works in real life.

That's been my week in launching The Happier Approach. I hope that you will purchase the book and implement some of the stuff that's in there because it's one of those things, yes I wrote the book, and then every time I implement what it says, it is helpful. I think that's probably true for a lot of books out there, that I just never took the time to implement what they said because I was all looking for the easy answer, and looking for the quick fix. It isn't out there.

There is no quick fix. We have to do the work. We have to slow down and show up, and face our mongers, and challenge our biggest fans, and tell our BFFs to take the day off. We have to get serious about this stuff if we're going to be happier. It isn't easy, but man, once we start implementing this stuff, it's so much better. I promise. I swear. Do it.

So, your takeaway for today is to really pay attention and start noticing when your monger's running the show. You know, is it that you numb out? Is it that you have a 10 reaction to a two problem? Is it that you take on more than you should? There are a lot of ways that our mongers lull us into a state of "safety" that isn't really serving our higher purpose. It isn't helping us get to the next thing.

Once we know the behaviors we engage in, then we can start paying attention to those behaviors and start catching them. Today, I knew that I was doing the numbing and I wasn't really showing up. I was just kind of jumping from thing to thing, and I was really unconscious in what I was doing. That's when it hit me. Wait a minute; your monger's in charge here. Your monger's running the show.

We need to slow down and pay attention and notice when our monger is in charge. That is the key, and then we can implement ASK. We can implement ASK in a sincere, concrete, really showing up way. Not just a yeah, yeah, yeah, let me run through these three letters like I was doing earlier today. But like a let me pause and really do this so that I can get my biggest fan in charge and have my monger be quiet for a little bit.

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Episode 074: A.S.K. Part 3 Slowing Down and Seeing the Big Picture

My system for quieting your Monger (inner critic) and hearing from your Biggest Fan.  In which I chat about stress, Mongers, BFFs, and the potential healing power of Tim Horton's doughnuts.

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Hey everyone, I am so excited to be back here with you guys on the podcast. I'm back committed to my weekly shows, and so this week, we are continuing with A.S.K., which is the system I use to quiet my monger, and I talk about the system more in my book that's coming out on Tuesday. I can't wait, I'm so excited!

Okay, so today, we're moving on to the Part III of A.S.K. In Part I, which was two weeks ago, I talked about an overview of A.S.K. and what the process was. In Part II, which was last week, we just did A, which acknowledge your feelings. Then this week, I'm going to combine the last two, the S and the K, because it's easy to do it in one episode.

Last week we acknowledged our feelings. This week we're in the S of A.S.K., and S is slow down and get into your body. If you've been listening to my podcasts for a while, you know I'm a huge believer in this idea of happiness hacks and quick little weekly ritual challenges that get you into your body. I used to do a weekly ritual challenge every week with my podcast and on my newsletter and Instagram to encourage people this process of just getting into your body for 30 seconds.

So this doesn't have to be a huge meditation or a process of slowing down intensely. For those of us who are Type A personalities and go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, goes, which raise your hand if you can relate to that, the idea of slowing down and getting into your body is like the worst thing in the world. It is the last thing you want to do. Even myself, who knows how important it is, sometimes slowing down and getting into my body is extremely challenging, so I like these short mini ways that we can slow down and get into our bodies.

Something as simple as touching your toes, doing a quick neck roll, moving your neck from side to side, reaching up to the sky, doing some stretches, there are thousands of them. If you listen to any of my podcasts from last year or the year before, you will hear a weekly ritual challenge every week to give you some ideas. There are also more ideas in the book on how to slow down and get into your body.

When you're doing this process of A.S.K., it is implemented because you're being harassed by your monger. Your monger is basically being mean and nasty, and you need to hear from your biggest fan. That's the goal here. So the example I'm going to use today is a personal example for me from last week. I have recently decided to cut out sugar in my diet because white sugar had become a major food group, and so I needed to cut that out as well as adding more fruits and vegetables.

The thing is, I feel amazing doing it. It's one of the easiest switches I've ever made. I definitely miss sugar, but the benefits I'm getting are really positive, so I highly recommend it if anyone wants to try. I'm not being super militant. It's just white sugar like candy and cookies and desserts, that's mainly where I'm at with this. I've been doing that for a while and this week was an extremely stressful week.

I had a lot going on, it was a little overwhelming, so I noticed my monger was really chiming in a lot this week because that's when they tend to come out is when you're feeling overwhelmed. Ironically, when your monger comes out, then what tends to come out to "get your back" is your B.F.F. The B.F.F. is what I consider to be false self-compassion. So false self-compassion is the idea of go ahead, do whatever you want. It will be great, just go ahead and do it. Whatever you need, just do it. Doing what's fun and easy and isn't really there to hold your feet to the fire or make you feel more productive. They're just there to have a good time and make you feel better at any cost.

So backing up to I have cut out sugar in my life and had a really stressful week so my monger is chiming in telling me how much I'm doing everything wrong and how much I'm missing the boat. So I'm walking past Tim Horton's and my B.F.F. is like, "Go girl. Get some TimBits my friend. You really need some doughnuts. This will make everything better. Doughnuts will make everything better. You've had a tough week. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know you're doing this sugar thing, but come on, TimBits, you'll just feel so much better."

So I went into Tim Horton's, and I got some TimBits and headed out the door. As I was walking out the door I was like okay, wait a minute. Do I want these TimBits? I've worked hard to get sugar out of my system, and sugar does not work well in my system and is this really what I want? My B.F.F. was like, "Yeah girl, you do because this week has sucked."

So I just want to put a pause in here to say that previously in my life, even a year ago I would have totally, and I mean Totally with a capital T, grabbed those TimBits and ran and would have believed every bit of that B.F.F. and would have thought this will fix everything. This will make everything better. I would have been wrong, but that is the power of the B.F.F. Just the idea that I know you're in all this emotional distress and I know all these things are happening that are out of your control, but doughnuts girlfriend, that's the key.

So now I can kind of pause when I hear that message and think really doughnuts? Is this really what's going to fix this? So at that moment, I paused as I was walking back to my destination with my TimBits in hand. I paused to A.S.K. and to acknowledge what I was feeling, which was stressed and overwhelmed and vulnerable and lonely and all those yucky feelings that we don't want to be feeling. Then I slowed down and got into my body.

That was simply just rolling my neck from side to side and feeling that I had a body underneath my head because that's what happens when we get into this monger B.F.F. fighting is we lose track of our bodies, and we're just in our heads. So just doing a simple stretch can slow us down enough to be like, "Oh yeah, I have a body here and how does my body feel right now?" Well, it feels stressed and really, my stomach's kind of upset and TimBits might not taste good with this upset stomach I'm having. It might not taste really good.

So just to give you some perspective on the slow down and get into your body.

Then I was able to kindly, kindly, that is the K, kindly pull back to see the big picture. When I pulled back to see the big picture, I was able to recognize TimBits, not so much going to make this better. It's not going to solve all your problems and TimBits; they taste good, so maybe having one or two TimBits, just experiment with it just to see how, you haven't had sugar in a while, let's taste some TimBits. Now's the time. You've got them, let's see what it tastes like.

I was able to kind of, I think of it as expanding your brain, giving yourself some wiggle room to kind of get out of that black and white thinking, which is the monger and the B.F.F. They go back and forth in you're a loser who can't control herself to go ahead, do whatever you want. It's been a really tough time. It's that black and white thinking that keeps us trapped, so by kindly pulling back to see the big picture we can be like, "Wait a minute, there are a lot of options here. I could throw away the TimBits. I could eat two TimBits and throw away the rest. I could give the TimBits away. I could eat the whole box of TimBits. I could eat the whole box of TimBits and feel great. I could eat the whole box of TimBits and feel awful."

There are lots of options here, so it goes on and on and on. That is why the word kindly is so key in this phrasing, because it needs to be I think kindly pull back to see the big picture. I can give myself some grace while I look around and see what the options are. So kindly pulling back, I could say to myself, "Okay, we've worked really hard to get sugar out of our system. It was not easy initially and do we really want to go back to that eating pattern again when it wasn't really serving us?"

I'm able to pull back from the idea that bad things are happening, you need to reward and into the idea of isn't the reward being kind to yourself and giving yourself food that makes you feel better and doesn't upset your stomach? What I ended up doing is I ate two TimBits. I gave myself, I pulled them out, and I sat myself down. I wasn't just eating them on the run. I sat myself down, I was like, "You're going to eat these TimBits and taste what they taste like. You're going to taste them, so you're either going to enjoy them and savor every bite, or you're going to be like yeah, I'm not so much on the TimBits."

I was shocked to find it was yeah, not so much on these TimBits. They weren't all that. I wanted something different. It didn't taste that great. So at that moment, it was just like oh, I don't want these TimBits and I was able to put them aside. The part about that that I want to share that was most amazing was that it was at that moment that time there may be another time where TimBits taste fabulous, and I eat the whole box, and that's okay.

But in this moment, the TimBits weren't that great and I ended up putting them aside and actually ended up throwing them away, which is a shock. I don't think I've ever thrown away TimBits in my life. The idea is that the monger and the B.F.F. keep us in this militant thinking, so if I throw away the TimBits this time, then I'm always going to throw them away. If I eat all the TimBits in the box, then I'm always going to eat all the TimBits in the box. It's recognizing that for this moment this is the choice I'm making in this moment right now and I may make a different choice around TimBits or sugar or fruits and vegetables next week.

All I have control of is at this moment. So that's the power of A.S.K. because it slows us down, it gets us out of that black and white thinking, and it allows us to see the variety of options. For those of us who are driven by perfectionism and people pleasing and go, go, go, go, go mentality, that act of giving ourselves grace and getting into our bodies and seeing the big picture is miraculous.

I am a huge fan of this system, obviously. It has been years of research and coming and making it happen, and the most amazing part of it is that even myself, every time I practice it I'm just like, "Wow, this really works. Wow, this really is a different way of looking at it." So I'm just excited to share it with you guys and I hope you can implement it in your own life to play around with it and see how it shows up for you.

The idea of getting rid of that black and white thinking and the arguing, constant arguing between the monger and the B.F.F. and bringing in the Biggest Fan who says, "Wait a minute, they're freaking TimBits. They're not miraculous. They're not going to heal everything, and they might taste good. Let's experiment here. Let's see what can happen with this."

That's A.S.K. in detail. There's a lot more detail about this in the book. I'll be talking about these concepts more as the months go along and diving into more about the inner critic and the monger, so I hope you will stay tuned for that.

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Episode 073: A.S.K. Part 2: Acknowledge What You Are Feeling

My system for quieting your Monger (inner critic) and hearing from your Biggest Fan. First step: Acknowledge What You Are Feeling. I promise it isn't as painful as it sounds.

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Hey everyone, I am so excited to be here. I'm excited to have you listening. If you have not listened to last week's episode, I highly recommend you go back and listen to Episode 72. It kind of kicks off this series that I'm doing, which is in honor of my upcoming book called The Happier Approach: Be Kind to Yourself, Live Happier, and Still Accomplish Your Goals, which is coming out January 30th. I wanted to do some teasers to that, give you some information about the content that's going to be in that book, encourage you to pre-order the book because I think this book is a game-changer, and I'm very excited about the content in it.

And I wanted to give a little background story into how the book got written and how the idea came about. For years I would teach these classes on how to quiet your inner critic, and in the classes, I would do what I've always heard to do, what I was taught to do, what I taught other people to do, all the books I've read, talked about two things.

One, find your inner critic, you know, get to know her and be able to pull her out of yourself, so the key I was taught is to make the Monger become another person that you realize that wait, that's a Monger talking, and that's not myself talking. That's a voice that's separate from me, which I still do in my work around Mongers.

But the second piece was to then be self-compassionate and be kind to yourself. So step one, really get to know your Monger. Step two, be self-compassionate. And so I would teach classes on this topic, and I worked with my clients in really getting to know their Mongers and being able to draw pictures of their Mongers and understand the themes their Mongers had and what their Monger talked about. We would spend lots of time on the subject of what does your Monger look like. Then we would do a little bit about "be kind to yourself," and it was always like this frivolous be kind to yourself part.

A couple of years ago, I was teaching this class, and I taught it to a group of women that I know well, and one of them, who's a very close friend of mine, came up to me after, and she was like, "It was amazing. You did a great job. I love the presentation. It was absolutely fabulous. It doesn't apply to me, though, because I still need my Monger. I won't get anything done if I don't have my Monger."

And we laughed and joked around about how her Monger was helping her, blah, blah, blah. As I got home, I realized that's kind of how I feel too, that I won't get anything done without this Monger. So from that point on, I stopped teaching as much about the Monger. I pulled back because I was like, this isn't working, A, and B, I'm getting eaten alive by this Monger, and I don't quite know what to do with it because I have a secret belief that I need my Monger.

So, way back years ago, she put the notion in my head that we need a different way. So I figured out after years of working on this and researching, and doing my own work and helping clients, that it wasn't so much that we needed to do this big piece about getting to know our Monger and understanding her. It was more about part B, which was how to be kind to yourself. That was the piece that had so much complexity and so much depth to it, and we would just do this blanket "be kind to yourself" piece.

The book The Happier Approach dives into that piece. Exploring the piece of what does our Monger look like. But, more so, what does it look like to not have something telling you what to do all the time, and what does it look like to be kind to yourself and how does that work when we're so used to be nasty to ourselves all the time? That's kind of a backstory on how this all got involved, and I just was talking to that same friend earlier this week. I had given out a free copy to the group that had come to that presentation I had done years ago, and I called her and said, "You are part of the reason this book exists because you challenged me by saying, 'Wait a minute. I love my inner critic,' and she was like, 'I don't love my inner critic. I just need it,' and I was like, noted, I totally get that. It's for those of us who have a love-hate relationship with our Monger, and we know we don't want it to be in our lives. It drives us crazy, but we can't imagine a life without it."

So that is the spirit of this book, The Happier Approach. With that, last week, I talked about the three steps I think are necessary to bring in what I call the Biggest Fan. And the Biggest Fan is the person in our head, similar to the Monger, except the Biggest Fan wants us to get stuff done. She is supportive of us and is wise and kind. This is the voice that is kinda quiet, probably for most of us because you're probably not used to hearing that voice because your Monger is just so loud and so overwhelming.

The Biggest Fan voice is very quiet, but she keeps us on our goals. She always knows what's best for us, and she is very kind and wise and pushing us toward our goals. What I like to say is that there's the Monger who's the voice that's continuously berating us. There's the B.F.F. who is the voice that's like, "Go ahead. Do whatever you want." I call her our false self-compassion, so a lot of us think self-compassionate with ourselves, but in reality, we just have a B.F.F. The B.F.F. and the Monger argue and go back and forth all the time. They're like siblings constantly fighting.

And then there's the Biggest Fan, who is the voice of wisdom and kindness who says, "You can do this. It's okay. It's going to be hard but let's keep plugging along." To channel the Biggest Fan, when we hear our Monger talking, we need to engage in what I call A.S.K., and we need to ask to hear from our Biggest Fan. A.S.K. is an abbreviation for Acknowledging what you're feeling, Slow down and get into your body, and Kindly pull back to see the big picture.

So last week, I did an overview of A.S.K., and this week I want to dive specifically into Acknowledging what you're feeling. The first thing I want to say is that no one wants to acknowledge what they're feeling, and I get that. You know, I joke that I went into therapy so I could figure out my feelings and be able to justify them away, and I would never have to deal with them at all. It isn't so much I am the opposite of most therapists, and I hate feelings, especially those negative, you know, sadness and anger and anxiety and fear. Those are hard to deal with.

For a lot of us, we were taught let's just pretend they don't exist. Just keep moving on. Just keep soldiering on. Think positive. Be grateful. Whenever those negative feelings come up, just push them down and soldier on and forget they even exist. The idea of acknowledging your feelings is scary and is one that people are going to be like, "Yeah, no, I'm not doing that." So bear with me. Keep listening. I promise it's not as painful as it sounds.

Let me give you an example of what I mean by Acknowledge what you're feeling and why this is so important. Let's take the example of you're caregiving for an elderly parent. Your Monger steps in and is like, "You're totally dropping the ball. They are unsafe in their home by themselves. I can't believe you're doing this. You suck. You're a terrible daughter. How can you be doing this?" And just really hammering you.

And so, the ability to acknowledge what you're feeling is simply to pause and say, "Oh my gosh. I am so scared that one day I'm going to be sick like this. Are my kids going to be able to take care of me? Am I going to be a burden to someone?" Or, "Oh my gosh. I'm so scared of losing my parent. It just makes me so sad to think that they may not be here one day." Or, "I am so angry that this disease has taken over my life and my parent's life, and I just don't know what to do with all this anger I'm experiencing."

So the idea of just being able to label it and own it, and what we do is when our Monger comes in and says, "You shouldn't be feeling this way" or "You shouldn't be upset" or "You should be doing a better a job," we immediately jump into, "Okay, I need to be sucking this up, and I need to be doing this differently."

And so we immediately go into justifying our behavior and justifying what we're doing or trying to rationalize it away. "So I shouldn't be feeling scared. That's stupid because it's going to be fine. This isn't going to happen to me" or "I have kids, and that's what they're there for, and they'll take care of everything."

So we jump into denial. We jump into a superb rationalization. We don't give ourselves the, "Oh sweet pea, you're right. This is so hard right now." Instead of acknowledging the feeling and giving ourselves some grace around that feeling, we immediately jump into fixing it, avoiding it, or stuffing it down. That's the beauty of acknowledging what you're feeling. It's just allowing a little space to come in so that you can hear the "It's totally understandable you're feeling this way." That's all you have to say. "Wow, this must be hard."

And I love the phrase, "Oh sweet pea." It's just a term of endearment that I say to myself. For me, I know that's what the Biggest Fan would say to me is, "Oh sweet pea. Oh my gosh, this is so hard. You're right. Let's give yourself a little room here." That immediately just relaxes everything—the minute you acknowledge and give yourself the permission just to feel that.

You know, a really simple example is a lot of us are exhausted. We're so tired from jumping from thing to thing and running and pushing ourselves so hard, and the minute we admit, "Wait a minute. I'm a little tired today," a Monger jumps in with, "What? How can you be tired? You got eight hours of sleep" or "You're supposed to be superwoman" or "You have too many things to do. You can't be tired. This can't be happening."

Instead of softening and saying, "It's not a personal defeat that I'm tired. I'm just tired. That's all it is." That piece of acknowledging what's going on and giving yourself that trust to say, "I don't have to keep denying a large part of my life. I can just make room for it here. I can acknowledge that this is happening, and it doesn't mean I need to do anything."

When I acknowledge, "Wait a minute, I'm tired," then I can pull back and see is there a chance for a five-minute nap today, or can I go for a walk and try to re-energize? How can I take care of myself? When we spend our lives in justification and analyzing it, that's a huge one that we do. We just analyze the feeling. Well, why am I feeling sad? The analyzing it is trying to find a justification for why you feel sad, and your Monger will never give you the justification. That is the power of just saying, "I'm just going to own it. I'm just going to own that. I'm sad. I don't have to find a reason for it. I just am going to label that it's there, and that's what I'm feeling." That's all step one is about.

Now, a lot of times, people have resistance to this step because we are so afraid, those of us that have the love-hate relationship with our Monger, we're so afraid that we're going to be whiny or needy or overly emotional. To the minute it comes up that I'm feeling sad or I'm feeling scared, in rushes the Monger saying, "You're needy" or "You're too much." So start recognizing, "Wait a minute. By acknowledging the fact that I am sad right now, which is a pretty normal human reaction to a parent being sick, am I being overly emotional? Am I too much? No. You're pretty normal here."

So the idea that we who have trained ourselves to keep it down and stuff it down and soldier on, any emotion that comes up that is slightly less than positive, we totally hammer ourselves with it. To start recognizing how often you do that, and the pressure and the stress that is caused by pushing down our feelings is so overwhelming. It just amplifies everything ten-fold.

So all it involves is acknowledging, acknowledging what you're feeling, simply saying to yourself, "Oh my gosh. I'm feeling sad right now." Now trust me. I know there's a lot of pushback around this concept. I know that the idea of doing this is scary, and your Monger is going to flip out, but what I want you to do is practice it this week. This week when you notice your Monger talking, and you're feeling especially hammered, stop and say, "What am I feeling?" Just start labeling it. "I'm feeling sad. I'm feeling scared. I'm feeling angry." No justification is necessary. No positive thinking necessary. No gratitude is necessary. Just labeling the feelings. That's all I want you to do. Step one, acknowledge what you're feeling.

Okay, so that's Acknowledge. The first step in A.S.K., how to channel in your Biggest Fan. This is all from my book called The Happier Approach. So that's the show. Thanks for listening.

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

Today I am sharing my system for quieting your Monger (inner critic) and hearing from your Biggest Fan

+ Read the Transcript

Hey everyone, I am so excited to be back. It has been quite a while before Thanksgiving, before I did a podcast. I have missed you all, and I hope you had a fabulous holiday season and had a good time with friends and family, and were able to find some peace and joy in your holidays. Today, I want to talk about the power of ASK. ASK is the abbreviation for the system I use to call in my biggest fan.

The system is going to be talked about in my upcoming book. It's coming out on January 30th called the happy approach. In the happy approach, I talk about this idea. Because the book is coming out at the end of this month, I wanted to give you all a sneak peek into what the system is all about and what I mean when I say ASK.

Today, I'm going to go over just kind of a brief introduction to ASK. And then, over the next couple of weeks, I'm going to be diving into each letter in more depth. And so, you can get a sneak peek before the book comes out on January 30th, and hopefully, you will want to buy and learn more about the system. I am so excited about this 'cause it is one of those things that every time I practice it, I'm like, "Oh my God, this works!" I'm just shocked that the system that I came up with really works.

It is something I developed, yes, but the idea of it is nothing new. Personal development and self-help it's all pretty much the same. You have to feel your feeling; you have to get into your body; you have to see the big picture. That stuff is universal. This system works for me and my clients who tend to be more type A, super driven, carry a lot of stress, carry a lot of expectations for themselves. Their Mongers just really run the show. And so, this ASK system is for those of us who are overwhelmed by our Mongers. I have found, and my clients have found, that it really works.

That's the thing I'm most excited about. Because for years, I tried to do it the way everyone kept telling me to do it. To be grateful and to think positively, and to argue with my Monger, tell my Monger how much I loved her. That just did not work for me. So, I have spent some time trying to find something that would. And so, I came up with ASK.

ASK is three parts. A, acknowledge what you're feeling. S, slow done and get into your body. And K, kindly pull back to see the big picture. How it works is when you are getting attacked by your Monger, and that's a big step right there. Just to be able to hear yourself getting attacked by your Monger. In the book, I have a lot of resources on how to start recognizing your Monger. But we've talked a lot about the Monger here, and a lot of those myths and all that stuff. Hopefully, you have a little bit of a head start on what your Monger sounds like.

When you start hearing your Monger, the first thing I do is I usually say, "Okay, I need to hear from my biggest fan." So, I ask to hear from my biggest fan, and the first thing I do is acknowledge what you're feeling. This is a huge, huge step that for those of us who have been raised with suck it up buttercup and soldier on, the acknowledging what we're feeling piece is challenging. I actually wrote something about this on Facebook this week because everyone's been talking about the Oprah speech, which was absolutely amazing, the Golden Globes.

Everyone keeps talking about the idea of speaking your truth and how powerful that is. And I have big-time red flags that go up around that. First, if we're going to practice speaking our truth, we need to practice listening to other people's truths as well. It is one thing to speak your truth; it's another thing to have it be heard. We, as humans, just really need to practice our ability to listen to that. But that's for another podcast. What I think is, when we're speaking our truth, we need to start speaking our truth with ourselves. I've talked about this here about labeling what we're feeling and owning it, there is a podcast episode I did a few months ago, and that's what I'm talking about. Acknowledging what you're feeling, I'm feeling sad, or I'm feeling scared right now, or I'm feeling overwhelmed.

A great example of this would be, this is an example actually from a client this week. She was saying that her Monger was telling her, "You really should get some work done." It was a Sunday; she wanted to watch the Golden Globes, she didn't really want to do some work. Her Monger was like, "You need to be working. What's your problem? You should be working from home." We went through the ASK process, and she was like, "Well, acknowledging what I'm feeling, I'm feeling annoyed that my Monger is talking to me."

And I was like, "Yeah, but go a little deeper and acknowledge what you're feeling. You're feeling scared that you're going to lose your job. You're feeling overwhelmed with all the work you have to do. Angry that you have so much to do," etc., etc. I asked her to go a little deeper beyond. I'm just feeling tired, or I'm just feeling annoyed at my Monger, to be like, "Wait, I'm feeling scared that I'm behind and I'm going to lose my job. I'm feeling overwhelmed with all the work I have to do. I'm feeling angry that the deadlines are approaching, and I don't know what's up next."

So, to dig a little deeper, acknowledging what you're feeling is key. But when you're first starting this, if you can just say, "Oh no, I'm tired," or "I'm overwhelmed," or "I'm scared right now." 'Cause we tell ourselves, "Hurry up, move on, get it together, what's your problem?" We don't acknowledge what we're feeling. That process of acknowledging what you're feeling starts to slow your body down and get into what's happening. And then you could move on to S, which is slow down and get into your body.

And slow down and get into your body is simply one of the weekly rituals that I've talked about here every week. One of the ideas of wiggle, or dance, or touch your toes, some way of getting in your body. That just forces you to slow down; the power of that is incredible to me. The power of slowing down and getting it to our bodies is truly life-changing, even if it's for 10 seconds. Ten seconds, 20 seconds, it doesn't have to be five minutes. If you do five minutes, that's great. But for a lot of us, that's just so overwhelming to do five minutes. And so, the idea of acknowledging what's going on, slowing down and getting into my body for 10 seconds, and then K, kindly pulling back to see the big picture.

We'll go back to my client example who acknowledges what she was feeling, and she's feeling scared that she might lose her job. S is slow down; she got into her body, touched her toes or whatever, and then K kindly pull back to see the big picture. Well, the big picture could be, "Okay, I'm ahead of the deadline." The big picture could be, "I'm behind the deadline. I need to get more time in. Where can I get that time in?" Or maybe, "I work better in the morning. So, I'm going to get up early in the morning and hit that." Or, "Maybe I'm going to start asking for help at work and get my coworker to join in and help me figure this out."

The power of pulling back and see the big picture is, you can give yourself some options that aren't necessarily, "Oh my gosh, I have to do this tonight. I have to work tonight at 9, but I want to watch the Golden Globes." And our Mongers push us so hard without really seeing the big picture because our Monger lives in black and white. To her, it's work now, or you're going to lose your job. When in reality is lots of options there. Ask someone for help, do it at a different time, maybe crackdown on your distractions that you would have at work, and really focus more when you're doing your work. There's a lot of options. That's the concept of ask. When you hear your Monger, Acknowledge what you're Feeling, slow down and get into your body, and kindly pull back to see the big picture.

Now, a lot of times, when you hear these ideas, the first thing people will say when you're spinning out on anxiety is, you need to slow down and get into your body. The reason that is not the first step in this process is because that's the last thing we want to do. Truth be told, that's why I'm so amazed every time I get into my body that it works so well. Because I don't want to do it. And so, Acknowledging what you're Feeling gives you a little teaser, a mental exercise, a way to ease into that process of, "Oh wait, I'm putting myself first, I want to hear from my Biggest Fan, so I'm going to acknowledge what I'm feeling."

Those of us that the system works for love analyzing and justifying and can get good at that intellectualizing. Acknowledging what you feel allows us to do a little bit of that practice before we have to slow down and get into our bodies. And then, once we can slow down and get into our bodies, that gives us the chance to pull back and be able to see the big picture. Which is where the key is to unhooking that black and whiteness of the Monger.

That's the idea behind the Happier Approach, ASK, Acknowledge what you're feeling, Slow down and get into your body, and Kindly pull back to see the big picture. Like I said, over the next few weeks, I will be diving into each one of these concepts a little deeper so that you can figure them out and practice them in your own life. And if you want to pre-order the Happier Approach book, you can simply go to HappierApproach.com, and you can download an audio version or a Kindle version or a print copy, and we'll send that out to you on January 30th.

Okay. Usually, I do the weekly ritual challenge at this stage of the game in the podcast, and I'm going to be pausing that for 2018 and just giving that a little bit of break. Obviously, I still believe in the power of the weekly ritual because it's slow down and get into your body. Last year, my challenge was to do a different weekly ritual every week, and that happened. This year, I just really want you to be practicing getting into your body and figuring out which of the weekly rituals from last year you enjoy the most.

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

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

+ Read the Transcript

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

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

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

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

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

+ Weekly Ritual Challenge

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

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

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

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

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

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