Connect with your body

April 13, 2023April 13, 2023 ~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

Listen to yourself.

I was in the emergency department earlier this week because my heart rate was elevated for an extended period of time. I’m sharing the info in this post as a reminder to myself and to you about what listening to and honoring our bodies can look like. Sometimes our wills are stronger than what our bodies want from us and we don’t listen or pay attention to our body’s signals. I am listening to myself even more attentively going forward!

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How many of us know how to connect with and listen to our body’s signals and messages to us? Most of us didn’t really learn how to do this anywhere. In fact, we were likely taught the opposite–how to ignore and disregard our bodies: to keep going when we’re tired, to push through the pain to get it done, to always be productive and go after the next thing.

After undergoing emergency open-heart surgery that saved my life and while going through the recovery process, I finally learned better how to listen to and honor my body. In actuality, it was because I didn’t know how to do that sooner that I got to the place of needing emergency open-heart surgery. I wasn’t understanding my body’s signals that led to my body’s illness.

In the past, when I wasn’t feeling well, I didn’t allow myself to rest without feeling guilty, like I shouldn’t be taking the time off. And guess what happened when I felt guilty for resting when my body needed it? I created more stress because I was feeling guilty about resting and thinking I should be doing something else!

Resting when our bodies need it can be a hostile cycle if we’re not aware of what’s going on in our minds during the time. Part of us knows that we need rest and another part of us thinks about all the other things we “should” be doing but aren’t. So while we’re resting, there’s cognitive dissonance–we’re not at peace with our decision to rest.

One way to be at peace with resting and caring for ourselves is to be compassionate with ourselves, to accept that we need to rest, and to consciously choose to rest: “I am choosing to rest and care for myself. There is nothing else I need to do right now. This is important and resting will allow me to do the things I want to do later.” This may help to decrease cognitive dissonance.

This relates to more than just resting. It relates to what we choose to eat, drink, and do with our bodies, as well.

So, instead of ignoring my body’s messages, I learned to slow down and check-in with my body, to familiarize myself with its signals. I learned to ask the questions: “At what cost?” and “What can I do to take care of myself in this moment?”

And when the answer came, I gave myself permission to listen to and honor it. It could mean deciding to sleep in instead of going to the gym, or remembering to breathe deeply, or drinking some water, or choosing to eat (or not eat) something, or canceling evening plans after an unexpectedly tiring day at work.

A realization that I came to while learning to listen to and honor my body more, was that by not listening to my body, I was disrespecting and disregarding myself.

Self-care became a way to show myself respect and love, to regard myself with attention. How often do we expect love, respect, and attention from others when we might not even be giving these things to ourselves?

In the past, I thought that by pushing past my body’s needs, I was “being responsible” and getting things done that I thought I needed to do. But by not taking care of my body, that was actually being irresponsible. I see that now, but I didn’t see it in the past–likely because many of our social messages told me the opposite.

When we begin connecting to our body even more, we learn how to regard our body with attention, to listen to what our body needs. Then we can honor it by supporting it in a healthy, caring, respectful way.

Your turn: What can you do today to start connecting to your body more? Are you open to asking yourself the questions: “At what cost?” and “What can I do to take care of myself in this moment?” What might happen if you decided to give care and attention to yourself, to slow down and check-in with your body first?

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Work with me: Want to see how self-care is transformative and can help create a more meaningful life in which you start committing to yourself and show up the way you want? I can show you how. I offer first-time seekers a complimentary 45-minute exploratory session. Sign up here.

What’s on your mind? It can be powerful to learn from each other and our common struggles when it comes to our practice of self-care–or just being a human being. If you have something you’re struggling with and would like some perspective, share it here. Your issue may be chosen and addressed in the next post–it’ll be totally anonymous.

How you show up

April 6, 2023 ~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

You choose.

Many of us head into our days haphazardly. We might not have a morning routine established yet where we get to step into our day, but our day seems to “come at” us instead.

One quick practice that can impact our day is setting an intention for how we want to show up that day.

The way I talk about showing up means not just being in the room or being somewhere, but how we interact with ourselves and how we interact with others. On purpose.

We can decide in the morning what our intention is for showing up today. We can decide how we want to show up for ourselves and we can decide how we want to show up for others.

An intention for showing up for ourselves can sound like this:

“I want to show up for myself today by acknowledging what’s good in my life.”

“I want to show up for myself today by honoring my commitments.”

“I want to show up for myself today by telling the truth to myself.”

An intention for showing up for others can sound like this:

“I want to show up for others today by hearing what they have to say.”

“I want to show up for others today by being compassionate towards them.”

“I want to show up for others today by being patient with them.”

We can choose on purpose. And it doesn’t mean we do it 100% that day. But we can start. And we can keep practicing.

Your turn: What intention do you want to set for showing up for yourself today? For showing up for others? What intentions might you turn into habits? What awareness do you want to bring to this practice?

Other ideas for showing up: by being honest, by being curious, by being creative, by being fun and excited, by actively listening, by creating peace, by choosing love no matter what. What else would you like to practice?

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Give yourself permission

March 30, 2023 ~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

And get used to it.

In the past, I didn’t give myself permission to ask for help. I didn’t give myself permission to set boundaries. I didn’t give myself permission to feel my feelings. I didn’t give myself permission to consider what success really looked like and meant for me. I just accepted what other people and society told me success looked like and meant. I didn’t consider broader possibilities for myself.

I put myself in a box that I thought was a “good” box. I was doing the things I was “supposed to” do and was doing a great job with them.

Or so I thought.

I thought the armor that I put on each day was masking the insecurity and weaknesses I felt. Maybe to others, it looked like I had it all together. Maybe not. But while I thought the armor was protecting me, it was actually keeping me separated from what I really wanted and who I could become.

Because I didn’t even know who I wanted to become. By my own choice, through my own decisions, and by knowing myself.

And now I do know. More than I did before. And I will keep learning more.

Part of this process began when I started to give myself permission to take off the armor. To know that the armor wasn’t necessary for who I wanted to be. That armor was heavy and I didn’t even know it, until I didn’t have to put it on all the time.

I learned how to give myself permission for things that seem obvious now. To rest. To relax. To not feel guilty and obligated all the time. To let other people do some of the work. To ask for help. To say no. To say yes … to things like pleasure and joy and freedom. To believe new things.

Who do we think we need to ask permission from? Why? Who do we think we’ll get permission from, if not from ourselves?

Your turn: What are you not giving yourself permission to do, be, say, think, feel, believe, want, have? What would you really like to do, be, say, think, feel, believe, want, and have? Who do you need permission from? What might happen if you asked yourself permission? What might happen if you gave yourself permission?

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When you ignore yourself

March 23, 2023 ~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

Acknowledge your needs.

So many of us are used to placing other people’s needs and desires before our own. We’ve been conditioned that way through our family culture and our cultural norms.

To allow ourselves to consider different ways of being, we first need to become aware of what we are doing automatically, without thinking about it. When we become aware of our automatic responses, we can then slow down and choose on purpose.

And first, we have to know what the other options and choices are for us. We can start by asking some questions:

What is my automatic response to this type of situation?
Why do I respond this way?
What do I think will happen if I don’t respond the way I always do?
Am I willing to feel uncomfortable and do something different?

Then we can decide what we want to explore doing instead. Some options could be:

“I want to think about it and get back to you tomorrow by noon.”
“I had plans for that time already, but I know this is important to you. Let’s see what can work for both of us.”
“This is urgent and I’m willing to focus my time on this instead of what I had planned.”
“This isn’t urgent, even though I used to make it urgent, and I want to focus on what I had planned instead.”

One thing that really made a difference for me, even though it may seem small: I used to put off going to the bathroom at work until it became urgent. Our bodies let us know when it’s urgent! But I wasn’t being very nice to my body or myself when I waited until I urgently needed to pee. It’s like I was my body’s warden and not allowing it to pee until it became an emergency. Now, when I need to pee, I go to the bathroom as soon as I feel it; or I plan ahead of time to pee before a meeting so it doesn’t become urgent. This lets my body know it can trust me to take care of its needs.

It may seem small, but it started to change things for me. I started to become aware of my own needs and asked myself, “Where else in my life am I ignoring myself by not taking care of my needs until they become urgent?”

Your turn: How do you want to respond on purpose? What might you need to change in order to recognize and acknowledge your needs more? Where in your life are you ignoring yourself by not taking care of your needs until they become urgent?

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Life coaching for you

March 16, 2023 ~ The Healing Modalities ~ 1 Comment

Curious?

What do you think about life coaching? Have you considered it for yourself? How can coaching help you?

Life coaching can add value to your life when you think you have a problem—and thinking about it takes up a lot of your time and mental energy. You’d likely rather do something else with that time and energy.

Life coaching can help you make it a non-problem in your mind so you can focus on the things you want to think about and do instead. Things that move your life forward in the direction you want to go. Things you want to create for yourself.

At the very least, it can provide a committed time for mental self-care. It’s making time rather than finding time to keep mentally healthy.

As it relates to self-care, we look at your life holistically to see where the gaps are. What is your relationship to self-care? What is your relationship to your Self?

Sometimes your thoughts and beliefs do not align with who you want to be and who you think you are, which is a big obstacle to making healthy choices for yourself.

When we coach together, we’ll look at your thoughts about self-care and strengthen your beliefs about yourself—that you are a person who deserves care, especially from yourself.

When your thoughts and beliefs start to align even more, that’s when you begin making healthier choices for yourself. You align with who you want to be and who you are becoming.

If that sounds good to you, I’d like to personally invite you to join Self-Care Sundays, my weekly drop-in coaching sessions, or to book an exploratory session to find out how coaching can work for you!

Register for Self-Care Sundays

Book Your Exploratory Session

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When you self-sabotage

March 9, 2023 ~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

“Have” it instead.

Sometimes there is something we say we want—and we really do want it. We go after it and expend a lot of effort in getting it. Then we may actually get it. Now what?

Some of us are in the space of not knowing what to do once we have something. It might even feel uncomfortable to have something we’ve wanted for so long.

So what do we do? We might sabotage our efforts instead of continuing to take actions that maintain our efforts, actions that sustain our having gotten what we wanted.

This may be because the “capacity to have” hasn’t been cultivated in us yet. When we have something, it means that thing is here with us. Whether it’s an ideal weight, sobriety, an amount in the back account, a partner, a job title, etc.

Sometimes when we finally get something that we’ve been wanting, unhelpful thoughts creep in, like, “I don’t deserve this” or “I’m unworthy of having this” or even just “This feels so uncomfortable.”

We become familiar and comfortable with a certain level of weight, income, connection, responsibility at work, how much we drink/eat. When we move beyond our “comfort threshold” even if we’ve gotten what we want, it can feel uncomfortable because it’s unfamiliar.

We may overeat to gain weight and be back at our “familiar” weight where we need to keep thinking about how to lose it. We might create arguments in a relationship to push someone away because we’re not used to having close connection. We might do something at work to set us back or sabotage our reputation.

What does “having” something feel like? We may need to allow ourselves to get familiar with “having” so that we don’t self-sabotage. We can allow ourselves to feel uncomfortable at our new ideal weight. We can allow discomfort with a new job title and responsibilities. We can allow discomfort with the increased income we’re earning. All while still “having” it.

When we allow ourselves to have something, it will become familiar and comfortable to have it. That’s when we’ve acclimated to our new level of being.

As this relates to self-care, we can open ourselves up to feeling deserving of care, especially care from ourselves.

What else do we want to create for ourselves and practice having?

Your turn: Is there something that you’ve been wanting but maybe feel undeserving of having? Tell yourself the truth about it. What do you really want? Are you willing to get it and then have it and possibly feel uncomfortable with it while you acclimate to it?

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Check your attention

March 2, 2023 ~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

Where is it?

Do you know where your attention is focused in your life? Does it seem like you’re all over the place? Like you’re not focused because there are too many things vying for your attention?

While this is a normal experience, it doesn’t have to be yours if you don’t want it to be.

Like willpower, we have a limited amount of attention to spend during a day or a week. When we’re not intentional about where we spend our attention, we may be wasting it.

We may think we’re focusing on certain things, but “other” things are really getting our attention instead. We want to be aware of this so we can refocus on what’s really important to us.

Let’s say we have 100 units of attention for one day. Where do we want to spend those units on purpose during our day?

To find out where we’re currently spending our attention, we can make a list of things that we’re giving our attention to. Think about the things that are getting your attention, that demand your attention, or things that you want to be giving attention to but aren’t.

You’ll see things that are getting your attention and you may notice areas where you’re neglecting to give the attention that you want to.

You may also notice areas where you’re giving so much of your attention to but you don’t actually want to be paying that much attention to—because you’re sacrificing other areas that you actually want to pay attention to.

For example, in the past, I used to think about relationships a lot and focus on what wasn’t going right in them and how I could make things better or control things in a way where I could feel good and be happy. But I wasn’t paying enough attention to other parts of my life where I actually had more control. And everything just spiraled downward because I was focusing my attention on things that I didn’t have control over and couldn’t actually change.

What if I had used all that mental energy and attention on taking better care of myself, or creating opportunities and experiences, or finding other options in my life instead?

This is not to say that our attention should never waver. It does and it will because we have human brains. We just get to decide what we want to focus more or less of our attention on during our days. As it relates to self-care, this can serve us well.

Now I practice focusing my attention on purpose on what’s valuable to me and where I want to create shifts or changes in my life that can move me forward. I focus attention on taking care of myself in the myriad ways that self-care encompasses. I ruminate less on what I think isn’t going well and focus more on what IS going well—and also on expanding what I think is possible in my life and what thoughts I want to have instead, on purpose.

Your turn: What are the things that you give your attention to that energize you? What are the things that drag your attention away and de-energize you? What do you SAY that you value in your life? Does where you spend your attention reflect this? How can you be more intentional about where you focus your attention on things that move you and your life forward?

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Dopamine on purpose

February 23, 2023 ~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

Choose intentionally.

Let’s talk about dopamine. Dopamine is our motivation neurotransmitter and it seeks reward and pleasure.

We get hits of dopamine from eating sugar, social media likes, checking social media, checking email, thinking about pleasurable things/people, or finishing tasks, just to name a few things.

Because our actions can be driven almost unconsciously by our desire for dopamine hits, we want to start being more aware of where we get our dopamine on purpose. OR decide that we need less dopamine overall.

So here’s how we can think about this. Our human brains can be rewarded in many ways. Mostly, the way our brains were designed was to be rewarded initially by things that would keep us alive, which is a very good idea.

So we are rewarded by things like accomplishment, by comfort, by food, by sex, by conserving energy. When we were just starting to develop as humans, those were some of the things that drove us to stay alive, versus just staying in the cave, being afraid, and not going anywhere. We had dopamine driving our reward system, so we would go and seek things out.

We want to become aware of where we’re focusing our dopamine seeking. If we’re focused on getting dopamine from food, for example, we’ll be thinking about the next snack, our next meal, going to the grocery store, going to Starbucks, going to dinner, etc. However, this likely leads to a negative result of being overweight or having disordered eating.

Recently, I’ve been getting dopamine from learning through online courses, reading self-help books, and creating more in my business. I get dopamine from doing hard things—things that I “don’t feel like” doing, but I do them anyway because it serves me to do them.

We can get dopamine from taking a walk, from completing a task (even just a small one), from seeing a clean floor after vacuuming, from singing, from creating, from anything that rewards us with some pleasure.

When we become more aware of where our dopamine is focused, we can take better care of ourselves.

We get to decide, “I’m now going to spend more time doing these things that contribute to the life that I want and the results I want in my life.” Instead of unconsciously choosing other things that may produce negative results.

Your turn: Where are you directing your dopamine? Where are you directing your desire? Where are you currently getting the most rewards? Where do you want to be getting rewards from on purpose? What pleasurable things would you like to create for yourself to experience and enjoy consciously?

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It’s not “over there”

February 16, 2023 ~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

It’s right here.

When we set goals for ourselves, it’s easy to start thinking that when we finally achieve those goals, our lives will be better.

Our lives will be different, not necessarily better. We may not have some of the problems we had before achieving our goal. But then we may have new problems after achieving our goal.

Life will still be 50/50, positive/negative.

But it’s tempting to think that “there” is better than where we are right now. We might start thinking:

“Once I get that promotion, I’ll be satisfied.”

“When I find my perfect partner, I’ll feel worthy.”

“Once I’ve lost the extra weight, I’ll love myself more.”

“When I buy a house, I’ll feel complete.”

“Once we have kids, our marriage will be more fulfilling.”

We can get focused on the “there” and forget about being here in the present moment. And when we place a lot of weight on getting “there,” we may be disappointed once we are “there” and we still don’t feel satisfied, worthy, loving, or complete.

This is not to say that our goals aren’t important or that we shouldn’t have a vision of what we want for ourselves. But when we place so much responsibility on the future for the way we want to feel, we forget that we’re responsible for the way we’re feeling right now.

“Being aware of the present moment simply means you never believe the illusion that the future is going to be better than what is going on right now.” – Mateo Tabatabai, The Mind-Made Prison

We can feel satisfied, worthy, loving, and complete right now by what we’re thinking about our life circumstances and ourselves. Our thoughts generate our feelings. We can fuel ourselves with the feelings we want to feel, take aligned actions, and create the future we want from here.

Being “here” and creating our future from “here” is just as valuable and important as being “there” can be.

“Plan, dream, and organize all you want, just don’t start believing that what you have planned for the future is going to be any better than your current moment. You are going to be in the present moment your entire life. If you are focusing on how good the future is going to be, you are just running on the hamster wheel hoping to get somewhere. Life is right now in this glorious moment right in front of you. I believe that if you’re not allowing yourself to be happy right now, nothing external in the future is going to change that permanently.” – Mateo Tabatabai, The Mind-Made Prison

Your turn: What feelings do you think achieving your goals will generate for you? Do you believe you have the capacity to feel those feelings right now? What would happen if you didn’t need to wait for future circumstances to provide the feelings you want and that you can feel that way now? What would it look like for you to move towards your goals feeling now the way you think achieving those goals would feel?

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“I should feel happy all the time”

February 9, 2023 ~ The Healing Modalities ~ 1 Comment

Life is 50/50.

I want to offer that life and our human experience is 50/50 – 50% “good/positive” and 50% “bad/negative.”

I think we’ve been taught incorrectly that our lives should be good most, if not all, of the time. So when something happens that’s in the “bad” 50%, we think something has gone terribly wrong. But if that 50% is supposed to be there, has anything really gone wrong?

If you felt happy all the time, you would have to feel happy even through things like the death of a loved one, an accident, an illness, someone betraying you. And all of these things, my friends, are part of the human experience. Things we basically sign up for when we’re born.

In our effort to feel happy all the time, we stay away from discomfort that could help us evolve and motivate us to make our dreams come true. If we can accept that emotional balance means that 50% of the time, we’ll be on the other side of happy, we might be willing to fail epically and try courageously. That is the normal human experience.

Our emotions are an indicator of what’s going on for us. To be authentic, to have a true relationship with our life, is also to be willing to experience negative emotion 50% of the time. If we’re willing to do that without trying to escape it, we’ll remove all the buffers in our life, and at the same time, we’ll remove all the negative consequences that come with them.

What are buffers? When we buffer, we use something to distract ourselves from feeling an uncomfortable emotion. A buffer could be over-eating, over-drinking, over-Instagraming, over-Netflixing, over-spending, over-cleaning. We do these actions instead of allowing and processing an uncomfortable emotion like boredom, loneliness, shame, fear, jealousy.

We avoid doing the harder things (like processing our feelings), and instead, we gain weight, we get hangovers, we go into debt or don’t meet our savings goals, we throw away time consuming other people’s content when we could be creating our own, or doing something to take care of ourselves, like going for a walk, run, doing yoga, meditating, or cooking a healthy meal.

When we allow ourselves to feel discomfort, we will decrease our buffers and the negative consequences they produce. In fact, when we allow ourselves to really feel our emotions, we get to know ourselves in a much deeper way.

What happens when we get to know ourselves in a much deeper way? We start finding the causes of our unhappiness, and then we can start to change them, if we want to.

This is sustainable, unlike engaging in the false pleasures we’ve been using to buffer before and bearing the consequences that come along with them.

For example, when you limit your drinking, you don’t experience hangovers and get to feel good in your body. When you watch your eating, you get the pleasure of not worrying about your weight. These results are real, ongoing pleasures.

Your turn: How would you think about your life differently if you accepted that life is 50/50? What if nothing has gone wrong when you’re in the other 50% that’s not “good”? What would you be more willing to do for yourself if you embraced the 50/50 of life?

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