“Decide to” in 2024

December 28, 2023 ~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

Don’t just “want to.”

As we move into 2024, many of us are likely thinking about changes we want to make in our lives. Sometimes we have a long list of things we want to do or change. Sometimes we have just one, two, or three big things.

No matter what you have in mind, ask yourself this: Am I wanting to make these changes or am I deciding to make these changes?

Wanting to make changes is more like being interested in making the changes. When we want something, we have a desire or wish for something. It seems like a good idea. It doesn’t require any action to want something or be interested in something.

When we decide to do something, it requires us to follow through on a course of action. Deciding is saying, “OK, I’m going to do X” and that’s a pretty firm commitment. Commitment requires action.

How do you know if you just “want to” vs. “deciding to”? If you have some ideas of changes you’d like to make, think about each thing and see how it lines up with the “want to” or the “decide to” thoughts below.

“Want to” thoughts (you allow things to get in the way of your goal):

My boss gave me a tight deadline, so I can’t go to the gym today (goal is to exercise every day)
I’m too tired to meditate this morning (goal is to meditate every morning)
It’s too cold to go for a run today (goal is to run 4x a week)
I deserve to have this treat because my day was so stressful (goal is to eat less sugar)
I just finished a big project so I’m treating myself to a purchase (goal is to spend less)
I don’t feel like it today
This is too hard

“Decide to” thoughts (your goal is your priority):

I’m going to do this today no matter what
This is worth it even if it’s hard sometimes
I can do hard things
I’m choosing to make this a priority for me today
Even though it’s cold out, I’m still going to do it today
This is important to me so I’m going to stick with my plan

Your turn: What do you want to do or be better at in 2024? What new results do you want to create for yourself? Are you ready to decide what you’ll do to make changes in your life? What would happen if you don’t make the change(s) you say you want to make? What would happen and who would you become if you did make the changes you decide to make?

Best wishes to you for 2024!

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Work with me: Want to see how self-care is transformative and can help you create the results you want in your life? I can show you how. I offer first-time seekers a complimentary 60-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.

When you flake on yourself

December 21, 2023 ~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

You deserve better.

Last week I shared about the second pillar of the 3 pillars of transformative self-care – how we speak about and to ourselves. Let’s talk about the third pillar today: how we treat ourselves.

We might think we treat ourselves pretty well. We practice good dental hygiene, we get a massage every once in a while, we take vitamins, we sleep for several hours most nights, we put food into our bodies regularly, we use the stairs sometimes or park farther away from our destination to get in some extra steps.

These are all beneficial things to do for ourselves. And what else can we do for ourselves to show that we care?

One of the strongest ways we can show ourselves that we care is by doing what we say we’ll do – when it comes to ourselves.

How would we feel about a friend or someone close to us who tells us they’re going to do this or that with us or for us, and then when the day comes to do it, they either call/text to say they can’t make it, or they don’t show up at all?

– After the first time, we’ll likely give them some grace but feel disappointed by the outcome.
– The second time they do it, we might start to question the validity of their words.
– If they do it a third time, we’ll see a definite pattern here and probably feel frustrated and give up on believing them. We might even start to think that they don’t really care about or respect us.

This would be a normal reaction to someone who seems to be unable to follow through on what they say to us – someone who flakes on us.

And yet, how often have we flaked on ourselves? Flaking on ourselves means saying we’ll do something for ourselves, but at the last minute, we change our mind and don’t show up for what we said we’d do.

When we do this, we show ourselves that we don’t take our goals and desires seriously. We’re not caring for ourselves, and sometimes, we’re not respecting ourselves. Is that how we want to treat ourselves?

If we want to start treating ourselves better by keeping our promises and commitments to ourselves, we can start to build trust with ourselves by taking small actions. “Today I’m going to walk around the block at 3pm.”

And then at 3pm, we do what we say. We get up and walk around the block.

When we do this, there’s a sense of empowerment, a feeling of accomplishing something and fulfilling a promise to ourselves – no matter how small. “It feels good to do what I said I would!” Celebrate that and remember the feeling. It will help reinforce following through with future plans.

This is how we start to strengthen the muscle of trusting ourselves more, knowing that we can have our own back. We can continue to make another small commitment to keep each day – it could be the same one! – until it’s just automatic for us to keep our word to ourselves. Until it feels uncomfortable when we don’t keep our word to ourselves.

It might not happen overnight, but it’s worth it to keep practicing. WE are worth it. If we haven’t been in the practice of keeping our commitments to ourselves, it can take time to build that up. Take that time.

When we get even better at keeping commitments to ourselves, we learn to treat ourselves better in multiple aspects of our lives. We start to know what it truly feels like to take care of ourselves and treat ourselves in the way we want and deserve to be treated. We learn how to have our own back, no matter what.

Your turn: In what ways do you want to treat yourself better? What commitments do you want to keep with yourself? What is one small commitment you want to make to yourself today that you’ll do tomorrow? When tomorrow comes, are you willing to build trust with yourself and do the thing?

Dive Deeper: If you still find yourself not doing the thing, are you open to asking yourself if this is something you truly want to do for yourself or is something/someone else telling you “you should” do it?

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Speak no evil

December 14, 2023 ~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

About yourself or to yourself.

Last week I shared about the 3 pillars of transformative self-care – the first pillar being how we think about ourselves. Let’s talk about the second pillar today: how we speak about and to ourselves.

The language that we use can affect us through our mind-body connection.

I hear people say things like:

“That kills me!”
“I’m dying right now!”
“It’s such a pain in my neck!”
“Shoot me now!”
Or even the gesture of a thumb and index finger to the head, creating a pistol going off

These phrases accompany things that relate to feelings: hilarity, annoyance, exasperation, or aggravation. We know they’re just pop culture phrases that people say to emphasize something they’re experiencing. But our words can affect us and those around us.

There’s a book called Your Body Believes Every Word You Say and from it, we learn that we want to become mindful of the language we use about ourselves and to ourselves. Not only to prevent physical manifestations of illness, disease, or pain, but also to reinforce what we believe about ourselves.

If we’re always denigrating ourselves to others – even in playful, joking ways like, “I’m such a dumbass, you’ll never guess what I did” – we might take small hits to our self-esteem without even realizing it. Our words might be reflecting what we really think about ourselves on a deeper level.

This is not a gloom and doom warning, but rather a nudge to become more aware of how we can take care of ourselves – by using our words intentionally about ourselves, when we talk to others and when we talk to ourselves.

AND, even when we talk about or think about others. Sometimes what we think about others and what we judge other people for is also a judgment about ourselves. What is it that they’re doing that we don’t allow ourselves to do? If we judge someone for being late, it’s because we likely never allow ourselves to be late. If we judge someone for being carefree and spontaneous, where in our life are we withholding that from ourselves?

Instead, what if we practice phrases like this externally:

“That’s amazingly hilarious!”
“I’m so gleefully amused right now!”
“Honestly, that’s been really hard for me to manage.”
“I’m recognizing I need support in handling this.”

And internally:

“I’m learning how to really like myself now.”
“I care about how hard this has been for me.”
“I know I’ll be able to figure this out.”
“I love myself no matter what.”

Our words are powerful and we can use them consciously and mindfully. We can use our words to care for ourselves – to support ourselves and build ourselves up.

Your turn: Are you aware of how you speak about and to yourself? What do you notice when you pay closer attention to the words you use? How would you like to shift the language you use in your daily life to support your well-being even more?

Dive Deeper: What are the stories you tell yourself about yourself? (For example, “I’m this [______] way because that [_____] happened to me.”) Are these stories true? What if they’re not and never were? What do you want to change about these stories to make them more empowering?

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3 Pillars of Transformative Self-Care

December 7, 2023 ~ The Healing Modalities ~ 3 Comments

Relate to Self.

We’ve heard the term “self-care” being thrown about somewhat recklessly lately. It could mean anything from taking a bubble bath, getting a massage, going out in nature, or drinking a frothy, sugar-filled drink.

Yes, those are all things we can do to take care of ourselves – unless we’re cutting down on sugar, then maybe pass on the frothy, sugar-filled drink!

The way I view self-care is in a transformative way. And there are three pillars of transformative self-care:

1. How we think about ourselves
2. How we speak about and to ourselves
3. How we treat ourselves

All this adds up to how we relate to ourselves – our relationship with our Self.

How we think about ourselves will determine how we speak about and to ourselves. If we mainly think thoughts that reflect poorly on ourselves, we will likely speak poorly about and to ourselves. This shows up in self-denigrating language spoken out loud to others, like “I’m so lame, you’ll never guess what I did yesterday!” Or to ourselves, “I can’t believe I messed that up again! Why am I so stupid?!”

How we think about ourselves also impacts how we treat ourselves. If we don’t think we’re deserving of care, we will likely not take caring actions towards ourselves, even if we know what to do to take care of ourselves. This shows up in how we blow ourselves off by not doing what we say we want to do. For example, we scroll on social media when we have plans to take a walk instead. Or we eat three cookies when we said we’d only have one. We don’t take our commitments to ourselves seriously. We flake on ourselves. We self-sabotage.

And then we wonder why our relationship with ourselves can feel so frustrating. Why we never do what we say we’ll do. Why we end up feeling disappointed with ourselves. Why we feel discouraged about our goals. Why we keep making decisions out of alignment with ourselves.

We can start to build ourselves back up, to transform how we care for ourselves. We had a strong sense of ourselves when we were little kids. Over the years, most of us got that knocked out of us unintentionally by certain adults, society, peers, our culture, the media.

We can think about ourselves intentionally and with kindness and care. Start treating ourselves like our 5-year-old self who is just starting to learn more about the world and other people. What would we say to that 5-year-old when she (or he or they) makes a mistake? Or when she is excited about something she’s doing? Or when she is sad because something didn’t go her way?

This is one way to engage in transformative self-care: by becoming aware of our relationship with ourselves and to start nurturing it even more.

Your turn: What do you want to think about yourself on purpose, with kindness and care? Here’s a clue: What would you love to hear someone else tell you about yourself? What if you tell that to yourself and you believe it? How can you practice believing it even more?

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Allowing this to be

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

Greetings, from my bed.

This week I’ve been at home and mostly in bed, due to a back injury. I tweaked my back on Sunday and it spasmed whenever I moved in a certain way. I didn’t like being in pain. I didn’t like that I had to cancel my plans and appointments and couldn’t work. I felt worried because I was thinking that it wouldn’t get better.

Then, like I practice with emotional pain, I practiced with this physical pain. I felt where it was in my body. I didn’t judge it or tell myself I shouldn’t feel it. I allowed the pain to be there. Instead of fighting against it and the reality of it.

What does fighting against reality look like? We fight against reality by thinking thoughts like:

“It shouldn’t be this way.”

“This shouldn’t be happening.”

“I shouldn’t have to experience this.”

“It” can be replaced with any of these: she, he, I, they, my weight, my life, etc.

“This” can stand in for whatever is happening that feels uncomfortable, undesirable, or unfair.

When we think these types of thoughts about something we have no control over or really can’t change, we’re resisting reality.

We’re spending emotional energy on it and wishing it were different. But if it’s something we can’t change, it’s not only pointless, but painful. And it doesn’t do anything to change what happened.

The opposite of resistance is acceptance. On the way from resistance to acceptance, there is non-resistance.

When we start to practice non-resistance, when we start to acknowledge that we may be fighting against something that we can’t change and just let it be what it is, there can be peace and ease and healing.

How do we know it was supposed to happen? Because it did.

That might be hard to swallow, but then there’s nothing to fight against. Then everything is going the way it’s supposed to go.

I know this is a big leap for many people. Many people feel resistant to even thinking of this as a possibility for themselves. To let go of how things “should” be or “should” have happened, and let things just be as they are.

Of course, we need to process the emotions we feel when something happens that we didn’t want to happen. The emotions of disappointment, frustration, sadness, anger, hurt, loss, or grief. And let it take as long as it takes to process them.

Just like it takes as long as it takes to heal part of our body. We can do it with care, kindness, and compassion for ourselves instead of fighting it – and fighting ourselves too.

When we can create more space for how things are, we surrender a little, we release some tension, we find some freedom.

Your turn: What have you been resisting recently? What would happen if you allowed it to be what it is, without needing it to be different? How can the question, “How is this happening FOR me?” create some space in your experience?

(This back pain was happening for me to practice being with pain and with myself in a compassionate way. It helped me see how I can take even better care of myself, to recognize sooner when I’m pushing myself too hard, and to work through my emotions more openly. It’s a continuous practice – all of it – and that’s OK!)

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Thank yourself

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

And do it often.

Today in the U.S. it’s a day to be thankful and grateful. We’re taught to be thankful for others and the things we have. While this is a wonderful practice, we don’t usually get to focus enough on being thankful and grateful to ourselves and who we are. I believe we could be well-served to do this more often!

Thank yourself for showing up every day, even when you don’t want to sometimes.

Thank yourself for figuring things out and solving problems.

Thank yourself for making mistakes and learning from them.

Thank yourself for what you do for others.

Thank yourself for earning your income.

Thank yourself for paying your rent or mortgage.

Thank yourself for waking up early to go to the gym.

Thank yourself for choosing to sleep in.

Thank yourself for choosing the healthier option.

Thank yourself for indulging sometimes.

Thank yourself for aspiring to more.

Thank yourself for doing hard things.

Thank yourself for supporting yourself.

Thank yourself for your desires.

Thank yourself for choosing kindness.

Thank yourself for being good enough.

Thank yourself for being you.

Thank yourself for becoming more of who you want to be.

Thanking ourselves can change our relationship with ourselves. Even if the above seem aspirational, we get to be here each day and aspire to more for ourselves. If we want to, we get to choose how we show up for ourselves and for our lives. We can choose to keep doing more of the same. We can choose to try something different and new. We can be intentional. We can choose on purpose.

Your turn: Do you feel worthy and deserving of your own thanks and gratitude directed towards yourself? How might thanking yourself more often change your relationship with yourself? What specifically would you like to remember to thank yourself for each day? Consider choosing life coaching to thank yourself.

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When you think it’s “over there”

November 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 achieve those goals, our lives will finally 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 finally feel satisfied.”
“When I find my perfect partner, I’ll feel worthy and complete.”
“Once I’ve lost the extra weight, I’ll love myself more.”
“When I buy a house, I’ll feel successful.”
“Once we have kids, our marriage will be more fulfilling.”

We can get focused on “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, successful, or fulfilled.

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

The reason why we want anything is because of the way we think it’ll make us feel when we have it.

We can feel satisfied, worthy, loving, successful, and fulfilled 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 THEN?

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Not happy all the time?

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

You’re not supposed to be.

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 we felt happy all the time, we would have to feel happy even through things like the death of a loved one, an accident, an illness, a relationship betrayal. And all of these things are part of the human experience – things we basically sign up for when we’re born. So, unfortunately, we won’t be able to avoid them or the emotions that come along with them.

Our emotions are an indicator of what’s going on for us. To be authentic, to have a true relationship with our life, means 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-working, 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, or jealousy.

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

We engage in false pleasure to “force” ourselves into the “positive” 50%. Then we think we’re OK and 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 waste 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 the discomfort of the other 50%, we will decrease our buffers and the negative consequences they produce. In fact, when we allow ourselves to really feel and be with 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 and dealing with the consequences that come along with them.

For example, when we limit our drinking, we don’t experience hangovers and we get to feel good in our body. When we watch our eating, we get the pleasure of not worrying about our 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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Doing B work

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

In service of self-care.

When it comes to self-care, we may think we don’t have time for it. But why?

It might be because we’re trying to do A+ work all the time. And this doesn’t just relate to our jobs/work, but also other areas in our life.

Why are we driven to do A+ work all the time? It might come from society’s values or our culture and has been ingrained in us as our own value, to strive for that.

But what is the cost of doing A+ work all the time? If there’s no cost, keep doing it! But likely, doing A+ work all the time leaves little room for other things in our lives, especially self-care.

What if doing B work is OK if it means freeing up some space in our lives to give more of our energy to what WE value most?

Maybe the A+ work DOES matter sometimes, and we get to choose when those times are. But first, we need to realize that our drive to do A+ work all the time takes a toll. What is that toll?

We can choose when to value A+ work over B work. And we can choose when to value B work over A+ work.

When does A+ work truly represent our values?

And when does B work truly represent our values?

If doing B work means making space to spend a little more time sleeping, or doing something that brings us joy, or cooking a healthy meal, or going for that walk, or spending extra time with loved ones, would that be more valuable than the A+ work that might get done in its place? We might even decide that we can be proud of B work in service to ourselves.

What if living a fuller, more meaningful life means doing B work sometimes – or most of the time? What if we’re intentional about putting our values first and choosing to act based on what really matters to us, not what we think is expected of us?

Your turn: What do you want to prioritize in your life? How might doing B work support you in this? What is a value that you have always wanted to prioritize for yourself but haven’t committed to yet? How might doing some B work give you more space to move towards that?

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Good enough, right now

October 26, 2023 ~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

You are.

When I talk about self-care, it’s about more than what we do for ourselves. It’s also about how we speak to ourselves, how we think about ourselves, and how we treat ourselves. Today’s topic relates to how we think about ourselves.

How many of us are familiar with the thoughts “I’m not good enough” or “There’s something wrong with me” or “I’m not worthy”?

These thoughts are usually under the surface of our consciousness, yet they can run the show for us, even if we’re not aware of them.

The thought that was running the show for me for many years was “I’m not good enough” and I didn’t even know it was there. But it influenced many of the choices I made and how I viewed myself.

In therapy, “I’m not good enough” revealed itself to me and I understood better why I suffered so much when my romantic relationships ended. Not only was I devastated that the relationship ended, but I also made it mean that I wasn’t good enough to have a “successful” relationship, which to me, meant a relationship “that lasted” (for as long as I wanted it to). I made it mean that because it ended, I was a failure, I wasn’t good enough. Hence, the unnecessary suffering.

Since that time period in therapy, I thought I’d done a lot of work on dissolving that “I’m not good enough” thought. Yet it came up again recently. Another layer showed itself in a slightly different way.

I recognized that I was believing I had to be better than I am in order to have the things I want. Whether it’s more income, more clients, better health, or a partner. For others, it might be being at an ideal weight, owning a home, getting a new job, starting a business, receiving kindness from others, taking time off, etc.

I saw the thought, “Something is wrong with me and this is why I don’t have what I want.” I thought I needed to be better than I currently am in order to have what I want.

And that’s just not true. Because how will I know I’m “better” than I currently am? That could be an indefinite amount of time getting to some “better” version of myself until I deem myself “worthy enough” to have what I want.

You know what that sounds like? It sounds like, “I have to be perfect before I can have what I want.” And we all know that “perfect” doesn’t exist. Sure, there’s knowledge and skills we can always strengthen, but we don’t have to be “better than” we are right now to believe we are worthy or good enough. We get out of our own way when we let this be true.

So I decided to accept myself exactly as I am, right now. I changed my thoughts to “I’m already good enough, right now, just as I am, to have what I want. I don’t need to be better than I am to have what I want.” And I’m leaning into these thoughts and practicing them.

Because I don’t have to be “better than” I am. I get to be exactly as I am right now and still create the life that I want to have. What will come to me as I am, is meant for me as I am. And I will learn and grow from creating and having those experiences.

Your turn: What limiting beliefs might be running the show for you? A clue could be that if you think there’s some future version of yourself you need to be to feel “good enough” or if you think you need to “fix” something about yourself to feel worthy, what is the belief beneath that? What do you want to believe about yourself instead?

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