When you trust yourself

May 18, 2023 ~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

Learn how.

There are different ways we learn how to trust (or not trust) ourselves. One of these ways is by doing (or not doing) what we say we’ll do–especially when it comes to ourselves.

Most of the time, we do what we say we’ll do for other people. This is because we know the consequences of not following through: the other person will feel let down and disappointed and possibly change how they think about us, and then we’ll feel guilty for having disappointed them and think we need to make up for it somehow.

But what happens when we say we’ll do something for ourselves and then we don’t do it? Let’s say we put an hour on our calendar to do one of the following things: go to the gym, do a yoga class, take a walk, read for leisure, or cook a healthy meal.

But we end up blowing ourselves off during that hour by using that time to keep working, scroll on social media, go out for drinks instead, or do something else besides what we had planned for ourselves.

When we’re the ones not keeping our commitment to ourselves, we feel a double whammy–we’re the ones who are let down and disappointed AND we’re the ones feeling guilty about letting ourselves down. That feels doubly bad. And yet we might not even feel the need to make up for it.

Knowing this feeling, the next time we go to make a commitment to ourselves, we might avoid disappointing ourselves and feeling guilty about it ahead of time, so we might think, “Why bother? I’m not gonna do it anyway.”

And then nothing moves forward with keeping commitments and building trust with ourselves.

That’s how a defeating mindset begins when we think about making commitments to ourselves. We diminish our trust with ourselves when we don’t follow through on what we say we’re going to do for ourselves.

To build trust with ourselves, we can take small steps. “Today I’m going to get up from my desk at 2pm and drink a glass of water and walk around the office/house for five minutes.”

And then at 2pm, we do what we say. We get up, drink a glass of water, and walk around for five minutes.

When we do this, there’s a sense of empowerment, a sense 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.

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.

When we get even better at keeping commitments to ourselves, we build even more trust with ourselves. We start to know what it truly feels like to have our own back–no matter what.

Your turn: You make decisions based on you and what you want for yourself; no one else can make these decisions for you. When you trust yourself to have your back no matter what the outcome is, there is no “wrong” decision. Just an opportunity to learn more about yourself and what you want or don’t want. What are you willing to do today to build even more trust with yourself?

Subscribe if you want to receive this content directly in your inbox.

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 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.

Take care of your Future Self

May 11, 2023 ~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

Do it today.

A couple weeks ago, we talked about thinking about our Future Self and what our Future Self knows. We talked about creating from a place of what our Future Self knows.

In thinking about our Future Self, what we’re doing TODAY contributes to what and who our Future Self will be.

Today, if we don’t overeat, we are taking care of our tomorrow Future Self who won’t feel lethargic and guilty for overeating.

Today, if we don’t overdrink, we are taking care of our tomorrow Future Self who won’t feel hungover and waste a day away.

Today, if we spend an hour working on the report, we are taking care of our next-week Future Self who won’t need to scramble at the last minute to finish the report, like we usually do.

Today, if we plan our running schedule and start it, we are taking care of our next-month Future Self who can run 5 miles in preparation for the 12 mile run we committed to in three months.

Today, if we decide to finally leave the toxic relationship we’re in, we are taking care of our 6-month later Future Self who is in a healthier relationship with someone else.

Today, if we create a monthly payment plan to pay off our debt and choose on each of the following months to stick with the plan, we are taking care of our one-year later Future Self who no longer has debt.

We get to decide today with our actions how we are taking care of our Future Selves.

Your turn: What will you decide to do today to take care of your Future Self . . . what about tomorrow? Next week? Next month? In six months? In a year? In five years?

Subscribe if you want to receive this content directly in your inbox.

Wish we learned this in school

May 4, 2023 ~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

Who’s responsible?

We’ve all likely heard the saying that “You’re responsible for your own happiness.” It likely makes sense on an intellectual level, but how many of us actually embrace this?

If we’re responsible for our own happiness, that means we take responsibility for how we’re feeling–with ANY emotion.

But when we were younger, we learned the opposite from adults and even in school. We hear adults say, “You hurt Jimmy’s feelings. Say sorry!” or “Did she hurt your feelings by doing that?” And we’d likely think that “Yes, she hurt my feelings by doing that.”

Eleanor Roosevelt is quoted as saying, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”

What’s really going on is that we’re making what someone else says or does mean something about ourselves. We’re basically agreeing with what they said or did, which is the only way something can hurt us—if we let it. If we think it’s somehow true about us or if we somehow deserve it.

Again, intellectually, this may make some sense. Living it and practicing it can be harder though, because we’ve been conditioned to believe that we cause other people’s feelings and that other people cause ours.

But we know from the Model that our thoughts create our feelings. It’s not the external circumstance that creates our feelings, even though it’s so easy to think that the circumstance is causing us to feel something. It’s what we’re thinking about the circumstance that creates our feelings. Our thinking creates our feelings.

So in that sense, we can see how we ARE responsible for what we feel. Once we really become aware that this is how it works, we can be intentional about how we want to feel. Which means being intentional about how we are thinking.

I think some of us have a misconception that someone else is supposed to help our lives be great. When we relinquish ourselves from taking this responsibility, who do we think it belongs to?

I used to want someone to come save me from my life when I was feeling dissatisfied and like things were missing from my life.

You know what was missing from my life? ME. I wanted someone else to take the responsibility that is mine, to help my life become better than it was. To create more income for me, to find opportunities for me, to find a partner for me, to find a place for me to live, to help me eat healthy meals, to take care of me. How could someone else do this if I wasn’t willing to do it for myself?

No one is going to do it for us. No one is going to live our lives for us. That’s our responsibility. We get to take care of ourselves and our lives. Intentionally.

We have everything we need within us to take responsibility.

And that is great news. Because then we realize we can have the exact life we want when we take responsibility for creating it and caring for ourselves along the way. Intentionally.

Your turn: What have you been giving responsibility to someone or something else to fulfill for you? Are you willing to take responsibility for this? How might your life be different if you started taking even more responsibility for what you want? How might your life be different if you practiced intentional self-care?

Dive Deeper: Do you feel any resistance to the idea of taking responsibility in this way? If yes, why? What if those thoughts are just limiting beliefs about what’s possible for you?

Want to learn more about the Model and how your thoughts create your feelings? Sign-up for an exploratory session here.

Subscribe if you want to receive this content directly in your inbox.

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

Subscribe if you want to receive this content directly in your inbox.

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?

Subscribe if you want to receive this content directly in your inbox.