How to feel worthy

December 12, 2024 ~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

Pay attention to YOU.

To feel worthy, you must first make your own instincts worthy of your attention and your effort.

pg. 223 (From The 5 Second Rule by Mel Robbins)

Many of us struggle or have struggled to feel worthy. We know that it’s important to feel worthy. We know that we should feel worthy. But how do we actually start to feel worthy? Where does worthiness come from?

In my experience, feeling worthy is a process. It doesn’t happen overnight, though when it does happen, it seems to have happened overnight! But it’s really due to all the work we’ve done with ourselves over time.

The first step to feeling worthy is to become aware of the ways in which we don’t feel worthy. This can show up in different forms and in different areas of our lives. Maybe we feel worthy in some aspects of our lives, so getting accolades at work feels natural. Or being in a healthy partnership comes easy. Or being financially stable is just a “given.”

But in the areas in which we don’t feel worthy, those are the areas where we struggle.

We don’t feel we deserve great friendships, so we shy away from connection and wonder why we feel lonely.
We don’t feel worthy of the praise from our boss, so we don’t believe her kind words.
We don’t feel deserving of the gifts from our loved ones on our birthday, so we feel guilty receiving them.
We think the new apartment we moved into is “too good” for us and feel undeserving to live there.
We wait for the other shoe to drop when a new relationship starts, like “Wait until they really get to know me…” or we end up sabotaging it ourselves.

Again, it can come up in various forms.

To feel worthy, one thing we must do for ourselves is to pay attention to ourselves. For me, I was always disregarding myself, ignoring myself, abandoning myself.

I did this in order to please others, to have what I THOUGHT I wanted, even if it meant dishonoring my needs and what I REALLY wanted. I wasn’t paying attention to myself, my instincts, and what was true for me. I tried to convince myself to want what didn’t really align with me, I contorted myself to fit what someone else wanted. I lied to myself and lied to others – unintentionally – because I thought it was the “right” thing to do in order to seek approval.

By paying attention to ourselves, we learn what is true for us and how truth FEELS for us. We then know when we’re lying to ourselves. When we lie to ourselves, that is a form of abandoning ourselves. When we pay attention to ourselves, we show ourselves that we are worthy of attention and effort. Especially from ourselves.

When we start paying attention to ourselves, our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors change. They become more aligned with our truth. We start to see that we have always been worthy. And what we are engaging in is the process to UNLEARN our feelings and beliefs of UNworthiness.

I learned about some of my unhealthy beliefs about worthiness through therapy and life coaching. And I’ve been doing the work to UNLEARN all the ways I thought I wasn’t worthy before. Coming from a place of worthiness changes everything.

So I’ve created an introductory coaching series called “Tools to Change Your Life” to support others on their own path to UNlearning all the ways they believed they were unworthy before to seeing that they have ALWAYS been worthy.

You can consider this program for yourself or for someone in your life who could benefit from a program like this!

Purchase Tools to Change Your Life

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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 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.

When you don’t feel “good enough”

December 5, 2024 ~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

One of the things many of my clients struggle with is not feeling “good enough.”

When we don’t feel good enough, we do things to try to prove that we’re good enough. This is how it can show up in our lives:

Working without boundaries, i.e. overworking
Not asking for help when we need it – sometimes being unaware that we even need help
Thinking we need to be and look “perfect” all the time
Talking to ourselves in critical, judgmental ways if we aren’t “perfect” – usually without knowing it
Staying too long – in relationships, jobs, homes
Doing so much that we’re unable to take time for ourselves
Grasping onto things that aren’t in our best interest in order to prove something to ourselves and/or others – lifestyle, relationship, job, etc.

Those things are usually unhealthy behaviors. And sometimes we’re not aware that they’re unhealthy until it’s too late. And that’s OK. That’s how we learn what isn’t working for us. And it’s a path forward to learning what DOES work for us, in healthier ways.

It’s OK to find out what isn’t working in order to move towards what does work – it’s probably the most common way we learn things. Sometimes we learn from our past experiences, a line in a book we’re reading, a story about someone else’s experience, or just being sick and tired of being sick and tired.

I learned about some of my unhealthy behaviors through therapy and life coaching. And I’ve been doing the work to become healthier and engage in my life in ways that DO work for me. It’s been so fulfilling to live differently by living INTENTIONALLY with awareness of what I’m creating in my life.

So I’ve created an introductory coaching series called “Tools to Change Your Life” to support others on their own path to becoming aware of what ISN’T working for them, so they can discover what DOES work for them.

You can consider this program for yourself or for someone in your life who could benefit from a program like this!

Learn More & Purchase

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Tools to change your life

November 28, 2024 ~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

Happy Thanksgiving! Sale.

As we celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S. today, I am grateful for all my interactions with you and for your time, whenever you read these posts. I know you have a lot of other information to consume throughout your day, so it means a lot to me that you choose to read these words.

As we move into the holidays and a new year, show yourself some extra gratitude by investing in yourself with tools to change your life – 2025 can be your best year yet! (Or gift this to someone else for their best year yet!)

I’m offering a deeply discounted introductory coaching program for you to start changing your life!

Tools to Change Your Life – Introductory Coaching Series – $297

Get out of your own way by learning these concepts to change your life!

– Build self-awareness about what you’re unintentionally creating in your life so you can create the life you want, on purpose

– Overcome self-sabotage by understanding how your brain has evolved to keep you “safe”

– Start believing new things and in new possibilities for your life and yourself

– Practice the power of processing emotions, instead of distracting from them or avoiding them

Learn the tools in four (4) 45-minute Zoom coaching sessions to be used when you like, within 3 months of purchase. Each 45-minute session includes 20 minutes of learning and 25 minutes of coaching.

Once your payment goes through and you submit the form on the payment page, you’ll receive an email to book your first session.

Change Your Life!

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Talk about what hurts

November 21, 2024 ~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

To heal.

“We’ll never be okay if we don’t talk about what hurts.” – Ashley Ford (https://www.ashleycford.net/bio)

I heard this quote mentioned on a podcast I listened to and it resonated with me. So often, we talk about everything BUT what really hurts.

We bottle up our emotions and wonder why we feel so much resentment, powerlessness, guilt, or shame.

Sometimes we don’t even tell ourselves the truth about what really hurts us because it’s “easier” not to think about it. But then not thinking about it actually makes our lives harder in some ways because we disconnect from our truth – and from ourselves. We hide from ourselves or tell ourselves it’s not a big deal, that we need to get over it, that we’re “stronger” than this.

I think what helps us feel stronger is when we tell the truth and actually talk about it instead of denying it to ourselves. Talking to trusted friends or family members might feel supportive. Or talking to a therapist, counselor, or coach might feel safer – someone more objective and who has tools to hear us and empower us to move forward.

For me, seeing a therapist regularly to talk about what hurts was one of the most empowering things I’ve done for myself. When I let myself be vulnerable and saw that someone else could hold space for that vulnerability, I allowed myself to then learn to hold space for myself in that way. I allowed myself to be more vulnerable with myself and then with others. I stopped hiding myself so much and this is what also allowed me to be more authentic and aligned with who I am. I started to feel okay with who I was.

One revelatory truth for me during therapy was, “I am okay . . . I have always been okay . . . and I will always be okay.”

Your turn: What hurts have you been denying or hiding from yourself? How might talking about them help you? Who is someone that you can talk to?

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Your boundaries with YOU

November 14, 2024 ~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

Build trust.

We’ve been talking about boundaries with other people for the past few weeks. Let’s talk about boundaries with ourselves today.

What this looks like is keeping commitments to ourselves or keeping our word to ourselves.

If we are the keepers of our own boundaries with others and we take the actions to maintain those boundaries, we can do the same with ourselves.

We may want to set a boundary for ourselves around the following:

Boundary between work and home (for those who work from home)
Boundary for when we look at or check our phones
Boundary for how much time we spend on social media
Boundary around time spent watching streaming shows
Boundary around how much sugar we eat
Boundary around how much caffeine or alcohol we drink
Boundary around how much active time we have
Boundary for when we choose to go to sleep every night

We can make plans for all these boundaries. What creates boundary violations with ourselves is when we don’t stick to the plan.

We worked two more hours than we planned to.
We have one more drink than we planned to.
We scrolled on social media for 45 minutes longer than we planned to.
We ate two cookies instead of one.
We went to bed at midnight instead of 10:30pm.
We didn’t exercise like we planned to.

Many of us are very good at keeping commitments to others, especially if we don’t want to disappoint them or let them down. What happens when we don’t keep our commitments to others? They may feel let down and disappointed. We may feel guilty or disappointed in ourselves.

What happens when we don’t keep our commitments to ourselves? We are the ones who feel BOTH things–let down by ourselves AND guilty or disappointed in ourselves. We get a double whammy.

When we don’t follow through with our commitments to ourselves, we erode our trust with ourselves. This makes us less likely to even make plans for ourselves to commit to because we might think, “What’s the point? I probably won’t do it anyway.”

To build trust with ourselves, we can practice keeping commitments to ourselves with compassion. We make the plan (the boundary) and we take the actions to maintain the plan (keeping the boundary). If we miss the mark once, we don’t just give up. We give ourselves grace and practice taking action again.

It feels good to keep a commitment. The more we do it, the more trust we build with ourselves. And that can have positive effects on everything we do.

Your turn: What plans (boundaries) do you want to put into place for yourself? Are you willing to be committed to being the keeper of your plans (boundaries)? How would your life be different if you kept your commitment to maintaining your boundaries with yourself?

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When saying “no” isn’t really an option

November 7, 2024 ~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

Also, the election.

First, whatever you may be thinking and feeling after Tuesday’s election, we are all in this together. We know there’s a way forward, no matter what. It’s likely that half of the country feels like the world is over, and the other half may feel relieved.

Whatever happened does not change who YOU are.

When you know who you are, who you want to be, and how you want to show up for your life, whatever happened with the election has less power over you.

We can still value true friends, family, our resources, and community. And we can take action in solidarity with others when we feel called to help those around us and in our wider society. We can still know what is right for us.

We can stay true to our CORE VALUES. And allow ALL the feelings and ACT in solidarity with others who share similar values when we feel called to act. We can still live our lives in alignment with OUR values.

And if you’re feeling a desire for connection or support, I welcome hearing from you, so feel free to comment on this post or reach out anonymously here . . .

Last week I talked more about boundaries and how saying “yes” sometimes is lying. I encouraged us to tell the truth by saying “no” when we want to say “no” instead of lying and saying “yes.”

However, it’s also true that saying “no” usually has a cost involved, whether it’s emotional, financial, interpersonal, or something else. There can be a cost. And so, “no” might not be accessible in certain situations. And we get to decide when it IS accessible and when it ISN’T accessible for us.

However, I want to introduce the “pause.”

We can think of the “pause” as the boundary – especially when we have automatically been saying yes. The “pause” helps us to make a more informed decision about our response, so that it’s not an automatic response of “yes” or “no” or even “maybe.”

We might not be able to say “no,” but we can engage in the “pause.”

The “pause” can take various forms depending on the mode of communication. When it’s in a live conversation, it could sound like, “Thanks for asking me about that. Let me check and get back to you.” When it’s an incoming phone call, the pause looks like letting the phone call go to voicemail and seeing what the person wants instead of just answering your phone. When it’s a text message, you can leave the message unread until you have time to respond in a way you want. When it’s an email, same as the text message. And even when you do read the text or email, you can respond and say, “Let me check and get back to you.”

All of these things are negotiable, of course. You can absolutely pick up your phone depending on who it is. And you can also not pick it up depending on who it is. You can absolutely respond to a text message or email quickly. But you get to choose ON PURPOSE.

You get to decide how and when you want to respond, no matter what the situation is.

And let’s say in the situation, you can’t say “no” or “let me check and get back to you” for whatever reason. Maybe it’s financial, or maybe you do the math, and you can’t say “no.” Then you bookmark this for yourself.

And what that means is you recognize that you’re not able to say “no” now, but maybe in three months or a year from now, “I want to be able to be closer to saying no in this type of situation.” And by acknowledging the cost of saying “no,”, you have agency in that decision instead of having it be an automatic response that usually makes us feel like we had no power or agency in that response. We can acknowledge that we might not yet be great at setting boundaries, but we want to work towards being better at it.

So I appreciate this bookmarking concept for that purpose – practicing towards where we want to be and still supporting ourselves where we’re at now.

I know for me, working with a coach was helpful to build my confidence in setting boundaries and saying “no,” as well as learning the language to help me stay connected while setting boundaries.

What thoughts do you have about the “pause” or bookmarking where you’d like to be better with setting boundaries? I’d love to hear from you! You can reply to this email or leave your thoughts here.

Your turn: Where in your life might using the “pause” be beneficial for you? Where in your life might bookmarking a way to set boundaries more be helpful for you?

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When saying “yes” is a lie

October 31, 2024 ~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

Tell the truth: say “no.”

We’re continuing our boundary discussion. Last week we talked about some examples of boundary requests and consequences/actions.

We are the keepers of our boundaries and we’re responsible for taking the actions to maintain them.

Many people aren’t good at saying “no.” Or when they do say “no,” they try to offer an explanation – usually a lie – in order to control what the other person thinks of them.

We often say “yes” when we really want to say “no” because we’re afraid of what other people will think of us. This is part of people-pleasing. (Read more about people pleasing here.)

But when we aren’t able to tell the truth out of self-respect and say “no,” we end up lying and saying “yes.” This is how we set ourselves up for boundary violations.

When we do this, we create the potential for resentment to build in us.

Think about what happens when we don’t start out by telling the truth about our boundaries – not being able to say “no” when we want to – and end up experiencing boundary violations. We then have to do the harder work of circling back to prevent further boundary violations.

This can look like “standing up” for ourselves because the person who is violating our boundary has been doing so for a while now and not knowing that they are. So now we’re also likely setting this boundary out of anger as well. To the other person, it’s like we’re “coming out of nowhere” with our boundary request and exploding at them for no reason.

If we’re willing to say “no” at the outset, we don’t have to stand up for ourselves. We’ll just simply say “no” at the beginning to avoid other potential boundary violations.

We have to get good at telling the truth and saying “no” while staying connected as a practice, so we can say “yes” to what we really want to do.

Then our “yes” will also be telling the truth.

Next week, we’ll look at what to say when saying “no” is really not an option.

Your turn: When do you find yourself lying by saying “yes” when you really want to say “no”? What would you need to believe in order to tell the truth by saying “no”? What are some ways you can recognize when you want to say “no,” honoring that in yourself, and practice saying “no” when it’s the truth? How can you feel empowered to be the keeper of your boundaries and be responsible for taking the actions to maintain them?

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Set boundaries & stay connected?

October 24, 2024 ~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

Here’s how.

We’re continuing our discussion about boundaries this week and I want to emphasize that we set boundaries to take care of ourselves and to keep our relationships healthy for us.

Because our relationships are important to us, we can state our requests and boundaries from a place of connection instead of disconnection. Stating a boundary from anger, annoyance, or frustration usually isn’t helpful to a relationship.

It’s our job to protect and be responsible for our boundaries. We can make requests, but ultimately we can’t force someone to do something. We can choose to leave or take action to protect our boundary. If we see that the other person frequently disregards our boundary requests, we may decide to create some distance with them and how we interact with them in our life, and let them know why.

Most people think boundaries are something that they’re not. When it comes down to it, much of what we think needs a boundary is due to our own lack of self-care.

To review, a boundary is required only when there has been a boundary violation.

A violation is when someone comes into our space (physical or emotional) without us being OK with it.
A boundary is stating what WE will do if that person continues their behavior.
It is NOT us telling that person how to behave.

Additionally, if we make a boundary request and don’t follow through on what we say we’ll do, we’ve only made an idle threat or consequence. This diminishes our own self-respect and the other person’s respect for us.

A boundary request sounds like this: “If you continue to _____, then I will ______.”

For example, “I don’t appreciate being berated, so don’t yell at me,” is NOT setting a boundary. It’s telling someone else what to do.

“I hear that this is important to you and I don’t appreciate being berated. So if you continue to yell, then I’m going to leave the room until we can talk without you yelling,” is setting a boundary while wanting to stay connected.

The person can continue to yell. The consequence that we follow through with is leaving the room if they do. We used a connection phrase to start by acknowledging the other person with “I hear that this is important to you.” Other connection phrases:

“I appreciate you and your perspective, and if you continue to _____, then I will _____.”
“I value our relationship and time together, and if you keep _____, then I will ______.”
“I love you, and I’m not going to do that (thing that you asked me to) because it really doesn’t work for me. How else can I support you?”
“I hear that you feel disappointed with my decision. I’m here to help in a way that works for both of us.”

What other questions do you have about boundaries? Let me know here.

Your turn: What boundary requests would benefit you if you made them? Do you have a clear request and a clear consequence/action that you’ll take if the other person violates your boundary? How can you keep the relationship connected while setting a clear boundary?

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Ready to set boundaries?

October 17, 2024 ~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

Feel the discomfort.

I haven’t talked about boundaries in a while and my next podcast episode that’s out today is about boundaries, so I’m revisiting them here too!

Sometimes people mix up setting boundaries with trying to control others. We do not create boundaries for other people. We create boundaries to take care of and protect ourselves.

Boundaries are not:

Ways to control or manipulate other people
Things you think other people should be doing (e.g. “I want my partner to clean the bathroom,” “I want my friend to call me back when I call her,” “I want my kid to clean her room.”)

We can learn to recognize when to use and talk about boundaries. This means having a clear sense of what and where our boundaries are. When we don’t have clear boundaries, people don’t know if they’re violating them or not.

When there is a clear boundary violation, such as someone speaking to us in a demeaning way or someone doing something in our home that’s not allowed, then we have the boundary conversation.

The conversation includes making a clear request along with stating a clear consequence. The consequence is something that WE will do, an action or behavior that WE will take.

Here’s an example of a clear boundary: “If you smoke a cigarette in my house, I am going to ask you to leave my house. We don’t allow smoking here. This is what I will do if you smoke.”

It’s important to remember that the person we’re making the request of can continue to do whatever they would like to do. Human beings can smoke cigarettes if they want. It’s not a boundary violation until they come into our home or our car or our space and try to smoke cigarettes there.

Notice that when we make the request, “If you continue to do that, then I will…” the consequence is the behavior that WE will take. It’s not, “You need to stop smoking or else.” We’re making the request and then explaining what WE will do as the consequence of not following that request.

So why don’t we set boundaries when we know we want to? Because usually it’s difficult and uncomfortable to make these requests and establish consequences with the people in our lives.

Sometimes it’s so uncomfortable for us that we avoid making the requests. Or if we do make the requests, we don’t actually follow through on the consequences. Because that’s uncomfortable too – doing what we say we’ll do when someone violates a boundary means potentially risking our relationship with that person or facing their disapproval.

But then what happens when we don’t make these requests or when we don’t follow through on the consequences? People continue to violate our boundaries.

And we get upset and build up resentments. Usually we’re the only ones feeling this way, because the people who continue to violate our boundaries either don’t know they’re doing so or don’t think there are any consequences for doing so.

There’s a lot more to say about boundaries – more next week!

Your turn: Are you recognizing why you might not be setting boundaries that would benefit your life? What would you have to believe in order to make the requests and follow through on the consequences? How can you practice saying what you want to say instead of avoiding setting boundaries with people?

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Create vs. Consume

October 10, 2024 ~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

What do you create?

We all consume many things – the news, social media posts, streaming shows, movies, podcasts, books, articles, emails, food, drinks, learning courses, material items like clothing, etc.

What I’ve learned through my life coach school is the importance of CREATING from what we consume. And to balance, as much as possible, what we consume with what we create in our lives.

For example, when I listen to (consume) podcasts, sometimes I get great ideas for content that I want to write about. Or I hear a great life hack that I implement into my life. Or I hear about a concept or idea I want to talk about with a friend.

We can count these as creating! Literally, creating new content when I write about an idea. But also, implementing the life hack into my life is creating, and talking to a friend about an interesting concept is creating – I’m doing something new with the information I consume.

It’s similar when we watch a show or movie and want to talk about it with someone – we’re creating a conversation and processing ideas we’ve consumed. Or when we read a book to join a book club and dive deeper into the ideas with others. Or when a social issue we see on the news or on social media moves us to take action.

All of this can be considered creating and we can do this with almost any type of media we consume. And some people may be moved to create actual art when they consume media – but we don’t have to be artists to create something to share with others, though we do see a lot of wonderful art on social media and elsewhere by people who’ve created it!

This isn’t to say that with EVERYthing we consume, we need to create something as well. But we can start to become aware of how we’re consuming and whether or not we’re creating – or wanting to create – from what we consume.

We can become imbalanced in consuming if all we’re doing is collecting data points and not necessarily doing anything with them. We can also overwhelm and exhaust ourselves with information this way – along with consuming other THINGS as well. What happens when we over-consume food, alcohol, or material items? We may unintentionally create unhealthy bodies and environments for ourselves.

Part of self-care is intentionally creating healthy environments for ourselves. We want to be mindful about what we put into these environments and about what we consume. If we don’t like the way we feel after reading, watching, listening to, eating/drinking, or buying something, we can just notice that.

If it’s something we have a direct choice to NOT read, watch, listen to, eat/drink, or buy, we can inquire with ourselves about whether we want to do that again or keep doing it. We can start to be more aware and intentional about what we’re consuming and whether or not we’re creating what we want in our lives.

Your turn: What do you value consuming? Why do you value it? What do you want to create more of in your life? What can you create for yourself through some of the things you consume?

If the ideas I share resonate with you but you’re not sure how to implement them to change your life, book an exploratory session with me to see what’s possible!

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