Your Power Sentences

June 27, 2024 ~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

What drives you?

In the past, what drove me were ideas of achievement, performance, and external appearances. Basically, opportunities for external validation – I rarely regarded what I thought about myself and instead depended on what others thought about me.

So it’s not surprising when I found out in therapy that one of the reasons why this was true was because I had an underlying thought pattern: “I’m not good enough.”

So of course I didn’t rely on my thoughts about myself because they were always some form of, “I’m not good enough” and “I need to prove that I’m good enough.” Hence, the need for external validation from others.

How we think about ourselves and our lives contributes to how we take care of ourselves (or don’t take care of ourselves), what we believe is possible for ourselves, and how we show up for our lives.

We have sentences in our minds that run our life. Usually without our awareness of them.

These are called Power Sentences.

They’re powerful because they affect the results we create in our lives, usually by providing more evidence that the thought (Power Sentence) is “true.”

When we’ve practiced thinking a thought over and over, it becomes a belief. Beliefs “feel true” even though they’re just thoughts that we’ve thought over and over.

And if our thoughts/beliefs create the results we get in our life, let’s start to become aware of these Power Sentences.

Some examples of unintentional and unconscious Power Sentences are:

“I’m not good enough.”
“I can never get it right.”
“I don’t deserve to have what I want.”
“It’s always so hard for me.”
“Things don’t work out for me.”

What might these types of thoughts prove true in our lives?

It’s possible for us to think and practice new thoughts and beliefs – new Power Sentences – ON PURPOSE.

Ones that SERVE our lives more than the current unintentional, unconscious thoughts and beliefs.

We can find the sentence that is running our life so we can make sure it is conscious and intentional.

The goal is to uncover our main Power Sentence, and make sure it’s what we want it to be.

Here’s an exercise to consider for finding your Power Sentence(s):

1. Who are you? What are you doing with your life? (Answer with one sentence.)
2. Are you doing it consciously?
Is this who you want to be?
Is this what you want to be doing with your life?
3. When you look at your life as a result, you can see the SENTENCE CAUSING IT.
4. What are the results you have vs. the results you want?
5. Look at the effect of your sentences.

Here are some intentional, conscious Power Sentences to try on:

“I am enough as I am, no matter what.”
“I’m willing to figure out the things that are important to me.”
“I’m deserving of what I want in my life.”
“Everything happens FOR me to grow and learn.”
“I embrace all challenges.”
“I have value to contribute.”
“I am an extraordinary/amazing human being.”

What might these types of thoughts prove true in our lives?

Your turn: What are you discovering about your Power Sentences? What Power Sentences do you want to start practicing on purpose? What experiences do you want to create in your life to become even more of who you want to be?

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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.

Small Luxuries: Lessons in Joy from Auntie Myrna

June 20, 2024 ~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

I think one of the ways people leave an impact on each other is by what they teach each other, directly or indirectly.

For the past 7 years, I was a part-time home care provider for my elderly aunt, Myrna. I initially went over to her house three times a week to help with cooking, laundry, grocery shopping during the pandemic (and during her home hospice care), cleaning, including weekly things like vacuuming, dusting, cleaning the bathrooms, and miscellaneous things like removing spots from the carpet, vacuuming her car (including the trunk sometimes!), cleaning the induction stove, and wiping down the kitchen drawers and cabinets.

During her 8-month home hospice care, I was there four days a week to support her. She passed away on May 2, 2024 with her daughter by her side.

During the 7 years of supporting her, I learned through observation three little things from her, which I’d like to share with you today.

1. High standards of cleanliness
2. Not people-pleasing, but rather, telling the truth
3. Small luxuries

High standards of cleanliness

When I lived by myself in NYC, it was the first time I lived on my own without housemates. I only cleaned when I knew I was having guests over. After supporting Auntie Myrna with her various cleaning requests, I started to incorporate some of her standards into my own life. Now that I have my own place again, I clean it every other Sunday by dusting, vacuuming, and cleaning the kitchen and bathroom areas. It’s not weekly, like she would have, but for me it’s enough – and more than I used to do.

So now if people come over, my place is naturally clean, without me having to scramble to do a deep clean at the last minute. I’ve deemed this as a way to take care of myself, not just as another chore to do. I feel good navigating a clean space and I understand why that was important to Auntie Myrna too. There’s a sense of care, pride, self-respect, and well-being when your space is the way you want it to be.

Not people-pleasing, but rather, telling the truth

I think as women, many of us feel challenged with telling the truth. Instead, we sugar coat things or people-please. In my life coaching practice, I call people-pleasing LYING. Because when we’re people-pleasing, we’re usually lying to ourselves and others about what we SAY we want to do. We might say “yes” to something or someone when we really want to say “no”.

I noticed that Auntie Myrna had NO big qualms about telling the truth and not people-pleasing. And sometimes this could feel challenging, but she could also be relied upon for a straightforward.

As an example, sometimes when I went over to her place, she’d greet me with, “You look pale today.” Initially, I would feel a twinge of criticism, but then I would think to myself, “DO I look pale today? I wonder why?” And then I’d check in with myself and how I was feeling, as it might have been a sign that I could be taking better care of myself that day. I know her intention was to show care and concern about my health through that observation, by not keeping it to herself but speaking it out loud, and I felt seen. I also noticed that with her friends and other relatives, she was similarly forthright.

Small luxuries

Sometimes when I went over to her house, I’d see an empty milkshake cup or other empty treat container in the sink. I knew that day, Auntie Myrna had gone somewhere and treated herself to something sweet – and maybe a little decadent. She was lucky that she didn’t have to worry about her diet and what she ate those last few years. She let herself enjoy those types of treats, along with root beers, ginger beers, other fizzy drinks, a variety of fruit juices that she’d cycle through, and various ice cream flavors. She never went overboard – I think she knew “everything in moderation” but it was nice to see someone treating themselves to something.

So often in my life coaching practice, women don’t know how to give to themselves because they’re always giving to and doing for others and they forget themselves. Or if they remember to give to themselves, it comes with a feeling of guilt, like they’re doing something wrong or undeserved. But when we’re doing something in joy, there IS no room for guilt. Auntie Myrna didn’t forget herself in this respect – she knew when to allow a small luxury for herself. And it’s always refreshing for me to see women of a certain generation doing this for themselves. I hope more women at any age would.

One of the questions that I learned early on in my holistic life coaching certification program was to ask, “What brings me joy?” At first, and similar to other women that I’ve talked to, I didn’t know how to answer that question because I was too busy focusing on doing things for others, like many women are. Over time, I learned to answer that question for myself; the answers to that question became ways to show myself care. So seeing that Auntie Myrna also knew how to answer that question, “What brings me joy?” helped me reinforce that for myself.

I can see that Auntie Myrna did certain things because they brought her joy, not necessarily to contribute to someone else, but purely for herself. And sometimes, that’s what we need most – something only for ourselves.

So thank you, Auntie Myrna, for these little lessons, and thank you for your life.

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Equal air time

April 25, 2024 ~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

For the best-case.

Have you noticed that you think about worst-case scenarios more than you think about best-case scenarios?

This is partly due to our brains being wired to think this way, in order to survive. We want to be prepared for the worst. But why don’t we ever want to be prepared for the best?

Again, this is partly due to how our brains work – sometimes, we don’t want to be disappointed, so we avoid thinking about the best-case scenario to “protect” ourselves in case it doesn’t happen. OR, we think we’ll know how to handle the best-case scenario with ease, so we don’t worry about it much.

But we DON’T think we’ll be able to handle the worst-case scenario, so we dwell on it, worry about it, ruminate about it – to no end sometimes. Worrying pretends to be necessary. We think that if we worry enough, we’ll be prepared enough.

I want to offer that with any-case scenarios, we won’t know what will happen or how we’ll feel and act until we’re there.

What we CAN spend more time doing is giving the best-case scenario EQUAL AIR TIME.

Equal air time just means that if we’re going to think about what’s wrong, what’s bad, what’s lacking, what’s missing, what could go wrong, etc. then we choose on purpose to also think about what’s right, what’s good, what’s enough, what’s here right now, and what’s going right.

It may not be the best-case scenario, but it’s a better-case scenario when we can see what’s right about something instead of what’s wrong about something – especially when thinking about what’s wrong about something isn’t serving us. We can help ourselves experience more appreciation and gratitude in that space of thinking about what’s right about something.

And there’s less room for the story about “what’s wrong” to take up space when we’re focused on the story about “what’s right.” There’s always a 50/50 component to life – positive/negative. What we choose to focus on intentionally is up to us.

Your turn: If you find yourself thinking about “what’s wrong” often, are you willing to give equal air time to “what’s right”? What would be different for you if you started giving equal air time to “what could go right” versus “what could go wrong”?

I’d love to hear any insights you want to share!

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“I hate myself”

February 29, 2024 ~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

Stop it.

I’ve noticed that people tend to be more interested in other people’s self-loathing than in other people’s self-loving. I wonder why this is?

Is it because we’re so familiar with our self-loathing that we can relate more to hearing about other people’s self-loathing?

Is it because we don’t know how to love ourselves, so we judge others who seem to know how to?

Is it because we’re uncomfortable with loving ourselves, so we feel repelled when we see other people loving themselves?

Maybe. I used to feel frustrated when people said, “Just love yourself!” That seemed so far away, so aspirational, something I didn’t even know how to take a step forward to start.

What does “loving yourself” even mean? What does it look like?

It’s so interesting that hating ourselves seems so much easier than loving ourselves. We pick up all these messages from our culture and society that tell us why we shouldn’t feel good about ourselves the way we are. We need to be more this, less that, smarter, richer, skinnier, stronger, better.

We’re basically told NOT to love ourselves because we need to be “better than” we are before we can even consider loving ourselves.

And that’s just not true. We CAN love ourselves exactly where we are. It starts with being kinder to ourselves.

One of the most powerful things that helped me start being kinder to myself is this:

– Stand in front of a mirror
– Look yourself in the eyes
– Say “thank you” out loud to yourself

Start with once a day for a week and see what happens. It might feel uncomfortable and even unnatural at first, but keep going. This is for YOU.

You are saying “thank you” to yourself for being you, for doing all the hard things you’ve done, for showing up each day even when you don’t want to sometimes, for your body that supports your life, for your eyes that see the world, for your hands that do the work, for you who exists in the world. Exactly as you are. This YOU has done some impressive things. This YOU has learned some important lessons. Let’s celebrate this YOU by saying “thank you” in the mirror.

Keep saying “thank you” to yourself in the mirror at least once a day until it feels comfortable, until you can smile at yourself when you say it, until you feel the gratitude you’re giving to yourself.

When “thank you” starts to feel comfortable (maybe after a month or two, maybe more/less), move to “I love you.” THAT can certainly feel uncomfortable and unnatural at first. Keep going. Do it for a week and see what happens.

This is for YOU. Keep saying “I love you” to yourself in the mirror at least once a day until it feels comfortable, until you can smile at yourself when you say it, until you feel the love you’re giving to yourself.

You might start to find that you can say “I love you” to yourself in more ways than one. You might start feeling LOVE for YOURSELF.

Your turn: Are you willing to try the above activity until “thank you” feels comfortable? What about moving to “I love you”? And remember, our thoughts are optional, they’re choices. We can choose to stop thinking self-hating thoughts and choose to start thinking self-loving thoughts. I’d love to know what impact this has on you if you’d like to share!

Also, if you already practice this exercise, it’s just a reminder of how far you’ve come, how much you’ve done to love yourself, and how powerful this exercise is!

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Want more confidence?

February 22, 2024 ~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

Your thoughts about you.

How many of us want to have more self-confidence? There’s a difference between confidence and self-confidence.

Confidence comes from experience. If we’ve done something well before, when we do that thing again, we’ll likely have confidence that we can do it. The thought might be, “I’ve done this before and I can do it this time.”

Self-confidence comes from within. Even if we haven’t done something before, our thoughts about ourselves and our abilities can create self-confidence that we can figure something out. Or if we can’t figure it out, we’ll see it as a learning process, and we won’t beat ourselves up for that.

Self-confidence comes from having our own back and what we’ll tell ourselves when something doesn’t go the way we thought it would. The thought might be, “I tried my best, I learned what didn’t work, and I’ll try it again to see what might work differently. I know I can figure it out.”

Confidence and self-confidence are feelings. Our thoughts create our feelings. So if we want to feel confident and self-confident, we’ll need to think thoughts that create those feelings.

Many of us struggle with self-confidence because we’re used to telling ourselves mean and critical things when we think we’ve “messed up” somehow. Thoughts like:

“I’m just not good enough for this.”
“There must be something wrong with me.”
“Nothing ever goes the way I want it to, so why keep trying?”
“This is too hard for me.”
“They think I’m incapable.”

Those thoughts will create a feeling of disappointment, self-doubt, discouragement, or defeat. Are those feelings close to the confidence or self-confidence we want to feel? No. So let’s try different thoughts. Thoughts like:

“I’m figuring this out and I can keep trying.”
“I’m learning what works and what doesn’t.”
“It didn’t go the way I wanted it to this time, but let’s see if this other way works . . .”
“This is hard and I can do hard things.”
“I’m as capable as I need to be.”
“I’m deciding to believe in myself no matter what.”

When we become aware of the thoughts we think about ourselves, we can choose them on purpose. We can choose thoughts that serve us, that are kinder to ourselves than the ones we might be used to thinking.

Your turn: Are you aware of the thoughts you think about yourself? What thoughts about yourself serve you? Which ones don’t? What are some slightly kinder thoughts you could choose instead? What are some much kinder–and still believable thoughts–you can choose instead?

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When you think “I’m a bad person”

February 8, 2024 ~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

You’re 50/50.

The other day I felt guilty about doing something unhelpful for someone else. I could’ve helped out by making a task a little easier for someone I care about, but instead, I just sat there and let him do it all himself. I usually help out by moving the bedroom trash can closer to the door when he comes to gather the weekly trash to put outside.

But this time, I was working on something and just sat at my desk and let him walk into the room, over my bags on the floor, to the trash can, and empty it. I just didn’t feel like getting up myself to help with it. And afterwards, I felt guilty because I thought, “I should’ve just done it and helped him. I’m such a bad person.”

The truth is, just like our lives are 50/50, we are 50/50 people. We have various parts to us that make up our whole selves. We’re both good AND bad sometimes. We’re both helpful AND unhelpful sometimes. We’re both brave AND scared sometimes. We’re both strong AND weak sometimes. Maybe it’s more like 80/20 – and we get to acknowledge that the 20% is still part of us too. The 50/50 is a conglomeration of all those parts that act out in 50/50 ways.

I’ve been reading about our shadow sides in The Relationship Handbook. Our shadow sides are disowned parts of ourselves that we can actually learn and benefit from. “Our well-being depends on our being whole and having access to all of who we are.”

I still cringe a little for not helping out when I think, “Why didn’t I just get up and do it?” I feel a need to make up for it. But the truth is, last week I took out and brought in the bins because he was traveling and wasn’t here to do it and I offered to. The truth is, every week if I’m in the bedroom, I get up and move my trash can closer to the door. This was ONE week when I didn’t do that and I’m beating myself up for it. Next week, I can choose differently. And this week, I can find another way to be helpful, if I want to, to make up for it if I still feel the need to.

We do this sometimes – or a lot – we let ONE thing dictate how we think about ourselves – usually in a bad way.

It’s important to be aware of the times when we act out of alignment from who we want to be. We can use that information to make different choices in the future. And it’s also important to see how we might have been choosing to take care of ourselves by NOT doing something we might usually do.

We can beat ourselves up about it, if we want to. Or we can remember that we are 50/50 people and we can choose differently next time. Even though I didn’t move my trash can closer to the door this time, I’m still a good person, I’m still a helpful person. And maybe this time, I was choosing to take care of myself because I was working on something important and wanted to keep my momentum going.

Your turn: Are you open to accepting yourself as a 50/50 person? In certain situations, can you see how you might be choosing to take care of YOU through your actions/inactions? What happens when you think, “I’m a bad person”? What happens when you think, “I’m choosing to take care of myself in this situation”?

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“I don’t got this”

January 25, 2024 ~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

And that’s OK.

How many of us have said to others or have had it said to us, “You got this!”? Or how many times have we said to ourselves, “I got this!”?

Sometimes that phrase can be an energizing, motivating way to support someone else or ourselves. Sometimes we need to hear it to get a nudge of confidence or determination to do something hard.

And sometimes, the most supportive thing we can tell ourselves is the truth, “I DON’T got this.”

It might be a hard truth to hear for some of us who are used to figuring it out no matter what or pushing through it all the time.

But try it out. Let it sink in. “I don’t got this.”

How does it feel to say that? Maybe to admit that?

Maybe it doesn’t feel realistic. Maybe it doesn’t feel supportive. Maybe it feels icky. Why?

Or maybe it feels like relief. Maybe it feels like a revelation. Maybe it feels responsible.

When we can allow ourselves to think or say, “I don’t got this,” we are allowing ourselves to tell the truth in some aspect of our lives that might feel daunting or overwhelming. Sometimes our lives can feel that way because we are human beings living in a world that we mostly can’t control.

If we can admit to ourselves, “I don’t got this,” a helpful next thing to ask is, “What do I need?”

Our brains like to find answers, so asking “What do I need?” gives our brain a job to do. The answer might be:

“Let it be for now” or
“I think I need to talk to someone” or
“I think I need to ask John for help” or
“I think I need to ask Susie for help too” or
“I think I need to slow down” or
“I think I need to cry it out”

Or whatever the answer might be, listen and allow.

It doesn’t mean we give up and we’ll never “got this” again. It means right now, we need some extra support – either from ourselves or from others who we trust to help or support us in a way that works for all involved.

Your turn: Where in your life do you “don’t got this”? Are you willing to admit that to yourself and have it be OK for now? Are you open to seeing what you need to move forward? How would you like to support yourself in this?

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“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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