Tag: self-care coaching

When you’re disappointed

~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

Don’t give up.

When we’re focused on moving towards our goals, we can feel deeply disappointed when something doesn’t turn out the way we thought it would or wanted it to. 

We feel disappointed when we don’t get the job we really want.

We feel disappointed when we don’t see the weight on the scale go down fast enough. 

We feel disappointed when the offer we put on the house we wanted gets outbid.

We feel disappointed when a project proposal we put hours into gets rejected.

We feel disappointed when someone doesn’t show up for us the way we hoped they would.

We feel disappointed when a relationship we’re feeling good about doesn’t move forward.

It’s easy to want to give up and think we’ll never have what we want when outcomes don’t happen the way we want and we feel disappointed by them.

But we don’t feel disappointed because of the outcome. We feel disappointed because of what we’re thinking about the outcome and what we make it mean about ourselves or about our lives.

Usually the thoughts have something to do with us not being good enough or that we’re doing something wrong or that we’ll never get it right.

But what if what we need is a nudge in a direction that we haven’t yet considered? What if the outcome we received means that there is something even better and more aligned with us waiting out there? 

What if the outcome we get helps us see more clearly something we need to learn or do differently for ourselves? What if it’s a way for us to give ourselves more grace, compassion, and to become even more of who we’re meant to be?

If the Universe (or God or whatever Higher Power you believe in) has our back no matter what, then this outcome is happening FOR us. 

It can be challenging to see that in the moments of deep disappointment, but once we’re able to be with, acknowledge, and process the disappointment and have it move through and out of us, we can have more clarity in thinking about the outcome we received. What are we learning from this experience? 

The Universe gives us what we need to grow and evolve–which is not always what we think we want. And, my friends, this is a good thing. Are you open to seeing it that way?

Your turn: Are you open to allowing yourself to feel and process disappointment when an outcome doesn’t turn out the way you wanted? If you can dive deeper, what else are you making the outcome mean? When you’ve processed the emotions, remember to ask, “How is this happening FOR me?” And are you willing to keep going?

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

What does self-love have to do with it?

~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

Everything.

I recently made a painful and difficult decision in my life because I chose to love myself enough and to want more for myself. 

It can be easy to think that when we love ourselves, making a decision out of love is also easy. 

I want to offer that making decisions out of love for ourselves can sometimes be extremely difficult and painful. But we’re willing to make the decision because we know the current situation we’re in is not serving us or moving us forward in an aligned way. 

We might be stuck and suffering, and even though we are, it can still feel scary to make a decision to change. But we are not being loving to ourselves by choosing to stay stuck or in suffering.

We have to love ourselves enough to become aware of the cost of the situation we’re in. What is the cost to our well-being? What other options are we not considering? How much time and energy is this situation extracting from us? What else could we be creating in our lives with this time and energy if we redirected it? 

And how do we get to that place of love for ourselves where we feel strong enough to make a difficult decision? 

In small ways each day, we can become familiar with what it feels like to love ourselves even more. 

When we practice in small ways each day to care for ourselves, support ourselves, and be kind to ourselves, our lives can change. 

“When you’re at peace with yourself and love yourself, it is virtually impossible to do things to yourself that are destructive.” ― Wayne Dyer

When we love ourselves more we:

  • Make different and more affirming decisions in our life
  • Take better care of ourselves
  • Set healthy boundaries
  • Believe in what’s possible for us
  • Move from past-based beliefs into future-based beliefs
  • Know that we’re worth it and worthy
  • Commit to ourselves and what we say we’ll do
  • Advocate for ourselves
  • Trust ourselves more
  • Are more patient with ourselves and our results/outcomes/goals
  • Move into alignment with our decisions/choices

“Self-love does not come from writing a book, or from making a million dollars, or from buying a new house. Self-esteem comes from the little loving choices we make every day—the choices we make that tell us, ‘You are important. You are a good person. You deserve to take care of yourself. You matter.’” – Debbie Ford, The Right Questions

Your turn: In what small, daily ways do you want to practice caring for yourself? In what small, daily ways do you want to practice supporting yourself? In what small, daily ways do you want to practice being kind to yourself? What does it feel like to become familiar with loving yourself even more? 

Want help finding small, daily ways to express care, support, and kindness to yourself? Let’s explore.

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

Transforming your relationship manuals

~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

Your power is with you. Part 2.

Last week we looked at the manuals we have for others and why we have them. 

We create manuals, or sets of instructions, for the people in our life about how they’re supposed to behave, so we can feel good. 

We then base how we feel about others on whether they follow our manuals or not. We also make it mean they care or don’t care about us based on our manuals for them.

When we place the responsibility of feeling good on other people, we give all our power away to those people. 

In reality, each of us is responsible for meeting our own needs. When we’re in a relationship where we feel responsible for fulfilling someone else’s needs and they feel responsible for fulfilling ours, there’s constant manipulation and effort to control one another so that in the end, nobody wins. 

We can’t control another person, and there’s nothing they could possibly do that would make us as happy as we want to be. All of the power to feel happy lies within us.

So transforming our relationship manuals is about deciding who we want to be and taking all of our power back so that we can show up in the way that we like and feel good about ourselves. Then we get to decide how we want to be or act from that place, in any circumstance.

This doesn’t mean that we stay in relationships that are harmful or not serving us well. We need to do what’s necessary to protect ourselves. Although boundaries and requests are appropriate, trying to control and manipulate other people never works. Instead, it can make us feel and even act like a crazy person.

Of course, we can make all the requests we want from other people, but when we allow our

emotional happiness to depend on whether those requests are met, we’re setting ourselves up for trouble. This looks like trying to manipulate people to behave in the way we want so we can feel better.

This creates a spiral of negativity, and this can happen when we are attached to our manuals for others.

Instead, we can become familiar with and practice the following:

  1. Allow ourselves to feel all of it. This means being willing to feel all the emotions, like the emotions we’re trying to avoid by wanting someone to behave in a specific way.
  2. Decide who we want to be. When we’re trying to control someone else, we’re usually not being versions of ourselves that we’re proud of.
  3. Decide what we want the other person’s actions to mean. We don’t have to take it personally.

Here’s an example if I have the manual instruction: “My friend should always remember my birthday.” 

If my friend forgets my birthday, I can allow myself to feel sad and disappointed about that. I have the manual instruction because I want to avoid feeling sad and disappointed, since those are uncomfortable feelings, but I allow myself to feel those feelings anyway. 

Then I can decide who I want to be in the relationship. I can decide that I want to be an understanding friend and give my friend grace, even if they forgot my birthday. I can still want to be friends with them. 

Then I can decide what I want my friend’s action to mean. I can decide to not take it personally and not make it mean anything about me. My friend’s action is about them. Maybe their life is very full and they didn’t do it on purpose; they are still a good friend even if they forgot my birthday.

We get to decide what we’re going to do with our time, how we’re going to respond, and when we want to make changes in our life. We’ll want to make sure we’re thinking about those changes and what we want based on what we do have control over. Our power stays with us.

Your turn: Do you recognize why you have manual instructions for other people? What feelings are you trying to avoid feeling by having these manual instructions? What would happen if you allowed yourself to be open to feeling all the emotions? How might your relationships be different if you stopped trying to get someone to behave in a specific way so that you can feel good?

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

Your “manuals” for other people

~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

Yes, you have them. Part 1.

When we have assumptions or expectations about what people are supposed to do, we have “manuals” for them. 

We want people to behave in ways that make us feel good and happy. We usually don’t tell the other people what’s in our manual for them. And we usually don’t even realize we have these manuals or see how they’re causing us pain. 

We think that the other people should just “know” what to do and how to treat us. It can seem justified to have expectations of other people, but it can be damaging to us when our emotional happiness is directly tied to them behaving a certain way.

Many of us have manuals that come from the belief that we would be happier if someone in our lives would change. This is a huge cause of suffering because we’re handing over the power of how we feel to someone else.

Other people’s behavior has no impact on us emotionally until we think about it, interpret it, and choose to make it mean something. No matter what people do, how they act, or what they say, we don’t have to give others the power to determine how we feel.

Some common manual instructions might look like this: 

• He should text me back within an hour after I text him.

• She should listen to me for as long as I listened to her.

• He should spend less time at work.

• She should remember my birthday.

• He should know what I like.

• She should invite me when she has a party.

• He shouldn’t watch so much football.

• She should write me a thank you note.

• He should buy me something special on my birthday.

• She should support me.

• He should be emotionally available.

• She should ask me to be a bridesmaid, godmother, etc.

• He should tell me he loves me.

If there’s a “should” in there, it’s likely a manual instruction. These are simple and brief examples, but most manuals are pages and pages long. They’re complicated, detailed, and intricate. 

Rather than sharing these expectations with the person they’re about, those of us with manuals generally think the other person should just inherently know. We then want to make it mean that we are really loved by this person. And if they don’t do what’s in our manuals, then what do we feel?

Does it make sense why manuals can create pain for us? So what are we supposed to do instead? More on this next week.

Your turn: If you’re open to the idea that you have manuals for other people, what are the instructions you have for them? Would you be open to sharing the instructions as requests for the other person? If not, are you willing to see how these instructions might be causing you pain? Can you become aware of when you’re experiencing manual instructions for both yourself and for others?

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

Your boundaries with yourself

~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

Commit to build trust.

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

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 shows (Netflix, Hulu, Prime, HBO Max, etc.)

Boundary around how much sugar we eat

Boundary around how much caffeine or alcohol we drink

Boundary around how much inactive time we have – which means adding more active time

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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Work with me: Want to create a more meaningful life in which you start committing to yourself and get to 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.

Telling the truth by saying “no”

~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

So that “yes” actually means “yes.”

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.)

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–by 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 tell the truth and 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’s” will also be telling the truth. 

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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Work with me: Want to create a more meaningful life in which you start committing to yourself and get to 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.

Why are you being so mean (to yourself)?

~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

We can be so judgy.

Do you notice the thoughts you tell yourself? Especially when things don’t go the way you want them to? In a situation with your friend, where things don’t turn out the way they wanted, you’d likely be supportive. You might say, “There’s something better out there for you,” or “You’re so great, you’ll find another opportunity in no time,” or “You learned a lot from this to take to the next experience,” or “I’m so sorry you’re disappointed. How can I support you?”

In these situations with yourself when things don’t turn out the way you want, what are the words you say to yourself? What do you make that situation mean about you?

It can be easy to beat ourselves up after a perceived failure. Instead of focusing on the facts of what happened or what we learned from the experience, we tend to make what happened mean something about ourselves. This can look like thinking to yourself, “I knew I wasn’t good enough,” or “What’s wrong with me? There’s got to be something wrong with me,” or “I’ll never get it right–I’m such a failure,” or “I shouldn’t be feeling like this. Get over it!”

The words we say to ourselves can be pretty mean. So not only have we “failed” at the thing we wanted, we then proceed to beat ourselves up for it–and feel even worse. And we’re likely the only ones telling ourselves these mean things and making ourselves feel terrible about it.

Then we start to hide, play it safe, and protect ourselves from “failing” again. So we don’t even attempt to go after what we want. But we’re only trying to avoid the words we say to ourselves, which create feelings of defeat, disappointment, hurt, and shame.

If we think we’re trying to avoid the judgment of others, in reality, we can’t control what they think about us. Even if we “succeeded” at something, there are still some people who will judge us for succeeding as much as they might judge us for failing. (And are you sure you want those people in your life?)

So if we’re not really avoiding the judgment of others, whose judgment are we trying to avoid? It could be the mean thoughts we’re used to telling ourselves.

Once we’re aware of what we say to ourselves, we have the power to change what we say and choose to be kinder to ourselves.

Your turn: What if there’s no such thing as failing, only winning or learning? How would you talk to yourself then? What thoughts about yourself could you have that are a little kinder? What if you talked to yourself and supported yourself the way you’d support a friend or even a kid-version of yourself who’s learning something new? What would you say to yourself then? And how would your relationship with yourself change?

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Work with me: Want to create a more meaningful life in which you get to show up the way you want, be fully present, and engage purposefully? I can show you how. I offer first-time seekers a complimentary 60-minute exploratory session. Sign up here.

What if you started your day differently?

~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

You’re in charge.

Do you look at your phone and check email the minute you wake up?

I did this when I worked in private equity. Every morning, my alarm would go off and since it was on my phone, I turned it off and had my phone in my hand. So naturally, I’d immediately check my emails to see what my day might look like.

It seems like a productive thing to do, right? To “prepare for your day.”

I want to offer that when you do this, your day might appear to “come at” you.

All the requests from other people and all the time you need to spend on emailing others for info, looking for info, and creating responses once you have the info. Along with the other meetings and projects you had planned to do that day. It might be overwhelming. Starting your day immediately feeling overwhelmed likely doesn’t contribute to productivity in a way that serves you.

What would happen if you didn’t look at your phone and check emails the minute you wake up?

I’ve talked to clients who said they feel anxious just thinking about not checking email first thing.

What if instead, you have an alarm that’s separate from your phone? And what if you took five minutes after waking up to start your day in a way that you want.

This could look like intentional breathing, a short meditation, or some gentle movement and stretches for your body.

It could look like lying in bed and recalling a dream you had or just savoring those five minutes for yourself.

It could look like writing down your thoughts or drinking a glass of water to rehydrate your body and feeling it flow through your system.

It could look any way you want it to look. This creates space for you to step into your day the way you want to. Instead of having your day come at you.

Your turn: How would your days change if you stepped into them the way you want to? What would happen if you start by exploring with five minutes to yourself at the start of your day, without your phone? And what if you could stretch that to 10 minutes? What about 20 or 30 minutes?

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You: Empowering and Disempowering Questions 

~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

When we ask ourselves questions, our brains love to go to work to find the answers. When we ask ourselves disempowering questions, our brain will likely find disempowering answers. When we ask ourselves more empowering, curious, open questions, our brains will likely find options that feel more empowering or productive. 

What are three disempowering questions that you find yourself asking?

What are some more empowering questions you could ask yourself?

Below are some examples of disempowering (sound familiar?) and empowering questions:

Disempowering

Why do I keep doing this?

Why did I have to make that mistake?

Why isn’t he calling me back?

Why is this so hard?

Why can’t I get it right?

What’s wrong with me?

Why am I so messed up?

Empowering

How is this working for me?

What if this was all happening perfectly?

What if it’s okay that this is hard?

What would this look like if it was easy?

What am I learning from this?

How do I want to show up in this situation?

What’s right with me?

Who do I want to be?

Let me know if you’ve been asking yourself disempowering questions and are struggling to find more empowering questions to ask instead. We’ll work it out together! I offer first-time seekers a complimentary 45-minute exploratory session. Sign up here.

Disempowering questions and thoughts can contribute to 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 disempowering thoughts and beliefs through therapy and life coaching. And I’ve been doing the work to feel empowered 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.

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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.