Is it a problem?

February 13, 2025 ~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

It doesn’t have to be.

Our brains are wired to spot danger—it’s how we’ve survived for thousands of years. But sometimes, that instinct works too well. We turn neutral situations into problems, even when no real threat exists.

Something only becomes a problem when we decide it is.

And once we do? We start overanalyzing, “fixing,” and stressing—making it feel even more like a problem.

Take trouble sleeping. Is it actually a problem? Not until we tell ourselves it is. We lie there thinking:
🛑 Ugh, I have to wake up early.
🛑 If I don’t fall asleep soon, tomorrow will be ruined.
🛑 Why does this always happen to me?

That frustration creates tension, making sleep even harder. But what if we thought:
💭 I’ll fall asleep when I do. My body will get what it needs.

Less stress. Less pressure. More ease.

We can ask this same question in so many areas of life:

What if feeling sad about this outcome isn’t a problem?
What if waking up in the middle of the night isn’t a problem?
What if what that person said isn’t a problem?
What if the number on the scale isn’t a problem?
What if missing him isn’t a problem?
What if her anxiety isn’t a problem?

This isn’t to say that nothing should be a problem. This is to remind us that HOW we are thinking about something can make it seem like a problem. WE are creating the problem with our THINKING.

We can remember that all of our thoughts are choices. And we can choose our thoughts on purpose.

When we stop labeling things as “problems,” we create space for acceptance. And paradoxically, that’s what makes real change possible.

Because if the number on the scale isn’t a problem, maybe we’d actually make healthier choices from a place of self-care instead of self-criticism.
If waking up at night isn’t a problem, maybe we’d relax enough to fall back asleep.
If missing him isn’t a problem, we’d allow the feeling without letting it hold us back.

So, what if it’s not a problem? What if there’s nothing to fix?

Your turn: What have you been making a problem? What if it’s not? What would you think instead? What would you do instead?

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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.

Why you aren’t taking action

February 6, 2025 ~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

It’s about feelings.

Everything we do is because we want to feel a certain way. Every goal we chase, every decision we make—it’s all about the feeling we think we’ll get (or avoid).

Remember: Our feelings don’t come from our circumstances. They come from our thoughts about those circumstances.

And since our feelings drive our actions—and our actions create our results—our thoughts are shaping everything in our lives.

Do you want different results? Then you need to think different thoughts.

For example:

🚫 You decline a big opportunity, not because you can’t do it, but because you fear failure and want to avoid feeling dejected. The current thought might be, “I’m not sure I’m up to the task.” A different thought that creates a new feeling could be, “I’m willing to see what I’m made of.”

🤐 You don’t share your opinion in a meeting, not because it’s not valuable, but because you feel nervous, thinking, I don’t want to look stupid. A different thought could be, “It’s important for them to hear various perspectives.” And that creates a different feeling, like determination.

💔 You disconnect from your partner, not because you want distance, but because you feel hurt, thinking, They should want to spend more time with me. A different thought could be, “I want them to know how I really feel about this, even if it’s hard.”

See the pattern? Our thoughts fuel our feelings, our feelings drive our actions, and our actions create our results—sometimes, if we’re not careful, our thoughts can create the exact opposite of what we truly want.

So if you don’t like your results, start with your thoughts.

Your turn: What feelings are fueling your actions? What actions are those feelings driving? And are they creating the results you actually want?

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Regulating yourself

January 9, 2025 ~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

Self-care starts in your mind.

From my clients, I’ve surmised that many of us wonder why self-care feels so hard to engage in sometimes. We know WHAT to do—eat well, rest, move our body, take time for ourselves—but life seems to keep getting in the way.

When our nervous system is in “survival mode” (fight, flight, or freeze), it’s very challenging to prioritize ourselves. Chronic stress keeps our brain and body in overdrive, making even small acts of care feel overwhelming. When we feel stuck in a cycle of stress, overwhelm, or self-doubt, self-care feels hard to prioritize.

Our nervous system responds not just to external stressors but also to our thoughts. Fearful, negative, or chaotic thinking can keep us in “fight or flight” mode, making it hard to focus, relax, or care for ourselves.

The good news? We can calm our nervous system with our thoughts.

Here are two things to recognize and try:

Negative Thoughts Are Optional:

When we notice a stressful thought, we can ask, “What’s another way to think about this?”
Example: Instead of “I’m failing at self-care,” we can choose to think “I’m learning what works for me, one step at a time.”

Affirmations Change Our Perspective:

We can choose to think affirming phrases like “I am safe,” “I can handle this,” or “I can figure this out.”
Say them out loud, write them down, or repeat them in your mind throughout the day.

When we can consciously shift our thinking, we signal to our brain that we’re safe. This activates the parasympathetic nervous system, the part of our body responsible for rest, digestion, and recovery.

A large part of self-care is knowing how to regulate our nervous system. And then, with a regulated nervous system, we are more ready to show up for ourselves so that self-care becomes something we WANT to do, not something we “should” do.

Your turn: How can you be more intentional with your thoughts today? In what other ways do you naturally calm your own nervous system? Are you open to seeing how a regulated nervous system supports you in living your life differently? I’d love to hear any insights you have.

I talk more about how to be intentional with your thoughts in my program Tools to Change Your Life. Check it out here!

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When you believe new things

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

Possibility drop.

I talked about today’s topic in my most recent podcast episode as well – “Episode 9: Change Your Beliefs, Change Your Life.” You can check it out here: Apple Podcast, Spotify, YouTube.

Do you know that we can create new outcomes in our lives with the thoughts that we think? It may seem more complex than that, but really, all new things come from ideas, which are thoughts.

And we know from our coaching model that our thoughts are what create our feelings. Our feelings are powerful drivers of our actions. And our actions create the results we get in our lives.

When we want to create something in our lives, sometimes we need to have new beliefs about what’s possible. Beliefs are just thoughts that we’ve thought over and over again and now we believe they are true.

Some beliefs are very useful to us. And some beliefs create limits within us and prevent us from doing things.

Some limiting beliefs might be:

I’m not good enough.
I just don’t have the confidence.
I’m not talented enough.
I could never do that.
People don’t understand me.
All the good ones are taken.
I won’t ever be successful.
I hate my body.

It’s important to see that what we might think of as OBSERVATIONS about ourselves are actually BELIEFS about ourselves. If they’re limiting beliefs, these things don’t need to be true about us.

Once we’re aware of limiting beliefs we hold, we might feel the need to change them right away to their exact opposites—things that we DO want to believe.

But if we take too big of a leap, we’ll have a thought that we don’t yet believe. And that thought won’t help us because we don’t believe it yet, no matter how many times we may repeat it during the day.

So how do we get to the new belief we want to have that seems so far from our current belief? We practice thoughts that bridge us or ladder us to the next level of thinking.

As an example, let’s take the starting thought “I hate my body.”

The goal thought might be “I love my body.” But it’s hard to jump from hate to love right away.

Here are some potential ladder thoughts from the starting thought of “I hate my body” to the goal thought “I love my body”

(Note: this list is in the opposite direction of a ladder for visual purposes. See the accompanying image for what a thought ladder looks like visually. You can download your blank worksheet copy here! Use the password: AYHLC):

Starting thought: I hate my body.
I have a body.
There are other people with bodies like mine.
Other people with bodies like mine seem to like their bodies.
It’s possible that I could like my body.
My body has the potential to change and be healthier.
I am living my life because of my body.
My body allows me to do things I enjoy.
I am learning to enjoy being in my body.
I am learning to love my body.
Goal thought: I love my body.

We may need to practice each ladder thought for a couple days, a week, two weeks, etc. before moving on to the next one. Until we truly believe the thought we are practicing, it’s important to stay with it before moving on to the next one.

Our thoughts are powerful. We can learn to create beliefs that empower us instead of disempower us.

Your turn: What are some of the limiting thoughts/beliefs you hold? What are some goal thoughts/beliefs that you’d like to have instead? Explore and practice some ladder thoughts that can help you get to your goal thoughts.
Need help exploring some ladder thoughts? Sign up for an exploratory session here.

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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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You’re in charge

April 11, 2024 ~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

Of your thoughts and feelings.

It’s easy to think that external circumstances, like other people, things, outcomes, and events, cause us to feel a certain way.

The traffic

The weather.

What someone said to us.

The number on the scale.

The number in our bank account.

These are all facts, things that are circumstances. And they’re NEUTRAL, until we apply a thought to them.

So what really causes us to feel a certain way is how we think about those external circumstances. And this is how we can get in our own way, or get out of our own way.

Do you know why circumstances don’t cause our feelings? Because two different people could experience the exact same circumstance, but depending on how each of them thinks about the circumstance, their thoughts will create their feelings. So it’s not the circumstance. It’s our thoughts.

For example, one person gets cut off while driving. She could immediately get angry and vengeful and try to cut that other person off because she’s thinking, “This person is a jerk! How dare he do that to me. I’ll show him!” And sometimes this anger can start a spiral of negative thoughts and emotions for the rest of the day. She got in her own way and ruined her day.

Another person who gets cut off while driving could feel some annoyance but then get over it easily because he’s thinking, “Yikes! I know how it feels to be in a rush like that. I’ve done that type of thing before without meaning to.” Some initial annoyance, but pretty quickly letting it go and not letting it ruin his day.

Same circumstance, but different thoughts, which create different feelings – and ultimately, different results.

When we let other people have so much control over our feelings, we’re giving our power away to them. We’re saying, “How you’re behaving/what you’re saying/what’s happening ‘out there’ is determining how I feel, so I have no control over my feelings.”

But we DO have control. That control is in our thoughts. Our thoughts are where our power lies.

Most of the time, we make other people’s words and actions mean something about us and we think we have to protect ourselves from something, protect our egos.

For example, when a colleague offers another way of doing something than what we suggested, we might get defensive because we might think, “She doesn’t respect my opinion.” Then we may feel angry and defensive because we made it mean something about ourselves – usually something related to “I’m not good enough.” Then we proceed to act in a certain way that deteriorates our relationship with that colleague. We got in our own way and affected our relationship with our colleague.

What if instead we thought, “She could be offering a more efficient way to do it. Let’s see if it can work”? That thought will create a totally different feeling. We didn’t make our colleague’s words/actions mean anything about ourselves. We didn’t take it personally or need to defend ourselves. This other thought might create the feeling of “curiosity” or “openness,” which leads us to collaborate with that colleague in a cooperative way.

Two different outcomes because of two different thoughts – but the circumstance was the same.

When we take responsibility for our feelings, we stop giving our power away to other people and situations. We stop getting in our own way. We are in charge of how we think and feel.

Your turn: What are you making someone’s words or actions mean about yourself? What if their words or actions don’t have to mean anything about you? Are you open to becoming more aware of the thoughts you’re thinking and how they’re creating your feelings? What are the three most frequent emotions you feel during a typical day? What are the thoughts creating those emotions?

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More self-confidence?

June 22, 2023 ~ 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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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 does worrying do?

June 8, 2023June 8, 2023 ~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

It’s exhausting.

For most of us, worrying seems necessary. But what is it that we’re doing when we worry?

When we’re worrying, we’re making up a story about what could happen–usually the worst-case scenario–and then thinking as if it’s already happened.

What do we create for ourselves when we do that? We use a lot of mental and psychic energy focusing our minds on something that might happen and that will unlikely happen. And it’s exhausting.

When we think we’re protecting ourselves from a possible outcome that hasn’t happened yet, we’re hurting ourselves ahead of time. We’re already feeling all the emotions and thinking all the thoughts we might feel if this outcome happened. So we’re going through it as if it’s already happened, when it hasn’t yet or maybe never will.

Worrying is just a bunch of thoughts that we’re thinking. And likely the same thoughts repeating over and over again.

So what are the facts? A fact may be that an event is coming up on June 14th where you’re speaking in front of people. A fact may be that your son is going to a party with his friends this weekend. A fact may be that you’re traveling to Florida on June 25th. A fact may be that someone you care about hasn’t called you back for two days. A fact may be that you just got a mammogram done today and you’re waiting for results.

Everything else in your mind is just thoughts that you’re thinking about the facts.

We may think that worrying about something may “prepare” us for what could happen. But what if the worst-case scenario does happen? Will worrying about it make it any less devastating in the moment when it happens? No. Likely we will feel all the painful feelings that come up.

Worrying about it in advance only drains your energy ahead of time and doesn’t necessarily “prepare” or “protect” you from worst-case scenarios.

Your turn: What’s the upside of worrying? Instead of worrying, is it possible to keep your thoughts focused on the facts? What could happen instead if you keep your thoughts neutral or focused on the best possible outcome instead of the worst case?

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Why are you doing that?

December 8, 2022 ~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

Our feelings fuel us.

Everything we do in our life is because we want to feel a certain way. Everything we want in our life is because of a feeling—the feeling that we think we’ll have when we get it or the feeling we think we’ll avoid in not getting it. This is really good to know.

And if we know that our feelings are caused by our thoughts and that what we do in our life is in order to feel better, wouldn’t it be important to know what kind of thoughts we’re thinking?

Circumstances are the facts that happen in our lives and which we usually don’t have control over. How we think about those circumstances creates our feelings. It’s not the circumstances that create our feelings.

Our feelings are also important because they drive all of our actions. Feelings are the fuel for our actions. So when someone asks me, “Why am I not taking action?” It’s because of the way they feel. Or if they’re taking an action they don’t want to be taking, it’s because of the way they feel.

So our feelings are driving our actions. And then our actions are always going to create the results we get—sometimes they’re results we want, and sometimes they’re results we don’t want in our life.

Our actions create our results.

Our actions stem from our feelings. And our feelings come from our thoughts.

So if we want different results, ultimately, we need to think different thoughts.

Sometimes the reason why we don’t take a certain action is to avoid a feeling we think will happen after taking that action. This can look like declining a big opportunity because we’re feeling doubt and thinking something along the lines of, “I might fail and I don’t want to feel the dejection of failure.”

Other times, we feel a certain way and because we feel that way, we either take or don’t take action. This can look like feeling nervous because we’re thinking, “I don’t want to look stupid in front of everyone,” so we don’t offer our opinion in a meeting. Or we feel hurt because we’re thinking, “He should want to spend more time with me,” which causes us to disconnect from our partner, which is an action that doesn’t serve us or our relationships-–it’s actually the opposite of what we want here, which is connection.

When we have results in our lives that we don’t want, it’s good to be aware that it’s our actions that are creating them. And where do our actions come from? The way we’re feeling. And where does the way we’re feeling come from? The way we’re thinking about our circumstances.

To create different results, we need to think different thoughts.

Your turn: Are you open to bringing more awareness to what feelings are fueling your actions? What are the feelings that might be fueling your actions? What actions are you taking when you experience those feelings? And what results are your actions creating for you? Do you like the results you’re getting?

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“Will I ever be good enough?”

December 1, 2022 ~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

Your Power Sentences.

How we think about ourselves and our lives contributes to how we take care of ourselves (or don’t).

We have sentences in our minds that run our life. Mostly 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 are 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’ll never 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 unintentional, unconscious thoughts and beliefs.

We must 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 to find your Power Sentence(s):

Who are you? What are you doing with your life? (Answer with one sentence only.)
Are you doing it consciously?

Is this who you want to be?

Is this what you want to be doing with your life?

When you look at your life as a result, you can see the SENTENCE CAUSING IT.
What are the results you have vs. the results you want?
Look at the effect of your sentences.

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

“I am always enough as I am.”
“I’m willing to figure out the things that are important to me.”
“I’m the creator 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 do you want to create in your life to become the version of you that you know you can be?

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