March 6, 2013

How to Make It Through March

In 2012, I made it through this dreariest Ontario month with a healthy, happy glow thanks to a little experiment I undertook. One year later, I’m looking back at March 2012 to remind myself how to survive the end of winter. Here’s how I wrote about it then.

It started small.

First, I thought, “I want to spend more time focusing on taking care of myself.”

That led to my roping the love-of-my-life in on a commitment to buying and eating more fruits and vegetables and whole grains and beans and lentils, and less sugar, flour, and animal products.

“This feels good,” I thought. “Maybe I’ll make this whole month about doing things to take care of me!”

Next thing I knew, I’d stopped drinking coffee.

Then I splurged on an apartment-size mini-trampoline (if you call $45 a “splurge”, that is) because how could I possibly be miserable and/or dislike myself while jumping up and down on a trampoline? (It’s really the best thing anytime I have a mental block… I just go jump on the trampoline 100 times and by the time I’ve done that, my perspective has shifted or else I’ve come to a decision).

One of my teachers encouraged me to buy myself a little something to celebrate some of my recent business successes, so then I went and bought this darling little silver ring. And some of the Mistresses in my MistressMind group (because “Mastermind” group doesn’t quite capture our sexy, dominatrix-y, determined business minds) told me that with the next round of business successes, I ought to go buy myself the meditation cushion I’ve been wishing for. I’m sitting on it as I write this.

“But it’s more than all these external things,” I thought. “It’s about caring for myself internally too.”

And that’s when I decided that this would also be The Month of No Negative Self-Talk.

I’m fairly addicted to negative self-talk (see The Slot Machine of Negative Self-Talk), and telling myself to “Stop it!,” isn’t going to work. But what did work was telling myself that I was giving myself a vacation from negative self-talk. Taking a month off. Free to go back to it after a month if I want to.

Anytime I heard the negative self-talk start up, I said to myself, “Ha! Vacation! I don’t have to do that this month!”

And then I thought, “But it’s more than the absence of self-talk. I want to start talking to myself in a caring way.”

So I developed the mantra I was going to rely on for the month:

“I trust that I am doing the best that I can everyday, and the best I can is enough.” 

(Don’t think it’s enough? See above re: no negative self-talk!)

As you can see, once the process got underway it was fairly unstoppable. I’ve just had a glorious month of delicious smoothies, fantastic salads, walks by the river, “mental health break” days, acupuncture appointments, fresh flowers, early bedtimes, and loving invitations to the love-of-my-life to do the dishes / clean the juicer / go grocery-shopping with me.

Now, here’s the interesting part:

So, I had a great month. That’s clear.

But what surprised me was the ripple effects of being kind to myself.

I started being more kind to others.

Experiencing the joy of caring for myself led to a spontaneous outpouring of caring for my loved ones and doing kind things for them.

Although I was working fewer hours, my business seemed to take off this month — if I scheduled breaks for myself, it seemed that the client appointments practically scheduled themselves.

I found myself buying gifts for others — spontaneous generosity (a soul trait that I often struggle with… perhaps because I had not learned how to be generous toward myself?).

What’s next? I want to keep this going!

So, it’s been more than a month, and I have no desire to drop all of this self-loving. It’s brought too much goodness into my life.

During my last call with my MistressMind group, I focused on how to keep it going, and uncovered a little fear I was caring around:

A fear that I wouldn’t be able to handle all this love for myself.

How curious! Who knew that I carried around a fear of being loved?

Thanks to lovely Head Mistress Cynthia, I have this new challenge for the month:

How much love can I handle?

How much care and goodness can I take?

How much love before I reach the saturation point? Will I disintegrate?

(More likely, I will dissolve into some essential being-ness of love — which does explain some of the fear. Soul growth always requires some melting away of ego identity, and that’s scary.)

My invitation to you this week:

I invite you to get curious: What would A Month of YOU look like?

*
And one last note: special thanks to the fabulous Danette Relic, who penpal-coached me through the lovely journey of the Month of Me!

Filed Under: Coaching, Morsels of Change, Reflection
December 12, 2012

Setting Boundaries — A Fresh Look

Photo credit: seyed mostafa zamani / Foter / CC BY

 

With the holiday season upon us, it’s a good time to revisit this piece on boundaries from the Morsels of Change newsletter. If you’re needing a coaching session to balance your way through the holiday season, please be in touch — I’ll be in the office up until Dec.21 before taking some time off.

Here’s something I’ve noticed about coaching clients who talk about wanting to learn to set better boundaries:

When the conversation heads in this direction, all the energy drains out.

From my vantage point, it seems that the very words “setting boundaries” carry a whole bunch of dread (at least for some people).

And as any good coach knows, when a client starts talking about a goal that they dread, things are going nowhere fast.

So whenever the conversation turns to setting boundaries, I look for the reframe that inspires and excites rather than drains and depletes.

 

Here are two reframes I’ve found helpful:

1. Rather than concentrating on what boundaries need to go up, I ask what boundaries need to come down.

Example:

Imagine someone who always says yes when someone asks for help. This person knows this pattern needs to change for his/her own well-being. He/she says, “I need to set better boundaries!”

Reframe (they type of question I might ask in a coaching conversation): 

What boundary do you have that prevents you from saying no when someone asks for help?

(Often this will be a internal boundary about what the client deserves or how the client treats him/herself (e.g. “I don’t deserve time to relax”)).

I find that reframing the conversation from erecting boundaries to smashing boundaries immediately adds energy and possibility.

 

2. Instead of talking about relationships governed by rules, I talk about relationships that are designed.

“Setting boundaries” has a tight, rigid feel to it. Making and enforcing rules can take a lot of energy, especially for someone who already feels weak in the boundaries department.

But revisiting the same relationship in terms of “design” brings in fluidity, openness, and empowerment.

In coach training, we talked about “designing alliances” with coaching clients — having honest conversations about what we are both bringing to the relationship, what we need from the relationship, how we want to be with each other in the relationship, and how we will address challenges in the relationship.

The designed alliance idea turns out to be useful in all relationships, not just coach-client alliances.

(You can read more about designed alliances here, on the website of The Coaches Training Institute).

 

Morsels of Change questions to ponder:

What internal boundaries would you like to smash?

What relationship in your life is calling out for a conscious design?

 

Filed Under: Coaching, Morsels of Change, personal growth Tagged With: , , ,
August 10, 2012

Ways to Work with Irrational Beliefs

This post was originally published as an edition of the Morsels of Change newsletter. If you like it, you may wish to sign up here!

Morsels of Change question to ponder:

Who Would I Be Without This Belief?

Sometimes I stumble upon an assumption or belief that I’ve been unconsciously carrying around, and I think, “What the hell? Why do I believe that? That’s not even true!”

But even knowing it’s not true, I’m not able to let go of the belief.

Perhaps you’ve encountered a belief like that — something which your logical, rational mind doesn’t accept, but which you do believe on some other (emotional? intuitive? cellular? reptilian brain?) level.

This Morsel of Change has some of my best tips for working with such beliefs.

I invite you to think about an irrational belief you hold, and to try on the exercises below as you read this.

Ways to Work With Irrational Beliefs

1. Explore how the belief was formed.

a) Journal about where you first learned this belief:

  • Who taught you this?
  • Whose experience or role modelling led you to this belief?
  • When you first encountered this belief, did you question it and explore it, or did you “swallow it whole” without examining it?
    (Gestalt psychology refers to this “swallowing whole” as introjection — beliefs that we take in without chewing them over and digesting them. In Gestalt, part of becoming a functional being is to regurgitate such beliefs in order to examine them for ourselves before deciding whether or not we want these beliefs to be part of us.)
  • What emotional state were you in when you first learned this belief? Were you vulnerable? Were you a child dependent on others?
  • How did your environment encourage you to take on this belief? What would have been the consequences if you hadn’t taken on this belief?

b) Journal about what has changed since then:

  • What about your current environment is different from the environment where you first learned this belief?
  • What about your emotional state is different from when you first learned this belief?
  • In your current environmental and emotional state, does this belief still serve you? Is it helping you, or harming you?
  • In your new environment, what are the consequences if you continue to hold this belief?
  • In your new environment, what are the consequences if you let go of this belief?

2. Questioning your thoughts.

Byron Katie’s work is the most accessible way I know to examine and question thoughts.
She invites us to ask four questions of our belief:

  1. Is it true?
  2. Can you absolutely know that it’s true?
  3. How do you react when you believe that thought?
  4. Who would you be without that thought?

Finally, the Byron Katie work gets us to find “turn-arounds” and to find examples of the truth in each of these turn-arounds.

For example, if my belief was “She doesn’t care about me”, then the turn-arounds might be:

a) “She does care about me” (and then I would have to find three examples of how she cares about me).

b) “I don’t care about her” (I’ve turned around the subject and object) (and then I would have to find three examples of this new statement being true).

c) “I don’t care about me” (I’ve turned it around to find out if I’m projecting my own belief onto “her”) (and again, find three examples of when this has been true).

3. Give the belief a character and get creative.

Imagine the belief is “No one cares about me.” Imagine the character inside your head who says to you: “No one cares about you.”

  • What does this character look like?
  • What are some of his/her favourite things to say?
  • If he/she had a career, what would it be?
  • What does this character do after hours? Who is this character friends with?

Give your character a name (perhaps “Big Bully” works for this example) and get creative: draw a picture of him/her, make a paper bag puppet of him/her.

Next time you hear that belief in your head, you can say, “Oh, it’s Big Bully”. You can take two minutes to pull out your paper bag puppet and put on a little play in which Big Bully is the star.

And then you can say: “Okay, Big Bully, I’ve heard you, but now I remember that you’re just one piece of me, you’re not ALL of me. And I’m going to go back to listening to some of my other thoughts now.”

 

Morsels of Change question to ponder:

Who would I be without this belief?

 

Filed Under: Coaching, Morsels of Change, personal growth Tagged With: , ,
August 2, 2012

How Judgment Separates Us from Others

This post was originally published as an edition of the Morsels of Change newsletter. If you like it, you may wish to sign up here!

Morsels of Change question to ponder:

How Does Judgment Separate Me from Myself and Others?

Once, during an appointment with a therapist, I was describing the judgment I felt toward someone close to me, and how I didn’t want to feel that judgment.

“And what is judgment?” she asked.

I pondered a moment and then realized what it was for me: “An excuse not to love.”

Judgment is a tool we use to create separation, to divide ourselves from each other, to disconnect. As soon as I judge you, I create a barrier between us: “You are like this, but I am like that.” This separation shuts down our hearts, closing us off from each other. The judgment gives us an excuse not to love.

And it’s not just in our relationships with each other; it’s in our relationships with ourselves too. I judge the “productive” part of me as the “real me”, and I judge the “lazy and undisciplined part” as the bad me, the me I don’t want to be. I build up walls that separate the different parts of me from each other, and create excuses to be hard on myself, to not love myself.

Perhaps you judge your body. You create a separation between “you” (i.e. your mind) and your body. Suddenly you aren’t one mind-body, you’re disconnected, separate, judging yourself, with the excuse not to love parts of yourself.

In No Boundary, the spiritual philosopher Ken Wilber writes about human growth as the continual dissolution of false boundaries.

We grow to dissolve the boundary we’ve set up between our persona (the part of ourselves we show to the world) and our shadow (the part we keep hidden), and eventually accept that all of it is part of all of us.

We grow to dissolve the boundary we’ve set up between our mind and our body, and eventually reach a level of mind-body consciousness.

We dissolve the boundaries we’ve set up between “I” and “you” and “us” and “them” by leaning into the human experience that connects us all.

If this topic captures your interest, here are some things you might like to do next:

–Read a story about my coaching work with a client struggling with self-judgment

-Keep a record for a week of the judgments that run through your head. What patterns do you notice?

–Send me a quick note to set up a coaching call to explore how judgment shows up in your life, the effect it has on you, and how you can start to release it.

Morsels of Change question to ponder:

How does judgment separate me from myself and others?

Filed Under: Morsels of Change, personal growth Tagged With: ,
July 27, 2012

When Will You Reach for Support?

An earlier version of this post appeared in February 2010 on this blog.

Morsels of Change question to ponder:

What level of pain do you suffer before you reach for support?

Gratefully, I often notice these days that my tolerance for emotional pain has diminished. I deeply appreciate being less strong.

For most of my twenties, I had a high tolerance for emotional pain. I spent a lot of time feeling agonized, feeling like the world had sharp edges, feeling like everything had the potential to hurt me. My method for coping was to continually increase my pain tolerance. I had a dysfunctional pride in how much I could take. I could hurt and hurt and hurt before I would break down and reach out for help. I needed to be in crisis before I would crack enough to let someone else in.

What strikes me now is that I break much sooner. My emotional pain doesn’t have to be at 98% before I reach out for comfort, call a friend, go to therapy, talk to a coach, soak in a bath. The overall effect is that my average emotional pain level is much lower. I used to coast along at, say, 80% as my base level. When it spiked up to 98%, I’d ask for help. When it lowered back down to a 90% or 80%, I’d carry on. And all the while be perversely proud about how much I could handle.

I think my base level is now closer to 20%, and I reach for help when it gets to 30%. It’s taken a solid three years to lower my tolerance and build the habit of reaching for help early on, and now that I see the results I wish I had learned this sooner.

How much happier might I have been if I had learned earlier that I didn’t have to do it all on my own? If I had learned that others could provide support and care for me before I was in crisis?

I invite you to cast a glance at your own life and tendencies, and ask yourself:

  • What do I believe I have to do all by myself?
  • What level of pain do I reach before I seek out support?
  • How might my life change if I reached for support sooner?

Morsels of Change question to ponder:

What level of pain do I reach before I seek out support?

 

Filed Under: Morsels of Change, personal growth Tagged With: , ,
July 13, 2012

How Do You Face the Things That Knock You Over?

This post was originally published as an edition of the Morsels of Change newsletter. If you like it, you may wish to sign up here!

Morsels of Change question to ponder:

How Do You Face the Things That Knock You Over?

A number of years ago a teacher told me that sometimes, when allergy season approaches, she gets acupuncture, and takes supplements, and only goes outside when there’s a low pollen count, and closes her windows, and does everything possible to reduce her allergy symptoms before they can take hold. Other years, she says, she doesn’t prepare at all, and ends up knocked over lying on the couch cuddling a box of Kleenex for a few weeks.

This time of year – late October – I always start thinking about seasonal affective disorder, and I’ve been thinking that my approach to it is similar to my teacher’s approach to allergies. Some years I do everything in my power to preempt being knocked over: as soon as September rolls around, I hook myself up with a therapist, a naturopathic doctor, vitamin Bs and Ds, a light therapy lamp, a journalling practice, regular outside exercise; I send notes to my loved ones outlining ways to help and ways not to help and what warning signs to look out for. And other years — I don’t do anything, and I end up sidelined on the couch.

[Side note: If you know someone who faces depression, seasonal or not, I highly recommend Therese Borchard’s posts 10 Things Not to Say to a Depressed Person, and 10 Things You Should Say to a Depressed Loved One.]

Just as my teacher couldn’t explain why some years she prepped gung-ho for allergy season, and other years she just let it devour her, I’m not sure why some years I choose approach A and some years I choose approach B.

I imagine that you can find something similar in your life: the thing that tends to knock you over, and the different ways you have of facing it. 

Perhaps you’re easily fatigued, and sometimes you are the Queen of Self-Care, the Guardian of Your Energy, and fatigue doesn’t stand a chance of knocking you down… and other times, you know you’re running yourself into the ground and you just go ahead and do it anyway.

Perhaps you get knocked over by burnout, and sometimes you approach the busy season with lots of support and “me-time” in place, and other times you just do it all and wind up exhausted and depleted.

Perhaps you get knocked over when you feel unsupported and isolated, and sometimes you gear up for tough times by finding a support group and a friend to phone and a coffee date, and other times you lie on the couch lonely and miserable.

And here’s the curious part for me: I’m actually not sure if one way is better than the other.

Perhaps sometimes we need to get sick, run out of energy, feel lonely and miserable. Perhaps sometimes we need to accept that we can’t control it all. Perhaps sometimes we need to surrender to what gets thrown our way. If we never do any of those things, are we human?

On the other hand, my whole line of work is geared around helping people discover the strategies and approaches that help balance out the bumps so that we have more resilience and are less likely to be knocked over. I see huge value in that approach too.

I think the piece we each need to explore is our own awareness of what knocks us over, our own awareness of the different ways we meet those situations, along with a friendly, open curiosity towards what we are choosing and what it is bringing into our lives.

Morsels of Change question to ponder:

How do you face the things that knock you over?

Filed Under: Morsels of Change, personal growth
June 29, 2012

Attention to Your Highest Self

This post was originally published as an edition of the Morsels of Change newsletter. If you like it, you may wish to sign up here!

Morsels of Change question to ponder:

What parts of yourself get the most attention?

A few years ago, Otto Scharmer’s blog post about Attentional Violence made a big impression on me. In short, he writes that it is a kind of violence to not be seen in terms of who we really are and who we can become. Too often we’re only seen in terms of where we’ve been and what we’ve done. We — and those around us — inflict attentional violence when we withold our attention from our highest possibility.

I see that sort of attentional violence with many coaching clients; I see it in myself. Too often my attention is focused on how I’m messing up, what I’ve got wrong, what I don’t know, what I can’t do.

Rarely do I put my attention to my highest possibility, my greatest potential, the person I am becoming, who I am when I am at my best.

What a gift it can be to each other and ourselves to start placing our attention on that open space of our own becoming and unfolding, instead of the tight, constricted place of the story we know about ourselves.

 

A question for you to ponder:

What parts of yourself get the most attention?

Filed Under: Coaching, Morsels of Change, personal growth Tagged With: ,
June 22, 2012

Conflict — Illuminated by the Enneagram

This post was originally published as an edition of the Morsels of Change newsletter. If you like it, you may wish to sign up here! 

Morsels of Change question to ponder:

What’s your default position when faced with a problem?

How does it clash with the default positions of those with whom you come into conflict?

This week I’m combining conflict, which I’m really bad at, with the Enneagram, which I love.

The Wisdom of the Enneagram book (Riso and Hudson) has this neat little table that outlines how the different Enneagram types are likely to react to a problem.

Here are the 9 different reactions (NOT in order of type), according to the book:

-“What problem? I don’t think there is a problem.”
-“You have a problem. I’m here to help you.”
-“There may be a problem, but I’m fine.”
-“There’s an efficient solution to this — we just need to get to work.”
-“I’m sure we can solve this like sensible, mature adults.”
-“There are a number of hidden issues here: let me think about this.”
-“I feel really pressured, and I’ve got to let off some steam!”
-“I feel really hurt, and I need to express myself.”
-“I’m angry about this and you’re going to hear about it!”

Which reaction sounds most like you?

Now, notice how these reactions will play out in relationships. For example, when my niece and I are facing a problem together (or engaging in conflict), our reactions go head-to-head.

Mine:
“There are a number of hidden issues here: let me think about this.”

Hers:
“I’m angry about this and you’re going to hear about it!”

If we both stay true to type, neither of us gets what we need. I don’t get to spend time thinking about all the different aspects of the problem if she’s going on about how angry she is. If I do get to go spend time thinking about the problem, she doesn’t have my attention to listen to her talk about how angry she is.

For the two of us to engage in conflict together, or face a problem together, we’ve both got to be accommodating to the other’s needs. (Or, more accurately, I need to accommodate her needs, as I’m the adult, but you get the idea.)

Questions for you to ponder:

What’s your default position when faced with a problem?

How does your position clash with the default positions of those with whom you come into conflict?

Filed Under: Morsels of Change, Reflection Tagged With: , ,
June 15, 2012

Growth Happens at the Edges

This post was originally published as an edition of the Morsels of Change newsletter. If you like it, you may wish to sign up here! 

A question to ponder: Where are your edges?

In one of the personal growth / spiritual / psychological books stacked in my current reading pile, I came across a paragraph on our struggles as indications of where we are growing.

It’s not exactly a new concept — the phrases “learning zone”, “leading edge”, “spiritual frontier” all come to mind — but was explained in a way that put a new spin on it for me. The author writes that the things we have built into our lives and now do without struggle are no longer indicators of our growth edges. The places where we do struggle are where we are being called to step up and grow.

For example, I know a lot of people who have built themselves healthy exercise and healthy eating routines. It isn’t even a question for them whether they’ll go running four times a week or eat five servings of vegetables a day — they just do it. They have made discipline, self-care, and health built-in priorities.

On the other hand, I also know many people who face a daily struggle to recommit to exercise and recommit to eating vegetables. For these people, the daily struggle is an indication that they are being called to grow. Each of us can determine what growth is being called forth: are we being called to grow in our capacity for discipline? For enthusiasm? For valuing our health?

The take-away for me is to look at the places where I am struggling (e.g. my half-assed meditation practice, or my on-again off-again spiritual reading practice) with gratitude: the struggle is illuminating for me clearly the ways in which my soul is trying to grow, the growth that is being called forth in me.

Where are your edges?

 

Filed Under: Coaching, Morsels of Change Tagged With: , , , ,
January 22, 2012

Two Days That Have Made All the Difference, Again

I originally put this post up in March 2010, and I found myself thinking of it again this week. I have faithfully continued Reflection Days, every month on the 18th, for nearly two years. My computer-free days took a big hit during a volunteer stint that took up half of 2011, but I’ve invited them back into my life this year (not always on Sunday, but always at least once a week) and I love them now as unabashedly as I did in 2010.

I wonder what sort of weekly or monthly daylong ritual would make a significant difference for you?

*

I instituted two types of days at the beginning of 2010, and almost four months into the year (!), I feel convinced of their value.

First, I decided that I would designate a Reflection Day each month.

I chose the 18th, because it’s the day of my birthday. On the 18th of every month, I’ve set aside two to three hours to go sit somewhere peaceful with a notebook and a pen, and take stock of what I like to call The State of the Union.

During Reflection Day, I look over my intentions for 2010, decide if I want to update or change any of my intentions, and think about how they’ve become real in my life. I do a quick survey of all of the areas of my life using the Wheel of Life coaching tool. I think about the projects I’ve taken on, and my balance of work / rest / recreation / joy. I look for themes that are showing up, and for the successes I want to celebrate. And I zone in on a few things that I want to be aware of or change in the month to come.

The impact:

Knowing that I will pause on Reflection Day to think these things through has cleared some of my headspace during the month. I take on projects that feel right, I make decisions that seem like the right ones, and I don’t worry about it too much, because I know that once a month I have a built-in check for myself to determine how I’m doing. I feel reassured that things won’t fall off my plate – because once a month I check in on all areas of my life. I don’t have as many nagging doubts or worries, because I have space to regularly reflect. And my sense of purpose and self is becoming stronger, as every thirty days I recommit to who I am, what’s important to me, and how it is coming alive in my life.

Second, I instituted Computer Free Days.

One day a week, usually Sunday, I leave my computer turned off and avoid the internet. This change has been more subtle, and just as powerful. I’ve found a new rhythm on Sundays – cooking, cleaning, reading, and just being. Sundays feel like a day of soul nourishment. I’m almost loathe to turn my computer back on on Mondays – and this from someone who willingly spends most of her time in front of her laptop. Throughout the rest of the week, I feel less tied to the online world, and less addicted to the quick fix of email, twitter, or facebook. I’m down to checking each of them only one or two times a day (yes, even email!), which has freed up vast chunks of time to work on projects.

The impact:

I find myself more present to what I am working on at any given time. I have fewer adrenaline surges because I no longer see each and every email arrive in my inbox. I’m stunned at the time I am finding to spend multiple hours on particular projects once I have my browser closed. And I start every week with a clean house, a stocked fridge, and a sense of peace.

If you’d like to read more, I recommend:

A Provisional Guide for Observing a Weekly Day of Rest (from Sabbath Manifesto)

The Lost Practice of Resting One Day Each Week (from Zen Habits)

LeechBlock (LeechBlock is an extension you can add to Firefox. You can use it to block certain domains for your chosen times of day(s)).

Filed Under: Coaching, Morsels of Change, Reflection, time Tagged With: , ,
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