Ready for Change

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! 
*
Like what you’re reading? There’s more where that came from!
I’d love to have you join me by signing up for Ready for Change news. 
Sign up here.

This post is an excerpt from the latest Ready for Change newsletter. To read the newsletter in full, head here.

Hello there, dear one,

It’s February, the deep cold slush of the new year, and the beginning of the two-month long seasonal rut of what I call “Farch”. As a wise friend once said to me,

“Farch is no time to make decisions. Don’t break up, or leave your job, or move away, or make any drastic life changes. Because it’s not you, it’s Farch.”

Perhaps. Or perhaps these two months are ripe for you to create change, and either way, you know I want to hear from you.

This past month I’ve felt a real shift in the energy we’re sitting in. Along with many of my clients, I started 2013 finding myself overwhelmed with heartfelt feeling — sadness, grief, loneliness — that arose in surprising ways and often for inexplicable reasons. As I’ve seen others having similar experiences this month, I’ve wondered what sort of bigger context might be behind this. Collectively, what might we be grieving? Societally, what sadness needs to be expressed? How might we be serving each other by leaning into our feelings of loneliness?

One of the beautiful aspects of the heart-centred work I do is that I get to create safe spaces for us to feel what we’re feeling, and to open up to those experiences as our teachers. Is this something you need right now? If so, please drop me a line. Let’s find a way to create the space you need, and to let you learn what you need to learn.

Warmly,
Laura

This post is an excerpt from the latest Ready for Change newsletter. To read the newsletter in full, head here.

 
*
Like what you’re reading? There’s more where that came from!
I’d love to have you join me by signing up for Ready for Change news. 
Sign up here.

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?

  
*
Like what you’re reading? There’s more where that came from!
I’d love to have you join me by signing up for Ready for Change news. 
Sign up here.

Life coach directory Noomii interviewed me about what type of coaching I do, who I work with, what my clients get out of coaching, and why this work is important to me.

If you’re thinking of signing me up to be your coach, I really recommend that you listen to this short 6-minute interview to get a sense of who I am and what sort of work I do.

Enjoy!

Listen to my interview by Noomii

(You may need to update to a browser that supports HTML5.)

The Coaching Experts

*

Laura McGrath is an Ottawa-based life coach and therapist who works with clients all over the world. If you’d like to be coached, contact her at laura [at] readyforchange [dot] ca for more information. 
*
Like what you’re reading? There’s more where that came from!
I’d love to have you join me by signing up for Ready for Change news. 
Sign up here.

A few months ago I was reading a lot about self-esteem (and the lack thereof). One of the big questions I kept wondering about is “Why?”

Why all this negative self-talk?

Why can it be so addictive and habit-forming to run ourselves down and criticize ourselves?

I’ve heard lots of answers — it keeps us safe, it keeps us from ever truly facing our own power, it keeps us small, it’s easier not to try than to try and fail, etc…

But when I was reading McKay and Fanning’s Self-Esteem – The Ultimate Program for Self-Help, I got a new perspective:

We keep up negative self-talk because it gets rewarded. 

Rewarded — like the addictive random reinforcement schedule that a slot machine doles out.

So how does this work? I’ll use one of my go-to personal examples — the negative self-talk I love to run through before I deliver a workshop.

Walking through this example helped me better understand why so many coaching clients are reluctant to let go of self-abusive behaviour.

They put a spin on it — just like I do:

“I’m a perfectionist; I hold myself to high standards.”

“But I want to be critical! It keeps me trying harder.”

“The harder I am on myself the better I do.”

And maybe all of that is true.

Or, maybe, it’s just some straight up behaviourist phenomenon: the behaviour of self-hating is getting randomly reinforced when you perform well, even if the self-hating had NOTHING to do with it.

My invitation to you:

Notice if self-criticism really and truly is helping you out, or if it’s just along for the ride.

*

Laura McGrath is an Ottawa-based life coach and therapist who works with clients all over the world. If you’d like to have a chat to explore and shift your own self-talk, Laura is more than happy to pick up the phone and have a conversation. Contact her at laura [at] readyforchange [dot] ca for more information.

  
*
Like what you’re reading? There’s more where that came from!
I’d love to have you join me by signing up for Ready for Change news. 
Sign up here.

In this blog post, I share a personal experience about what I call a “substitute goal”, and ask you to consider what sort of goals you’re setting for yourself. If this post piques your interest, perhaps you’d like to set up a free consultation with me to discuss your goals. You can do that by clicking here.

I got to Inbox Zero on the weekend, and realized that I had been dangling that goal in front of myself in hopes that life would take a dramatic turn for the better once I reached it. Guess what – life didn’t.

I realized that I had been holding up a false goal — one that I thought would result in relief, satisfaction, success — instead of asking myself what truly leads to relief, satisfaction, success.

I often run across something similar in my coaching clients: the belief that “if only” they can get into x school / get x job / get x promotion / get x relationship / make x amount of money, then they will be happy / fulfilled / satisfied / confident.

I call these substitute goals: the ones we dangle in front of ourselves as something to work toward, and only once we achieve them do we realize that they don’t give us what we were hoping to get. (Sometimes they do. But not often.)

Sound familiar?

How can you check in with yourself to see if something is a substitute goal, or if it’s a goal that will truly lead to the outcome you’re wanting?

Below, I’ve explained some of the ways I might help someone think through this if I were coaching them:

1. Run the goal by your Future Self.

(Future Self is a coaching tool I’ve mentioned before on the blog; if you’d like more info, just send me a line!).

If I had stopped and asked my Future Self if Inbox Zero would lead me to the relief and satisfaction I was seeking, she would have started laughing uncontrollably, and then she would have said, “No, it won’t; PLEASE go do something else with your Sunday.”

2. Ask what has led to your desired outcome in the past. 

If I had asked myself what had led to feelings of relief and satisfaction in the past, I would not have come up with Inbox Zero. I might have told myself to take a walk, go to a yoga class, or have a computer-free day.

3. Check out what’s keeping you from your desired outcome right now. 

I was unconsciously holding onto the belief that I couldn’t be relaxed or satisfied unless I got to Inbox Zero. In reality, I could have accessed feelings of relief and satisfaction in the “right now”, before I met my weird goal. Similarly, I often hear from clients that they will be happy / fulfilled / satisfied only when x, y, or z happens. I like to get nosy and ask “What about feeling happy and fulfilled right now, today?”

Inbox Zero, people. Not all it’s cracked up to be.

Could your goals use a fresh perspective?

 
*
Like what you’re reading? There’s more where that came from!
I’d love to have you join me by signing up for Ready for Change news. 
Sign up here.

Last week I posted about some of the books I recommend to clients looking for resources on communication and relationships. This week, I’m providing a few recommendations for books about getting things done, procrastination, motivation, and avoiding burnout.

Time, Productivity, Procrastination, and more

First, a round up of resources I’ve pulled together from productivity books, blogs, and techniques:

Do You Have Time, or Does Time Have You? – 7 ways to experiment with your experience of time, and 5 book recommendations.

I Can’t Manage Time – inspired by David Allen’s words in Getting Things Done — you can’t manage time, but you can manage your actions.

The Action Management Sword – knowing your purpose can guide your time strategy. With shout-outs to Zen to Done, Getting Things Done, and The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

Purposeful Big Rocks – understanding how to put the important things first.

Truth in Data – getting curious about how you actually spend your day.

Final Words on Time – tips for doing less, getting started, focusing, avoiding distractions, and attending to the big picture.

And now, a few new resources:

The Power of Full Engagement

One of my favourite recommendations this year:

The Power of Full Engagement - Managing Energy, Not Time, is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal

Two things grabbed my attention within the first chapter or so of this book:

1 – The authors point out that high performing athletes spend about 90% of their time preparing and training and resting up for the 10% of time when they perform at peak levels.

So, hey, it’s kind of silly to think that we can perform at peak levels at our jobs for 40-60 hours a week day in and day out, week after week, right?

2 – The idea that many of us think of life as one long marathon, when it can be helpful instead to consider it as a series of sprints. And in between the sprints are opportunities for rest, renewal and recovery.

Throughout the book, the authors explore four areas of energy expenditure and energy renewal: physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. They point out that we can strengthen our energy muscles in each of these areas by pushing ourselves just past our comfort zone, and then building in recovery time. And they’re generous with examples, case studies, and exercises to try on your own.

If you’d like to get a glimpse at their methodology, you can answer 20 questions online to complete their “Energy Audit” and see your results. You can find the Energy Audit here.

The Tiny Habits Program

Recently I heard about the Tiny Habits program, a free online program in which you take a week to set up a workable habit. Click here for my experience with the program.

The Now Habit

Awhile back I read The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play. I liked the way the book examined procrastination as a symptom, not just a cause, and the step-by-step guide it provides for building guilt-free play into one’s schedule first. Another part of it that I’ve been loving is the suggestion to take two minutes at the start of any activity to relax, centre myself, consciously let go of the past and the future, drop into the present, and then set an intention for the activity I’m about to begin.

What would you add?

What books — or other resources — have you found most helpful for your learning about communication and relationships? I’d love to hear your replies in the comments.

  
*
Like what you’re reading? There’s more where that came from!
I’d love to have you join me by signing up for Ready for Change news. 
Sign up here.

Coaching clients often ask me for books that I would recommend on various topics, so in this post I summarize some of my favourite books when it comes to communication and relationships.

(For a lengthier list of books that have influenced me and my approach, see the page Influences and Extras. And for a great list of book recommendations from The Coaches Training Institute on coaching, leadership, and business, head here.)

Communication and Relationships

The Non-Violent Communication (NVC) series of books is exceptionally helpful for starting to recognize one’s own needs and emotions, and for learning to listen for the needs and emotions expressed by others. NVC slows one down enough to really be present in the conversation, rather than always thinking one step ahead to the point one wants to make (whether or not making that point is helpful to the relationship or the conversation!). The series has many different titles and you’re likely to find at least a few of them at your local library. Search under the author’s name, Marshall Rosenberg. And for more information, explore the Center for Non-Violent Communication‘s website, or watch Marshall Rosenberg on YouTube.

How to Be an Adult in Relationships, by David Richo, is a fantastic exploration of the patterns we bring to our intimate relationships, and how to work through some of those patterns so that we aren’t expecting our significant other to fill all of our unmet needs. It’s a book about how to grow up, both for ourselves and for the sake of those we are in relationship with. It’s highly readable, full of sample exercises and checklists, and offers lots of “ah-ha!”s for anyone willing to open up to the less attractive side of themselves — a side that always shows up in our relationships sooner or later.

Loving What Is, by Byron Katie, is one of a number of Byron Katie books that helps the reader through “The Work”, Katie’s name for a system of inquiry that illuminates our own projections and where our own work (not the work of the Other in the relationship!) remains to be done. Regularly doing “The Work” shows us how our judgments and irritations about the Other are just windows into the growth we ourselves are needing. Plus, Katie is funny. You can read more about The Work, and see video examples, on her website.

What would you add?

What books — or other resources — have you found most helpful for your learning about communication and relationships? I’d love to hear your replies in the comments. 
*
Like what you’re reading? There’s more where that came from!
I’d love to have you join me by signing up for Ready for Change news. 
Sign up here.

As September 2012 approaches and that autumn back-to-school energy fills the air, I hear from lots of folks who want to shift something in their lives. If you too are thinking of making a change and wondering if coaching might be a good support, I’ve got lots of options for how we might work together!

Here’s a summary of the programs running here at Ready for Change this fall.

If you have any questions, just drop me a line (laura@readyforchange.ca). I’d love to talk further.

A Free Consultation.

I always offer a free 30-minute no-obligation consultation to individuals interested in seeing if working with me is a good fit for them.

Coaching in Your Inbox.

Online, Daily Coaching.

A one-month program focusing on a change that you want to create. The program consists of a 45-minute coaching session (conducted by phone or Skype) followed by daily online check-ins (you report on your progress daily, answering customized questions which I design for you), and I email you coaching responses twice per week. The cost is $250 plus HST. You can see more information about this program here.

Individual, One-on-One Coaching.

I work one-on-one with coaching clients by phone, Skype, or in person.

Clients hire me for one month at a time (I encourage a 3-month commitment in order to commit to the process, go through some ups and downs as you work toward your goals, and see results).

Each month consists of 3 x 45 minute sessions. Clients also have unlimited email access to me and the option for up to 2 x 10 minute “laser coaching” sessions each month, to be used if/as needed.

The current cost for each month of one-on-one coaching is $400 plus HST. A limited number of scholarship spots are available for those who would otherwise be unable to afford coaching.

You can read more about one-on-one coaching here.

Group Coaching Course (Ottawa only).

The Authentic Relationships program is born of the idea that all of us carry personal baggage, unfinished business, and unhelpful patterns, all of which cloud our ability to authentically relate to ourselves and others. By working through some of this cloudiness, we create more open, authentic, and meaningful relationships.

The group will meet weekly from September-December, one evening a week and one half-day per month.

Tuition for the fourteen week program is $975 plus HST. The program fee can be paid all at once or in monthly installments.

You can read more about this program here.

Questions? Comments? Want to talk further?

Just drop me a line and let’s have a conversation. I’m at laura@readyforchange.ca.

  
*
Like what you’re reading? There’s more where that came from!
I’d love to have you join me by signing up for Ready for Change news. 
Sign up here.

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?

  
*
Like what you’re reading? There’s more where that came from!
I’d love to have you join me by signing up for Ready for Change news. 
Sign up here.