I set aside time yesterday to work on my business bookkeeping. In addition to a little bit of procrastination, I found myself starting the project with a small bowl of dark chocolate chips. And I went back for seconds. Of course this is not the end of the world and I did get the bookkeeping done, but what both the procrastination and chocolate let me know is that I have some negative, catabolic thoughts, emotions, and beliefs going on that I need to look at. Whenever your actions and goals aren’t in alignment, it just means there’s some underlying catabolic energy that needs to be addressed. That’s it. It’s not an indication of your strength of character, willpower, or how good a person you are. And it’s not about the food. Mentally beating yourself up in these situations is the equivalent of throwing gasoline on a fire. Adding negative self-criticism is literally just making the underlying catabolic energy stronger and giving it more momentum. It’s best just to step back and observe yourself with curiosity. What’s going on here? What am I thinking? What am I feeling? What do I believe about myself in regards to this situation? And don’t even try to change your thoughts, feelings, and beliefs in that moment. Remember, you’ve got some energetic momentum built up. Stepping in front of an energetic tidal wave will emotionally pound you into the rocks. Just watch and let the wave go by. Later, when you’re feeling good and are in a positive, anabolic state of energy, you can revisit the scenario and look at the underlying beliefs. Not only do you gain clarity from this better-feeling place, but you can more powerfully change your […]
How Much Power are You Giving to the Scale?
Does having your gas gauge in your car read “empty” ruin your whole day? Do you post about it on your blog and tell all your friends what a failure it makes you? Do you measure the air in your tires, and sit down on the curb and cry because it doesn’t show the number you wanted? When you figure out the average number of miles you drive on a gallon of gas and it hasn’t’ changed from the day or week before, do you berate yourself with what an awful person you are—and go find comfort in a donut? Then why are you doing that after you step on the bathroom scale? Most women that I work with give way too much of their personal power to the scale. In their minds, not only does it measure how well they’ve done sticking to their exercise and eating plans, but it also measures their self-worth. In truth, neither of these is the case. The scale is just a tool—and a faulty one at that—that can be used to help you release weight. Using it consistently gives you a general idea of where you are your journey. It typically does not accurately measure body fat—which is what you really want to know—and because weight is impacted by things like hormones, salt, sleep, etc., etc., it can go up and down for what feels like no reason. When it becomes the deciding factor in the quality of your day and crashes your self-esteem, it is actually doing you harm. You might as well throw it away. It is holding you back, keeping you stuck, and making the weight stick to you like glue. This is because the […]
It’s All Fun
I have a lot on my to-do list today as we are hosting dinner for friends this evening. In the past, my default setting has been to get stressed. To get so focused on all that I had to do that not only did I become harsh with myself, but I was sharp and unpleasant to the very people who were helping with the preparations. (Sorry about that honey!) I’m getting much better at steadily moving ahead to achieve realistic goals with ease and grace. I’m seeing the power of focusing on being gentle and kind in my thoughts and words–to myself and others–and eeking out every ounce of pleasure that can be found in each moment, from the preparations to the time with friends (and dogs as this will be a gathering of all of our Keeshond companions, as well.) People often feel like they don’t have time to be mindful and relaxed when faced with a deadline. But why does feeling horrible automatically equate with being more productive? What I’m finding is that moving forward deliberately instead of rushing, and focusing on how I want to feel in the moment—rather than just defaulting to how I have just always reacted—certainly does not take away from my productivity. It actually seems to help me accomplish more than I planned. Even if how much I get done is the same, it sure feels a heck of a lot better! So tell your inner task master to ease up. Put the incredible power of your attention on what you are doing in the moment—and enjoy the heck out of that. Find and feel the confidence that everything that needs to get done, will. And then see how […]
Three Stress Relieving Tips to Help You Have More Fun
One of my clients was recently giving herself a hard time because a week after moving to a new state and a few days after starting a new job, she wasn’t relaxed. In fact, she was downright stressed. I call this the Super Woman syndrome. This is the expectation that you can—and have to!—do everything while always being happy and relaxed. How reasonable is that? Particularly if you are going through some pretty significant life changes? Now this doesn’t mean that you can’t go through a move and job change feeling relaxed and happy, but regardless of how many people can do that, your reaction is your reaction. So here are 3 tips to help relieve stress and have more fun. 1—Ease up on yourself, particularly in the moment. Notice your reaction, but let go of the self-judgment as much as possible. Beating yourself up for your reaction—to any situation—is just adding negative fuel to the catabolic fire. It just makes you feel worse and will prolong the stress. 2—Give yourself a little perspective. How much of your day do you feel stressed? Is it 100 percent of the time or were there just some significant moments of overwhelm that colored your perception of your day? Start paying attention to how many good moments you are having. Begin to track just how much of the time things are going well, you are making progress, you are coping, you are feeling relief, satisfaction, gratitude, and even joy. You might be surprised that there are more of those positive anabolic moments than you thought. 3—Give yourself a break. Being is just as important as doing. Take a moment to slow down. Think about how important a task […]
That Wasn’t Necessary
I love discovering situations around which I have some practiced thoughts and beliefs that are not helping me be the person I want to be, or create the life I want to create. Because if you don’t know the negative catabolic thoughts, feelings, and beliefs are there, you can’t change them. Saturday morning provided me the opportunity to come face-to-face with negative expectations, fear, and prescribed beliefs—and to make different choices. For those of you who know me or read this blog regularly, you know that my husband and I have two dogs and two cats who truly are our children. Buffy, the oldest of our two Keeshonden, will be turning 10 on July 13. Buffy is a bit of a trash mouth, meaning if something hits the floor, she eats it. As we stroll through the park, she’s trying to grab bites of weeds along the path. She’s a dirt connoisseur. So it was a bit surprising, but not terribly unusual, to wake up Saturday morning and find some evidence that she had expelled something nasty in the night. We cleaned it up and didn’t think more of it. While I was writing my blog, she threw up breakfast. While I was upstairs working out, she threw up again. When my husband found that she had thrown up yet again, I discovered her having dry heaves and shivering. We knew something was seriously wrong and called the emergency vet who said to bring her right in. What’s the best mindset for heading to the emergency vet—or dealing with any difficult situation? While it’s probably the most common reaction, I would suggest that it’s not fear and jumping to the worst case scenario. You might […]
The Options are Overwhelming!
The feeling of being overwhelmed is negative, catabolic energy. For me, it’s victim energy. It’s the feeling that things are spinning out of control and I can’t do enough fast enough to meet all my goals or other people’s expectations. It is being at the effect of things instead of recognizing that I have complete control of my life and how I respond to each situation, and that I have the support of All-That-Is (God, the Universe, Source Energy, Higher Coach—whatever works for you) in everything I do. There can be a lot of self-judgment in it, and may include looking at myself through other people’s eyes and seeing all the things I “should” be doing from anyone’s perspective but my own. Feeling overwhelmed may be different for you—how we interpret emotions is as unique as we are—but my guess is that no matter how it feels to you, it’s not very pleasant. We can feel overwhelmed when we’re trying to process new information, make a decision, meet a deadline, etc., etc. Trying to force action while we’re feeling this catabolic emotion often doesn’t result in a satisfactory conclusion or outcome because you just can’t see where you’re going very clearly. One of the best things to do when you catch yourself feeling overwhelmed is often the last thing you feel like you can do—STOP what you are doing. Taking 15 minutes to breathe deeply, meditate, pray, go for a walk, think about the beach—whatever it is that brings you a sense of relief and helps you calm your mind—will more than pay for itself in productivity later. Another way to step off that crazy train is to let go of judging your feeling as […]
Mental Stress Relief
Last weekend, I was listening to a teleclasses while eating breakfast, checking and responding to email, contemplating a client session, and reviewing and taking notes on a white paper written by Bruce Schneider on spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical energy. As I read a passage in “Driving Engagement: Sustaining Success Through Core Energy Dynamics and the Core Energy Coaching Process” suggesting that multi-tasking, stretching oneself too thin, doing too many things at once, and having conflicting demands may impact mental energy, I literally laughed out loud. Guilty on all counts. How often do you catch yourself focused on or doing more than one thing? Do you ever have conversations where you are so distracted you can’t remember what was discussed? Do your conversations jump around from topic to topic? Do you ever forget what you set out to do because you got distracted by something else? Often, people blame this on aging or outside influences. In truth, we are fragmenting our own mental energy creating mental stress. According to Schneider, mental energy involves how much brain power you have available at any given moment, your ability to be present in the moment, and to be alert, focused, and clear. These are necessary for harnessing your mental faculties for decision-making, idea generation, performance–truly all areas of life. Mental engagement is a matter of focusing your brainpower on a specific goal, role, project, or task. You know you are fully mentally engaged when you are in the reputed “zone” or “flow” where you lose track of time, physical needs, and are totally and joyfully absorbed in what you’re doing. In a society that encourages split mental focus, is it any wonder that many people are often mentally […]
How Are You Showing Up?
I think the Universe was priming me yesterday when I wrote my blog about stress eating. Fortunately, I didn’t turn to food when I took a huge stress hit. That hit was being told that I’m not showing up in a work situation in a way that reflects my absolute strongest core values and beliefs. Talk about taking a sucker-punch to the heart! After meditating at lunch and much focus throughout the afternoon, I was able to shift my thoughts and perspective on this a little bit, but I still had a pretty sleepless night. As a result, when the alarm went off at 4:30 a.m., I lay there and thought about skipping my workout and sleeping in. I even thought about skipping my blog and just re-running an older post. But I recognized that using this as an excuse for not showing up as Who I truly am in every area of my life is the exact opposite of the reaction I want to have. And what I want is to use this situation as an opportunity to be even better. Getting up and facing my day also helped me realize that I’d had some clarity arrive in the night. Number one is that this does not mean I’m a bad person. I know Who I am and I know that my values and beliefs were intact and being demonstrated—even if someone else made a value-judgment on how they interpreted my words or actions. Now does this mean that I was showing up as my best self? Absolutely not. And this is where I have the opportunity for growth. In my blog yesterday, I confessed that deadlines make me feel overwhelmed and frustrated—clearly I […]
Relax! You’re Exactly Where You’re Supposed to Be
Many years ago when my husband was learning how to brew beer, he followed a book called, “The New Complete Joy of Home Brewing,” by Charlie Papazian. Anytime the instructions got complex or the process might be overwhelming, Papazian would throw in, “Relax. Don’t worry. Have a homebrew.” During his first few batches of beer, I heard David use that mantra a lot! While I’m not advocating drinking (unless it’s part of your personal optimal-wellness plan), I am encouraging the mindset—relax and focus on the positive. Working to get fitter? Relax! Enjoy moving your body. Want a new job? Relax! The perfect path is unfolding. Want to be more spiritual? Relax! Enjoy your meditation. Taking the emotional pressure off doesn’t mean you are shirking your responsibilities or not doing the work. With beer brewing, it didn’t mean getting so relaxed you skipped washing the bottles or bucket—not a particularly fun job, but very important to the process. It meant relax, wash the bottles and bucket. Do your best but don’t stress about it being perfect. Relax and focus on the positive means trusting in the process more, allowing constructive anabolic energy to help you engage in what you are doing in the moment, and tapping into the support of the Universe (God, All-That-Is, Source Energy, Higher Coach—whatever works for you.) While focus is important to meeting your goals, stress, worry, and disbelief generate destructive catabolic emotion that can hold you back or limit your success, make you quit before you reach the summit, or at the very least make the process a lot more painful. So relax! Take life less seriously. Relax! Ease up on yourself and others. Relax! Make the process fun. Relax! Laugh […]
Reblog: Stressed Out?
We all know that stress has an impact on our health, relationships, and general wellbeing, but what is stress and what, if anything, can we do about it? As I’m headed out of town for the weekend, I wanted to share a recent blog that Leadership and Parent Coach Diane Dempster wrote for the Impact ADHD Parenting Community that shares some great information on what stress is, how it impacts us, and how to manage it. The other day, while I was preparing the presentation for an upcoming event, I began to notice an interesting and familiar phenomenon. I started to get a little anxious! Before I knew it, I was over-thinking, over-trying and over-doing. Ultimately, I got to the last minute before my deadline and sti… http://impactadhd.com/coach-blog/stressed-out Photo by Castillo Dominici / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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