Tag Archives: taking action

Why Am I Dealing with This AGAIN?!?

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As I settle into the rhythms of the New Year, I’ve been revisiting the basics of my business and coming face-to-face with where I get stuck over and over again. Notions of branding and editorial calendars and the like.

WAIT! Before you think you’re in the wrong place or that I’ve changed tacks altogether, bear with me…I’ll get to the point that you need to hear.

When I started out as a practitioner, that’s what I wanted to do: practice modalities to help clients find ease with their health. It never occurred to me, until I was thrown into the wilds after graduation, that I’d also have to think about message and networking. Marketing has become the bellyache that has me lying awake at night considering the possibility of giving it all up in frustration for a simple life of suburban housewifery.

That’s not why I got into this profession! I went back to school so I could guide women to a deeper understanding of their bodies, to teach them about the choices they have to address their health, not to learn about metrics.

It’s my mission to have you to hear the call of you soul as it whispers urges to change a few habits, so your entire being can shine. I can’t do that unless I shine: I have to get out there and do the stuff I’d rather not do.

It’s a form of self-care. You have habits in place which mean you will be feeling your best, that you have the stamina to get through your day, so you can be the effective professional and the present mom you strive to be despite the chaos that has been your life.

So, I do what I gotta do – perhaps grumbling a bit at first – inevitably I learn something about myself, my abilities, my strengths & weaknesses, and a much deeper understanding of how I might help. I learn something new about business in general and maybe navigate the world of marketing with a bit more confidence and skill than before.

One of the coaches I follow describes it as a spiral staircase: you keep going around the same circle, getting to the same place over and over, but each time you do, it’s from a higher vantage point. You’re older, wiser, more experienced and can see the benefits (or downfalls) of what you did before, giving you the foothold to get up to the next level.

It works the same way with your health.

When you’re dealing with a chronic condition, like IBS or anxiety, or when you get one cold after another through the winter: there are times when you feel like you’ve licked it. Whatever remedies or diets or bodywork you’ve tried has you feeling better than you have in ages and you’re convinced it’s gone for good. And maybe it does go for a few weeks, months, years even, but then it shows up again.

Symptoms that are all too familiar – that particular stabbing under your ribs, the spinning thoughts that won’t let you focus or the bone-deep tiredness that signals you’re about to get sick. Again.

So you go on the hunt once more. You head to the doctor, the mindfulness coach, the nutritionist who will have the right answer this time, all the while kicking yourself for the ways you believe you went wrong.

After that anger and self-flagellation and the defeatist rant – that’s it, this is going to stick around for the rest of my life! – after these feelings pass, take a moment to observe what’s actually going on.

Is it exactly the same as it was before or have things shifted, even by the tiniest amount?

Though familiar, is the pain perhaps a little less intense than usual?

Are you having fewer panic attacks?

Does this virus feel like it’s moving through rather than taking up residence in your chest?

Is it possible that you are, in fact, experiencing these symptoms from higher up on the path to full health?

Could it be that what you were doing has helped and this set-back is here for you to learn & integrate the next piece?

 

In playing with my Tarot cards at the new year, I pulled the Wheel of Fortune in response to what I might experience through the few first months.

At face value, I took it to mean that things are going to be up & down – there will be good days and bad – what else is new?!? Looking more closely, I was drawn to the way that the king and queen hold hands as if they’re trying to keep each other from falling off.

Well, things got rough already last week (set-backs in both business and health), I was immediately reminded to look for that hand to hold. To get out of the worries in my head and talk to my friends and healers and coaches and support groups until I could find a solution, or at least feel stable enough to handle it on my own.

When my gallbladder acted up, I was in the country without my usual arsenal of remedies and without service to reach any wise-women. It forced me to get back to the basics of nourishing food and journaling about what’s happened lately that might have triggered the flare-up. By the time I got home and was able to take some homeopathics, things cleared pretty quickly.

Easy for you, you might think; yes, I have the knowledge and the products at hand. This time, I did. To be honest, that’s not always the case. Sometimes, fear and frustration block my ability to think for myself and I need to call out for help, which might be in the form of new guidance or might simply remind me of what I already know and have.

With business, I got stuck with which direction to take with my ideas, so I jumped in with a coach, started writing out scenarios based on her prompts, only to realise I’d written it all before. Like with my belly, I have what I need already.

AHA! That card is telling me to “Stop reinventing the wheel!” With my business, with my belly – heck, with parenting, marriage and daily routines – I have the tools for success, and I know who I can call to help when I don’t.

It all comes down to stepping back onto that wheel – taking the action that will move you out of what’s going on, that will create the momentum to move you forward and up to the next level. The ride might be a challenge, and you might need to hold on for dear life for a time so you don’t fall off, yet you will get out of the pitfalls faster than if you let yourself fall off the edge entirely.

If things are bad for you right now, if you’re frustrated to be suffering the same pain, your pants still tight and your energy still flat, let me be the hand you need.

Reach out and I’ll take hold: Let’s talk. I have availability to chat with 12 women this month…a half hour to get you moving in the right direction, let’s set up a time!

 

When Every Setback Feels Like a Failure

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Raise your hand if you start emails with apologies.

“Sorry it took me so long to reply…”
“I’m sorry your email got lost in the pile…”
“I’m sorry to have missed your thing…”

I’m resisting that urge big-time today. Something happened to offset my commitment to put my thoughts to paper (screen) every other week and I desperately feel the need to apologise for it – like I’ve failed.

I can logically see that yes, life happened in a way that focused my attention away from my plans: I was in a small car accident – no injuries other than my car, but it still turned my world upside down if even briefly.

To be honest, my thoughts were mostly focused on self-indulgent musings about why such a thing happened (the awkward part of believing that we create our own reality) and wracking my brain for the lesson so that I could move on. (As you can imagine, that part hasn’t quite sorted itself out yet.)

Now that I’m back to the land of the living, I find I’m beating myself up for not having done all the shoulds I let fall to the wayside for a few weeks.

Do you ever feel that way?

Like when you set out every morning with the best of intentions for how you’ll eat well and meditate and exercise, only to find yourself at the bottom of a bag of chips by the mid-afternoon.

Or when you write out the agenda of what you’re determined to accomplish in a day and get lost on Facebook for an hour before you even get started.

Or when you decide to recharge the love in your marriage only to be triggered by that thing he says as he walks in the door.

So you feel like you failed, and why do you even try, and you’ll be stuck here forever.

Where did that come from, the belief that a setback is a failure? More importantly, what can you do to get over it?

Two words: perfection paralysis

To loosely quote my friend Casey, that’s the way we freeze our lives to maintain the high standards we set for ourselves in response to high standards society sets for us.

Here are 3 ways to defrost that need for those perfect standards and move forward:

1. Stop trying to do it all at once! (aka take baby steps)

Rather than revamp all your eating habits overnight, take one thing from that list the health coach gave you and do that for a few days before you attempt the next one.

Take one task you want to accomplish today and break it into the 3 steps it actually requires, and let that be your agenda.

Rather than expect rainbows and sunshine, avoid going down the rabbit hole of negativity by giving your man a smile and offer him a fun little piece from your day.

2. Get in touch with your own perfection

Sit quietly, breathe into your belly and open yourself up to the light and love waiting in there (possibly hiding quite deeply) for you to feel it.

This may take a few tries to get…this stuff can be subtle and quiet, especially as compared to the loud and persistent voice of your inner critic and whip-slinger who is always ready to lynch you for the slightest transgression.

Put on a timer for 10 minutes to keep you from getting frustrated or trying too hard. Do it again tomorrow and the next day and the next.

3. Set the bar from the inside

Again, get in touch with that perfect you.

Listen to your body for clues as to what you need, as to what standards you want to adhere, as to what the first next step is.

And here’s the key…possibly even the hardest part: when you’ve got your answer about that step? Take it!

 

How to Overcome Resistance Before It Overpowers You

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Many of the health-based conversations I have lately revolve around motivation. Actually, it’s not just with health. We’ve got so many reasons why we can’t find the energy to improve our eating habits or our self-care routines or our parenting or our relationships or our work.

Excuses run rampant through your head and stuff happens in your life which stops you from moving forward with your best intentions.

Like when you make a conscious decision to eat more vegetables, cut out the sugar and take a proper break for lunch. Then the usual reasons come flooding in, “reminding” you why you need eat at your desk, and grab a slice of banana bread every afternoon.

You have too much to do and there’s a bonus attached to finishing that contract…it takes time to actually cook the squash and beets and greens you finally remembered to buy…your kid’s hockey schedule changes at the last minute…an email alerts you to a crisis that needs your immediate attention,…

How many times do you blame your boss or a colleague for the amount of stress at work, or your husband for the lack of intimacy in your marriage?

Even in my woo-woo circles, people seem to love hearing that Mercury Retrograde is in full swing, because it offers a cosmic reason why every type of communication and forward motion they attempt gets derailed for days or weeks at a time.

When you weed through the tangle of every possible reason you can’t or don’t move forward, it usually filters down to some form of resistance.

Resistance is the current catchword that practically gives us permission to stay stuck where we are.

We post about it in our favourite groups, so our friends can nod knowingly and send us a virtual hug and some sympathy – “Yeah, been there, know what you’re going through, sister!”

Now you feel heard and understood, but you’re no further ahead in the face of your frustrations.

What if resistance weren’t a bad thing? What if it had a purpose other than making you feel that the Universe is conspiring against every effort you try to make?

What is resistance anyway?

Let’s start by doing a little physics lesson.

A resistor is a passive component in an electrical circuit that converts electricity into heat, which dissipates into the air. A resistor impacts how easily electricity can flow, depending what it’s made of; a metal tube has little resistance, a piece of plastic, a lot. When passing through a material with high resistance, the current has to work much harder to get through it. (The technical definition of resistance is the voltage needed for 1 amp of current to flow through a circuit.)

Electrical resistance is valuable. You actually make practical use of it; without it, the appliances in your house wouldn’t work.

It takes so much energy for the flow to get through the little filament in a standard lightbulb, that the wire heats up and gives off light. The element in your kettle and oven work the same way. The volume control on your TV has a variable resistor that lets more or less sound out when a little or a lot of resistance is applied.

What does that mean for you?

Apply the same principles to the flow of movement you want to create in your life, like when you’re trying to eat better.

First and very important point to repeat: a resistor is a passive component. Like the rain, it’s neither good nor bad, it’s not the Universe’s way of trying to derail your efforts. It’s just there. It’s the nature of the resistor and your level of opposition to it that causes the issues, and determine how hard you have to work to get around it.

So, you’ve decided to cut out sugar. Inevitable circumstances happen (as described above) which make it harder to plan and get around the shortcuts.

* The self-denigrating voices start in your head, “I can’t do this…I don’t know what to eat…I hate kale…it’s too much work…I’ll never look like Kate Moss no matter what I try…”

* Your mother’s voice nags in there too, “Just eat smaller portions and you’ll be fine…have you seen all the weight Betty lost on her diet…”

* The associations start to surface: the need for a cookie or a big plate of pasta after an argument, the need for a drink after a hard day at work.

Those parts of life come up. They just are.

You can choose to fight those facts and listen to the voices, you can let them derail you – not to mention increase the pain of the pressure they inflict by beating yourself up about it. Like with the electrical resistor, the energy you use to let these circumstances antagonize you will only get dissipated.

All the effort you would have put into the doing of the improvement gets diverted in any number of ways.

Functionally an electrical resistor will

  • slow the flow of current, that is, make it seem like no progress is being made, like when your pants still don’t fit;
  • adjust levels, or make the goal harder to meet, like when the excuses for why you can’t accomplish this simple goal get the better of you, “I don’t have time…I’m too tired…it’ll never work…”;
  • divide voltages, that is, distract you from your original intention and/or split your focus, like when you finally decide to go ahead and eat Paleo, only to come across a great article about the virtues of veganism and your best friend raves how the Mediterranean diet changed her life;
  • terminate transmission lines, in other words, stop you in your efforts altogether, like when you cheat on the second day and give up completely.

Great for the electrician who places a particular component into his circuit to achieve one of those specific electrical effects, but how can this have a purpose for you?

Could it be that the Universe places those resistors in your life for a specific reason as well?

Going back to the cosmic example will make this point easier to understand. As frustrating as it can be, Mercury Retrograde has a purpose in your soul’s journey. It forces you to stop what you’re doing, take stock and re-evaluate whether those are in fact the steps you want to be taking. Its energy could even make you look backwards and force you to see (and shed!) some of the baggage that’s still dragging you down around this particular movement.

What if, like with Mercury Retrograde, you could look at those circumstances as a need to slow down and re-evaluate?

Is your time worth more that the overall quality of the food you eat?

How can you set yourself up to weather sudden changes in the day?

Do you need to recognize the voices in your head as your ego trying to steer you clear of failure?

Is it time that you released your mother’s “helpful” comments into the compost of no-longer-serve-you items?

If you can’t avoid stopping for food as you rush from A to B, is there a wiser choice you can make? If not, can you swallow a side order of compassion with the chicken nuggets?

 

The other term that comes to mind as I let the word dance around in my head is resistance training, AKA strength training. This is the practice – with weights, machines, straps and certain yoga poses – whereby you contract a muscle against an external force to improve strength, tone and endurance.

What if you use the resistance that shows in your life up as the means to strengthen your resolve and your efforts? That is, sometimes we need to be reminded that life changes, big projects, enriched relationships take a certain amount of effort and work.

The pride you feel from saying no to the fries or the cookie on offer provides an energy boost to your stamina for doing better yet again tomorrow. The more you exercise the buy-&-cook-more-vegetables muscle this week, the more efficiently you’ll flex it next. The relief of saying No, that is when the pressure to say to say Yes is lifted from your shoulders, you’ll be able to stand that much taller in your resolve and your needs.

Strength training also improves bone density, your circulation, blood sugar balance and coordination – it impacts more than just the muscles doing the direct work. Using your energy to lean into, work through or push past the hindrances that show up in your life will have an overall benefit to your entire being. Balance, flow and peace of mind can only follow when you move with life as it happens rather than fighting it.

 

Slowing down to work with the resistance that shows up in your life gives you the energy necessary to shine brightly and speak loud & clear through the flow of your personal current.

Let me put this another way: the root of the word resist is sistere, Latin for “to take a stand”.

When faced with resistance, you are being called to (again) take a stand for who you are, your values, your priorities, and how you want to move through life.

 

Stop fighting it!

Go with the flow!

 

Need more concrete help moving through the many faces of resistance in your life? Here are some suggestion to help you withstand a few of them:

 

How do you get past the resistance that blocks your efforts? When you share in the comments, you open the possibilities for others.

Don’t hold this idea back – let it flow to your friends so they can shine more brightly too:
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I credit Wikipedia and explainthatstuff.com for a bit of a physics refresher.
Thanks to emedicine.com and nerdfitness.com for details about strength training.

I Know What to Do, I Just Don’t Do It.

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I get it.

There are only so many hours in a day. You only have so much creative energy and only so much will power. You’re keeping the family happy, you’re effective at work; how can you be expected to be consistent with positive food changes?

You know perfectly well that to lose the weight, heal your digestive woes, calm the allergies, you’ll have to cut out an entire grocery list of foods & additives, squash a lifetime of bad eating habits, and probably eat more vegetables.

The theory’s all mapped out in your head, but you just can’t seem to put those good intentions into action.

Instead, you use what precious little energy you have left at the end of the day to beat yourself up about everything you should be doing while mindlessly inhaling a pint of cherry chocolate with a salt & vinegar chaser.

It’s a slippery slope, isn’t it? You start by taking stabs at your poor food choices, until your mind inevitably points out how you haven’t been feeding the kids so well lately, not to mention all the other bad parenting moments you’ve had this week, …how did you think you can be an effective parent with everything else you’re dealing with? What were you thinking? Did you really think you could manage it all?…Is this boat you’re in all your fault because you chose the wrong man in the first place?…And now you’re going to be a fat, lonely slob for the rest of your life!

How stupid are you?!?

STOP THAT!

Right now. Just stop. Take a breath.

We’ll look at the mindless junk food habit next time; for now, let’s talk about the self-flagellation.

Would you talk to anyone else that way? Would you tell a friend what an idiot she is for eating ice cream or getting divorced? I’d wager not.

It’s time to stop being so tough on yourself and try a bit of tough love instead. You know, set yourself straight in the kind way you would with a small child you care about.

Another good theory, but it’s where you get stuck in the follow-through.

It comes down to perfection. That habit you have whereby, if you’re not going to do something to the letter, the way the experts and the health nuts do it, you’re not even going to bother.

Tell me, if the boss handed you a list of what she expects you to accomplish over the next 6 months, and told you to get it all figured out tomorrow, you’d freak out, right? You’d quit your job, or report it to the higher-ups. If, however, she explained the big picture of the goals she wants to reach by the end of the year, then gave you the first pieces to start on, it would be simple, doable.

Same goes with how you nourish yourself.

Consistent, positive food changes require awareness, small steps and a hint of tough love.

 

If you’ve given even half the thought to all the possible solutions you’ve googled, there are likely a few options that stand out, whether you want to admit it or not. Trust that wisdom. Chances are there’s a reason you zoned in on them.

 

Of all the things you know you need to do to get your body back to its happy place, pick one.

Just one. It will likely be complex in and of itself.

For example, giving up dairy is one thing you know might help your digestion.

 

Break it down further:

Become aware of when and how you eat it: notice through the course of a few days and/or write down all the foods you normally eat that contain some form of dairy – milk, cream, ice cream, yogourt, cheese, whey powder, butter,…

Now choose ONE of those, and replace it: instead of the milk/cream you use in a day, put almond milk in your coffee, coconut milk in your porridge or your soup, have tomato/vegetable sauce on your pasta… after a few days, even a week, move onto to replacing the cheese, and so on…

In the same way you would track the metrics and such of how your work project is progressing, you can understand how well these changes are helping (or not) by observing your body, your energy, your moods.

Notice how you feel after a meal without the usual ingredient.

Notice if any of your symptoms calm. Maybe nothing happens after a week of no milk, but eliminating the cheese then makes a difference, …does it improve more when you reduce your dairy sources even further?

What happens to your appetite, your hunger and your satiety?

What happens to your cravings?

Has your sleep improved? Your energy?

Notice where you still get stuck.

Have you run out of ideas? Do you lack motivation? Would you kill for a piece of cheese?

Get help if you need it.

 

Every journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step. Same applies to self-care habits.

Pick a habit to change.
Trust yourself to stick with it.
Notice what happens.

 

What do you KNOW you have to change and where do you get stuck? When you share your thoughts in the comments, you open the possibilities for others.

Know someone who’s been lacking consistency in her food habits? Send her this post using any (or all!) of these buttons.

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The Secret to Moving Forward

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In the previous post, I told you about my friend, Sharon*, with the chronically sore wrist and upset stomach; how she’d asked me what I meant exactly by “listen to your body” and “talk to your wrist”. A few weeks later, I followed up with her and hit upon an important key for any kind of healing to work.

Sharon told me how she’d decided to try energetic healing; Reiki being one and another she’d heard about at a conference. She was comfortable with the concept of Reiki, allowing whatever emotional release or images or realizations to come up. The other technique, done over the phone and quick-acting was also touted as clearing blocks from generations of stuck emotions; this she had a harder time believing.

Was it the distance? The speed? The idea of having her great-grandmother’s frustrations lodged in her wrist that caused her to doubt?

It ultimately came down to the fact that she experienced shifts with Reiki and had no “proof” of the other thing working, other than the practitioner saying that she was “done”. Yet, in neither circumstance was there a moment when she consciously “heard” the exact nature of what’s irritating her body, nor a clear solution.

So, she brushed off any effectiveness. During our conversation, though, she kept saying that her stomach and wrist were feeling better, relating it more easily to new meds than anything else she’d tried.

Reminds me of a story that Louise Hay tells in one of her books, about a visually impaired woman who’d recovered her sight after working with Ms. Hay. She walked around for a week saying, “I can’t believe I can see,” and not surprisingly, by the end of the week, she was back to square one.

Like this woman, Sharon doubted the power of the energetic work.

That’s right. It comes down to faith. It comes down to trusting the process, whether you can see the end results or not.

 

Whether health-related or not, this is the same kind of resistance that holds us back when anything new presents itself in our lives. (Read here about the pain of transition.)

You fear the part you can’t see yet – what it’ll be like to live on your own or in a new city; what it’ll be like once your business takes off or your pain is healed. We get so used to how things are now. No matter how much we want them to change, or, no matter how much we feel our world’s coming to an end when the change is unexpected, we have a hard time projecting ourselves into the unknown territory on the other side.

We fear the unknown.

I get it. I was so scared of what splitting up would do to my kids, I was temporarily willing to fold myself back up into the unfulfilled ball I needed to be to stay in that marriage. I was so afraid of walking away from the support and old-slipper comfort of my life in one city, I fleetingly considered ending a second marriage to avoid having to move away.

My friend, in healing her wrist and stomach, will be letting go of the traumatic end to her own marriage. Staying locked in a place of “I have been a victim” has been the driving definition of her life for 8 years. By walking away from it all – by trusting the potential offered to her by her recent energetic sessions, she is saying yes to herself. She is saying yes to a part of herself that she has yet to discover. How exciting!

How scary.

No wonder she’d rather doubt and hold back.

As I learned by following the suggestions of healthcare practitioners over the years, as I learned by embracing life as a divorced mother, as I learned by opening myself to the possibilities of a new city, at a certain point, you have to trust where the road is taking you.

Consider that these changes in your life might be the answers to requests you made of the universe months or even years ago. You never know.

It’s quite possible that in signing up for the energetic work, Sharon was in some way listening to deepest needs.

How and What to Trust.

* When you ask for help, trust that what shows up is what you need in that moment.

When you choose to hire an expert, or read their book, or follow their blog, trust that she has the expertise and experience to get you where you need to go on this leg of the journey. She’s been where you are, she knows how to get you through.

Trust that she holds a vision of what’s possible for you, even if you can’t see it yet.

When you come upon a new experience, trust that is has gifts for you even if you don’t see them in the moment.

* Trust that you are safe.

Trust that your support system (the professionals, your friends, your family, your gods/angels/spirit guides) and your inner knowing all have your back, and will get you through this, no matter how long, no matter how hard.

* Most importantly, trust yourself.

“I can’t…, I don’t believe…, this never works for me,…” these are words of doubt and resistance; they will only become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Trust yourself to stay open to what happens. Even in listening to your own body’s wisdom, trust that wisdom…and trust your body’s capacity to heal.

Trust yourself to use the tools you’ve been offered. In any kind of healing – health, marriage, business, parenting,… – there’s always homework, action to reinforce the lessons and insights. Don’t question the validity of the exercise, simply trust that there’s a reason you’re being told to do something, even if it’s not immediately clear to you.

Trust yourself to do the work.

When you want and need to move forward into the unknown of your life, resistance will rear its fear-drenched head. Take a deep breath and trust.

* not her real name

What has held you back from moving forward with your health and your life? When you share in the comments, you open the possibilities for others.

Any of your friends lost in the mud of transition? Send her this post using any (or all!) of these buttons.

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