Do you sometimes struggle with tendencies and thoughts that keep you from doing what you want to do?

I recently participated in psych testing to confirm what I already suspected about myself… that I’m not just introverted, I struggle with social anxiety. It was one of the most empowering things I’ve ever done (next to going to therapy… which actually led to the testing).

I am so grateful that I took that step because it is one of the ways that I am now able to shut up that inner mean girl—who I call the catfish—who’s been giving me a hard time for years.

So why these pics with this post? Let me explain…

I absolutely LOVE public speaking. I’m great at it, I’m natural to it, and every time I witness transformation. It is one of the most natural things on earth for me. I am completely guided. I rarely ever prepare. And I’ve never prewritten my talks. Most times I have NO IDEA what I’m going to say until they introduce me.

In my workshops, we don’t leave the room the same as when we walked in. I am changed, the girls are changed, and the mentors and teachers in the room are changed. My empowerment workshops are one of the greatest gifts I offer.

I am completely in the zone and guided in my workshops. The conversations we have and the activities we do just flow through me. Each time, when we come to the end (and during), I’m completely in awe of the healing transformations that took place.

I love seeing these photos as they remind me of the times when I role played with a student to have a healing conversation with her father to help her better understand his absence. I took on her questions and her pain and we embraced in the end and everyone of us in that room was moved. I remember the girls writing out the mean things family and classmates have said that left them wounded. And the beauty of watching them pass a mirror around the circle, looking into their own eyes saying, “I am enough,” and passing it to the next girl, while looking her in eyes and saying, “You are enough.” I remember one beautiful soul came out to her family during one of my talks. It was one of the most powerful and beautiful moments of my life.

Each time I post these events, it’s bittersweet. I love what I do, and I hate that due to social anxiety, I don’t do it anywhere near as often as I’d like. There’s that voice of the catfish in my head making me feel bad that the post is from so long ago. It’s always there to remind me of my perceived shortcomings. It’s even giving me a hard time now about not having finished my upcoming book, You’re Being Catfished, which will teach readers strategies I am using to live my life despite that inner critic. If you’ve followed my blog, you know that I regularly share the epiphanies I’ve had along this journey. I love that many of you have been blessed by these lessons…

With that said, this current social anxiety hurdle (and the strategies I’m employing to heal) will likely be part of the book. There’s no shame in seeking help for the areas that you can’t figure out on your own. Seeking needed supports at the right times is very empowering.

Sometimes we need to gain support outside ourselves to overcome what’s going on within. The psych testing was just a step and now with those results, I’ll be working with a new therapist to support me in reclaiming my power.

Maybe there’s something you’ve been struggling with and it’s time to consider what supports are available to help you overcome it. We don’t have to have it together all the time. And we don’t have to figure everything out ourselves. Take some time to sit with the realities you may be dealing with and maybe meditate on what some next steps could look like.

I meet my new therapist next week. Fingers crossed. Prayers accepted.

Blessings!

Marlene Dillon Empowerment Specialist

Today, I woke up and remembered my rights.

Sometimes people will try to convince you that you owe them your time, attention, and energy. Unless it’s your kids (and they’re at an age where you’re responsible for them) and I guess your spouse (I don’t know nothin’ about that, lol), people earn the right to your time, attention, and energy. If they have proven to be wasters of the above, remember it’s your choice to engage or not.

I am so grateful that I remembered, this morning, that I decided YEARS ago that I “give my energy where I get it back.”

I give my energy and focus to those who I appreciate and who appreciate me, who I love and who love me, who I pour into and who pour into me.

I am so done investing my time, focus, and energy into people and things that don’t bring me joy. I don’t care who you are. If my primary feeling regarding you is low vibe, we’re not aligned, and there’s the door. Now, that’s freeing.

Maybe you need to do a little spring cleaning. Check your feelings. If you can’t resolve it, you might need to remove it. Just sayin’. Don’t take my word for it. Meditate on it. See what you come up with.

Marlene Dillon Empowerment Specialist

#Proud2BNaturalMe

Do you lie to yourself? I do. I just realized that throughout my day, thoughts come to me that I know are not true, and I accept them anyway.

This morning, I was working on a fun design. I was writing “self-compassion” in bubble letters in my journal. This simple act, gave me a huge epiphany….

I was working my way through the letters, “C-O-M-P-A….” and I came to the first “s.” Immediately, my thoughts started in with the warning. “Oh no. You know the “s” is the hard one. You’re gonna mess this up….” Normally, I would overthink it, panic a little too much and end up wanting to rip out the page and ball the whole thing up. AND that’s not what happened.

This time, I heard that warning, that critical voice, and simultaneously had a memory of myself in my third grade classroom, helping one of my favorite teachers cut out letters for her bulletin board. I traced and cut out letters for her every month, and sometimes when letters were missing I would have to draw them freehand. I remembered that I learned as a kid how to make a perfect letter “s.” So instead of giving in to the defeating thought, I combatted it with, “I’ve done this a million times. And I can probably do a better job if I stop telling myself I’m gonna suck at it.” And for the first time ever (well since 3rd grade), I made a perfect “s!” It wasn’t all wonky at the top, and weird in the middle, like the one in “S-E-L-F.” It came out perfectly.

I finished writing “S-S-I-O-N,” and began journaling affirmations about self-compassion, worthiness, and blessings. As I wrote, “Blessings are always available to answer…, “a corrective thought interrupted with the words, “enter my design.” I was about to write, “… my prayers,” but I felt, intuitively, that I was to omit “answer” and change the phrase to “Blessings are always available to enter my design.”

I had never thought of it that way before, that my prayers are designs—blueprints for my life experiences. As I thought about my core belief, that I am co-creating my experiences, I realized that it makes sense that blessings are all around me and that my thoughts are impacting what I allow into my design of my ideal experiences.

That’s when I thought about my experience with the letter “s.” I had a vision of writing my title in perfect bubble letters, but my internal conversation nearly impacted the outcome. And if I have internal conversations about simple things like bubble letters, I am likely having internal conversations about other things throughout my day. All day, I am adding and rejecting blessings that I want in my vision. Chances are you are doing it, too.

It can be as simple as the thought, “I really want to grab Starbucks before work.” (That’s the envisioned design.) However, if upon approaching Starbucks the thought, “The last time I was here the barista was rude,” crosses our mind, some internal decision making is likely to come next. “I wonder if they are working today? Do I feel like dealing with a rude barista today? How long is the line? What if they’re out of…..?” And so on. Before we know it, we have pushed our vision of walking into work with delicious Starbucks to the background. Based on where we choose to focus our attention, we will either choose to allow our vision to unfold, or reject it. (This is just an example. You may hate Starbucks, but I think you get the point.)

Throughout our days, with our thoughts, we make decisions about what gets to be a part of our lives. Whether we’re ignoring an urge to get up and have a drink of water, hopping in the car to remove a “to-do” from our list, or not following up because we assume we didn’t get the job, we are constantly making individual choices in our thoughts that impact the outcomes we design. These little decisions throughout our days, weeks, months, and years add up and impact our general satisfaction with our lives.

I decided, seconds ago, to be a little more intentional about choosing thoughts that align with the visions I design. I get to pay more attention to the micro-decisions that help me allow more of what I want into the moments of my life. With these small decisions I get to increase my life’s satisfaction.

If you’re like me, maybe you could use more satisfaction in your life. Maybe this small practice is worth considering.

So how do you do it? Well, one way is when you start to talk yourself out of what you want, take a step back and notice the thoughts you are focused on. Then remember your vision. Is it possible that there is an alternate perspective you can also consider?

You can ask yourself questions like:

• “What if it works out?”
• “Is it possible that I am more capable than I think?”
• “What if I catch on quickly?”
• “What if it goes really well?”
• “What if they are impressed?”
• – “What if this a really great experience?”
• – “What if I take the pressure off and just do my best?”
• – “What if I just look at this as a learning experience?”
• – “What if they’re having a bad day?”
• – “What if this is the best date ever?”
• – “What if I’ll be fine either way?”
• – “Will I enjoy this more if I do it now or later today?”
• – “What if it’ll be over before I know it?”
• – “How good will I feel knowing this is done?”
• – “What if I just work on it for 15 minutes?”
• – “Maybe I could I call ahead and tell them __________?”

When we ask ourselves more empowering questions, we are able to shift our thoughts from negative expectations to positive. We are more likely to allow in our blessings than to talk ourselves out of them.

I hope you find this list helpful. I know I see a few I intend to employ. Don’t be surprised if this ends up in my upcoming book, “You’re Being Catfished.”

Have a wonderful rest of your day.

Blessings!

Marlene Dillon Empowerment Specialist

#Proud2BNaturalMe

So I was doing some journaling and I discovered something that may help you, or someone you know, overcome bitterness, resentment, and confusion from a past relationship.

Sometimes even though we’ve moved on, it can still be hard to fully overcome a past relationship, when we have unresolved questions.

I haven’t been in a relationship in a minute, so it was unexpected when I was led to do some deep journaling yesterday about a relationship from my past. The last sentence of my journal entry was so healing, I had to share it…..

“I didn’t hear him… because his lies were so believable that I couldn’t hear his truth.” (The full line will be in my memoir. It’s . But this excerpt will be enough to make my point.)

Okay, so what I discovered, yesterday, is that a lot of us have not fully healed from: things someone did to us, past breakups, or friendships that ended dramatically, because the end didn’t make sense based on what we believed to be true.

Yesterday, I heard something random that caused me to rethink one of my past relationships. For the first time ever, I evaluated the events of that relationship based on the truth and not the lies….

Sometimes in relationships, people tell us what we want to hear. (Sometimes we do it, too.) In an awkward moment, a choice is made to not be honest.

Something within us told us that things were off, and we may have actually confronted the person, but they told us what they thought would keep the peace. Sometimes it was to straight up deceive us, and other times maybe they were caught off guard and hadn’t quite figured out what they wanted or how to articulate it.

Those little moments of deception, caused us to ignore our instincts, and to think, “Oh, okay. I guess I was just tripping. Everything’s fine.” So we discard those moments of intuition.

So here’s my moment of clarity… here’s where it switched for me….

A memory was triggered that caused me to remember the facts of what occurred in a past relationship. Instead of thinking about all they told me, I just evaluated the facts the same way I would if a girlfriend was telling me her story. I took myself out of it, and looked at what I really saw and heard, and looked at it clearly. And you know what I found? I found the truth. And, I found compassion.

I actually saw the other person’s point of view. When I looked at it without their lies, without their moments of telling me what I wanted to to hear. I realized that they were out the door L O N G before the relationship ended, but I didn’t notice because they kept telling me that what I saw was not what I saw, and I believed them.

I looked back on other relationships—friendships included—that ended abruptly, or in unexpected misunderstandings. When I took away all the fillers, all the “No, I’m just tired,” the “It’s just been a tough day at work,” the “You know you’re my girl,” type responses that made me think things were okay, I realized those relationships were heading toward completion long before we said our final goodbyes.

….Now, I’m not sharing this to say, if things feel off, you should end your relationships and friendships, now. That is NOT the takeaway from this.

What I am saying is that if you have a past relationship that ended in a way that still stings, it’s possible that you may find some healing by seeing things clearly.

When I looked at that situation through the truth, I was able to empathize with the person. I could see how uncomfortable it must’ve been to be done but not want to hurt the other person. Whether they were right or wrong for handling things as they did, is not important in this moment. It just felt good to understand. It felt good to see things clearly….

Do with this what (positive) you will.

Blessings!

Marlene Dillon Empowerment Specialist