by Marlene Dillon Empowerment Specialist

What we focus on expands. If we want to improve our relationships, one of the first steps is to start looking for good in the person.

You’ve possibly heard of this exercise that many coaches learned from Tony Robbins, but in case you haven’t, let’s try it. Look around your space and take note of everything in the room that is blue. Go ahead and do it. Just takes 3 seconds. Okay. I’m going to close your eyes and try to remember everything in the room that’s purple….

That was probably a little challenging, because you told your mind to remember what was blue so it automatically ignores the other colors. This is how our minds work. What we train our minds to focus on will be primarily what we see. We will ignore all the other things that are present and notice what we choose is important.

In relationships, this is a hugely important point to consider. Early in a relationship, we tend to focus on the positive aspects of the other person. Whether it’s our new baby’s adorable little hands and chubby wrists, or the way our partner’s eyes simply sparkle when they smile. We feel so in love. However, over time we begin to notice what annoys us about them and the things they do that get on our nerves. We pay less attention to their cute traits and find ourselves feeling increasingly irritated. Not only do we find them irritating when they are with us, but when they are not around we think of them in negative ways. We grumble to ourselves about them each time we have to pick up their dirty socks, find dishes in their room, or step on another Lego.

Since our minds become conditioned based on what we choose to focus on, the more we think of them with anger, frustration, disgust, and disappointment, the more of this we’ll see. It’s not that they aren’t doing anything kind, fun, positive, or beautiful. It’s just that we have conditioned our minds (typically by experiencing extreme emotions while noticing their annoying behaviors) to find evidence of them being frustrating, disgusting, and disappointing.

The beautiful thing about our wonderful minds, though, is that the same way we conditioned ourselves “against” them can be used to condition our minds toward them. We can choose… intentionally… to see their good traits and behaviors. We can make a conscious decision to notice when they are doing something good. We can decide to look for reasons, even very tiny ones, that help us remember why we love them.

As we do this, we come to realize that our view of them will shift. It doesn’t mean that the things they do that suck are going to no longer bother us. But it does mean that we get to see them as more than just that. We get to see the things we appreciate about them. We get to see the ways they enhance our lives. We get to feel better in their presence. And as we do this, we begin to improve our relationships (unless they totally suck and don’t have ANY good qualities Just throwing in that disclaimer, but more often than not this is not the case. )

As parents, our children can do a lot of things that get us upset. However, when we begin to only notice those things, we begin to treat them differently. Their negative behavior may have started the pattern, but as we feed into that negativity with yelling and nagging and always looking angry whenever we interact with them, we continue the cycle. As we continue to meet them with sighs, frowns, and side eyes, they continue to give us reasons to do so. Before we know it, our relationship doesn’t feel like a relationship at all.

We can turn this around by choosing every day to find one thing about our child to be grateful for, or one thing they did that made us smile, or to intentionally pay them a sincere compliment. As we shift what we are looking for, we will become aware of more reasons to smile.

The same applies for other relationships. Sometimes the one good thing we can find in another person is the lessons we learn from them. Your boss may be a turd who’s rude to everybody. Maybe you choose to focus on how you are learning from them how to be a great supervisor by noticing how their behavior impacts you and your co-workers. You can choose to use them as a crash course in how not to do it, or to form a list of what you want in your next soon coming position. You can even use them as fuel to see how capable you are as a future supervisor. The goal is to shift your focus in order to feel better in your environment.

We get to shift our experiences of the relationships around us, simply by shifting what we choose to focus on. We can train our brains to find reasons to smile. The more we search for these positive reasons the more of them we’ll find. Today, I am choosing to start looking for more reasons to smile. How about you?

Blessings!

Marlene Dillon Empowerment Specialist

Co-Founder of SISTAMoms with Yvonne Monique Livingston LLC

Designer/Author/Speaker I’m Proud to Be Natural Me!

Owner/Designer/Publisher MDillon Designs & Publishing

#parenting#parentingtips#teenagerslife#healingourfamilies#healingjourney#talktomeandsee#Proud2BNaturalMe#SISTAMoms

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This week, I shared with my therapist that I’m doing inner child work and how it’s helping me get things off my to-do list… and I mean things that have been on that list for weeks, months, and even years! 

Honestly, I was a little nervous sharing that with her. I know some people in the field find inner child work and metaphysical and spiritual practices as unfounded and even as signs of mental illness. I was nervous that she might think that I’ve lost my marbles if I told her that there’s a little child within me who I talk to and she gives me guidance. 😂 

I personally have not always believed in inner child work. I thought it was a bunch of nonsense along with a lot of other things that are called “woo woo.” Being raised in church, I was taught that most of the spiritual practices that weren’t a part of my religion were essentially “evil.” I have come to experience for myself, however, that so many of these practices are based in love and science and are simply other tools for navigating the human experience. I choose to recognize that fear of differences is typically a sign of ignorance. And I’m committed to learning so when I find fear is driving me away from something, I investigate and learn more about that topic. This is what I did with inner child work, and I’m so grateful….. 

It’s been so helpful for me that I wanted to share it with my therapist. In order for us to have a productive relationship, it’s important for me to feel free to talk about the various modalities I use toward my inner healing. So although I was nervous, I decided to just go ahead and have that conversation with my therapist. I figured, “Worst case scenario, she thinks I’m nuts and that’s the end of our time together.” However, to my relief, she embraces her client’s spiritual and metaphysical preferences, and finds ways to incorporate them into the therapy experience. 

I’m so grateful that I didn’t let fear keep me from having that conversation with her. She has been so supportive and was so impressed by my progress on my goals (as a result of my inner child work) that she encouraged me to incorporate these inner child conversations into my daily routine! That’s a brilliant idea!

And that’s what I want to share with you, today. 

I sat down with my journal and new gel pens a few days ago to begin a new conversation with my inner child. She wanted to write a haiku. 

Side note: I may have shared this before, but I use the syllabic breakdown of haiku poetry to help get thoughts out of my head. When I’m having trouble expressing myself, or figuring out why I’m feeling “off,” I’ll journal in haiku. By simplifying what’s going on in my mind into a three line poem–with five syllables in the first line, seven syllables in the second line and five syllables in the last–I’m able to trick my brain into getting the most important information out. 

This is one of my main #ADHDhacks because often when I attempt to access one thought, a million others come rushing through. (Picture Walmart’s doors opening on Black Friday. 🤣) By narrowing the “doorway” with this rigid structure, only the main thoughts get to squeeze their way through and tumble out. It’s very effective for me. I use my haiku journaling technique often, so I was not surprised my inner child wanted to express herself through haiku.

She began,

 “I want to be loved.” 

“Not for who you think I am.” 

(These words sounded oddly familiar. 🤔)

 “or want me to be.” 

(That’s when I was like, “Wait a minute these are song lyrics!”) 🤣

I was so convinced that I just wasn’t centered enough, or that I was somehow interfering with her message that I nearly gave up on the process, but her next line helped me understand.…

“Please love me for me.” 🥺

As I read those words, I realized that she had chosen this song as her message. The lyrics are so fitting. (If you’re not familiar with the song, don’t worry. I will leave a link and lyrics below). It’s a beautiful reggae song about desiring an enduring love that is based on true acceptance. And it’s a perfect representation of what’s missing in my relationship with my inner child.

If the concept of the inner child is too “out there” for you to grasp, maybe look at it like this. Our inner child represents the parts of us that life experiences have taught us to suppress. Some refer to the inner child as our “discarded self.” Maybe you used to freely express yourself but were taught “boys don’t cry.” Maybe you used to love to draw but you had a mean teacher or classmate criticize your work and you never loved it the same. Maybe you lost a loved one and your passion and joy left with them. Or maybe you used to trust your intelligence or gut instincts but someone older told you that you were wrong in such a convincing way that you stopped trusting yourself….

The inner child is our vulnerable, sensitive, intuitive, uninhibited self. That part of us that we thought died still exists but lays dormant within…. In my opinion, embracing our inner child is one of the most important steps on our healing journey, because I believe our inner child is our most authentic self. It’s who we were before the world taught us we aren’t enough….

So many of us are on a self-love journey but we don’t realize that part of that is embracing the parts of us that we’ve discarded. When my inner child expressed that I don’t love me for me, I realized that is unfortunately true. As I compare myself to other adults my age, and younger, who have accomplished things that I thought I would have by this age, I definitely have not been my biggest cheerleader. In this area of my life, I have been extremely self-critical. I’m so grateful for this inner child conversation because now I recognize my journey to self-acceptance has to include ending self-criticism. 

Critique and criticism are not the same. We can notice what we’re doing right, and lovingly acknowledge where we still need some work. We don’t have to bully ourselves. We can love and celebrate ourselves towards success. We get to stop comparing ourselves to others, recognizing that “life is not a race, it’s a journey, and we’re all heading to different destinations.” We can take that pressure off of ourselves. We can stop  hating ourselves for who we are not, and begin to love ourselves for who we are.

Epiphanies like this are the blessings that come from inner child work. I felt that in order to coach people on any child work that it’s important for me to do more of it for myself. I’m grateful that I embraced my therapist’s suggestion to have these inner child conversations daily. Look at the great epiphany I received, and now get to share with you.

Through inner child work I am learning how to embrace the parts of me that I discarded. I am beginning to see there is so much more to me. I get to go within and receive clarity and guidance from the part of me I thought I didn’t need. 

I’m going to be more gentle with myself and practice releasing self-criticism, and I hope you will, too. 

 I get to love me for me. And so do you. 🥰

Check out the song. It’s one iof my favorites.

Blessings!

Marlene Dillon Empowerment Specialist

Oh… and here’s the song….

Check out Buju Banton’s “Wanna Be Loved.”  

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So you may have guessed by the length of my blogs that I love writing. Not novel level writing, but long short stories (sounds like an oxymoron), blog posts, songs, and even poetry. 

As you may know from my recent posts, I now offer inner child coaching. Inner child work is a practice that I am constantly learning for myself and offering to those around me. It has been helpful for friends and for myself, and I was recently invited to speak to a group of women on the topic. The breakthroughs in such a short amount of time confirmed for me that it is something of value and I’m qualified to support people in learning to do it. 

As part of my practice, I love to learn and read constantly. I began learning about the inner child and learned of an aspect called the “vulnerable child.” This is the part of us that is intuitive, aware of the energy of people… the reason why children will back away from a person who is not good natured without having met them. This aspect is typically shamed into hiding as adults reprimanded us for not hugging that (stranger) relative, or for not speaking to their “sus” friend. This is the aspect of us that is emotional and sensitive, the part of us that cries and feels openly. So for many adults this part is silenced. What I learned is that when we don’t acknowledge and support this aspect of us, it finds other ways to be heard and get its needs met. For example, when we keep going to that job that we know is slowly killing our spirit, a sudden illness may come up that keeps us from being able to go. That desire to shift becomes stuck energy that can cause illness, etc. 

Anyway, for some this is complete nonsense, or too “woo woo,” but for me, it’s fascinating and eye-opening. I began doing some work over the last few days toward connecting with my vulnerable self and what has come up for me is a request for me to tell beautiful stories about my life… how I want it to be, rather than how it currently is. Within there is a desire for me to pivot from conversations of poverty, to stories of how my life turned around and I am now living abundantly. So I thought it would be cool… okay… let me be honest…. I felt led to share this personal journal assignment (that I thought would be for my “ears” only). I hope you enjoy it. 

This is my new story. Blessings!   

Once upon a time in a far away land 

There lived a mom and girl… and no man. 😂

She was a writer and designer

And occasionally she spoke.

She even assisted teaching

Adorable little folk.

One day she came to realize

She really loved to speak.

The children went from sassy

To cooperative and meek.

She found the process easy

For the words flowed from her soul

She didn’t have to script or plan

Just let go of control.

She also wrote the cutest books

To the children’s glee.

She even wrote songs to go with them

Like I’m Proud to Be Natural Me!

She designs gifts and t-shirts

Where you can put your name.

And supplies for birthday parties

Where you can do the same.

She is a single mother 

Of a daughter that she loves.

Who adores the winter.

And won’t wear socks or gloves. 😒

They’ve become the best of friends,

As she changed the way she talks.

So now she teaches parents

How to walk how she walks.

For years she made no money,

Which was no fun at all.

But she couldn’t stop creating

The ideas would call and call.

She knew one day they’d pivot

And money would just flow. 

That it would happen suddenly. 

Just when she didn’t know.

She began to share her stories

Through podcast and her blog

Helping people through her deserts,

Winters, and the fog. 

Before she knew it she was known

And people sought her for advice

She began coaching, returned to speaking

And it was oh so nice!

She found a way to do her loves

And their money grew.

Her daughter was so happy

And she was happy, too. 

Their life had changed before their eyes

With little effort given.

Now, they both give thanks

For their life feels just like heaven. 

The End.

I discovered recently that I LOVE to engage with people who already see and get me. I despise having to persuade people of who I am and what I have to offer.

It took me a minute to come to a place of recognizing my value—I’m honestly still on that journey. (Oh, BTW, thanks for your prayers! I FINALLY have a new therapist and she is AMAZING!) I recognize that I don’t just find it uncomfortable. I legit despise it. I prefer to be with and work with people who already “see” me.

I noticed this tendency in friendships first. It started with “friendships” that I had for years (like decades), where I was finding myself experiencing misunderstandings about who I am. I got to a point where I was done. If you haven’t figured out I’m a good person, with pure intentions, and we’ve been cool for over 10 years, what are we even doing? That’s the quickest way to get me to throw up the deuces and wish you a great life. That’s the core of who I am.

Next, I started to acknowledge a similar need in my intimate relationships. When I’m with someone—even in a “situationship”—I am open and put it all out there. If I like you, you know it. If I love you, you know it. If I’m not experiencing reciprocity, you know it. I’m big on communication. Not the naggy kind, but the “I don’t like elephants in the room, so let me tell you what’s on my mind” kind. I don’t like to let things linger. I want to address it, early. I will tell you I have an issue as soon as I realize I have an issue… and I’ll do it with love….

What I came to see—through a beautiful (temporary) relationship I was in—is that I bring a lot to my relationships. In this relationship, I was taught to love myself because I got to see myself through their eyes and they loved me so dearly. I learned that those who did not value me in the past are the ones who missed out. I learned that I gave my goodness to people who did not appreciate it, and that I get to choose differently in the future. I learned to raise the bar of my expectations waaaay higher. I learned that I’m pretty freakin’ amazing and that there are people out there who can see that and will appreciate it. Through that relationship, I came to see how much more I deserved.

So recently, I started working with my new awesome therapist and realized how much I really hate working with people who don’t see my value. I don’t like having to convince people. I prefer to work with people who already “see” me and want what I have to offer.

I don’t just want friendships where I am seen for who I am, and intimate relationships where my value is obvious. I want clients, customers, and speaking opportunities with people who value who I am and what I offer.

I want my whole life to feel more natural and flowy…. less upstream.

I know “sales” is part of being an entrepreneur, but I also know I get to do things my way. I, of course, will need to be better about sharing who I am and what I have to offer. I can also improve on connecting with my target market. AND I’m choosing to not waste energy convincing anyone to work with me or buy from me, anymore.

I am choosing to believe that as I continue to share who I am, what I do, and all I have to offer—in the spaces where those who are most likely to appreciate my offerings are able to engage with my work—that my experiences of being in business will shift.

I am accepting that my audience exists, my ideal customers and clients are looking for me now, and I am providing them with opportunities to get to know me, work with me and shop with me. Now, that feels real good.

Thanks for listening. (And I’d love for you to stand in agreement with me on this with good vibes and prayers.)

Blessings!

Marlene Dillon Empowerment Specialist

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