I couldn’t be a bigger proponent of personal development. AND I acknowledge that there aspects of who I am that I’ve been trying to change with practices and “masking” and mimicking the behavior of those around me.
Press play to listen to today’s podcast episode that goes with this blog post and meme! BTW, I cuss, so listen when the kids aren’t around.
At some point in life, it all just becomes so exhausting and being authentic floats up to the top of the priority list. It’s extremely exhausting trying to be someone you’re not. It’s extremely draining to try to present yourself as other than you are. It’s soul destroying to constantly criticize, and be frustrated with, yourself for not being more or less than you are.
Today, I just got tired of it. I didn’t want to join in with my inner critic (or “catfish”) on how much of a loser, failure, eff up, whatever…. fill in the blank… I was this time for not doing insert random thing correctly.
On today’s podcast I share the story of what led me to the moment of essentially saying, “Eff that. I’m awesome and doing the best that I can.” I talk about us choosing to let it be okay that we do/don’t, can/can’t/struggle with whatever.
Some aspects of us are just what they are. Maybe we’re more sensitive to things than those around us. Maybe we have certain responses to stimuli that have been with us since childhood. Maybe we have weird quirks. Maybe past trauma causes us to respond to certain subjects in certain ways….
Today, I decided that life has enough challenges. Trying to keep everyone happy by fighting uphill to be, do, and respond in ways that are completely unnatural to us is just not worth it to me.
I’m not saying across the board to never…. compromise (I personally hate that word, lol, but do you)….. I’m just saying that there are some things in our lives that we try to fight against, hide, and “work on,” when it’s the equivalent of watching a leopard put on concealer because it doesn’t like its spots.
Some things are just part of who we are. We have aspects of us that might make life more challenging, things we’ve been criticized/bullied for, and incidents that impact us to this day although we wish they never happened. Today, I’m suggesting that we consider letting go of our resistance to what is. Maybe we’ll find more peace… with ourselves… by accepting ourselves more and letting it be okay that we are as we are.
So check out today’s #podcast episode and maybe you’ll see yourself in the insights I gained today. That’s my hope.
Press play to listen to today’s podcast episode that goes with this blog post and meme! BTW, I cuss, so listen when the kids aren’t around.
So much of what fuels our anxieties are stories we tell ourselves about what will happen, go wrong, etc. And the wild part about it is that we don’t even truly believe a lot of those stories. Whether it’s because we know from a scientific standpoint that the belief is illogical or that we have enough experiences to disprove it, we often hold on to beliefs that don’t serve us because we never decided to let them go.
Today, I was doing well most of the day, resting and enjoying not doing work. However, as the day progressed I began to feel “bad” about not doing more. I’m so grateful for this podcast because I got to hear what a wonderful day I’ve had and to remind myself that rest is a good thing, and getting work done when I want to is good, too.
I noticed some root causes of the guilt that began to creep in as the day progressed. I talk about all of this on today’s podcast. Check it out. It may help you process and release some beliefs, too!
We DO NOT have to wait for a major accomplishment to feel good about ourselves. Sometimes merely surviving the day is a feat in itself.
Today, I decided to celebrate and rest, because the way I’ve been jumping life’s hurdles lately and landing on my feet, I friggin’ deserve it.
I grabbed my Starbucks, a craft, and put on the Hallmark Mystery Channel and let myself woosah. It felt great. I took multiple naps. And I let it be okay.
This weekend, or whenever you see/hear this, give yourself permission to celebrate how far you’ve come. Pop your own collar if you’re still standing despite what life has thrown at you. Give yourself a moment with your feet up and just be.
One thing I know about myself is that I don’t always act on what I know.
Press play to listen to today’s podcast episode that goes with this blog post and meme! BTW, I cuss, so listen when the kids aren’t around.
There are a lot of things where I know better, but don’t do better. Or I might do better once and then don’t do it again. Or I do better for a week and then I completely forget that I have adopted a new practice.
That’s the topic of today’s podcast. We often know what to do, but don’t do it. Today, I offer the challenge for us to start doing what we know.
I learned a lesson from Louise Hay many years. (Louise Hay is essentially the mother of self-love/positive affirmations movement.) One of the things that she taught (and this is my paraphrase) is that problems are opportunities we create when we want to grow.
Problems give us an opportunity to see if we truly have learned and healed. The way we do this is by creating another situation similar to the one that hurt us, or that we found challenging before. Then we get to show up, respond, and react differently based on what we’ve learned.
I personally think this sucks, and the first time I heard her say it I absolutely hated it. Then I saw it play out in my life and I realized that she was right.
One in particular problem I thought I would never face again was being in a relationship with a narcissist. I just knew that was one thing I would never existence again. Then, I found myself in a relationship with one.
It showed up in a different form so it caught me off guard. And it took me a while to notice and accept what happening. Once I opened my eyes, I realized I was both witnessing and experiencing the same pattern all over again. But this time, I caught it and got out.
I’m proud of myself because the second time around, I noticed what was happening, I addressed what I saw and asked for a second opinion, and then I observed so that I could be certain and once I was I left with no apologies.
And I must admit, I was initially mad at myself for going through it again. I felt terrible because I brought that person into my family and it was embarrassing to be in another failed “relationship,” even though it wasn’t an intimate relationship.
However after a while I realized that I could be proud of myself. The first time I went through it and didn’t even know I went through it until 10 years later. This time I saw it while it was happening double checked, and made a run for it. I stood up for myself and protected myself and handled it in a way I never would have in the past. Just the fact that I was aware of what was happening in itself showed me that I’ve grown and that I’ve learned.
Although the experience still hurts and there was damage done that is long-lasting, I’m still grateful because of what I gained. Going through being in a narcissistic relationship twice taught me how to recognize the pattern. That’s a gift not just to myself, to my daughter, and to my friends, but it’s also something I can teach on my various platforms to save people from experiencing what I went through, it at least it can bring them the awareness to get out. (I actually did a video about it that’s available on my Facebook page. If I remember I’ll link it here. I may also add it to my podcast page.)
But anywho…. the reason I bring this up is because a lot of times we’re so hard on ourselves when we go through something that we’ve been through before. When we find ourselves in another bad relationship, or dealing with another person who treats us the way that someone has in the past, we don’t realize that maybe this is an opportunity for us to show up differently for ourselves. Maybe this is an opportunity for us to handle the situation differently and regain our self-respect.
So we can be a little kinder to ourselves. When we see patterns repeating in your lives, we can recognize that and act accordingly. It doesn’t necessarily mean that we haven’t learned anything, it might just be an opportunity for us to show ourselves what we have learned.
The other important takeaway from this is that sometimes we act like we don’t know what we do. There are probably practices that you have used in the past that have been helpful, that have made you more productive, more organized, more successful, that have allowed you to get more done, get more rest, have more balance in your life, or more joy, peace, fulfillment.
For whatever reason, we stopped doing what worked (and likely it was for a valid reason). Regardless, there are things that we already know, or maybe there’s just a thought that keeps coming back to us… of something to implement in our live that will make things better, simpler, and more efficient. We can stop pretending we don’t know and stop ignoring the urge to get back to that….
So the challenges for us today are to begin to do the things that we know will help us live our lives in ways that feel better. And for us to be kinder to ourselves when we find a problem resurfacing and recognize it as an opportunity to prove to ourselves that we know what to do. We can handle it differently.
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