Tag: goals

from zombie to zen – set boundaries, live with intention, & wake up from information overload

we are living in the age of overwhelm and over-saturation. Between our own brain’s evolution & the system benefiting from capturing our attention, it can feel nearly impossible to live from an awakened heart. If you want to feel good about watching the news or consuming social media, this one’s for you! Welcome to your untapped potential. Ready to learn what’s possible when you drown out the noise, let in the silence and stillness, and learn the secret language of your own intuitive wisdom?

Listen to this blog post like a podcast!

“What you consume, you become.”

glennon doyle

Dear One, we are living in the age of overwhelm and over-saturation. Between our own brain’s evolution & the system benefiting from capturing our attention, it can feel nearly impossible to live from an awakened heart.

If you want to feel good about watching the news or consuming social media, this one’s for you!

Ready to learn what’s possible when you drown out the noise, let in the silence, and learn the secret language of your intuitive wisdom? Let’s go!

Your attention problem is not your fault.

  • You didn’t choose to live in an age when the richest, most powerful tech companies in the world are putting their limitless resources behind figuring out how to get and keep your eyeballs on a screen all hours of the day.
  • You can’t help that you were born in a time when 90% of the data in the world was created in the last two years.
  • You didn’t ask for the endless bombardment of information – whether it’s positive or negative.
  • And then there’s the smartphone. I learned from Silicon Valley that the smartphone has more processing power than the Apollo Mission Control. So your phone could take you to the moon… or just put that power into distracting you.
  • The rise of the 24-hour news network has led to more divisive politics, checked-out citizens, and embittered empaths than any thing humans have ever experienced.

All of this information overload normalizes numbing out. The paralyzing consensus is, if I can’t do everything to change the world, I just won’t do anything. Or much worse, the idea that – if the world is this bad, it’s not worth saving.

There’s a sadness that emerges as we learn about this system we’re trapped in. Some part of us senses that we don’t want to miss the life that’s right here. We want to heal the severed connection to each other and the world, to come home to the truth of our belonging.

If you’ve landed in Luminous Leanings, you care about your awakening, you care about overcoming the negativity bias and choosing to walk in the light of consciousness. So let’s hold space for the grief – for the things out of our control, and let’s dream of a better future and take action to build it together!

As a content creator, if i’m not saying anything impactful or meaningful, I’d rather not say anything at all! We don’t need people to add to the noise – we need people honing their craft & sharing their unique message in the way that only they can to reach the people who need to hear it from them.

Information is power.

We can’t deny it just feels good to learn new things! Our brains like learning more information to protect themselves, outlive and outrun all others. Our egos like knowing the MOST, which is just another effort to belong, which is just another way to survive. Belonging is the core drive of pack animals. This is how we are built.

So why doesn’t it feel good to over-consume media, specifically the news and social media? What begins as a dopamine hit or a info fix that makes our brains feel safer and more informed, can quickly derail our nervous systems. Our cognitive default is towards what is harmful, this is our negativity bias. The human brain evolved to keep us safe by prioritizing negative information and hanging on longer to bad experiences. This default explains the journalism adage, “If it bleeds, it leads!”

We’re wired to pay more attention to the carnage, and the system is set up to make money off of what we pay attention to. It’s a rigged game, and luckily it’s one we can step out of once we wake up to it.

Knowing our wiring is key. Only then can we awaken, evolve, and push past our base instincts, while holding them with understanding and compassion.

Silence is golden.

“Don’t talk unless you can improve the silence.”

Jorge Luis Borges

“Silence is the language of God. All else is poor translation.”

rumi

Do you feel like you need background noise on all day long? Can you not stand stillness & silence? You’re not alone.

The impulse that drives you to pick up your phone 58 times a day is the same one that keeps you jumping out of your skin during a meditation session. Escapism is to resist presence, and it’s an epidemic of the spirit.

Tara Brach’s favorite inquiry is, “What are you unwilling to feel?”

All the noise, distractions, and escapes are our ego’s way of getting out of answering this very question! For most of us, the bottom line is: We don’t want to feel our mortality. We want to pretend death isn’t coming for us and everyone we love. We’re so afraid of our own demise that we stay busy and “connected” as a way to numb to the reality. The only problem is: We end up closing our hearts off to the life that’s right here in the present moment.

Silence is where the magic happens, Dear One. It’s where the channel opens. It’s how the Divine speaks through us. It’s how creativity is manifested. If you wanna fast track your presence and mindfulness habits, get silent. And, rather than resisting the mental chatter that arises as a result, get really curious about it. You can’t drown it out and then wonder why it continues to pop up other places like a whack-a-mole! That chatter is there for a reason – it wants to be heard. You can only hear it and face it when you get quiet.

The benefits of silence abound! Especially for creative entrepreneurs, silence is like a holy sacrament. Make it a habit to create every day before you consume. Marie Forleo taught me this magic trick, and it changed everything. Consuming includes email, insta-scrolling, checking the news, responding to that text, tuning into that podcast… everything! On days I do my morning pages first, I can stand in my truth as a creator without comparing myself to anyone else.

Self-care and creativity go hand in hand! So even if you don’t consider yourself an artist, your self-care is an act of creation. Meditation is creation, it is an art form and a cultivation of new brain patterns and resulting life patterns! So resist the urge to check e-mail before your meditation practice, and see what shifts.

Silence plus intention equals focus! To batten down the hatches, buckle down, bang one out. Getting in the zone, getting in the flow is sped up by silence.

Silence here doesn’t just mean quiet, it can also mean clutter-free spaces, closing all your browser tabs, or making a list that helps you go step-by-step. It’s the space between your to do’s, the space between the in and out breath. The holy instants where you remember you have a choice to either remain stuck in the cycles beyond your control or wake the eff up!

Perhaps the most profound by-product of silence is to know thyself. The inner stillness that can’t be touched by outside noise. It’s cultivated over a lifetime of practice. It’s meeting yourself and then loving yourself fully. So lean into the silence, there is so much good stuff in there just waiting for you!

Boundaries make good on intentions.

Okay. So, now that we know we were born with these brains that obsess over the negative, and we were born into this environment where that obsession is exploited, what do we do? How can we wake up and choose the silence that has the medicine and magic in it we need?

By setting boundaries around the noise!

Let’s begin with installing our Information Filtration System (IFS).

Did anyone else grow up hearing that song, “Oh be careful little ears what you hear, Oh be careful little ears what you hear. For the father up above is looking down in love, Oh be careful little ears what you hear”? The lyrics then shift into, “Be careful little eyes what you see.” Growing up in a Christian home, I was taught that God was always watching and therefore to resist temptation was to resist punishment. I was also taught “garbage in, garbage out,” meaning if you consume meaningless trash, you will only put meaningless trash out into the world.

While I now reject the sin and shame implications of these messages, I stick by the value of filtering what we take in as a way to protect ourselves. We especially protect our energy when we do this. By caring for our nervous systems so that they don’t get high-jacked by something on our phones, we practice self-compassion and energetic resilience.

To install your IFS, simply notice (1) what you’re taking in and (2) how it’s affecting you. Practice embodiment and mindfulness to tune into any tension, contraction, or panic in the mind and body. When you notice it, say, “This thing isn’t serving me. It’s not uplifting me or contributing to my well-being.”

Once you’ve installed your IFS, you can then either drop the thing altogether or create moderation. The news almost never makes me feel good, but I recognize that it is outside of my values to drop it altogether and be uninformed and disconnected from the world I love. So the news is something I choose to consume in moderation. And moderation brings us to boundaries.

You’ve heard of SMART goals – set a SMART boundary! It should be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound.

Write out some boundaries right now – create one for your phone, one for social media, one for the news, one for TV or streaming, or one for whatever you struggle with. Here are some examples of boundaries straight outta my playbook. I’m not perfect at these every day, but they help guide my intentions:

  • Phone Boundary: I will not use my phone in the bedroom for anything other than meditation. I will keep my phone on airplane mode from 9pm until after my morning routine. I will place my phone on the dining room table when I’m hanging out and relaxing in the living room. I will only turn on notifications from my calendar and texting apps.
  • Social Media Boundary: I will keep addictive apps like Instagram and Facebook off my home screen and out of my notifications. I will use social media intentionally – setting specific goals for a session and reminding myself when I’m getting sucked down a rabbit hole. I will follow accounts that diversify my feed, teach me new things, and make me feel good. I will unfollow accounts that increase my anxiety, feelings of separateness, or contribute to comparisonitis.
  • News Boundary: I will only seek out news once a day, on my lunch break for 20 minutes. I will never check the news before I meditate.
  • TV/Streaming Boundary: I will not watch more than 3 episodes of a show, or more than 1 movie and 1 episode of a show in a single day.

Perhaps it’s a time of day you tend to reach for distraction – like habitually turning on a podcast for your daily walk or shower. This isn’t bad or wrong, but can you challenge yourself to – every once in a while – simply be with the silence? If you’re systematically uprooting silence throughout the day, set an intention to seed it back in. I am currently trying to just notice when I’m reaching for a silence-filler and why.

Put inspiration into action.

Finally, Dear One, consuming inspirational content is great. I’ve learned so much from the University of podcasts, and don’t know where I’d be without certain self-help authors!

But don’t fall into the trap of binging inspirational content without taking action to implement the lessons in your own life! Don’t be a mindless, passive consumer of content. Be a radical change maker who acts on inspiration! Let the space in-between inspiration be filled only with your intuition showing you what to do with what you’ve just learned. Trust yourself to contribute your wisdom, and protect that wisdom through intentionally practicing silence and self-care.

7 Simple Steps to Create Your Self-Care Plan

As a self-care & self-compassion coach, I work with clients to develop personalized plans for their self-care rituals & routines! I believe self-care is the foundation for self-compassion. With a routine & structure in place, it’s much easier to find the time to drop into that space of presence & gratitude where true self-love can blossom.

Self-care is near and dear to my heart, and my understanding of it radically evolved when I read the book Self-Compassion by Dr. Kristen Neff. She writes:

When we soothe our own pain, we are tapping into the mammalian care-giving system. And one important way the care-giving system works is by triggering the release of oxytocin. Research indicates that increased levels of oxytocin strongly increase feelings of trust, calm, safety, generosity and connectedness and facilitates the ability to feel warmth and compassion for ourselves. Oxytocin is released in a variety of social situations, including when a mother breastfeeds her child, when parents interact with their young children or when someone gives or receives a soft, tender caress. Because thoughts and emotions have the same effect on our bodies whether they’re directed to ourselves or to others, this research suggests that self-compassion may be a powerful trigger for the release of oxytocin (source).

If you think you don’t have time for self-care, this post is for you! I’m here to show you how simple it can really be. You don’t have to self-care by yourself – I’m here to show you the way! Grab a blank sheet of paper or your journal and a pen, and cozy up in a comfortable, undisturbed spot. Follow these 7 simple steps to create your own self-care plan, & start feeling the self-love in no time!

1. Evaluate Your Current Level of Self-Care

Before you begin creating your plan, it’s important to consider your baseline for self-care. If it helps, you can close your eyes and ask yourself the following questions:

  • How accessible is self-care for me right now?
  • When was the last time I did something to care for myself?
  • How does it feel to care about my own well-being?

Take your time as you consider this. It is not easy work! From these questions, you can assess your current level of self-care. Write it down on a scale of 1-10. Really dig into it, and get curious about your rating.

2. Envision Your Self-Care Goals, Set Your Intention & Manifest

This step has 3 parts. The first is to envision your self-care goals. Perhaps you already know you’d like to work out 3 times a week or start a daily journaling practice. Step two is to write it down & get super specific. This is a visioning exercise, so it doesn’t need to be in the form of goals yet. Think of them as hopes & dreams. Create a Pinterest board for inspiration or a literal vision board collage, if that feels right.

Thirdly, a manifestation exercise can help you draw these dreams into your reality. Sit or lie down comfortably with your eyes closed, and simply daydream in detail about you caring for yourself in these ways. What does the room look like? What props do you have around you? What activities are you doing? What are you saying to yourself? What is your general attitude, thoughts & emotions toward self-care? How does it affect your entire life? When you come out of the visualization, edit your written intention as necessary based on what you saw and learned.

3. Set SMART Goals

A SMART goal is a goal that is given the tools to come true! SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Bound. Write SMART down the left-hand side of a piece of paper. Across the top of the paper, create self-care categories based on your intentions. For example, if you intend to wake feeling well-rested, write “Sleep” for one of your categories. My categories include sleep, exercise, yoga, meditation, journaling, reading, cooking, and outdoor time.

Now, create a goal for each category that is SMART! For Sleep, I could write: I will get at least 8 hours of sleep every night of the week. Check it against the SMART criteria:

S – This goal is specific because it specifies how much sleep I plan to get.

M – I can measure this goal by checking off whether or not I got 8 hours.

A – This is definitely attainable, as it won’t wreck my current routine and habits.

R – Getting 8 hours of sleep each night is relevant for me, as I know it’s the minimum I need to flourish and it fits into my broader self-care goals of being healthy and vibrant.

T – This is a time-bound goal, as it mentions I plan to get 8 hours of sleep each night.

Continue writing your SMART goals for each of your remaining categories. Some categories may have more than one SMART goal – that’s perfectly fine!

4. Break Them Down Into Habits

Now take the SMART goal and make it a habit. For example, if my SMART goal was to cook healthy, affordable meals 4 times per week, habits would need to include: creating a meal plan and shopping list, going to the grocery on Sundays, prepping the ingredients on Sunday night, and scheduling in the time needed to cook 4 nights per week after work. A goal can be broken down into many habits. Make sure you think through all of its angles before moving on to the next one.

5. Acknowledge Your Barriers & Brainstorm Solutions

Taking a look at these habits across all your goals, envision adapting your lifestyle to hold them. Write down any red flags that come up, and sticky places where you can see things going the most poorly or being the most difficult to adopt. Draw a vertical line and write at the top “Solutions.” How can you solve for each of these barriers? If you’re concerned you won’t be able to sit in meditation for 20 minutes each day because your kids are constantly screaming for you, rework your day so you can meditate before they wake up or after they go to bed, or perhaps find an environment where you can guarantee you won’t be disturbed. If you write down many possible solutions, circle the one you’re going to try out first. If that ends up not working, move on to another one and try that! This is an exercise in figuring out what works best for you.

6. Set Up Accountability Systems

Accountability truly is the key for habit maintenance. Studies show folks are 65 percent more likely to meet a goal after committing to another person. The chance of success then increases to 95 percent when they build in ongoing meetings with their partners to check in on their progress (source). Whoa! That’s nearly guaranteed success.

For each habit or goal, write down one accountability measure you will put in place to make sure you stick to it – at least for the first 66 days. They say it takes that long to really form a habit (source). Accountability can mean finding a buddy, setting a phone alarm, or even signing up for one of these apps that sets consequences (like paying money to your most hated causes) for failing to meet your goals!

If I wanted to work out 3 times per week, I might ask my best friend to text me every Saturday night to ask me how many times I had exercised that week. I could suggest she set an alarm on her phone to remind her, and ask if I can reciprocate with anything she wanted to be held accountable for. Another great accountability measure is to announce a 30-day challenge you are starting on social media. The pressure of posting a picture of yourself meditating every day for 30 days will help you find the time and willpower to meet your goals!

You could also set your alarm for your bedtime each night and wake up time each morning, or write in your schedule the allotted time to run the errand, leave for the spin class, make it happen! Remember, write down at least one accountability measure for each goal or habit.

7. Journal & Check-In Along the Way

Lastly, don’t forget to journal and check in with yourself along the way! I recommend setting aside 10 minutes on Sundays (or whenever you do your weekly planning) to assess your progress. Stick to it for the first couple of months, and then see if you want to switch anything up. Reconnect with your intentions and the why behind your desire to self-care. This is a life-long journey! Sometimes the care feels robotic (mine did this morning!), and other times we are chomping at the bit to set aside this sacred time. Notice how easy or difficult it is and how it changes, and the reasons for it. You could design your own self-care tracker and leave space for journaling your emotions around the practices, what you are learning about yourself, and how you might like to adjust them in the future.

Intentions are made up of pure, beautiful manifesting powerful energy to make our lives more vibrant and fulfilled. Self-care intentions are our intuitive sense of how we need to better care for ourselves in order to fulfill our life’s purpose. Goals and habits are where the rubber meets the road. They’re not always a ton of fun to set, implement and stick to, but without them our intentions are pretty meaningless. In time, these accountability measures and the discomfort that comes with setting a new goal will fade to the background and all that will remain is the automatic and desirous joy that comes with your self-care practice. When my morning yoga and meditation routine transitioned from a to-do item to check off my list to a sacred hour that I fight off all competitive time-stealers from, I knew it had morphed from a habit into a practice.

Be sure to check out my posts on creating a bedtime routine, morning ritual, and a Sunday checklist for your week!

I hope these 7 simple steps help you create your own self-care plan! I’d love to hear how it goes in the comments below. Be well and take gentle self-care!

My Sunday Checklist & Meal Planning Ritual

Summer is barely beginning to tip over the edge of fullness into the waning season of autumn here in the Southwest U.S. My ancestral body is getting excited for warm soups, fall hikes, and cozying up with some bourbon by the fire with the husband and cat.

The in-between seasons are a great time for setting intentions, especially around systems and rituals that help us meet and maintain our goals. A few months ago, I refined my Sunday rituals that prepare me for the week ahead. It’s been such a game changer for me that I wanted to share them with you! (Read to the end to get access to my free weekly meal planner!)

Step 1: Self-Care Ceremony

My Sunday ritual has three parts. To close the week out on Saturday nights, I often like to take a bath or do a candlelit restorative yoga session at home. To incorporate self-care into my Sunday week opener, I like to add a little ceremony – perhaps a walk outside, lighting a candle before I begin, or a manifesting meditation. I encourage you to find anything that feels good to you in the moment – any ritual that centers you for the logistical planning that comes next. It is profound to set our intentions and really envision the week we want to have, to get into that embodied state before we start using our brains.

Step 2: Checklist

Who doesn’t love a good checklist? There’s something so comforting and finite about seeing your tasks laid out in black and white, and going through them one-by-one. My Sunday Checklist is a list of the things I need to schedule into my calendar for the week ahead, and it lives in a Google doc. I recommend taking out a note and listing all the things you need to carve time out for on a weekly basis. If it’s helpful, you can add the estimated or preferable number of hours you will spend each week, as a goal to meet. You can even rank them in order of priority so you know what needs to get scheduled first, second, and so on. To give you an idea, my Sunday Checklist looks something like this:

  • Schedule in work. One of my jobs is in the service industry (I beertend at a local brewery), so I need to make sure I have my schedule up to date each week, as it is always changing!
  • Check on bills due. I keep all my due dates in my calendar, and I like to keep track of these at the start of the week so I know how much will be coming out of my account when.
  • Schedule in yoga & self-care. You know me – self-care has to be prioritized for my week! I like to actually put my yoga and other self-care ideas on the calendar, so I’m more likely to follow through.
  • Schedule in workouts. Exercise doesn’t always feel like self-care to me, so I have to remind myself to schedule it in to meet my goals. Whether it’s a hike I’ve committed to with a friend or a solo Zumba class, I try to make sure I’m working out at least 3 times a week.
  • Schedule in social commitments. I add in any commitments I’ve made to friends or think about what plans I want to make for the upcoming week. This usually requires some coordination with my hubby, since we both work odd brewery hours.
  • Schedule in dates with Jon & solo dates. Spending time with my husband is so important. The less time we have together, the more we savor it and try to be intentional about it. Even if it’s as simple as cooking at home together and having a night where we don’t turn the TV on, we count it as a date. Likewise, if there’s something I’ve been wanting to try on my own, like a new hiking trail or a creative project to nourish my soul, I’ll schedule in that solo date next.
  • Schedule in classes and homework. I’m completing my life coaching class, which requires homework and practice sessions in addition the 2 hour class each week. I also include any other educational ventures here, like if I signed up for a free webinar or need to spend time studying for a skill I want to independently cultivate.
  • Schedule in work for my business. I keep a pretty long to-do list in my business, from writing blogs to recording guided meditations, to client outreach. I try to keep a balance of time dedicated to that each week, and schedule it accordingly.
  • Schedule in meal planning, grocery & prep, cooking times. This one took me a while to start scheduling in on my calendar! Even though cooking was important to me, it’s like I thought it would just happen naturally. Ha! It only took me 11 years of living on my own to realize… I need a pretty detailed plan to make sure it does happen. Now I schedule in time to make my grocery list (the next stage of my Sunday ritual), go to the grocery, prep my ingredients, and actually cook! Looking at the calendar helps, because I know if we have dinner plans on Wednesday, I don’t need to cook. Or if my ingredients list includes something more perishable (e.g. fish or leafy greens), I’ll try to make those recipes earlier in the week. More on this below…
  • Schedule in errands & chores for the week. It feels good to know that laundry day is every other Thursday, and Sunday is my day for chores and errands. But in case anything shifts (e.g. I make plans for Sunday brunch), I like to move the event on my calendar to it’s new time.

Scheduling everything into my google calendar each week might seem obsessive or extreme, but it truly helps me see my week at a glance and actually feel more grounded. I don’t hold myself to it as a rigid structure – in fact, things are constantly shifting and changing. But having the items on my agenda helps ensure things don’t get dropped altogether, rather, they just shift to their new home.

My relationship to time has changed for the better this year. I have come to accept what a week is capable of, and the potential in a single day. After all, we all have the same 24 hours! I’ve noticed that what I prioritize, I will channel my energy and time into. And if I can cultivate patience, I will see the fruits of the seeds I’m planting over time. As a self-diagnosed impatient person, I assure you this is no easy task.

Step 3: Meal Planning

After I’ve completed scheduling my weekly priorities, I move on to meal planning for the week. When I take the time to ground and get curious about what my body needs nutritionally and what my soul needs in terms of flavors and experiences, this process goes much more smoothly. After all, you can infuse spirituality, self-care and body awareness into everything! When our planning is done this way, that intention is held and manifested in the outcomes.

I usually jot this down in an evernote that syncs to my phone, but I created this beautiful downloadable freebie for you to plan your meals here – check it out!

Here are my 10 steps to meal planning. Make this process your own!

1. Note the days this week you can/want to cook. For many people, setting an intention about how many nights each week they’d like to cook can be a nice goal to have in mind. For me, I try to cook 3 or 4 times a week. I’ll often make big batches so we can have leftovers for lunches or other nights.

2. Reflect on & research some recipes you might want to make this week. Perhaps you need to keep it really simple this week with 30-minute meals you know like the back of your hand. Or maybe there’s a night here and there for you to really spend time in the kitchen and try something completely new. Try to keep a balance between what you need to eat & what you have to give, in terms of time and energy.

3. Pop the meals you’ll have each day into the chart I made for you here. For breakfasts, sometimes I just note yogurt and fruit, if it really is that simple. I even get intentional about snacking, and try to brainstorm ideas I can list in this space each day.

4. Take note of the recipe locations for each as well, often these are hyperlinks I save so I can easily reference when the time comes to get cookin’!

5. Pull the ingredients from each recipe and list them on your grocery list. Of course, don’t include the ones you already have at home. I try to substitute the same ingredients across the board, where possible, to ensure we’re not wasting anything or over-spending. For example, I’ll try to make recipes that week that utilize the same herbs, like cilantro, or the same protein, like the bag of frozen shrimp. This is a time for you to use your intuition and what you have on hand, not to stick to the recipe 100%.

6. Combine all the other items you need from the grocery here. I keep a note going on my phone called Groceries + the date which I can easily reference each time I realize we’ve run out of something again. My current list reads hilariously – just olive oil, vodka, and butter. 🙂

7. Split the ingredients out by category – this will make it endlessly easier for you while at the grocery. I’ve split my tracker here into produce, protein, dairy, dry goods, frozen, household, and personal care categories.

8. Schedule what you plan to make and when in your calendar, and estimate how long they’ll take.

9. Go to the grocery! Adjust your plan accordingly if they don’t have the ingredients you need.

10. If you have time, prep ingredients ahead of time. This doesn’t always happen, but I like to prep ingredients for the next few days’ meals as soon as I get home from the grocery. I really like to prep snacks ahead of time as well – chopping fresh veggies and sticking them in mason jars makes reaching for healthy snacks so convenient!

And there you have it – a week of intentional, nourishing, and prepped meals ready to go, ready to support you on another week of caring for yourself. Is there anything better than coming home from a hard day’s work to prepped ingredients and a meal plan, with time carved out to spend in the kitchen? It makes my heart so happy, helps me save money and definitely keeps me eating healthy!

That’s my 3-part Sunday Ritual, Dear Ones. I hope it serves you as you begin to craft your own. Remember to be flexible. Weeks never go exactly according to plan! Part of caring for ourselves is allowing for wiggle room and resilience and growth through life’s curveballs.

Let me know how your Sunday ritual goes in the comments below:

What was your self-care ceremony like?

Did checking things off the list and scheduling them into your calendar make you feel nurtured and taken care of?

I’d love to hear!

10 Reasons You Should Hire a Life Coach

I am a true believer that, no matter where you are in your life’s journey, a life coach can be a great support. If you are just starting to ask what your life purpose is, or if you are a strategic planning pro, having a skilled coach by your side can make all the difference. Read to the end of this post for your chance to win a free self-care coaching session with me!

Life coaching is a partnership with a professional space holder and accountability partner. As a self-care coach, I ask my clients powerful questions to unlock the hidden answers lying buried in their intuition. Session topics range from creating structure for creative entrepreneurs, to self-care for busy moms, to removing barriers for cultivating a sustainable meditation practice.

Receiving life coaching is such a profound experience! How often do you get a full hour to talk about your deepest vulnerabilities, desires, and inner dialogue with someone who has their complete attention on you? Who else can you go to knowing that they will offer space holding and guiding questions, rather than attempting to fix you?

No matter where you happen to be on your self-care journey, here are my 10 reasons why you should hire a life coach:

1. Everybody needs a good listen.

Do you ever try to vent to a friend, only to have them respond with a, “I know! The same thing happened to me…” or a, “You know what you should do…” Friends are people too, God love them, and sometimes they just don’t know how to hold space.

To hold space for someone means to become a container for them to pour their thoughts, ideas, and experiences into. We can’t hold space unless we ourselves have the space to hold. Spaciousness can be cultivated through meditation practice, self-care and training your awareness. Often times, our friends and loved ones simply don’t have the space to give us that we need in order to process.

Processing your experiences out loud with a trained active listener (i.e. life coach) is an extremely powerful experience. A life coach is there to guide your journey with deep questioning and space holding. Together, you identify your goals for the session and then make sure they get accomplished.

You will walk away from a session with a life coach feeling heard, seen, and deeply understood. Because you are! They have taken the time to listen intently and let you know that you are the expert in your own life, and your intuition is the wisdom guiding you forward.

2. You have big goals & dreams.

Is there something in life you want to accomplish, but don’t know where to start? Or maybe you’ve already taken a few steps and feel like you’re stumbling around in the dark? A life coach can be an effective accountability partner to shine the light on your path.

We all need 3 things to accomplish our goals in life – accountability, structure, and space. Accountability is necessary to make sure we don’t fall behind or let our inner critics get the best of us. We need structure to organize our strategy and keep on top of our common procrastination pitfalls. And space (there’s that word again) to process and share our learning along the way.

3. You’re secretly craving structure.

Whether you’re plotting for a huge bucket list-sized goal, or you’ve been wondering lately where your time is going, chances are you need some structure in your life. Structure doesn’t have to be rigid – structure, when balanced with lots of grace, can actually create more freedom in your life!

Think about it – if you had a plan in place for how you spend your time, you could spend less time worrying and procrastinating against getting started. Structure can mean a schedule, template, or outline for your day, week or year. Whatever your time frame, a life coach can help you create a plan for what you need to get done and when.

4. You could benefit from accountability.

Accountability partners help us remember our deepest intentions. When your intention is to wake up and go for a run every morning at 6am, a life coach can help make sure you follow through in a gentle, loving way. I often find with clients that just telling me their plan of action is enough to make sure they follow through. And I’m there in case they don’t, so we can identify what went wrong and adjust the plan accordingly!

5. You want to get to know yourself better.

“If we were not so single minded about keeping our lives moving, and for once could do nothing, perhaps a huge silence might interrupt this sadness of never understanding ourselves.” – Pablo Neruda

It seems like everyone on your insta feed lately is doing deep soul work. There is a cosmic shift going on, and a lot of people are waking up to their spiritual side. Whether you never dipped a toe in your own spiritual waters, or you just want to further evolve into a more purposeful and intentional person, life coaching can help.

Through intention-setting, powerful questioning, and exploring who you need to become in order to meet your goals, the life coaching relationship is designed to foster deeper self-learning. It’s only through learning what makes you you, and what your deepest desires are, that you can discover life’s potential.

6. You are aching for self-care, self-love, & self-compassion.

Maybe your inner dialogue is mostly negative, critical, and even hateful towards yourself (whether you’re conscious of it or not). Deep down, there is a sense that you could be treating yourself better. You could prioritize rest, nourishment and fulfillment over work or productivity.

You’ve seen #selfcare posts on instagram, but you’ve always equated it with mani-pedis or expensive shopping sprees. You’re yearning for something deeper, something you’ve only felt after a really good candlelit restorative yoga session or talking to a friend who really knows how to hold space.

Self-care is the maintenance of self-love. It’s where the rubber meets the road on our journey toward loving ourselves. Self-love requires unlearning that our worth comes from how much we can produce, and instead choosing to believe we are worthy of love intrinsically. If compassion is where our loving kindness meets suffering in the world, self-compassion is the salve for a hurting heart. Sometimes simply placing your hand on your heart and whispering to yourself, “I’m sorry you’re having a hard time right now,” is more than enough to mend our suffering. There is something deeply profound about practicing self-care, self-love and self-compassion – they are life changing!

My particular brand of life coaching is called self-care coaching. I help my clients learn what self-care, self-love and self-compassion look like in their lives, and how they can foster and nourish their relationship to Self. I believe changing the world begins with our relationship to Self – without it, how can we cultivate genuine compassion for others?

7. You want to learn more about & cultivate mindfulness.

Oh, mindfulness. A word often misused, misunderstood, and the subject of much discussion. Depok Chopra says he dislikes the word, as it sounds like your mind is supposed to be full, which is quite the opposite of the point. I like to distill mindfulness down to letting the activity you’re focused on – and only that activity – be the thing that fills your mind. Meaning, if you’re sitting, sit. If you’re walking, walk. If you’re performing rocket surgery, perform rocket surgery.

Mindfulness practice, or the training of our awareness, can help us cease so many forms of suffering. Although our minds have evolved to process and hold many thought threads at once, our being truly craves presence and simplicity. There’s something very grounding and reassuring about simply sitting on the earth, watching the leaves of a tree blow in the wind.

The truth is, it’s really that simple to meditate. Just sit and remind yourself that right now, you’re going to simply be. Each time thoughts arise, recognize them and then guide your awareness back to the present moment, the experience of sitting. It may be simple, but it’s hardly easy – especially in the beginning! A self-care coach can support you on your journey, provide resources, and guide your deep learning around what arises during your meditation practice.

If you sign up for my 1-on-1 self-care coaching program, Become Your Own Soul Mate, you’ll receive custom guided meditations that I’ll record with you in mind, calling you by name and tailoring the prompts to your unique journey. Apply now!

8. You want to create a self-care routine.

Self-care, this loving maintenance of ourselves, can look like many different things to different people. Maybe it’s a cup of soothing tea after a difficult day with your boss. Or perhaps it’s planning a pilgrimage to your ancestral homelands to do some deep DNA-level healing! Or it could be anywhere in between. Through self-care coaching, we journey together to find out what nourishing activities you can experiment with to develop a unique self-care plan that fits your life!

Some people like to know that every day they’re going to do an hour of yoga, 15 minutes of meditation, and write in their gratitude journal before they go to bed. Other people (myself included!) need more variety, and crave a diverse range of nurturing self-care experiences that heal different aspects of their being at different times. After all, we are cyclical beings and part of our process is to understand how our energy shifts through the different seasons of life. Whether it’s a restorative yoga class after a difficult week, or a solo dance party first thing when you wake up, self-care coaching can help you find the right self-care practices for you. Let a coach support your understanding of your self-care needs through these stages, so you can track and adjust your plan to make the next cycle filled with even more care and healing!

9. You want to grow in your time & energy management skills.

Have you ever crawled into bed at night and wondered, “Where did my day go?” How about, “Where did my energy go?” While we all get the same amount of time in the day, our energy is expandable and collapsible. Our industrial revolution-era minds and society can often make us feel as though our worth is tied up in how much we can output. But the truth is, every one has a different rhythm and energy, and chances are it will change over time.

Nevertheless, if we have goals that are in alignment with our purpose, we need to harness our energy force to work through our strategies and make things happen. A life coach can help you track and analyze where your time and energy are going each day, and how to cultivate boundaries to save your energy and time for the things that matter most to you. Managing your time and energy is a skill that can be nurtured with the help of a life coach.

10. You lack direction & want to discover your life’s purpose.

Or maybe you haven’t yet uncovered which goals are in alignment for you on your path. Your life’s purpose is the intersection of your greatest passions and the world’s needs. True fulfillment comes from helping others in the way that lights you up the most, and then pursuing the skills and experience needed to make it happen.

That might seem like a tall order, but you don’t have to go it alone. A life coach can be there to support and guide your journey, and hold you accountable to whatever goals you set out to achieve. Perhaps you’ve felt isolated and bad for not knowing your purpose yet, when it seems like everyone around you is chasing their dreams. Through powerful questioning and deep space holding, coaching can help you unlock your purpose and find meaningful fulfillment.

And now I’d love to hear from you, Dear Ones! Have you ever hired a life coach? Or have you considered it? What’s holding you back? Tell me in the comments below and you just might win a free self-care coaching session with me! 1 winner will be chosen on October 15th at random. 🙂

Is Manifestation Just Another Form of Grasping? How To Pursue Your Dreams While Practicing Non-Attachment

Dear Ones, I’m thrilled to announce that I have finally dived off the high dive and enrolled in a life coaching certification program! This was my number one goal when making the decision to move to New Mexico six months ago, and even though I’ve already accomplished several secondary goals (find work at a brewery, study for my Cicerone certifications, and kick home brewing into high gear), this one has eluded me… until now. I also just started a second part-time job as an admin for a bunch of engineers, and that has really taken a lot of the financial pressure off my creative spirit and, in a sense, given me the felt permission to go for it!

I will be pursuing my Wellness Coach certification through Coach Training EDU, and I am also undergoing an intensive Business Accelerator program led by a coach for coaches! I fretted and fretted over the investment decision for months until finally last night I just pulled dat trigger. Speaking of triggers… it’s incredibly revealing to put your money where your mouth is and take big risks in the name of your passion! The fear of success can lead to confusing concoctions of guilt and excitement. As I begin my life coaching journey and prepare to launch my second business, I have been reflecting on the subtle differences between attachment and manifestation.

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Ever since I can remember, I’ve experienced an aching, a longing for something outside of myself. Whether it was a God I had to please as a child, a soul mate that could love me as a young woman, or a job that would fulfill me as an adult – there has always been an attitude of, if I could only attain something external, I would be truly happy. Now I am exploring and practicing Buddhism, which includes a philosophy of non-attachment as a path to alleviate suffering. I used to think this meant, in order to be Buddhist, you had to forsake all possessions and all human relationships and go meditate in a quiet mountain hermitage for the rest of your days. Luckily, I’ve learned that the practice of non-attachment is so much simpler than that.


[Photo by Helena Cook on Unsplash]

For example, this morning I spilled my coffee all over my gorgeous rug in my yoga/meditation space. I only had a fixed window of time to practice self-care before leaving for work, and now I would have to sacrifice part of it to cleaning up my mess. I had done the same thing the day after I first purchased the rug, and had beat myself up emotionally for it. Some of the stains hadn’t fully come out. This morning’s experience automatically triggered those same feelings, and as I trudged toward the paper towels, I could feel the same self-judgments welling up within me. But, this time, I was able to pause, reflect, and stop my suffering habit in motion. Rather than attaching my identity to this idea of “The One Who Spills The Coffee and Ruins Everything Beautiful,” I was able to detach who I am from the accident and remain instead, “Nonjudgmental Self-Compassionate Observer of Her Own Mental Conditioning.”

This practice of non-identification is my favorite way to connect with the philosophy of non-attachment. It is our ego’s delight to see itself in EVERYTHING around it. Whether it’s liking a product, connecting with a song, or seeing yourself in every story you hear. Or, in many cases, attaching our identity to a mistake or accident, likely thinking that this punishment will ensure the same doesn’t happen again. Imagine a time when you hurt yourself and then blamed yourself for the accident. What needless suffering this “second arrow,” as it’s called, can cause! “I stubbed my toe. Ouch, it really hurts! How did I let that happen? I’m a terrible person.” Our ego pretty much has two modes – I am good, or I am bad. It isn’t very complex, which is good, because it means we can more easily dissect, explore, and eventually dissolve it.

Talking about the ego can be off-putting, as many of us raised in the West have such an aversion to it and relate it to selfishness, arrogance, and egotism. After all, these are all ways to “fail” at being a likable, contributing member of society. But the ego is really something we all come into this world with, and I think it’s time we learn to connect to it in a friendly, loving, compassionate, curious way. Think about it: we evolved to the top of the food chain by ensuring our survival, and the survival of our species. It is only natural, then, for us to still relate everything back to our own needs. By acknowledging this natural self-protectionism, we also acknowledge the forces beyond our control that have shaped us.


[Photo by JOHN TOWNER on Unsplash]

Happily, these forces outside our control are not where our story ends. It is up to each of us to ultimately attempt to suffer less. When we are aware of our tendency to identify with every emotion, thought, conversation, or thing outside of ourselves, we can stop the cycle. We can see ourselves through the Witness Perspective – a higher state of consciousness that can observe our patterns and tendencies from a place of non-judgement and compassion. If we observe a near-constant identification pattern with every thought, then we have an opportunity to acknowledge it and practice loving kindness toward it. This attitude of non-judgement, and even care and compassion is often all it takes to dissolve the ego, the grasping, and the identifying, therefore alleviate the suffering!

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During my morning meditations, I like to mix it up and switch between a self-guided meditation, a guided meditation on the Insight Timer app, or a EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique/Tapping) practice on the Tapping Solution app! Some mornings I am just in the mood for some manifestation. If you’ve never done a manifestation meditation, it can be a powerful exercise in picturing the reality you want to bring into your life. It’s almost like a road map for the Universe to attract specific blessings. I didn’t know it at the time, but I swear I used this method to attract my husband one afternoon while daydreaming in college (my pre-meditation days).

I selected a manifestation guided meditation the other morning, and, as I was led by the guide, I began to picture myself as a successful life coach, calling my clients on Skype from my lovely backyard on a beautiful blue sky Albuquerque day. I could see the client, her struggles, her fears, the stories she tells herself. I could see us co-creating a plan that worked for her that could help her bring her own dreams into her reality. Then I imagined getting paid what I’m worth and what kind of reality that could create for me and my family.

And then… you know what happened? I actually felt guilty for imagining my own success. Effectively, I energetically apologized for the manifestation, sending the Universe cross-signals! As soon as I got to the part about what the manifestation could do for me, how it could benefit me financially, I freaked out and basically changed the mental “channel.” And, because I was in the witness perspective mode, I saw it happen, and I asked myself, “Do I feel guilty because I was grasping for the dream – which would conflict with my practice of non-attachment? Or do I feel guilty because I am afraid of success?”


[Photo by Aleksandr Ledogorov on Unsplash]

You see, I think women especially have this tendency. We daydream and daydream about making our passion our reality. And then, when we start to actually get close to that finish line, we start questioning EVERYTHING. We ask ourselves, “Who am I to be successful? Wealthy? Confident? Why should I get everything I’ve ever wanted?” And/or we start drawing comparisons and criticisms between our work and the work of all the other creatives out there, and tell ourselves, “I’m not as good as them,” or “I don’t want to seem like a copycat.” Basically, we realize that, with success comes criticism, and we begin to suffer from a fear of perceived future judgment.

And, in my case, I experienced a twisted form of suffering – one that uses my spiritual practice as a weapon against my desire for success. From a non-judgemental state, I can say I know this is not my fault. I know that I’ve been conditioned by society, my upbringing and my spiritual background to be wary of, and even squash out, the “dangerous” desires within me. And as I try to reconcile this patterning with my newfound understanding of non-attachment and suffering, I can’t help but be curious – will my desire for this image of myself in this imagined future end up causing me suffering? Especially if I don’t get there?

Dear Ones, it’s a question I don’t think we get to know the answer to. I guess we don’t ever really know without a doubt that our dreams will come true. We can slay our buns off to get there, but we also have to open to what is outside of the realms of control in order to achieve that non-grasping, lesser suffering state. It doesn’t mean we prepare to fail constantly – no, just the opposite. We also have to be all in to truly attract these realities. We have to stay open to the possibility that the manifestation goal we have in our minds could change. We have to follow where we are led if we truly want it to be for the benefit of all beings everywhere. And we have to be humble enough – and non-judgmental enough – to admit when our dreams aren’t in alignment for the Universe’s absolute best for us. I think the best we can do is ground down into the Earth, tune into the Divine, practice self-care, and regularly reflect on our own intuition. The rest is all just par for the course – more Universal lessons to learn from.

As always, I’m rooting for you, Dear Ones. Let me know in the comments below – have you ever felt guilty for chasing your dreams or investing in your passions? How did you overcome it, or maybe you haven’t yet? I’d love to hear!

Until next time, be well & take gentle self care.

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