Category: Personal Empowerment

I Was Afraid My Daughter Was Dead!

Whether it is teaching people how to set expectations, boundaries and communicate them, or giving Akashic readings and teaching spiritual trainings, there is always a central theme that appears as we do this work. It’s the feeling of “fear”.

Portrait of a young woman biting her nail and looking frightenedWith all the strange changes in the world and in our country it is no wonder fear is a major theme, and if you let it, fear will run and ruin your life.

I consider myself truly fortunate because I grew up with a pretty fearless attitude toward life and all it has thrown at me. But this is not generally the case for most people. I know this. It’s not that I’m completely fearless, it means I’ve learned to see fear for what it is and put it in it’s place.

As a single parent, my daughter and I were very close as she was growing up. I worked thoughtfully to be a fairly “hands off” mom and allow her to make her own mistakes and learn from them. When my daughter went away to college, I didn’t go through the empty nest stage, mostly because it was the first time in my life that I’d ever lived alone. It was great!

However, I missed my daughter and we kept in touch regularly. Then one weekend I kept calling her and couldn’t get hold of her. My fear began to rise. Why wasn’t she answering? What had happened? What if she was laying dead in a ditch somewhere? I couldn’t possibly think about losing her. I’d had so much loss in my life. So after 2 days of this fear frenzy I actually called the police to go check on her. She was home and called me. Boy did I feel stupid. I think she was just out that weekend having a good time and recovering.

Still I could not get over this fear of losing her until a few years later when I was in my coaches training program. As the classes were taught at that time, a concept was lectured about and then was demonstrated with a few students from class. This particular module was about how certain feelings can run your life and how to meet them head on. Well guess who volunteered (fearless me)? The work the coach did with me was an amazingly painful yet freeing experience and was a turning point in my life. I’ve never looked at fear the same way since.

Here are my 3 tips on dealing with your own fear.face the things you fear

  1. Name the feeling and feel it. So in my case it was the fear that something horrible had or could happen to my only child. And because I’d lost my mother when I was 15 and many other family members throughout the years, this was a reasonable place for my mind to go. However, it also created an “out of control” place to be. When I suggest you feel the feeling I mean confront it. What would happen if…? It takes a lot of the negative energy out of fear when you consciously explore the very thing that has a hold on you.
  2. Let it go. I know this is easier said than done. There’s a popular acronym for fear: it is F.E.A.R. – False Evidence Appearing Real. When you look at your fear, whatever it is, it almost never comes true, at least not in the way you might have imagined it. Think about that. Think about some of your fears and how little they resembled the actual reality. When you can’t seem to let it go, return to Step 1 and breathe through it again and then remember what F.E.A.R. really is.
  3. Trust your higher power. Trust your instincts, intuition, intellect and your faith. Come back to reality and remember, the actual situation is almost never as bad as you imagined it.

This all takes practice. Keep at it and trust.

 

How to Say “No” Without Guilt (and feel good about it)

I recently spoke at my spiritual church about How to Say “No” Without Guilt (aka Boundary Setting) and boy was it good! It is a timely topic, although, I believe it is the perfect topic all year round. Since I am still writing my book of the same title (I’ve been lagging), it always reinvigorates me to speak about this topic.

Boundaries - Gold text on black background - 3D rendered royalty free stock picture. This image can be used for an online website banner ad or a print postcard.

Right after my talk a woman came up to me and said I had described her to a tee. She had so much resentment built up she was ready to divorce her husband. I asked her “do you really want to divorce him or do you want things to change?” Her response was she wanted things to change. Now listen, when you’ve been married for a long time and the patterns are ingrained it’s gonna take some work to make things different.

I am a recovering “people pleaser.” If you are not, you are lucky! I will say that in my experience about 90% of all the women I meet and hear from possess some degree of this characteristic. I personally believe it is inherent in the female genetic code (not to mention centuries of behavioral oppression and socialization). I grew up believing if I just went along with my family or boss or whomever, things would eventually sort themselves out. This is a myth! The more you sweep your frustration, anger, resentment, fear and hurt under the rug, the more it piles up. Then eventually there is a bigger mess to clean up.

People pleasers do not want to disappoint others or engage in confrontation. Generally speaking, people pleasers simply haven’t learned the specific language skills to say “no” and set empowered boundaries for themselves. There is good news though. You can learn these new language skills and the more you work on them the smaller the resentment pile becomes.

Whether it is a spouse, co-worker, friend, family member, or other, if you have the “people pleasing” characteristic it is important to work on it because otherwise you will always wrestle with your self-worth.

I’m going to state up front that you need to be realistic about your expectations. You cannot make these changes overnight. If you try to chew off too big a bite, you may suffer a setback and this is not helpful. So here is a simple strategy to get you started.

  • Start small. Work on your awareness. When do you say “yes” when you really want to say “no”? Look for this specific pattern and once you find it the next step is to change it.
  • You must begin to deliberately and consciously make a change. WARNING: Since you are a people pleaser and don’t want confrontation, switching from your “knee-jerk yes pattern” to an empowered “no” is unlikely right away. You need what I call a “stop-gap” response and I have the language for you start using.

Here are my 7 magic words: Hmm, I’d like to think about this.

Why are they magic?  You’ve been agreeable for a long time. The phrase, hmm, I’d like to think about this gives you time to think about how you feel about what’s being asked of you. When you immediately respond with your knee-jerk “yes,” you are repeating your disempowering pattern. My 7 magic words are very purposeful and specific so DON’T change any of them. Memorize this just as it is.

This phrase is non-confrontational. In fact it is a very respectful response and if someone balks at it you can say to them “well don’t you want me to give you a thoughtful and respectful response?” That should stop them, if it doesn’t simply repeat it all again. You may need to repeat yourself several times. This is FINE!

I tell my students and clients to practice this phrase ad nauseam. Do it until you and everyone around you is sick of hearing it. You need to do this because your subconscious mind will try to play tricks on you and get you to say “yes” because it is your old pattern. You must change the pattern.

Lastly, don’t confuse this phrase with the word “maybe,” it’s not the same. You obviously want to use it where it makes sense. Just do your best and remember, hmm, I’d like to think about this will give you the time you need to be considerate about your responses in the future rather than automatic and this is the first step to freeing yourself from being a people pleaser.

Julie Hawkins is the Biz Psychic and Women’s Empowerment Coach. www.juliehawkins.com

STOP Your Mind From Spinning: Fast and Easy

Do you ever go into the “what if” place? You know, “what if this happens or doesn’t happen?” What if blah de blah de blah happens? It a place where your mind can spin out of control and push you over the edge. Umm, not helpful!Questions abstract motion concept

The fastest and easiest method I’ve ever come across to stop your mind from spinning out of control is called Grounding. If you’ve heard of grounding, great! Keep reading because I bet you haven’t heard of this method.

What is grounding and when do you need to do it? Grounding is just what it sounds like. Being focused in the present, the here and now and feeling solid like you are connected to the Earth and have your wits about you. There are many reasons and situations to want to feel grounded. If you are someone who suffers from anxiety, grounding is important to you. If you are feeling panicked about something you cannot make sound decisions and choices, grounding is essential. If you are like me and perform work in other realms you need to come back to the present when done, so grounding is necessary to interact in the human world. If you find yourself thinking “what if this” or “what if that” then grounding is critical for you to stop your mind from spinning of control. Remember that “what if” generally never happens, it’s just your fear of it happening and that fear can keep you from living a life of value and meaning.

When I first become a life coach back in 2001, one of my favorite books was Taming Your Gremlin by Rick Carson. For such a seemingly small book it was surprisingly challenging to work through. I don’t remember much else from his book since it was so long ago that I worked in it and I may just decide to revisit it again sometime soon. What I do remember is this powerful way to silently, quickly, and non-emotionally bring yourself back down to Earth, focus your energy and stop your mind from spinning.

It is so surprisingly easy that you could do this in as little as 10 seconds in any public place and not one person would have any idea that you were doing it.

Here’s how I remember it and do. You want to bring in your 5 senses. You are not describing what is happening, simply making an observation and statement. There is no judgment or value placed it on, simply a statement. Here’s what it might sound like in your head:

“I am sitting at my desk typing this. I feel my hands on the computer. I hear the keys clicking; I see the letters and words appear on the page. I hear the music playing in the background. I see my cat lying on the floor next to me. I taste the lingering mint in my mouth from my discarded piece of gum. I feel the cold air on my feet from the air conditioner.” 

If you could smell something you would bring that in as well. When you observe and bring in your senses you are solely in the present. You are feeling, sensing, hearing, seeing, touching, tasting and even smelling. You simply want to state to yourself what those things are. Doing this brings you into a place of neutrality and focus and stops the spin.

Practice often!

Julie Hawkins is the Biz Psychic and Women’s Empowerment Coach. www.juliehawkins.com

3 HUGE Reasons to STOP Playing the Blame Game

I recently gave several readings where everyone I spoke to felt like whatever was going wrong in their life was their fault. Conversely, maybe you know people who think everything that goes wrong is because of something or someone else. You often end up at one of the two ends of the spectrum – self-flagellation or complete lack of responsibility. So why do we do it and how do we stop? After all, it has to be someone’s fault…right?

Several colorful arrow street signs with words Not Me - His, Her and Their Fault, symbolizing the twisting of the truth and shifting of blameHumans are programmed to want to find reasons why things happen in order to find solutions to problems. You play detective: where did this problem originate? Who started it? This is your default thought process. You think it helps you to make sense of a problem and sometimes it can. But making things “black or white; right or wrong; yes or no” can often be a deep source of frustration, hopelessness, guilt and anxiety and cause undue stress, overwhelm, resentment and a myriad of other negative feelings. It’s also hugely limiting because if it isn’t one thing or the other, what is it?

What happens with blame?

  1.  When you place blame, you may feel better initially, but the truth is you give away your own empowerment and ability to make impactful change in your own life when you resort to blame, be it on someone else or yourself.  Blame is unresourceful. It doesn’t solve any problem. You can feel self-righteous about it, but it still does not solve the problem. It gives you NO choices.
  2. Blame is a spiral. It is a never-ending cycle of negative feelings. Also, sometimes there is NO apparent good reason as to why something happened. Sometimes there is a cosmic occurrence. Whether you believe in astrology or not, the fact is our solar system and the Universes beyond are all driven by powerful energetic forces. So while I will always default to one’s own responsibility to make choices and problem solve, you also have to remember that it’s not just you in this world; sometimes the correct response is to step back and be introspective rather than action driven. It’s another great ability to cultivate in response to things outside our own control.
  3. I like “response-ability.” Blame is completely disempowering, plain and simple! Response-ability on the other hand is empowering and choice driven. I think of it this way: “Response-ability.” It is your opportunity to develop new abilities to respond to certain situations. Blame keeps you stuck, resentful, angry and feeling down. Response-ability or choice is uplifting and full of action and momentum.

Blame is not useful. Response-ability is useful AND empowering. So ask yourself these questions when you want to place blame:

  1. How does it help me to blame ____________________?
  2. What do I get out of blaming _____________________?
  3. What would I rather have instead?
  4. What are my choices and how do I enact them to be more empowered?

Julie Hawkins is the Biz Psychic and Women’s Empowerment Coach. www.juliehawkins.com

Intuition: 3 Simple Steps to Survival (and) Empowerment

Everyone has intuition; whether you are aware of it and connect with it, may be a different story.

Intuition is defined as follows:

Quick and ready insight.
a) Immediate apprehension or cognition b); knowledge or conviction gained by intuition; c) the power or faculty of attaining to direct knowledge or cognition without evident rational thought and inference.

GPS icon. Internet button on black background.
Intuition: Your own GPS

I think of intuition as your own internal GPS. It locates your feelings and emotions so you can pay attention to them and use them wisely.

Intuition doesn’t have to be profound, yet it certainly can be. It can also be a simple experience with undeniably important results. Paying attention to your intuition can be as easy as “knowing” or trusting that you should have turned left instead of right. Or that you knew you were going to get a job because you just had a feeling. Maybe you knew “this is the person I’m going to marry.” Or you had a little niggling feeling to call someone and it turned out they really needed to talk with you. This is intuition; whether it is mundane or profound.

I remember when I was young just how often I would get ‘those feelings’ and how often I didn’t follow them only to berate myself later for not listening and trusting my original feeling. Intuition is hard wired into us as humans to enable our survival. Our ancestors knew this and used it and so can you. I’ve had several clients ask me “how do I identify my intuition?” so here are my 3 quick steps.

It can take practice to notice the niggling impressions or feelings we come to recognize as intuition.

1. Pay attention and practice listening to the little voice or feeling inside.
2. Notice what your gut “says” and learn to trust it.
3. If doubt creeps in notice if it’s coming from your head; if you are hearing a cynical or critical voice it’s your ego, not your intuition.

Remember, your intuition is a survival skill. You are supposed to have it and use it! It will not lie to you; it’s here to protect you. Once you figure out your own patterns and know when to trust the information that’s truly coming from your intuitive GPS as opposed to your inner critic, the more you will build the confidence to trust your own skills and the happier you will be.

Julie Hawkins is a trainer, author and women’s empowerment coach. She is also known as the Biz Psychic and teaches individuals how to access their own wisdom. www.juliehawkins.com

Intuition: 3 Simple Steps to Survival (and) Empowerment

Everyone has intuition; whether you are aware of it and connect with it, may be a different story.

Intuition is defined as follows:

Quick and ready insight.
a) Immediate apprehension or cognition b); knowledge or conviction gained by intuition; c) the power or faculty of attaining to direct knowledge or cognition without evident rational thought and inference.

GPS icon. Internet button on black background.
Intuition: Your own GPS

I think of intuition as your own internal GPS. It locates your feelings and emotions so you can pay attention to them and use them wisely.

Intuition doesn’t have to be profound, yet it certainly can be. It can also be a simple experience with undeniably important results. Paying attention to your intuition can be as easy as “knowing” or trusting that you should have turned left instead of right. Or that you knew you were going to get a job because you just had a feeling. Maybe you knew “this is the person I’m going to marry.” Or you had a little niggling feeling to call someone and it turned out they really needed to talk with you. This is intuition; whether it is mundane or profound.

I remember when I was young just how often I would get ‘those feelings’ and how often I didn’t follow them only to berate myself later for not listening and trusting my original feeling. Intuition is hard wired into us as humans to enable our survival. Our ancestors knew this and used it and so can you. I’ve had several clients ask me “how do I identify my intuition?” so here are my 3 quick steps.

It can take practice to notice the niggling impressions or feelings we come to recognize as intuition.

1. Pay attention and practice listening to the little voice or feeling inside.
2. Notice what your gut “says” and learn to trust it.
3. If doubt creeps in notice if it’s coming from your head; if you are hearing a cynical or critical voice it’s your ego, not your intuition.

Remember, your intuition is a survival skill. You are supposed to have it and use it! It will not lie to you; it’s here to protect you. Once you figure out your own patterns and know when to trust the information that’s truly coming from your intuitive GPS as opposed to your inner critic, the more you will build the confidence to trust your own skills and the happier you will be.

Julie Hawkins is a trainer, author and women’s empowerment coach. She is also known as the Biz Psychic and teaches individuals how to access their own wisdom. www.juliehawkins.com

Four Simple Tips to Handle Inner Conflict

Sometimes the holidays feel like good news/bad news. It’s actually fairly common because the expectations during this time of year may stretch common sense and cause you to feel torn in several different directions causing inner conflict. It may feel our sound like this in your head: “Part of my feels ___________ and the other part of me feels the opposite.” Or it may come out as the good news is…and the bad news is language. Sometimes this internal unrest is just a commentary and doesn’t really present a problem. Other times it can be a BIG problem. When this kind of problem creates stagnation, frustration and indecision, it’s unlikely to go away without taking some kind of action.Young troubled businesswoman making choice between good and bad on grey brick background

There’s a wonderful NLP (neuro linguistic programming) technique to resolve this problem called a Parts Integration. A Parts Integration is neither easy nor quick and most often requires an in person visit, however it can yield profound and lasting results because it resolves the inner conflict at a very deep and unconscious level.

If you don’t need or can’t do a Parts Integration, you can still work on this yourself. Here are my tips:

1. Identify the inner conflict by stating the “good news/bad news” or what you feel conflicted about. It can also be expressed as “part of me wants to __________ because…and the other part of my wants to do something else because….”
2. Once you have identified the two conflicting aspects you can begin to weigh them. Write the cons first and then the pros. Don’t get stuck in the story of the pros and cons, simply acknowledge them (this may be a challenge so keep at it).
3. Notice and write down the feelings for the pros and the cons that arise.
4. Notice if there are any similar positive feelings on each side. This is where you’ll want to focus since this is in agreement. Stay with the good feelings because they are your motivation.

I’ll give you my own example as to how it might sound in your head.

Step 1

“Part of me can’t wait to finish my teacher’s certification in Chicago. I’ve been looking forward to completing this work so I can teach it to others because it’s so amazing. The other part of me doesn’t like the thought of traveling to Chicago where it will probably be freezing and I’ll miss my cats and my nice comfortable bed. It’s such a pain to travel.”

Step 2

Cons

I hate hotel beds.
I’ll have to eat all my meals out and that’s a challenge.
It’s a long day of traveling.
I’ll miss my home.
I don’t know what to expect.

Feelings (Step 3)

Dread, annoyance, excitement, fear of the unknown

Pros

The time will pass quickly.
I’ll be learning amazing new skills and information.
I’ll meet wonderful people.
Traveling is only a short part of the process.
I’ll be home before I know it.
It’s sort of a mini vacation.

Feelings (Step 3)

Excitement, anticipation, relief, joy, satisfaction, confidence

Step 3

Do you notice any similarities between the pros and cons? In this instance, excitement was in both “pros and cons.” When you focus on the commonalities and the positive feelings, it automatically reduces internal conflict.

If you don’t get any similarities initially, keep pondering the situation and repeat the steps. Eventually you will find some common ground. For deeper-rooted issues more advanced work may be necessary.

This is a quick exercise. It may take all of a couple of minutes to do in your head and maybe 5 minutes on paper. Isn’t it worth your time to reduce the inner conflict? The important point to remember is that you end this, or any exercise, on a positive note. The mind remembers the last sentence, thought or action that happened.

What to do when you have trust issues

Asking if you have trust issues is probably a “duh” question, however, that doesn’t make having them easy or acceptable. Mistrust of others breeds anger, resentment, hurt, shame, disapTrustpointment and more. It can also intensify self-esteem problems, self-doubt and indecisiveness. It is hard to live a happy life when you feel this way.

You didn’t start out this way in life. As a baby, you innately possessed trust because your very survival depended on it. As you grew, life experiences taught you that people did not always live by their words. You probably experienced many breaches of trust, some more profoundly impacting than others causing you to feel fear, anxiety, depression, disappointment, resentment and other negative emotions.

Living life this way is neither productive nor satisfying. So what can you do about it? Trust starts with you. When you learn to intuit and understand your own triggers, and emotions then you recognize and understand the signals going off inside. The more you do this the more you trust yourself to make sound judgment calls and good choices.

You are equipped with in internal guidance system and a set of survival instincts that are hard wired into your human system. Fight or flight is your most basic survival instinct. Back in cave dweller days if your source of food, shelter or community was threatened, you often had a split second to determine whether to run for you life or stay and fight. That instinct cannot be easily altered or removed. At your most basic you have the instinct to survive so even if you are not acutely aware of the signals going off I promise you they are still there.

Your internal guidance system commonly communicates with you through emotions and feelings or sensations. Sometimes you may feel a pit or knot in your stomach (when your heightened sense is to flee) and butterflies in your stomach when your heightened sense is for something more positive and exciting. There is also a part of your guidance system that is intuitive. You may call it your sixth sense, goose bumps, hair standing up on the back of your neck or a sense of knowing. Your internal guidance may niggle you to back away from a situation or prompt you to move forward even though you have no logical reason to do so.

When you were a child you were much more in touch with this system and as you matured you began to rely more heavily on your logic and reason. But I’ll tell you this much. Ask most highly successful people what convinced them to do something or avoid it and aside from the obvious logical reasons, they’ll tell you it was their gut feeling because they learned to trust it.

Building trust comes from within. When you remember how to listen to your instincts, eventually you come to trust them more even though logic or reason may sound better initially. Logic is helpful and I usually suggest you consult it and then check in with your gut and/or your heart. What are they telling you? Listen closely. Observe the feelings, emotions and sensations.

Trust is built slowly. When I introduced my new cat Felix to his sisters, I did it slowly. They didn’t much care for him at first and being the kitten, he didn’t care about their feelings. Over several weeks they have slowly and steadily come to know each other and I feel the bond growing. The older girls are more accepting because I’ve gone out of my way to make sure I express to them how much I love them. They trust me and will soon trust and accept Felix.

There will also come a time when you learn or remember how to bring in the wisdom of your higher self as well as the drive and logic of your ego (conscious mind) and blend it with your gut instincts. Then it becomes your own high council of trusted information.

Take it slowly. Remember, not trusting others is often about not trusting yourself so start with you first.

  • Observe yourself (no judgment, simply observe what happens).
  • Notice what situations trigger your negative feelings.
  • Notice how you respond in these situations.
  • When you play it back in your head, slow it down like a movie.
  • Was there a signal that you initially missed? Did your gut tighten or did you feel anxiety? What did you feel?

After you make these observations, then think about how you’d like to respond differently the next time the situation occurs. Listening to and acting upon y

Repeat the steps above as often as possible. The more you do this the more trust you have in your own magnificent abilities.

5 Signs You are Being Manipulated

Clarity and insights come from many different situations.

I recently ran into a problem with my tenant’s washing machine. This unit is just about 2 ½ years new and shouldn’t really have problems. Sigh…Alas this is not the case. Being the great landlord I am, I called Frigidaire to come and check it out.

I realized after talking with Frigidaire that my warranty was NOT through them but a third party service so I contacted the warranty company and scheduled an appointment to come out.

The repairman came. After pushing buttons for 3 minutes he concluded my cold water hose was clogged, even though he NEVER looked at the hoses. (Was he trying to manipulate me?) When I asked how much it would cost to remedy he told me $240 and was NOT covered by the warranty. I declined his offer of service (although I didn’t quite say it that way).

manipulationI talked to my neighbor the plumber who told me it was probably the water intake valve. I contacted Frigidaire again and during our conversation she told me it was probably the water intake valve. I knew of another very reputable repair service I’d used about 7 years before but I couldn’t remember their name to contact them.

I belong to a couple of online networking groups so I knew if I put out the request for the name and number of the appliance repair service I’d used, someone would have it. In my request I asked NOT to be cc’d to anyone as this wasn’t really a referral. There are some networking groups that thrive on (and would just about “kill” to get credit for) giving a referral to someone else in their group. I know this because several years ago I was in the specific group that does this. I got a couple of wonderful responses with the info I needed and one very interesting reply. Here it is:

“Did you know that it is normal referral/business practice to cc the other party when referring someone so they too are not blindsided by an email or call”.

What? When was last time you heard anyone say they were blindsided by a referral? Pleasantly surprised maybe but I doubt blindsided would fall into the category of referral.

As an NLP trainer and someone whose business is all about language, I noticed immediately what her reply was: a response to an objection. She used her response to try and reframe me. In therapeutic circumstances a reframe can help to provide a different context so as to diffuse the emotional charge or trigger that may already exist with relation to the issue. In specific instances a reframe can be empowering.

tasThis woman’s response was for her benefit, not mine. She was likely taught this phrase in the networking group as a way to overcome the objection someone might have to their contact info being given out to the referral.

Her response was manipulative. What she wanted to do was to narrow my choices to only her referral. If she had cc’d the company I’d then have to deal with them and it would make it harder for me to say NO without feeling guilty or bad. I wasn’t having any part of it!

Because manipulation can be sneaky or framed to look like something else, here is my short list of some of the signs.

The situation likely involves manipulation if…

  1. You notice feeling any sense of fear or intimidation or other negative emotions such as guilt, shame, embarrassment, anger or resentment.
  2. You “give in” in order to avoid conflict.
  3. Although it may sound like “it” benefits you, it really seeks to fulfill someone else’s agenda first,
  4. What is happening causes you to feel like you have NO choice.
  5. You feel confused, like the Tasmanian Devil whirled in, spun you around and left you thinking “what just happened here”?

Generally speaking, manipulation is learned behavior. We don’t instinctively seek to overpower or control someone unless we feel threatened or out of control in some way, then it can drive our behavior. It can be complex.

So the next time someone seeks to “help” you, notice how you feel about it? Do you feel good? Supported? Empowered? Or do you feel resentment or like you have no say or choice and you were just paid a visit the Tas?

Here’s the rub, when you are manipulated, you seek to regain your control and center and may find yourself inadvertently doing the same thing to someone else. It’s OK. The next best action is to just notice that’s it’s happening so you can make a different choice the next time.

 

Taming Overwhelm & Fear: Build a bridge so you can get on the right track

Last time I talked about how feeling bad can keep you from feeling good. Obvious right? But it’s also a really complex cycle. It takes some thought and action to interrupt these old patterns. A great way to start is with the acronym I’ve used below.

R.O.W.S.

  • Recognize your triggers so you can begin to create and plan a different response that feels better.
  • Observe your own thoughts and behaviors. Remember, the feelings are yours, which means so are the triggers to these emotions.
  • Ask yourself: What do I want? What’s another way to get there?
  • Small, doable actions so you gain confidence.

For many people negative emotions like frustration, depression, anxiety, judgment, pride, stubbornness, self-righteousness, resentment, etc. can fill your conscious and unconscious thoughts, and these drive how you act. These negative emotions are symptoms and coping mechanisms. If what you’ve been doing isn’t getting you the results you want, it’s time to do something different. This is where so many people freeze up. Have faith and read on.

Start with a bridge.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4E_QthErw2A/TsEq7uRcWqI/AAAAAAAAIqY/I_m_zVgJXII/s1600/plank%2Bbridge.jpgI like the metaphor of getting from one side of the Grand Canyon to the other by jumping across it. This is a great big DUH, of course you can’t do this but people try jumping huge personal chasms all the time like this. I like the metaphor of building a bridge across the Grand Canyon, because sometimes the challenges in life can feel that BIG! this is much scarier than the bridge you likely need to build! When I talk about building bridges and developing skills, it’s one step (plank) at time, starting with the above steps.

Your bridge is a new starting point. Once you start with small, doable and repeatable steps, you become familiar with the feeling of confidence, safety, achievement and awareness; all really good feelings. This is where the next step is so VERY critical.

Getting on a NEW train – a radical action.

Imagine this. You get up and get ready for work or appointments or whatever project is happening that day. You have the same morning routine; then you take the same route to your destination. For the sake of this metaphor let’s imagine you take a train to your destination. You go to the same train station, same platform and the same route every day to get to your destination. It’s predictable, you need predictability so you get where you need to go. This is great when the destination (the results) is what you want.

One day, you decide this destination isn’t quite what you want anymore. So you go to the train station and look for another train. Aha! There is one. It’s a different model and color, has a different name and it stops at different places along the way. It’s near the same place you were going before, but it’s still different. You get on it and ride it. You do this every day and it even feels different because you arrive one track over from the previous train you were riding. Eventually though you realize that even though it’s one track over, you are really still in the same place. Then you say, “I don’t get it, I know it was a different train.”

After my partner Chris died, my adult daughter and I became estranged at a time when I wanted so much for us to be close. I would periodically reach out to my daughter, but to no avail. I would feel triggered and my deep open wound would hurt all the more. I would retreat and continue my grieving and healing process. It wasn’t until I neared the third year anniversary of Chris’s death that I got an epiphany. After reaching out so many times and feeling rejected so many times, I decided I needed to radically change my approach.

trainI got on a completely different train. I decided to withdraw complete contact with my daughter until I could figure out how I could change things. I stopped reaching out sometime in the latter part of the year and well before the holidays. I finally surrendered and fully accepted that I might never again reunite with my only child. This total withdrawal was truly radical for me. My own sister, who is a mother and trained therapist did not understand my behavior. All I knew was that I needed to make a radical change in my course.

After several months I received divine guidance that I could approach my daughter differently. I reached out and texted her almost every day for a couple of weeks and just said things like “Hope you have a good day, love Mom” or “It’s almost Friday, enjoy the weekend.”

I kept texting my one-liners and in between we had an spirited text conversation about what the next steps would be. Still we did not find agreement. Then one morning I got a text from her saying she was in town and could we meet. I was shocked, excited, anxious, and feeling trepidation all at the same time. We finally found a mutually workable place and time and met.

While not perfect (and nothing is) it was a blessed opening. I feared this would never have taken place had I not receded inward to do my own work of processing feelings and thus taking my radical action.

What is a radical action?

Radical actions can mean many things and although I don’t recommend ceasing all contact, in my case this was what needed to happen first. It can mean imagining the most painful thing you can think of, which in my case was totally releasing my daughter. The pain was excruciating and still is at times. Radical change is drastic and major and often profound. To reach profound you have to walk into, face and walk through the pain.

I emphasize radical change because you can be tricked into thinking and even believing you are acting differently. And…maybe you are. Remember the train? There is one sure way to know. Ask yourself: Am I getting the outcome I want? Be honest with yourself. If you are not getting the outcome you want, find a new train, build a new bridge, go to that painful place and face it. You will survive it, It will pass and you will see clearer, behave differently and most of all, the outcome will be different.

When you think of wanting a loving, compassionate relationship (no matter who it is with), what is the pain you’ve been avoiding? This is the painful place you need to visit.

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