Have you ever seen a flower or weed that has grown through a crack in the concrete?
Can you imagine
Have you ever seen a flower or weed that has grown through a crack in the concrete?
Can you imagine
Tonight I had fun.
Like real fun.
For the first time, in a long time – if I am being honest.
Let me tell you a story about a girl who wandered off of her path (more than once).
I used to laugh.
A lot.
Even though I was hurting, angry, sad, confused. I loved laughing.
I would temporarily take me out of my moment and just be somewhere else. Like reading a book.
Until one day I stopped.
Instead of laughing my way through hard shit,
I drank. A lot.
I smoked. A lot.
I ate. A lot.
I spent. A lot.
I stopped tears. A lot.
I complained. A lot.
I sought out the wrongs of life. A lot.
I feared. A lot.
I yelled (at my son). A lot.
I was confused.
I thought I had gotten past the hard shit in life.
I was free from my first marriage, which felt more like a prison, where I spent 7 years really far away from my light.
Jack was past the screaming age.
I had a good job.
I had health care.
I had love.
I had a pretty home.
None of that mattered.
Somewhere in between seeing and trusting my light (leaving my first husband) and now – I got lost again. I wandered away from my path. I lost sight of my light. I looked away for too long.
I started listening to other people’s fears of my new light.
I started listening to other people’s ideas of what I should do.
I started listening to other people’s opinions of how I should be.
I quieted down.
I did the things that were safe (only).
I leaned into other’s negativity and doubts.
I dimmed my light because it wasn’t organized, well thought out, or the norm.
Before I gave myself a chance to really shine, I blew out my own flame, again.
It was no one’s fault. I made the choices I did.
And ultimately, I know it always had to go that way.
I wasn’t ready for the football stadium lights that I know I have inside. My heart wasn’t ready to really wake up.
But She is now.
And tonight?
Tonight I danced.
In my kitchen. Barefoot. To the cha cha slide.
I got D.O.W.N. while feeding my baby who laughed her big ol belly laugh at me, while Jack laughed and rolled his eyes and ran away from me, while I ate a frozen pizza and Halloween candy.
With a sink full of dishes and living room littered with toys, and kids who needed baths – and I just danced.
And it was glorious.
I laughed & danced and for that 4 mins, I was reminded why I will never ever give up on having fun and laughing again. Ever. Even if no one else hears the music.
Follow what lights you up. You will never be guided wrong. And even if one step doesn’t work out – just do the cha cha slide and call it a dance.
cog·ni·tive dis·so·nance
noun
the state of having inconsistent thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes, especially as relating to behavioral decisions and attitude change.
In coaching, I call the process of changing your beliefs The River of Misery. Sounds fun, right?! 🤪 Hear me out.
It is when you recognize that a belief you’ve held, that feels more like a fact rather than an optional opinion, is not serving you and you begin the process of unlearning and cultivating a belief that will serve you. You begin to hold two inconsistent beliefs at the same time.
An example is going from ‘I hate my body’ (belief that doesn’t serve me) to ‘I love my body’ (my desired belief).
I have believed ‘I hate my body’ for so long that it just feels like truth. It feels like home. And even though it hurts emotionally to think it, it’s familiar and easy. It’s who’ve I’ve ‘been’ for 25 years. Giving up being that women feels like I’m abandoning myself. My brain is freaking out because I’m basically getting out of my cave and things like loving myself seem like scary lions waiting to eat me. My brain is like “No! You absolutely should hate hour body! We have only ever known this and it’s true! Look around as to why! What are you doing?”
Most humans cannot go from one belief to the complete opposite belief overnight. That’s why just saying a positive affirmation you don’t believe will do nothing for you. Your brain’s job is to seek answers and proof. And when you’ve hated your body for most of your life, your brain has already ‘proven’ why you should. Repeating ‘I love my body’ will do nothing for you because you don’t actually believe it right now. It doesn’t create the feeling you need to make the ‘belief connection’ between your mind and body. You’re saying this lovely thought, but it creates a feeling of hopeless in your body. It’s not aligned.
The process of shifting your mindset involves finding a new thought that feels less like punching yourself in the face, something you can believe right now, feels better in your body, and gets you closer to your desired belief… Then you have to internationally practice that thought like… All day. Until it becomes your new belief.
This work feels awkward. It feels hard. It feels unnatural. It feels like you’re losing yourself and you’re not quite sure who you’re becoming (because you’ve never been her before). It feels lonely because everyone you’ve attached yourself to up to this point most likely has similar beliefs that you had, knows the old you very well, and can even be put off by your new way of thinking/being.
But that’s the point.
Growth and evolving, finding your light, waking up and remembering your greatness, investing in genuine self love and care, and remembering that you’ve been in there, waiting patiently to remember, for your entire life….it’s all the hardest work you’ll do. It’s what will determine your experience as a human being.
Your willingness to question all of it, remove judgment, lean into curiosity and belief, and allow yourself to wake up and remember, and then purposefully decide what you want to believe… That is the work. That is the lesson. That is the reason you’re here. You have to talk to your brain more than you listen to it in order to accomplish this. We are not taught or encouraged to do this, so you’ll probably feel like you’re leaving ‘home’ and joining a cult.
On the other side of this river, you’ll find your purpose.
Keep going.
You’ve got this.
Embrace the in-between person that you are right now. Let those who don’t get it fall off. Let those who mock you have their own beliefs. It’s not your job to convince people to encourage or support you. That’s your job.
Keep swimming through the River 🏞️.
When you stop resisting your desire to grow, the process of growth itself, and the work it takes to grow…you’ll see that the swim is actually really beautiful… Even if it feels like drowning sometimes.
When you plant a seed, what do you do?
You probably water it, fertilize it, make sure it gets sunlight.
And what about when that first little sprout pops up from the ground?
You marvel at it. You get so excited that YOUR PLANT IS GROWING!
You keep watering and nurturing it with hopeful thoughts that you’ll eventually have an entire tomato plant.
Those first blossoms show up and it’s just the best feeling. You are rooting for this little plant.
Here is what you don’t do.
At the first sight of a sprout you don’t think ‘What the hell?! THIS. IS. IT?! I planted you WEEKS ago! UGH! This isn’t producing results fast enough. Screw it.’ and then rip it out.
So, why do you do that to your own dreams?
Maybe you start by deciding to begin listening to your body more and removing a food group that always leaves you feeling crummy on the inside. (Planting the seed 🌱)
You see a small improvement in yourself (baby sprout) and you immediately think it’s not good enough or fast enough, so you get frustrated and belittle yourself and your efforts and give up (rip the plant out of the ground).
What if you could get passed wanting immediate success and instant gratification and just celebrate yourself through each tiny sprout? What if you could learn to water and fertilize your dreams until you have a huge tomato plant?
You can.
It’s a decision.
I can teach you.
It’s amazing. It’s trans formative. It’s life saving.
Are you going to spend another year not leaning into who you’re supposed to be just because you haven’t figured out how to do it yet? Girl. It’s never to late to start fulfilling your life’s purpose. You are in the exact place in life to just begin.
Click here to set up a call and let’s figure some shit out for you!
What if you just decided that hating yourself was no longer an option?
Did you know that hating yourself isn’t ‘fact’ or ‘truth’?
It’s just what you’ve chosen up to this point.
And that’s okay – but just know that it’s not a permanent decision.
You get to wake up and decide every single day.
What if you decided to pick a different story?
Even one like ‘I am a human’ instead of ‘I am worthless’.
Your brain can believe that you are a human…and it feels less shitty to think that.
So what if you can’t jump right to ‘I am beautiful and worthy and amazing’.
Most of us can’t.
That’s okay.
Create a minimum baseline of just stop punching yourself in the face with your thoughts.
Start with ‘I am human’.
And if you think about it… being a human is pretty fucking fantastic.
I mean, you could be a chair.
Being a human is so much more fun than being a chair.
What if you just decided that from now on, when you would typically talk down to yourself, you were just going to think ‘I am a human’ instead?
I wonder what would change for you?
Give it a try.
And then, when you are ready to move closer to having that deep knowing of your own badassery – I can help you figure that out, too.
Let’s chat about it.
Schedule your free discovery session by clicking here.
Much love fellow human.
Do you know that you get to decide what you think and feel? And that you are the only one who can determine those things for yourself?
Even if you’ve been a Christian your whole life – and your entire family and friend base is Christian.
If one day you choose to question that decision, that is your right and privilege as a human.
Most of us don’t believe that we have a choice in most things.
We believe things like ‘This is just how things are’ or ‘This is just the kind of person I am’.
We aren’t told as kids that there really are very few facts in the world and the rest we get to decide.
Most often we are raised to believe certain ideas, and those ideas turn into our adult beliefs.
We don’t typically stop our busy lives to realize that we are saying ‘yes’ to those beliefs.
Even things like ‘Fat is ugly and unhealthy’ or ‘People mostly suck’ or ‘Dreams don’t come true for most people’ or ‘Debt is bad’.
We hear the adults in our lives say these things to us as kids and because we don’t know any better, we just believe them, unwaveringly.
So, we end up hating our bodies because we gain weight, or we numb out with wine or food because we feel this push to do something with our lives, but we can’t figure out what it is or people tell us that it’s unrealistic and we believe them, or we wake up next to our spouse and feel nothing and believe ‘that’s just what happens when you’ve been together a long time’.
But you feel it, don’t you?
That unsettled feeling that sort of feels like it’s not supposed to be like this.
There’s more.
There’s a niggling in you that is trying to get your attention.
That, my dear, is your soul whispering to you.
She is trying to remind you that you have a choice.
YOU get to decide.
Just because millions of people have gone one way in life does not mean that you have to follow.
You have neglected your Soul for so long, haven’t you?
It’s easy to do. People think I am crazy when I tell them my beliefs. How dare I think for myself!
But, the beautiful thing about our Souls, they don’t give up.
She knows why you are here. You decided before you got here what your purpose was.
You know deep down that there IS more. That you don’t have to hate yourself thin (it’s impossible, actually), or believe that a 9-5 is the only way, or that you stop having really amazing sex after the first year of a relationship, or that you have to drink wine because ‘kids’.
This world has gotten so good at stifling the growth of so many of us. Wanting us to stay small and frustrated for the sake of buying into their products or services to ‘fix’ us.
Companies want you to believe that you have a problem and they know the best solution.
So you spend and spend, probably digging yourself into debt, trying to fill the void or find a solution to all of your problems.
Then you are told that you are terrible with money and are irresponsible – adding to the list of things ‘wrong’ with you that needs fixing…and there’s a book and 5 step program just for you! It’s only 6 easy payments of $19.99. So of course now you need a glass of wine because it’s all too much to think about.
I want to invite you to ask yourself, what if YOU knew exactly what you needed to heal and grow, you just don’t know it yet?
What if you could start opening your mind and heart to the idea that every single solution you need for the evolvement of your Spirit is already within you right now?
You don’t have to stay on this rollercoaster of hating yourself, seeking someone/something to fix you, not fully committing to that thing/person, and then repeating the cycle of hating yourself.
There is nothing wrong with you.
Nothing has gone wrong.
You just haven’t been taught how to explore your mind to find out WHY you are creating these results.
You haven’t been taught tools to effectively CHANGE those beliefs
You haven’t been supported in the knowing that you get to choose your beliefs.
You get to question ALL OF IT. And…whatever you decide is the BEST decision.
Did you know that even if you are super unhealthy because of your weight, drink too much, have $100,000 or more in debt (or any debt really), have lied to your friends, have slacked off at work, done drugs, made porn, or had an abortion, …that nothing has gone wrong and nothing is wrong or bad about you as a human?
Do you know that you are still absolutely worthy, capable, and amazing EXACTLY as you are. You don’t have to make any of those things mean anything about you. Even if everyone else in the world thinks you should.
You. Have. A. Choice.
And here’s the most beautiful part of it all… the reason you are creating the results you are, is because of your mindset. That’s it.
It’s not like you came out of the womb and God was like ‘Welp – this one is going to be a complete shitshow.’
The reason you want so badly to change is because your Soul is ready to grow…and the reason you aren’t is because your Soul cannot grow while you hate Her.
Your Soul doesn’t trust you right now because you’ve been a total bitch to her for so long.
Imagine yourself as a 3 year old. Look at all the results that you’ve created and imagine that a 3 year old created them. Now, imagine you yelling things like ‘You are TERRIBLE! Look what you have done! How could you be so foolish? What is wrong with you? You are so irresponsible and unworthy! I hate you!’
We are all scared 3 year olds.
I want you to relax your shoulders, scalp, and jaw, take a deep breath in for 4 seconds, hold for 4 seconds, then breathe out for 8 seconds.
Close your eyes and say ‘My value and worthiness are not up for discussion any longer. I am 100% valueable and worthy exactly as I am.’
If you decide that you want to change – you also get to decide right now that nothing has gone wrong, that you are amazing as you are, and you can love yourself through this change. (Here’s a secret – love is the only way).
And guess what? If you decide that you aren’t ready to change – you also get to decide right now that nothing has gone wrong, that you are amazing as you are, and you can love yourself without changing.
It is a decision.
Make one.
Say YES to change or say YES to remaining the same.
Either way, have your own back with whichever decision you make.
If you choose to grow – own up to the results you’ve created, and start with cultivating love for yourself. Stop trying to find the ‘how’. Start with love.
Once you nurture your bruised Soul a bit – the how will come to you.
If you choose to remain the same – stop beating the shit out of yourself and half assing changing. Just put down the battle gear, & just be where you are without the hate.
You get to decide.
What are you going to say YES to with love?
I can help you with unpacking all of this. Click here to set up a discovery session.
Your Soul will thank you.
One of the things that I got really good at for a very long time was taking a look at my life, compare it to what everyone else was doing, then deciding that I was a failure and needed to change everything about myself.
What I wasn’t doing was REALLY looking at what was going on in my mind. I wasn’t really giving myself the space to SEE myself. And because I never actually looked – I never actually followed through on any plan I came up with to change all of these ‘wrong’ things about myself. I would buy all of the things that I thought would change me. I tried to action my way to the finish line. That looked like me believing I could never change, feeling totally defeated before even starting, and then white knuckling my way through a workout, payment plan, or diet until I could no longer muster the energy – which was like…3 days tops.
You see, I would look at the debt, the weight, the over drinking, the over social media-ing, the under planning, the under saving, the over yelling at my kid, the hating of my job – and I felt so much shame, that I would just quickly look away. I even did this while looking in the mirror. I never ACTUALLY looked at my results or even my own face. I just saw what was on the surface level, told myself how terrible I was (as a person) for creating this ‘mess’ and then retreat to Shame Land and would wallow there for … well… until the next time I would pop my head out to look again.
Have you done this? You let life just go – then you stop for a brief second and take a look around and are so mortified by what you see, but you just don’t have the inner strength to look long enough to really evaluate? Man. I did this for so long.
Here’s the crazy part. While continuing down the over eating-over drinking-over complaining-staying stuck-spending too much money-not planning-being a mad momma road felt so terrible…my brain told me that it was less terrible than looking and just being present with the reality of what I had created in my life. I mean, I had gotten so good at hating myself that it just felt like home. So, I would retreat, wrap myself in a warm blanket, get a bottle of wine, and binge watch Netflix while vicariously living through Lorelie Gilmore’s life while also buying every DVD, planner, book, and cream to make me skinny-rich-sober-and a good mom.
Coming to terms with where I was (and then having to admit it out loud) with my health, money, career, parenting, all felt like I would curl into a ball and just die. It literally felt like my skin would catch on fire and I would burst into a ball of flames.
You see – for the last 2 years I have been learning tools to effectively create a life that you want by choosing your mindset. I now know that my brain was telling me to avoid all change because it looks to keep me safe…and making big changes in my life = a lion trying to eat me to my brain. It has no idea what the road of making those changes looks like, because well, we’ve never taken that road… so there could be pot holes, downed power lines, monsters, flooding, and no food or gas stations along the way. WHY WOULD WE GO DOWN A ROAD WE’VE NEVER BEEN DOWN?! We don’t even know all of the directions yet – ARE. YOU. CRAZY?! <— That was my brain. I just had no idea that’s what my brain was doing. I just thought that ‘I was the kinda person who didn’t do things in life that required effort or motivation’.
For so long I was under the same spell that most of us are – we have no control over our emotions, feeling terrible is the worst thing and should be avoided or fixed immediately, if you have failed at something, you should just go bury yourself in a hole to avoid the judgment of others, and doing anything outside of the socially accepted path is reserved for ‘other people’ (I still haven’t figured out what is required to be considered ‘other people’). I also wrapped my worth in the opinions of everyone else and could never imagine loving or liking myself unless everyone else agreed that I was lovable. God forbid I be too… into myself. I needed to save my admiration for others. I didn’t need to go gettin’ too full of myself.
For 30 years I believed that other people’s opinions of me were way more important than my opinion of myself and that my opinion of myself should absolutely be dependent on what others thought of me (because of course they know better). I believed that if I was feeling ‘bad’ that it needed to be fixed immediately. I believed that money was hard to make and there will never be enough – but also, spending every penny you have was normal because you can always just borrow more. I believed that dreams were only for some people (not the ‘me’ kinda people); that normal people immediately went to work after high school and just kept working and as long as the bills were paid, you were doing fine. I believed that being fat was the worst thing in the world that could happen to a women – but also, I should be able to over eat, use food as a reward, pay no attention to nutrition, eat everything on my plate, and that I was doomed with the Crisp (maiden name) fat gene, so the hope of losing weight was pretty much never going to happen. I believed that judging people was normal and okay as long as you never said it to their face. I believed that solutions to problems are found in a pill or some quick fix. I believed that I needed permission to speak up – and only when what I was saying was in alignment with other’s beliefs should I even ask for permission to speak up. I believed in order to achieve anything good in life, someone else needed to do the work for me. I believed that being angry meant yelling and holding a grudge – even with your own offspring, especially with your own offspring…they needed to be reminded who is boss. I believed that showing emotion was weak.
I believed all of these things only because I never once stopped to question any of it. The beliefs were taught to me over and over again and at some point my brain just accepted them as truths. Beliefs are just sentences you say over and over again until your brain registers them as true. I just didn’t know that then.
I believed that the way my life was going was just how it went for someone like me. Someone who was supposed to struggle. Someone who needed to settle. Someone who was too fat to do anything that required being seen or heard. Someone who wasn’t skinny enough to have a great marriage – because what really amazing man wants to be married to someone so fat? Someone who wasn’t smart enough to go to college and ‘really make something of herself’. I used the check list of life that I was given and just kept going through the motions.
Those beliefs got me here. Those beliefs are what create the feelings that drove my actions that produced my results.
I can see that so clearly now. I can (conceptually) see that the results I have created are totally neutral in the fact that I get to choose what I make all of them mean. I am still working on the not making them mean I am a shit person belief.
See, once I learned (what actually felt more like remembering) that my belief systems create my results – I did what most people who are taught this work initially do… I felt so much shame. I asked myself questions like ‘How could I let it get so out of hand?’ ‘How am I ever going to get past this?’ ‘How will I learn how to believe so many new things about so many different areas?’ Shame spiral. Overwhelm. A true identity crisis. Who the fuck am I? I see who I have been and I see who I want to be and I am somewhere in the middle. I have no identity. I felt (and am still working through feeling) numb. Pulling away from relationships, avoiding old familiar situations, and just taking it one day at a time have now become my new MO.
Here’s what I have come across in the last couple of weeks. Shame is not going to get me to where I am going. Shame is going to keep me hiding from myself and my life. Shame is going to drive me to try and eat my feelings. If there is one thing that I have proven to myself over and over again is shaming and hating myself into the start and completion of a new goal never fucking works. Ever.
It’s time to take the mask off. Get out from under the covers. Look at my results straight in the mother freaking eyes. And just decide. Do I want to change my life? Do I want to CREATE my own life? Okay. Then what do I need to believe to get me there? Get honest about my starting point and get really fucking clear on the goal end point and just get to work. No more hiding. No more shaming. No more hating. And no more seeking god damned thoughts, opinions, and approvals from everyone else. This time I am trying on love. Loving myself unconditionally and having an unwavering belief in my own dang self without permission or validation from anyone else. If anyone jumps ship because they can’t handle that… so be it.
I have produced the results that I have with my brain. My results have no bearing on my value or worth as a human. They simply are what they are and I can continue to create the same or choose something different.
Shame is no longer an option.
I choose courage.
Aren’t you tired of shaming yourself? Aren’t you tired of hiding?
It won’t get you to where you wanna go. Get off that merry-go-round.
Life is waiting. Choose courage.