Tag: wisdom
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5 Reasons to Try Something New Before You Feel Ready
“Great people do things before they’re ready. They do things before they know they can do it. And by doing it, they’re proven right.” ~Amy Poehler
Ready isn’t a state of being, it’s a state of mind. Or maybe I should say we don’t have to be anything to qualify for the label of being ready for something; rather, it’s a mindset in which we choose to embrace the unknown. My story starts like this…
A few months into my soul-searching, I realized I had to move. Away from my unfulfilling job, away from my unhealthy habits perpetuated by my city lifestyle, away from my complete and utter stagnancy. But this also meant moving away from friends I’ve come to know so well, family I love, and a sense of security that you can’t really put a price on.
I knew I had to create a big enough change for myself for it to feel like I was starting over. I wanted to live somewhere where no one knew my name or, better yet, where no one knew anyone who knew my name. Notice I said I knew I needed that change, not that maybe I would move, or I was considering it. Did it scare me? Yes. But did I know it was what I craved and needed on a soul level? Also yes. A bigger yes.
I started looking into some towns out west. The mountains were calling, but it was the polar opposite of the east coast city life. I had no idea what it would take to live in weather like that, let alone which towns I would be happy in.
After some research, I found an apartment complex I liked and added myself to the waitlist. This was in January, and my current lease wouldn’t be up until October. I definitely wasn’t ready to pay triple the monthly rent amount to break my lease.
Well, fast-forward to September, and it was time to give my notice of whether I would be moving out. Would I stay or would I go? Everything inside me was screaming at me to take the chance and go. But I didn’t feel ready. All the “what ifs” started flooding in… What if I put my notice in and then change my mind? What if I don’t put my notice in and then change my mind?
Eventually, I silenced everything except my gut, my intuition, and it said ever so calmly and confidently, “Go.” So I put in my notice and ended my lease before I knew where I would be going next.
This would be the first step of many that I decided to take before I felt ready. The thing is our heart knows what’s right before our mind does.
And you know what? After I put my notice in, I got an email from the apartment out west that I had applied to almost a year prior. They had a unit available two weeks after my lease would end. I was shocked. I don’t think it could have worked out any better than that.
This first step was the best decision I’ve ever made because it’s opened me up to so many amazing experiences and relationships that I wouldn’t have had otherwise. I got to know a place that was completely different than any home I had ever known, I truly felt the most independent I ever had, and I met some beautiful souls who I know I’ll get to call lifelong friends.
That first step showed me that the unknown can be intimidating as hell, but if you choose to embrace it, it can open you up to so much growth.
Here’s what I’ve learned from doing more things before I felt ready.
It helps you grow your faith in yourself.
It allows you to see things about yourself that maybe you wouldn’t normally see just doing the typical day-to-day things. By putting yourself in new (and hard) situations, you’re able to see yourself navigate the unfamiliar, and do so successfully. You not only learn how to do new things, but also see firsthand that you’re capable of so much more than you previously thought. This allows for greater trust in your feelings and intuition.
You create a new baseline of bravery.
When you start to build up this confidence in your ability to handle a variety of new situations, it creates this new sort of baseline. A new standard to which you hold yourself. In knowing you can handle more than you could before, you tend to then, in turn, expect more of yourself and function from a raised baseline of what you consider to be brave. Or in other words, it takes more to intimidate you. Less scares you. Which means you can do more.
You find new ways to do things.
It’s interesting how your mind can adapt. Sometimes when we get stuck on a certain plan, it hinders the outcome. For example, if we’re so focused on thinking we need to research art history for a year before we take up painting, that takes away a lot of our time and fun, doesn’t it?
When you decide that you’re capable enough to get something done, the “how” somehow becomes less important. You become open to more possibilities and new ways of getting things done. In the painting example, maybe you open yourself up to the possibility that you’re too hard on yourself or that you don’t have to know all the history to enjoy the activity. Or maybe you realize you enjoy painting with your fingers even though all the artists you’ve read about used paintbrushes.
You find more fulfillment.
This openness created throughout the process of intentionally and repeatedly trusting yourself encourages you to try things that you wouldn’t typically delve into. You find it easier to follow your own curiosity, and things that once seemed silly suddenly seem intriguing.
For me, this looked like following a spiritual nudge to sign up for Reiki training even though I knew nothing about it. This ended up leading to a mediumship practice that’s helped me and other people heal. When you build on things that make you happy, it only leads to more happiness.
You become unstoppable.
You start to see this confidence weaving into all aspects of your life. When you trust yourself over anyone and anything else, you’re not as easily shaken by what life throws at you. That’s not to say it’s always easy. Sometimes you need to make decisions you know are right for you, even though they’re difficult. And sometimes you know you need to take steps to start feeling happy before you’ll stop feeling sad.
Emotions are complicated, but if you get to a point where you can hold space for them, you allow yourself to learn from them and work with them, and that is truly powerful.
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How Embracing Grief Can Open Us Up to a Beautiful New Chapter
“When we are brave enough to tend to our hearts, our messy emotions can teach us how to be free—not free from pain but free from the fear of pain and the barrier it creates to fully living.” ~Kris Carr
It’s crazy how you go about your life thinking all is okay, and then BOOM, something happens that changes you forever. Grief and loss come and hit you in the face.
You know… the days that you start as one person and end as someone else.
But it’s not your first loss or trauma! You had a childhood of pain and suffering, which resurfaces when the latest loss happens.
The old stories and beliefs you had about being jinxed come back. You think, “Maybe the world, the universe, or God does, in fact, hate me.”
This has happened to me multiple times, and I thought I was a pro, especially since I help others process trauma in my work.
The first big time was when I was twenty-six and a policeman called to tell me my dad—who had been an utter nightmare when I was growing up—had taken his life.
In theory my life got easier without him, but that phone call triggered a lot of pain from enduring his abuse as a kid.
I didn’t have the tools to deal with this pain, so I numbed my feelings with alcohol, busyness, helping others, and chasing after unavailable men.
But I couldn’t outrun it anymore when another grief came along: the loss of the dream of a future with a man I loved deeply, who didn’t choose me or love me back.
That second grief moment seems smaller and was nearly ten years after I lost my dad, but it seemed to affect me more. My way of surviving grief by running from it just wasn’t working anymore.
The pain got so bad that I didn’t want to live. I felt hopeless and lost. I had to find different tools, as I wanted to move forward with my life. And find love. Running from my emotions was not helping me.
This launched my path to healing, which started with self-help books, podcasts, and blogs like this one. I wanted to understand why this relationship-that-never-was had pushed me over the edge.
I remember reading Facing Love Addiction by Pia Melody. It showed me that this pain I was feeling from the lost relationship was actually from my childhood.
Slowly, I came back to my loss of my dad and the way he treated me when he was alive.
I found my way to somatic therapy to help my body process what I had been through.
I found other tools like mindfulness, emotional freedom technique (EFT) tapping, meditation, inner child work, journaling, and self-care practices. Slowly, I began to heal the past version of myself. The one who lost her dad at twenty-six and the child who didn’t get what she needed from him. Then the thirty-five-year-old who was grieving a relationship with a man who didn’t choose her.
As the clouds parted I saw the light again through my healing. Therapy, the world of self-help, and personal development saved my life.
I found a beautiful, healthy man to love me, and we got married. All my dreams were coming true. I even left the corporate world to help others, as I was passionate about the modalities that had changed my life.
I genuinely believed I was fixed!
Then the third big grief came along. Maybe small for some, but it rocked my world. I miscarried at ten weeks pregnant. A pregnancy that came so easily at forty was gone like a dream.
I did the same thing I’d done when I lost my dad: I numbed myself. Mainly with my work and clients. Running a business keeps you busy and is a great escape from yourself. Soon, my friend wine was back to help too. I found all kinds of ways to escape the pain.
But I couldn’t run from this grief for as long as I ran from my past griefs, as my biological clock was ticking loudly. It was time to try again for a baby, but I just couldn’t do it.
I was frozen in fear.
Numb from the loss.
Not feeling good enough again.
The darkness was back, and I was lost in it! Thoughts of giving up were back too.
I thought I was healed! And helping others with their traumas. How could I be struggling with my own?
Fortunately, I knew to use the same toolkit I had used the last time, but my nervous system was frozen in time.
So I took baby steps to get help. It started like before, with books and podcasts. Like I was dipping my toe back in.
I read a book specific to miscarriage loss, The Worst Girl Gang Ever by Bex Gunn and Laura Buckingham and, more recently, Kris Carr’s I am Not a Mourning Person.
I started to invest in a space where I could process grief. This time, I chose to work with a somatic therapist who could help me release the trauma of this loss from my body through nervous system repair and also does integrated family systems (IFS) parts work. This helped me understand the parts of myself that do not want me to proceed with my dream of being a mum.
Parts of our minds are trying to protect us and keep us safe. We shame and hate them for limiting us. But when we get to know them, we understand why they are holding us back. It’s such a beautiful way to get to know our inner selves.
I also began to work with a coach who specializes in baby loss. I found resources and people that were specific to the pain I had experienced. Just how I did with my dad and the relationship loss previously.
I did get pulled into my shadow behaviors like drinking wine, overworking, and eating sugar, as these had helped me in times of grief before. But they were just a plaster over my sadness and wouldn’t help me move forward to become a mother.
I have uncovered that this loss is about my relationship with my body and the trauma that has been stored in it. And I have gone back to the childhood wounds around my body, related to my father constantly telling me I was fat, and how I have treated it.
I have given myself space. To actually grieve. To cry. To be angry. To release.
I am an EFT practitioner, so I use an EFT tapping technique to process any emotion right when I’m feeling it. In that moment.
I don’t run from it. I sit with it. I allow myself to feel the discomfort of my emotions. The first time I did this, it brought back the loss I felt for my dad. My childhood. And every other relationship I lost along the way.
No matter where you are on your journey of life, grief is something we all have in common. None of us escape it.
We are guaranteed to experience it multiple times in our lives. We can numb and avoid it. We can run from it and let it sabotage our present. Or we can choose to meet it and love ourselves through it.
After I lost my dad, running from my grief sabotaged my dreams of finding love with a healthy man. Facing it meant I was able to break that pattern. That is what allowing space for grief does.
Years later, a miscarriage could have stopped me on my dream to have a family of my own. Because I didn’t want to face what this miscarriage brought up within me. The pain of the relationship with my body. How I spoke to it and treated it and what others had said to shame it.
It is natural to want to avoid the pain. To run. But then you have to look at what the grief is holding you back from. A healthier, happier you. Your bigger dream and vision for your life.
I had to change my calendar to literally create space for grief. To remove the busyness. To allow my nervous system to feel safe enough to process the grief.
I decided to only spend time with people who could support me in it and socialize less so I could take really good care of myself. I canceled plans and just nourished myself all weekend with self-care.
I am not going to pretend grief is not grim. You are allowed to be angry. Sad. All of the things. Don’t ignore your own emotions or try to ‘fix’ them. They don’t need to be fixed. They just need to be felt.
Be a kind friend to yourself. Listen and allow yourself to cry. Slowly, the light starts to come in and you find your way out.
It is such a brave thing to meet your grief.
And just like I had to shed a mountain of grief before meeting my husband in order to start a new beautiful chapter, I know another one is on the other side of this miscarriage.
Though I am still writing this chapter of my story, it has already taught me so much about coming home to my body. Allowing it to heal from all the traumas and repairing my nervous system after decades of dysregulation. Allowing myself and my body to feel safe enough to feel. After years of dissociation and pain, this chapter has brought a deeper healing.
Wherever you are in your grief journey, take it slowly, one baby step at a time. Remember to be kind to yourself along the way. You can turn this grief, loss, and trauma into a new beginning.
This moment too shall pass. Like the others before it and the ones that will come after it.
We can’t control when these dark times come, but we can be brave enough to move through them by giving ourselves love and getting the right help for ourselves and our needs.
Be with it and it will pass much more quickly than it would otherwise and cause less damage to your beautiful life.
Healing has many seasons, and grief is like the winter, but spring soon comes with the buds of your new chapter.
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The Epiphany That Freed Me from My Body Obsession
“Your body is precious. It is your vehicle for awakening. Treat it with care.” ~Buddha
What is the first thing that comes to mind when you hear or see the word fitness? Do you think of an Olympic power lifting athlete, gymnast, or swimmer? The way we interpret and respond to the word fitness is a driver of physical health, but also our mental health.
From a young age I associated health with fitness, which, to me, meant fitter is better. Society fed me the image of perfection. And so the chase of fitness became a moving target that could never be achieved.
“I am strong, I am healthy,” I thought. I saw my physique as evidence of my ever-improving health. My fatigue and sore muscles were the price to pay for optimal health, or so I believed.
Friends, family, folks at the gym, even strangers reaffirmed me by complimenting me on my body. This fueled my desire to continue “improving” my fitness.
Like a house, foundation cracks take time to become problematic. For a while the cracks may go unnoticed. But then one day, leaks from a heavy rain begin to appear.
Swapping nutrition for calorie-dense meals. Chugging shakes void of any enjoyment. Eating was becoming a chore and was no longer guided by my hunger, but instead by the precisely calculated macro nutrients needed to ensure I was meeting my calorie requirements to grow my muscles.
Physically, I looked good, but I didn’t feel good. “What is wrong with me?” I wondered. I began to search for answers.
Did I have low testosterone? Were there chemical imbalances that could be blamed for my insomnia, low mood, irritability, and anxiety?
We hear these things all the time: Exercise your way to a better mood! Exercise helps you sleep! A fit body equals a fit mind!
I ignored the cracks in the foundation for a while. It was easy given all the positive feedback I was receiving. I kept lying to myself: “This is happiness. I am happy!”
I travel a lot. I enjoy seeing other cultures and meeting people. However, travel previously presented a problem: deviation from my exercise routine, thus derailing my goal of improved fitness.
Even preparing for a trip became problematic. I’d find gyms at my destination and ensure the schedule or itinerary could accommodate.
I never considered that I had an underlying issue as it related to my exercise, fitness, and physique because, again, society and everyone around me were telling me I was healthy in spoken and unspoken ways.
The Cracks Begin to Worsen
Fitness is not exponential. In fact, it is quite the opposite. “Gains” are more easily acquired when starting out and have diminishing returns as time passes. Despite knowing this concept from a biological perspective, logic didn’t win the day.
Eventually, my time and energy yielded fewer tangible results. Maintaining what I had built took diligent planning in terms of nutrition and other activities. Simply stated, my physique started to rule my every move.
Still naïve to the reality of what was going on, I decided my hormones must have been out of whack. While my testosterone was on the low end, it wasn’t terribly out of range. Even still, I decided to leap into the world of TRT (testosterone replacement therapy) in hopes that this would give me the boost I needed. (Note: This was under the supervision of a physician.)
Again, the external affirmations began to flow. But something else happened, something more serious. I began paying the price for this new boost in the form of side effects.
Insight: The Side Effect I Needed
By now my life was entirely run by my desire for more “fitness.” But I began to wonder, “Do I really want to do this for the rest of my life?” I then experienced somewhat of an epiphany.
The side effects and challenges with TRT served as a desperately needed wakeup call. I began to scrutinize my goals. I asked, “Are these goals serving me as a whole person? How could I have gotten so far off course? How did my passion for fitness and my desire for self-improvement lead me here? What am I doing to my body?”
I realized with crystal clarity that I had conflated fitness for health and wellness. And more importantly, I started to understand that “fitness” should not be achieved at the expense of emotional and mental wellness. Fitness does not equal health.
For some this might sound like a no-brainer. I knew that anxiety disorders and obsessive/compulsive disorders exist. What I didn’t know is that the phenomenon I was experiencing is far more prevalent than one can imagine.
Blurred Lines
We are fed from a very young age that fitness means strong, fast, and powerful, and that fitness is something you can see. My goodness, this couldn’t be farther from the truth.
We are told to exercise and that exercise is good. And exercise is good, in moderation. However, unhealthy exercise is increasingly becoming problematic for a significant number of people worldwide. The obsession of supranormal musculature has gone from nonexistent to shockingly prevalent over the past half century.
The line between healthy exercise and too much is often blurry because, on the surface, fitness looks healthy. We look at someone with a six-pack and think, “Oh, they’re healthy,” when in reality we have absolutely no way to holistically determine someone’s health just by looking at them.
As I mentioned before, the calorie-stuffing and arguably obsessive-compulsive behaviors around eating take place at alarming levels in the “fitness” world.
Body dysmorphia comes in many shades and is defined as a mental health condition where a person spends an excessive amount of time worrying about their appearance (Mayo Clinic).
Accepting that I suffered from body dysmorphia was both freeing and disappointing. Freeing because I was no longer blind to the true source of my difficulties. Disappointing because I felt powerless on so many levels.
Somewhere along the line the fruits of my exercise had become a source of validation for my worth and existence. Sure, being strong and fit is good, but at some point, that goal was 100 miles behind me.
My New Perspective
The side effects served as my awakening, and it was time to get to work. I know first-hand, from my work, that changing one’s perspective, though difficult, is doable. So I made it my mission.
This process was slow. Relearning is as much biological as it is emotional in that creating new neurocircuitry doesn’t happen overnight.
I started to conceptualize fitness as more than the summation of strength or speed. What if I include what I can’t see: how I feel, physically and emotionally?
I reassessed my values and started making sure my goals were in sync with them.
This new way of thinking demanded that I approach fitness and self-improvement from the inside out, not the outside in. The driving goal became a desire to feel whole, content, and enough.
Before, I felt physically drained and fatigued. Emotionally, I felt empty, shallow, and lost. My motivation was external. My relationship with my body was one of disrespect.
It took time, but I am now able to see physical activity in a new light—as a way to keep my body operating optimally. My relationship with food is driven by my desire to fuel my temple, to connect with nature as a sustaining source of life, and to replenish and nourish my life.
Where I am Today
I push myself physically, but not in the same way as before. Today, my body is my temple. I exercise several times a week, but I listen closely to my body’s whispers. Soreness and fatigue are signals that it is time for rest.
I believe fitness is the byproduct of health, not the driving force. To me, fitness is not the reflection in the mirror. Fitness is how I feel physically and emotionally. Fitness is feeling whole.
The improved relationship I have with myself is proving to be worth it many times over. My relationships with those close to me have improved. I feel at ease in the company of others because I’m not waiting for their affirmation to boost my self-worth.
I know there will be good days, weeks, and months along with bad. But now that I have had a taste of stillness and peace, I am confident the good will outweigh the bad.
My body is my best friend. I now treat it as such.
