Weak and Insecure: How to Grow Your Confidence in Work and in Life
This is for anyone who is insecure or has a hard time with confidence at work or socially. This is part one of a two part episode. Part two will be solely focused on how to ask for a raise and how to tell someone your value when you apply for a new job. For this post I am going to focus on tools to enable you at work and in life in the face of fear and insecurity. Maybe you are introverted or sensitive, so this prevents you from speaking up or saying what you think. Or maybe when you do assert yourself it hurts to hear what people say back to you that’s critical. Maybe you feel intimidated by those around you and they use that knowledge to make you feel worse.
There are three parts! The what, why, and how – the tools! Whoo!
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How to Gracefully Deal with Nightmare In-Laws & Unkind Family this Holiday Season
I know the holidays are just a few days away– which can bring up a ton of uncomfortable feelings, especially if you have not-so-loving-family or in-laws who make you feel excluded or like you’ll tear your hair out. This is for anyone with family who are supposed to be nice but instead, make your relationship difficult. Maybe they constantly divide you and your spouse, instigating arguments – pushing your spouse to take sides or turn against you. Maybe you’ve even tried making peace, being the bigger person and reaching out with different olive branches – but nothing seems to help the situation. The heartbreak and hurt of an unloving, unsupportive family can be excruciating during the holidays – and with all the stress, you might feel like you’re going crazy.
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When Negative Equals Positive
Every struggle bears a rare fruit. It has the power to reveal a very key piece of our personality. Our most difficult challenges become gifts that unlock something amazing about who we really are, something that we have no idea exists yet, a prize reserved only for the effort put forth in a single situation. And it must be earned with bravery: we have to go for it and let go of whether or not we get what we want, in order to do what we know we must. Easier said than done, but when we start to look at life in this way, we soon see how true it really is.
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Work Burnout: How to Overcome Emotional and Motivational Exhaustion
It’s no shocker that working all night and all day with a million different deadlines can lead even the most inspired and motivated individuals to burnout and depression. Careers and schools often demand it, and it becomes the norm – hopefully for only a short time in your life, but regardless – it’s dangerous for your body and soul and can take a toll on the future-you and your success as a professional AND happy individual.
So this is for people who are in creative fields, schools, or professions that require they go hard for extended periods of time – causing them to burnout mentally and motivationally. I have some information to empower you to make better decisions, plus some tools to help you if you’re already stuck in an overworked depression. And ways to temper the stress and anxiety of intense deadlines and assignments moving forward. I know there’s a lot written on this subject but I will offer you a more practical set of solutions so that you can actually implement them starting NOW and not in six months, when “things calm down.”
This one is for my new friend in the Netherlands – Nathalie. xo
There are three parts – the what, the why, the how – the tools.
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Feeling like a Fraud: When you have the voice in your head that tells you you’re not good enough and you have no idea what you’re doing.
Are you guided by a belief that something is wrong with you? That you’re not good enough, and that you can barely keep people fooled about the fact that you’re smart. Maybe you constantly seek out the likeness of someone worthy but always seem to feel just as worthless as before: you’re never thin enough, you’re not as successful as you’d like to be, or maybe you’re living a life that you KNOW you don’t want but you’re too afraid to do anything about it because it’s going to show the world that you’re a weak and shameful loser. So it’s better to just stay safe, and protected in the lie. Even though you feel suffocated and stifled by this life. Well if this sounds like you then you’re in good company – this is a universal human trait: to feel that we’re not good enough. And that’s because so much of the self is defined by things we learn from others. The brain we use to drive and make money is also the brain that computes risk based on a very specific structure we’ve built via our life experiences. So it’s natural to have grown up with a set of beliefs that are – to say the least – not in favor of your confidence and self-love.
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How to Use Compassion to Rise Above the Hate and Intolerance of Others
We all want to be nice, tolerant and caring people – because it feels good. It rewards us. However, we are human, and sometimes it can be a challenge to stay in that mindset, especially if people are deliberately cruel and hateful. Anger and hate are so blind and dangerous, usually the safest reaction is to simply shutdown and ignore. Because the same emotions can come up when we witness intolerance: if you don’t understand someone and their beliefs betray everything you hold sacred, it can sting every nerve inside you — inciting a hate and intolerance for their beliefs even existing.
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I’m Stuck: Depressed and Full of Self-Hate
This is for anyone stuck in a place of self-hate and inaction. Someone who is in a shitty place in life, depressed and hopeless: hating on themselves, where they are, and at a loss for where to go from here. Maybe you have people in your life who love and encourage you and you hate that you’re bringing them down – yet you can’t figure out why your life just sucks so much when others get to be happy. You feel it is unfair for both of you.
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Trivial Couple Fights: For Getting Stuck in Battles of the Technicalities
How to stop trivial couple arguments that involve endless semantics debates – the ones usually started by faulty communication that are pointless and seem to last forever. This is a follow-up episode to last week’s episode which was about better loving - it’s all about a modern condition many couples are suffering in greater and greater numbers: the stupid arguments we get into with our awesome significant others – over stupid little things like corrections and blame.
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How to Get and Give More Love In Your Relationship
This is for people in a loving relationship and you’re working to give love BETTER to that person. I have a lot of tools in this one – many of them are for being the most effectively supportive if your partner is suffering and many are for breaking through to an empowered position when powerful emotional patterns take over. The times when intimacy is not fun and you are both struggling to find a path to be loving in the midst of life stress. Because, relationships are very confusing – they’re personal. When two people get intimate, another human becomes a very major your focus – you cannot separate yourself completely when you operate as a pair. And that can make you feel frustrated, overwhelmed and powerless. When it comes to suffering, it can be very difficult to deal – because it’s your life, too.
So that’s the point I am jumping off from in this post. For the good of making love work. There are three parts – the what, the why and the how – the tools. And this one has a lotta tools! So I hope you likee. xox...
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A Teaspoon of Happy: A Different Approach to Happiness
If you prefer to listen, here’s the podcast version of this post on Soundcloud and iTunes.
This is a simple post that I offer you as you begin your week. And yes, it’s called “A teaspoon of happy” – just like my blog! What does that mean? It’s super cutesy and girly, yes. It sounds good on a site like Hello Giggles, yes. But it’s actually my methodology – my approach to happiness. Because I think of it as a recipe – one I would like to offer you.
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Holding Pain: How Toxic Emotions Get Stuck In the Body
If you prefer to listen, here's the podcast version of this post, also on iTunes.
Just like stress can cause you to get a tight knot in the muscles of your back, so too can other parts of your body hold tight to things like fear or anger or even malform due to a particular belief system. Things like a pervasive feeling of lack in life can manifest in physical form in the way we digest food. You’ve probably heard things like this a million times and thought to yourself, “Ha - yeah right!” Because it’s a heady concept and not something you could test with a beaker tube. The power of the mind over the body comes off as super new-agey and therefore we all to often put it in the bullshit pile. But the affects of how we hold onto emotional pain are quite severe, they manifest in disease and damage your gene code for future generations– so in my opinion, why not lean in favor of, “do something about it, regardless” because there’s nothing to lose, everything to gain. OR, even just decide to stay open to what I am saying purely for the sake of practicing openness.
In broad strokes, I will go through some of the connections between emotions we hold onto and where they tend to get stuck in our body- plus a few tools to do something about it. I will post my references at the end of this post but in truth – if you suffer from chronic pain, go to a doctor! And if you suffer severe emotional pain, see a therapist! This is not a substitute for either of those. And just so you know what you’re getting into – this is an episode all about the body, with a whole lot of yoga to soothe particular negative emotions that get stuck in our body. If that doesn’t appeal to you – you probably won’t like this episode– but I will bet you get something valuable out of it regardless...
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Frustration and Dissatisfaction – I’m not where I want to be and that sucks
This is for anyone in a place of constant frustration with your current life – wanting to be somewhere in the future or wishing life was better, like it was in the past. Maybe you are working toward some kind of personal growth and you’re getting mad at the slow speed by which it’s happening. Or you’ve been struggling to make something happen for a long time and it’s not happened yet – and because of that you’re getting super bummed out.
I’m doing this podcast in honor of Irene May. My Grandma. Who just passed. And I got to be with her. Which was such an honor – such a blessing in my life. And the reason I chose this topic to honor her, is the role she played in my life. She was one of my favorite people and one of the most inspiring individuals I ever had the privilege to know. So with that, I hope you enjoy...
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Attitude Problem: When You're Stuck in Chronic Crankiness
Are you in a state of “I hate this” or “people are morons” or are you just generally over something about life? Well this episode is for anger of all kinds – from crankiness to annoyance, all the way to pure hatred and screw this crap to hell. What I am really addressing is the mental and physical state itself – because it’s not what you want, it can wreak havoc on your body, those around you, and worst of all, it perpetuates itself. Unhappiness cultivates unhappiness. I assume you’re listening to this because you are well aware this is bringing you down and it’s not what you want – but you can’t seem to help yourself out of the situation because there are external factors that make that impossible. So without further ado – there are 3 parts to this puppy – the what, the why, and the how: the tools. Yay. Let’s do this!
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Ex-Obsessed: For When You're Emotionally Devastated and Driving Yourself Insane
This is for anyone who has just been broken up with or broken up with a person that they felt they loved – and now you’re obsessing and even Facebook stalking this person. Maybe you know this is not helpful but you can’t stop wanting to know what they’re doing, who they’re with, who they’re seeing now and what that person looks like. And that is hurting you even more! But it’s an obsession and you can’t stop.
Firstly – I am so, so sorry you’re here! It's painful but it's temporary. This time will end. You are in the hardest part right now – and the more you can do to be self-loving and be nice to yourself, the faster this will end. I’ve been here myself and it blows. But you can half the time you suffer if you do everything in your power to do what you know is best for yourself. And that includes some healthy tough love when it comes to policing yourself and what you allow your focus to rest on.
This kind of a break up is way worse than most because it’s tied to different chemicals. It's not just about love and loss, it's about a salve: a reliance on an addiction to a soothing part of your life. Because it's chemical, it's hitting you on multiple fronts. With all break-ups, time is the greatest healer – but in addition to that, I want to empower you with some insight into your “why” so that you can begin to separate from the process you’re victim to, currently: the obsessing and salting the wound. So you can see the difference between the kinds of suffering: and see what is NOT truly coming from love. As usual there are three parts. The what the why and the how – the tools.
This is for Chelsea. I heart you girl! Hang in there. xox
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The Importance of Being Present
Why soothing your body and reducing the chatter in your brain is the key to your and the world’s ultimate happiness. This is almost like an introduction to my podcast in that it is truly the KEY to every positive change you want to make in your life. It is also the key to happiness and also the key to finding your life’s purpose.
What is it? Ready? Listen intently.
Consciousness: Feeling the feelings that are going through your body as they come. Being fully connected to that awareness and not “occupied” be a roaring sea of thoughts or rapid firing fears and analysis. Sometimes it’s like facing a roaring lion because some terrible awful stuff lives inside us in many moments of our life. Feeling hopeless, or worthless or afraid of what if’s to come. And yet, we must allow ourselves to feel those things - it's the key to building your ultimate life.
This is an episode with three parts. The general what, why, and then as a tool, I end with a meditation.
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Body Dysmorphia: Ugliness in the Eyes of the Beholder
We all have an internal self-portrait and that is created by the way we feel about who we are. There are SOOOOO many factors that control how we feel about ourselves and what we perceive as our flaws. And that’s why body dysmorphia is such a big problem: it looks and acts like “normal” self-image concerns. It walks and talks like vanity. And, yet, it destroys the average person’s happiness in so many ways across a lifetime, unchecked. Your self-image is a distorted hallucination – one heavily affected by your fears, vulnerabilities, your brain chemicals, and the way you integrate information from the world around you. AND when it comes to how you view your flaws, it has no connection to how the world views you or your actual physical appearance. That’s one reason this is such a powerful and rising problem: it’s a kind of suffering that’s veiled as “normal” because it affects successful, healthy people. An every-growing percentage of the population is dissatisfied with some or many traits of their physical appearance. When everyone you know obeys the same standard and marketing and media reinforce the irrational bar – how would you ever know there was another option? ...
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How to Get Over it: Stop Old Conflicts From Stunting Your Life
This is for people who are aware of when old issues are entering their present and they know they don’t want that to be happening. There are three parts: the what, the why, and the how: tools!
Part 1: The What
Our old memories operate like a trigger/pattern system. Think of it as a pinball machine called “My Pain Game.” The board makes the shape of your brain and it’s populated with all sorts of memories that define who you are, what is allowed to affect you and how you feel. You have a little pinball that lies latent but when it’s triggered – it shoots around your brain and activates different zones of preset emotional processes. Those zones are things like “what I need that I never get” and “why people always disappoint me” and “dark insecurities.”
At the base, there are two little paddles that you use to control this game. Your emotional reaction depends on where you choose to hit this ball. If you hit it hard, it shoots into “more pain and drama” and ricochets off of several new experiences, perpetuating the pain you feel. When you don’t hit it at all, it drops off the board. The point being – you are the one who keeps the ball in play. So when it goes into a certain area, it activates new triggers that are not controlled by you. Those little “hot spots” that shoot it even harder – these emotional hotspots take over the game and the ball will shoot around the table at top speed. The ball makes its way around and back to our spring-lever and what we tend to do – because our position is valid – is shoot it back up again, causing it to replay the series of triggers we have all over our “memory of self.” This reaffirms our position and cements what we don’t want to feel, even more. With repetition these negative roles become our official “identity” which in turn affects how we interact with the world – coloring every new experience to come.
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Jealousy: How to Rise Above Your Weakest Self
Jealousy, or a perception of your insecurities come to life. How does it sneak into your mind? Your darkest thoughts in your most fearful voice begin scratching at your feelings, dragging you down and causing you to act as your lowest self. You assume you are less than and life is against you somehow. You're either not enough, or something else outside of you is not enough. What is this emotional state? Your lowest form of self, the self that is motivated by fear and hate, put in a threatened defensive position. Think of it as You minus your awareness of what is good and loving in this world. This low emotional self is also called your irrational self. Hopefully, I will offer you a few tools to help you navigate out of this state and back to your highest self: grounded, making decisions from a balanced and sane mindset. There are three parts: The what. They why. The how: the tools...
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Survival Mode: When Worry Takes Over Your Life
Stuck in Survival Mode
For when you can’t stop feeling worried or obsessed with what is threatening your stability in life – a stress response based on past traumas or recent ones, for that matter.
This one is for Heather! I heart you girl – hope this helps the teensiest bit.
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