Catch Yourself!

How often do you hear yourself begin a response with “I can’t … I never … I always …”?

“I never take a break when there’s a deadline.”
“I can’t do that – I’m not talented enough.”
“No, I won’t drive through town – I always take the highway.”

Scan the various areas of your life (home, parenting, relationships, work, recreation…). Listen for your inner I Never … I Can’t … I Always …”. My “favorite” such phrases have included: Continue reading “Catch Yourself!”

Energy Drains: take back your life!

Do you ever feel like:

  • you are being pulled in too many directions?
  • there is too much being asked of you?
  • YOU are responsible for that person and that activity and this …?

Is it all too much? Recently, I read The Joy of Burnout by Dr. Dina Glouberman, where she provided a visual that describes this situation beautifully:

Picture someone or something you are over invested in. Imagine that your energy is like rays, or I like to say strands of spaghetti, coming out of a hole in the top of your head. The ends of the spaghetti are stuck in that person or thing. 

My imagination traded in that spaghetti for my blood vessels and I quite literally saw my life energy flowing out of me into those others.

Pick either image, close your eyes, and feel into it for a moment.
Imagine a strand for each attachment that drains you.

Continue reading “Energy Drains: take back your life!”

Deadlines!

We’ve all met face to face with them – the hard and fast (or soft and arbitrary) deadlines we’ve been asked to meet. Whether is’s a task at work, the child needing a ride to practice that begins in two minutes, or the self-imposed, “I should call so-and-so who is struggling.”, deadlines seems to be a non-negotiable part of life.

BUT … I am writing to suggest that we just might want to reconsider something. Really, DEADlines? How many of the things we label deadlines really are a matter of life and death? Continue reading “Deadlines!”

Supporting Roles

Where are you in a supporting role? What energy do you bring? What characters support your starring roles?

Awhile back, I learned about many organizations in this community that do great work. I met some of the talented folks who have created programs which serve others and who do the work to make it happen.

As a life coach, I am often inviting folks to vision what they can create, what they are uniquely prepared to offer our world. We often imagine the business or program they will start, the book they will write, the “something new” that is theirs to manifest.

Yet, too often we forget both the supportive others we need in order to live into our dreams and the supporting roles we are meant to “star in”. Continue reading “Supporting Roles”