I love this quote by Joan Rivers. I have to say I don’t think of Joan often when looking for inspirational quotes ?, but this one came through my feed and I was like, “Damn – that’s good!”
The reason I think this quote is so. damn, good. is because it states a deep truth about how we can feel better and use our time more meaningfully during the rest of the life we have on this planet.
So many of us waste time indulging in negative emotions and waiting for things to get better – and we do it a lot of the time.
The reality is life has some freakin’ hard moments – because that’s how life IS. And those hard moments sometimes fall like rain. And sometimes they only happen like a lunar eclipse. But if we wait for it to get “easier” before we feel better, we’re going to be feeling shitty a lot more of the time than we need to.
We can’t wait for the boss to get nicer – or for them to get fired. For the partner to be more understanding. The partner to even exist. The partner to leave and ask for the divorce we’re too afraid to ask for. The bank account to be more full. The tummy to get flatter. The tummy to get bigger and have a baby arrive. The kid to grow up and finally move out. The kid to need you again. The weather to be perfect. The vacation time to triple.
Shit does not get “better.” Shit just happens. It just IS.
So what is one to do?
YOU can get better – you can get better at managing your thoughts. You can let your brain evolve. Which helps you manage your emotions. Which helps you create the reality you want to feel and experience.
This does not mean that by evolving you’ll never feel bad. But it does mean you are at less risk for feeling negative emotions that have no purpose for you.
Here’s the key: we can’t be afraid to feel hard things.
When we’re afraid to feel hard things, we spend time feeling self-pity and blaming everybody. We worry all the time and doubt ourselves. We even hate people – and there aren’t many feelings more awful than hate, especially when we direct it at ourselves.
You’ll know you’re feeling “unnecessary” negative feelings when the things you feel don’t get you anywhere. They keep you stuck. Or they spiral you round and round. They help you make an excuse for why you can’t go out into the world and bring your gifts to share with the other humans who totally need you.
And here’s the kicker: the reason why we indulge in the familiar negative emotion is because we’re afraid of feeling any kind of new negative emotion! But it’s still negative emotion. So when you’re not afraid of feeling bad, you can move through a negative emotion more efficiently. Crazy, right?!
It’s all a part of the yin and yang of life – in the yin yang symbol, it’s not like 80% is light and love – 1/2 is light and 1/2 is dark (just like in this caffeinated version to the right;) You need the contrast to fully experience being human. You can’t see light if there was no darkness to contrast it. Falling in love wouldn’t be so sweet if we always felt that good.
So – if you’re going to be human and feel bad feelings, at least let them be ones you are choosing or consciously aware of, and not ones that take over you and keep you from getting out there in the world.
You also might as well learn to be with those hard feelings. That way you can at least keep evolving and moving forward in your life. When you learn to manage your thoughts, your negative emotions don’t stall you out.
It requires courage to accept the reality that life doesn’t get much easier. But there is so much possibility in also accepting that you have control over how you think about it – and how you feel about it.
And guess what? That affects the reality that you experience. And isn’t that what you want to change anyway? How you are experiencing life?
You might be saying, “But Ana, my life is sooooo super shitty. It’s totally legit shitty.”
Think about self-loathing and pity and blame and hate.
It doesn’t feel good even if you feel justified in it.
Even if you feel like you have a reason, who cares what the reason is?
If it feels terrible, you could be using up that 50% of negative emotion you’re going to feel anyway (because you’re human) on something that pursues a goal for you, that creates something, that makes a contribution to your life, that doesn’t have a net negative consequence to it.
For example, I was feeling shitty about my overworking in the medical field, my father dying, my mother having abused me, getting divorced at 35, having cancer TWICE…I could list more things. I could have wallowed in self-pity about it and wished life would just back the fuck off for a bit. Which I did do in a proper way with wine and boxes of pizza for awhile.
But after allowing my period of self-compassion (vs self-pity), I got it together and used that energy to create a new career for myself – and voilà, Freedom Junkie was born. And so many other awesome things because I let go of wanting to wait for life to get easier. Or for my negative feelings to go away.
I did this by managing my thoughts and not letting them spiral me. I did this by not indulging in how hard it was to feel bad – I just felt the hard feelings, didn’t create story around them, and then was free of them.
If I hadn’t managed my thoughts, I could have been stuck in that place of self-pity for years…I had all the reasons laid out in front of me. I had the justification, but it felt shitty – so who cares that I had good reason? It was time for a change.
Of course, because I am human and in a body on this planet, I felt crappy again at some point, but because of different circumstances. The cool thing is, the more you do this, the more you know you’ve got this! You can more effectively be with hard emotions, which allow them to move more quickly through you, and then you can turn your thoughts around and keep moving forward in life.
You can do this too. We ALL can.
Try these two quick tips to make the hard feelings a smidge more manageable:
1) Don’t create story around your negative feelings. Remind yourself that as humans, we suffer sometimes, and it’s part of life. As Buddha said to a woman mourning the death of her son and wishing for the pain to stop, “Go into the village and find someone who has not experienced the loss of a loved one. Bring them back here.” She was never able to find someone. Which was the point. Being human comes with a lot of hard things – AND a lot of amazing things. Don’t let the hard things keep you from opening up to the beautiful things. Practice self-compassion about life as a human. This shit is hard! And beautiful.
2) When a negative feeling comes up, don’t push it away and don’t dive deeply into it letting it spiral you. Instead, feel it in your body. Stay out of your head, and describe it to yourself in terms of sensations (chest gets tight, face gets flushed, head feels pressure, etc). When we don’t add story to our negative feelings, studies have shown they pass through us in an average of 90 seconds. It doesn’t mean they won’t come back (usually because we start having thoughts about them again), but they can pass relatively quickly. Staying in your body instead of you head can help this happen more efficiently.
Trying to describe the details for how to manage your thoughts in an email would take me forevs. So keep an eye out for a video series I’ll send you where I go into how you can do this in a systematic way.
You’ve got this. And you’re not alone. Don’t ever forget that!
Ready to dive deeper into this? Check out Freedom School and see what everyone’s obsessed about. It’s not just group coaching. It’s a mindset revolution that you won’t want to miss.
I was hanging out with some girlfriends sipping my fizzy berry drink (doing my seasonal cleansing, baby!) and chatting about exposés coming out lately around less-than-ethical coaches that use age-old techniques of manipulating people into forking over life savings or becoming cult-like followers of their programs.
One of my amigas asked, “But how are people supposed to tell the difference?”
I know the answer to this because I almost joined a cult when I was 19. It was disguised as a meditation class. What follows is a long post, but I think it covers some important points.
At 19 years old, I was in the depths of a spiritual crisis and had a sense that meditation could help me. Every class I found charged money – a lot of money – and I was at a loss since I was a broke college student. Then I saw a flyer for a free meditation class on campus. Sahweet!
I showed up and another woman I knew was there. I was glad to see a familiar face. The class was led by a woman in her 30s who seemed nice enough. In then end when she asked for feedback, I commented that I was a little distracted by the weird music that played in the background.
Yes, I called it weird. Because it was.
“Oh, that’s composed by Rama. You’ll get used to it. It’s really transformational.”
A white guy named Rama who composed New Age music. Hmmmm.
Then, after the class, the teacher pulled me and my friend aside – even though we were about to walk out, and many others had approached her afterwards to get more info. “I’d like to invite you two to a live event to meet Rama. It’s in LA, and we’d be happy to pay all of your expenses.”
WTF?
She made some comments about how we seemed “so into it” and how we’d love the community. I was hesitant. But I also loved free shit.
I agreed for her to come by my place later in the week to talk more about it. The other woman, on the other hand, agreed instantly.
As we both walked home after the class, I asked my acquaintance if she thought it was weird that only the two of us got pulled aside when we were the ones just walking out. And how we happened to be the only 2 females there, with the rest being guys with greasy hair and the like – who were also way more “into it.”
She thought nothing of it.
About a week later the meditation teacher came by my place on campus, accompanied by a mousy looking woman carrying binders.
She told the mousy woman to place the binder on my kitchen table and the other woman did as she was told. One binder fell to the floor and the teacher barked at her, “Pick that up! We have to be careful with those!” The mousy woman scrambled anxiously.
The woman then went on and on about Rama and his programs and how he was soooooo amazing, and how there were so many other women like me and my friend in their community.
Throughout all this she kept shouting sharp comments at the other woman, who never spoke the entire time.
It all felt really off. I said I’d think about it (remember, this is before I knew any of my life coaching Jedi tricks about boundaries😉
She reminded me it would cost me nothing – they’d pay for me to fly from Santa Cruz to LA, and put me up with free lodging etc.
I said again that I’d think about it and she asked me, “How long do you need?” I don’t fucking know, I thought. Just get out of my place.
“Three days,” I finally said.
And they left, the mousy woman opened the door for the “teacher” and scrambled to catch up with her.
I found it most disturbing that she treated the other woman like crap. I don’t care how far along you still need to go on your meditation path. No need to treat people like shit.
After they left, one of my roommates came home and I told her about it. She agreed it was weird and called her mom, who was an investigative journalist in LA. (Badass!)
Her mom called back within minutes and said how Rama was a well-known scammer who recruited young women – particularly cute brunettes – and eventually got them to give over their life savings and donate them to his cause. If they didn’t have money, they could work for him for free (he had some kind of business on the side). He also hooked up with his students.
My roommate’s mom called the organization and asked that they not come onto campus and that she knew Rama was a known cult leader. The “teacher” said they were invited so they had permission to be on campus (which was true), and after a few more minutes of prodding, she admitted that they were indeed a business (but denied they were a cult) and that Rama saw his participants as “investors” in his business.
So Rama had sex with his followers, took their money and free labor, and grew rich off of it.
Wow. Lesson learned. I told the woman who was going to go to the event what had transpired. What happened next is a whole other blog post.
Suffice it to say, Rama and his entourage were not bona fide teachers of meditation or worthy of teacher status.
Shortly after this series of events, I found an Australian Buddhist-lesbian-martial-arts-loving-nun in Boulder Creek, California. She taught me meditation for free. She taught me how desiring chocolate cake and sex was perfectly OK, but that attachment to them and letting such desires run my life were what created suffering.
She taught me how I could feel desire AND be free by not attaching to it. She was fucking amazing, and to this day she teaches, including to death row prisoners in San Quentin prison. She’s one of my mentors, Robina Courtin. She’s the real deal.
She convinced me to go to Nepal before I graduated from college, even when I tried to come up with myriad excuses why the timing was bad. She told me over and over how she was imperfect. And even though she made no money, every now and then she would give me gifts like a candle, or a mala, or a book.
It was in Nepal in the Fall of 1994 that I really learned about choosing a mentor.
I had almost become a Buddhist nun after a month-long meditation retreat, but bypassed shaving my head and becoming celibate after a few weeks trekking alone and meditating in the Himalayas. Having that adventure helped make it clear to me that I was supposed to try to attain enlightenment while having sex and the challenges of intimate relationships 😉
I asked a respected Tibetan Lama how to best select my next teacher to study with.
“Check your teacher” he said.
How the hell was I supposed to do that?
He said I should spy on them (really!), study them – see how they act when they don’t think anyone is looking. He told me that it was then that people’s true character came out. He also said that no matter what, they should be acting with compassion and kindness. (Unlike the barking meditation teacher from the cult.)
He told me that traditionally, people would follow around a prospective teacher and watch how they treated others, spying on them behind bushes and eavesdropping through shut doors. They would see how they practiced and how they lived their lives. They would do this for quite a long period of time, because choosing a teacher was very, very important and it was paramount to trust your teacher deeply.
If you didn’t choose an ethical and practiced teacher, you endangered your spiritual path, and even your life.
Holy shizzle – that’s serious.
I didn’t think of it that way at first, but the make made a lot of sense the more he spoke to me about this.
To truly grow in life, you need to deeply trust your guides – whether they are your parents, your best friend you call in the middle of the night, your coach, or your spiritual mentor.
You need to trust. Not in the blind way that cult-leaders and charismatic faux-teachers would like you to – but in a deep way that allows you to take the big risks when you are feeling like shying away from the edge.
After all, that is where true growth happens – when you are living on the edge of your comfort zone. And if you are with a good teacher, you’ll go there. And when you trust your teacher, you’ll stretch beyond your comfort zone. And they’ve got your back.
HOW TO “CHECK YOUR TEACHER”
Use these guidelines for evaluating whether anyone is worth your salt (or hard-earned cash) before committing to working with them intensively. These are 6 points to help you learn how choose a life coach. Frankly, I think you should use these guidelines in choosing your friends and partners as well!
1) Are their values in alignment with yours? When I was looking for a coach, I found a lot of them telling me they created lives of “freedom” – but none of them traveled for 3-4 months a year like I did. Instead, they bragged about being done with work by 5pm, having one spa day to themselves a week, and escaping to a ski cabin each winter. They went on and on about having lots and lots of money. They also bragged how they hardly ever had to coach – that almost everything was automated or delegated out to their other “head” coaches, and how they only had to show up to coach once in awhile.
Those things are nice, and indeed those things were freedom for many people. But I wanted 3-4 months of true vacation. I really really like spa days, but I prefer them in places that required me to get a visa. I wanted money too – but enough for me to do exactly what I wanted (not buckets and buckets of it but with no time to do anything with it). Plus, I wanted to coach people. Not rake it in without having to ever connect with the people paying me good money to help change their lives.
It wasn’t all about the numbers for me – it was about the experiences.
My definition of freedom was not theirs.
What is your definition of freedom (or any of your other values)? Is your coach aligned with that?
2) Do they walk their talk? I go to a lot of conferences and gatherings where there are many high-profile coaches. I can’t tell you how disappointed I’ve been when I meet some of them in person. It was heartbreaking for me to see that someone I admired after reading their blogs or watching their videos actually acted like an asshole.
It felt like high school again: women boasting about freedom and sisterhood, then not giving the time of day to someone they didn’t think was an “influencer” when they were approached and tried to start a conversation. They would brush them aside.
And the ironic thing? Their “followers” would hang on to them tighter, feeling like they were the “special ones.”
The sad part was they were only treated like that because they paid.
Once they were out of that person’s Mastermind, their emails stopped getting answered or the other members stopped writing them or caring about what they were up to.
Ick.
Just like the monk told me when I was 19 – your teacher should act with compassion and kindness. Even if you don’t pay them.
3) Do you feel uplifted when you are with them? Not from a star-struck perspective or because of who they know or the name-dropping of who they hang with. Rather, when you are with them, do you feel seen, heard, and understood? Do you feel inspired to take action in your own life? Do you feel hopeful about your future and have actionable plans to make it happen? Do you feel better about yourself and are more proud of how you show up in the world when inspired by them?
4) Do they offer real value? I’m all about the “pricelessness” of true freedom and happiness. But you should definitely not be convinced by a coach to tap into your 401k because someone’s Mastermind would “totally be worth it.”
Yes, I feel this way even if you freely choose to do so.
In my opinion, using the excuse that people freely do so is just bullshit. And many people blow off their clients going into serious debt because they claim that client had a choice.
Fair enough. They did. But coaches also have a choice in how they select their clients, and the ethical coaches I know have a stringent application process before allowing people into their higher-level programs. They only allow people in who show high promise of benefitting from the teachings and indeed making the program “worth it,” and not just taking the money of anyone who wants to join.
Any responsible coach would not ask you to tap into your life savings. There are way more affordable ways to learn some of these skills before you can afford a high-level Mastermind.
It’s one reason why I offer my crazy-affordable Urban Wellness Club. It’s a way to receive coaching and learn life, wellness, and mindset skills even when you can’t afford my year-long mastermind or 1:1 coaching yet.
5) Eventually, will you learn what it takes to do it yourself? If you’re with a smarmy teacher, they’ll encourage you to always need them and to give up things important to you to be with them (like your 401k). They’ll teach you, but then also have a tricky way of making you feel small so that you don’t quite feel worthy unless you are one of their inner circle. And you won’t learn anything that would allow you to not “need” them anymore.
This reminds me of the classic tale in Chinese medicine about the old wise medicine man who had met a young and talented new practitioner. The young new guy said, “What have you cured? I have cured so many diseases like the horrific and persistent x, y, and z diseases. What have you treated?”
“Well,” said the elder practitioner, “I admit I have not cured any of those fancy diseases you speak of. You see, my patients don’t get sick.”
Oh, snap!
A good medical practitioner helps you to not get sick so that they don’t make their living off of curing disease after disease in their patients. Similarly, I believe a coach helps you learn the skills to be able to implement on your own and over time.
Let me be clear about something here: personally, I always have a coach. I like having a coach. I work well with coaches and it’s a huge reason why I am as successful as I am. However, I do not need a coach. I have learned how to discover what I need to do to succeed, and I choose to have coaches to help make it easier. But I do not need them to move forward because I have learned what it takes to do it myself.
Similarly, you can choose to work with a coach over time year after year – but know that you should also be growing over time, learning new skills and seeing real change.
6) Who are their teachers? Before every traditional Buddhist teaching I have attended, there is a large portion of time – an uncomfortable portion of time, if I have to say so myself – where you are fidgeting for the “real teaching” to start…but it is stalled while the monk or nun teaching goes on and on about where the teaching came from, ultimately ending back at the Buddha himself.
You see, in traditions that have been around for thousands of years, they know that where the teaching came from is just as important as the teaching itself.
You don’t want to invest precious time and energy (and these days, money) into following a spiritual teaching that someone pulled out of their ass. Same goes for coaching. It’s one reason I am not totally opposed to coaches being required to be Certified (FYI most out there aren’t).
I do believe you can be a really talented coach and not be certified. I also believe it’s a lot harder to be a crappy coach if you are certified than if you’re not.
You can still be crappy if you’re certified, just like you can be a crappy doctor even if somehow you were smart enough to get into and finish medical school. However, you have better odds and receiving medical care from someone with an MD or other health licensure than from someone without one. And you have a better chance at true quality coaching from someone certified through a rigorous program.
Who did your coach study with? Who did they learn from? We often practice how we were trained, so make sure your coach got into the trenches with some real masters so they can share their precious nuggets of wisdom with you!
7) Do you relate to their story? A coach who has walked your path – or at least the path you want to walk – will be a better coach for you than one who hasn’t. Simple as that.
If you want to learn to create a life of unconventional travel and adventure, you won’t work as well with a coach who perhaps travels, but chooses to “adventure” only in the fancy hotels and spas in the countries that they visit.
If you’re trying to lose weight after a baby, you won’t work as well with a weight loss coach who has never struggled with weight to begin with.
If you want to work on your fear of being alone and can’t stand the idea of being single, you won’t work as well with a coach that has always been in a super cozy relationship than with a coach who has had a fear of becoming a spinster after a divorce at 37 years old.
Capiche?
So there you have it – 7 points that I think would serve you well to consider before choosing to work intensively with a coach. Or choose a friend. Or let a guy move into your house.
You are worth every bit of discrimination that you can muster when choosing who to let into your life.
If you want to join a tribe of people that will help you navigate this wild and precious life, come check out Freedom School – for rebels like you. It’s not just personal growth for rebels. It’s Jedi training for the new world.
I just got back from an awesome business conference in Dallas. I love going to these events because first, they scare the shit out of me.
I start to dream even bigger, which put my brain into fight-or-flight more because I feel kind of maxed out where I am already. I’m already booking most hours in my day (even if those still include playtime in the mountains), using up most of my money (BTW I put away the minimum I need to for retirement because I kind of suck at saving;), and continuing to move towards a life where I work even less than what I do now.
There’s not many things that scare me these days. But creating a bigger dream, putting it out there, and not having it come true is one of them. I fear that people will see me as a failure, that I will have deep regrets, let my family down, or take on too much and end up in overwhelm. Be broke. Get depressed. End up having to sell everything.
The bonus of being an experienced life coach is that I know how to coach myself, and I do know that ultimately, all those things I just said are thoughts. They may feel like real, actual things that I am afraid of, but in reality, they are just thoughts.
Knowing that my fear is created by thoughts – and not reality – has gotten me past every single obstacle I’ve had to overcome. Hard climbs. The first time I dropped into a steep bowl of fresh powder. Class V rapids. Applying to the top grad school in my specialty – and not a single other school, since I knew that was where I wanted to go. Cancer – twice. Being alone with my baby for months out of the year and for many, many weekends and evenings while also working two jobs. Sometimes three. Getting my doctorate degree with a toddler – while working. Starting my coaching business – and quitting my secure job to dive deeper into my business. Falling in love again after a broken heart. Having my heart broken again.
All those things I said above were indeed real – and they for sure happened. But what creates shitty feelings are the thoughts we have about those things – including fear.
So the second reason I love going to these events is because I am reminded of thoughts that can replace the ones that cause my fear. The big one I came home with, from my colleague Kara Lowenthiel:
“I do impossible things every day.”
Damn straight, sister. I have been doing impossible things. Every. Damn. Day. And I can continue to do so.
So when I dream up something so amazing it scares the shit out of me, damn straight I can do that too. I just need to do what I did for everything else: commit to it. Take massive action until I get exactly what I want – no matter what.
In case it wasn’t obvious, this formula works for you too. It’s simple – but not easy. Creating the life of your dreams takes grit and hard work – but life does anyway. So you might as well be creating your dreams while you’re at it.
The latest dream I’ve manifested? It actually brings tears to my eyes, because when I was at my very first business conference, I was asked to dream big – waaaay big – and one of the things I wrote on my 3×5 “goal cards” was to have a home in the mountains and a home on the beach, because I love both of them (but granite mountains trump all else, I think;). And also because growing up, we always lived in rentals, and until I was a teenager, I slept in one bedroom with my parents and my grandma.
Last year I made both of those things happen. In March, I bought this slice of heaven in Baja California Sur, Mexico (see the arrow? That’s pointing to the spot)
In December, I bought this tiny slice of heaven right at the base of the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, staring right up into the mountains where I learned how to be confident, independent, and a true woman of my own making (pic on the right). The place I most dearly call home. Just beyond a nearby pass is one of the most gorgeous places on earth – Evolution Basin – and I can be there in a heartbeat (well, many heartbeats at 100bpm as I hump over the pass, at least;).
So you see – if I can do it, you can too. But first, you have to dream – you have to allow yourself to want the impossible. Because the impossible only seems that way today. And it only seems impossible because you think it is.
Then you need to tell yourself you can do impossible things. Every day. And commit to that – no matter what.
No matter what.
Did I say no matter what?
No. Matter. What.
Pssst. If you want help creating the life of your dreams, schedule a free strategy session with me by clicking here. I’ll show you how it’s possible to get from where you are now to where you want to be.
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Ready to dive deeper into this? Check out Freedom School and see what everyone’s obsessed about. It’s not just group coaching. It’s a mindset revolution that you won’t want to miss.
But you know what? It was totally worth it, because it was absolutely necessary in order to stay true to who I am and what I believe in.
I disappointed the racist professor at our dinner table (and my date trying to get a job with their University) when he said, “I can’t believe people still think racism is even an issue. I mean, slavery ended over 100 years ago.” I pointed out that in fact, while slavery had ended in 1865, segregation didn’t end until 1964 (and that was only on paper) and many Americans in a recent poll said they’d rather be blind than black. Then I took a sip of wine from my glass and smiled at everyone.
I disappointed the client that wanted me to just give them the answer instead of having them do the hard – but rewarding – work of coming up with the answer themselves, and taking the risk to trust their heart. That’s not what coaching is about. It’s about self-discovery and evolution.
I disappointed my parents when I took a job that paid $50 a day and required me to live out of my car and sleep on the ground, instead of going on to get my PhD like they had dreamed. They had worked extra jobs to ensure I was able to go to a private high school instead of our gang-ridden public school, and after college I entered a lifestyle as a climbing guide that appeared to them to be a downgrade from our already sparse lifestyle. But I loved every minute of it.
I disappointed my first husband when he never tragically hurt me or cheated on me or failed to support me. He was a good man. But not the right man. And I asked for a divorce.
I could go on and on about the ways I’ve had to disappoint others in order to stay true to myself. Was it hard? For sure. Do you know what would have been harder?
Disappointing myself.
It should be harder to disappoint yourself than it is to disappoint others. Yet often we would rather let ourselves down than someone else.
We are taught this from a very young age – especially women. We are taught to put others before ourselves, and not in a compassionate way. We are taught to prioritize others in a survivalist way. We are told overtly and subtly that if we let people down – if we disappoint others – we are putting our own worth at risk.
We take the job we don’t really want. We say “yes” to things we don’t want to (any people-pleasers in the house?). We stay in the unfulfilling relationship because we think we should be lucky to have someone who loves us. We don’t wear what we really want out dancing. We don’t order what we want for dinner. We don’t travel around the world instead of heading straight into college or graduate school or that next job. We say “yes” to the food pushers even though we know the cake they are guilting us into eating will make us feel like crap. We have that drink that’s one-too-many because we want to fit in.
Here’s the deal: being willing to disappoint others in order to stay true to yourself ispart of the price for evolving and moving towards the life you want to create for yourself.
If you aren’t disappointing others, you aren’t really in the game.
Who will you need to disappoint to move one step closer to your dreams?
Check out this poem by Oriah Mountain Dreamer. It’s one of my faves. I highly recommend you read this as in invitation to yourself.
The Invitation
It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing. It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.
It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain.
I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it, or fade it, or fix it.
I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, remember the limitations of being human.
It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.
I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence.
I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, ‘Yes.’ It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.
It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.
It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away. I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.
Oriah Mountain Dreamer
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Pssst. If you want help creating the life of your dreams, schedule a free strategy session with me by clicking here. I’ll show you how it’s possible to get from where you are now to where you want to be.
***
Ready to dive deeper into this? Check out Freedom School and see what everyone’s obsessed about. It’s not just group coaching. It’s a mindset revolution that you won’t want to miss.
It’s easy for us to get into “analysis paralysis,” wasting so much time, energy and wine ruminating about which decision is best for us.
“Should I quit my job?” “Should I leave the relationship?” “Is that really worth the money?” “Where should I go for my one big vacation this year?”
And it makes sense. After all, life is short and we don’t want to f*ck it up if we can avoid it, right?
You’re likely wondering, “How do I decide? How do I get out of this crazy confusion and finally make a decision?”
I’ve done a lot of digging on this, since I have been feeling stuck lately on some biz decisions I’ve had to make.
Here are the 8 tips that helped me the most (you’re welcome!):
1. Get rid of “history bias.” Step back for a minute and ask yourself, “Would you choose it now if there was no history bias?” What I mean by “history bias” is we tend to have a lot of weight on our shoulders because we keep thinking about all the things that happened in the past. It can make your brain a mess, for sure. So, if you were starting brand new, would you choose whatever it is that is going on right now?
So for example, if you are deciding whether you should leave a job or not, re-decide whether you would take it or not. Would you marry this person again? Would you buy this house again? Would you spend this money?
Whatever it is, consider all your options and ask yourself, would you choose it now without your history bias?
A lot of us say, “Well, I’ve just been doing it for so long.” Trust me: that may not be the best reason you want for choosing something. And remember, when you make a decision, you want to make sure you like your reason for choosing it.
2. Ask yourself, “What if failure is no big deal?” Nelson Mandela famously said, “I never lose. I either win or learn.”
A lot of times we hear coaches ask, “What would you do if you could not fail?”
But this new perspective takes it to the next level. So, if failing didn’t matter, if you knew you might fail at it, would you still do it?
If you failed at trying something, quitting something, or moving out into something, would you do it if failure didn’t matter?
This is important to ask because remember: “failure” is just the way you think about it. If you’re only “winning or learning,” then there really is no failure. Nothing is a failure. So when you take out the thought that “failure ruins everything” and that you could fail, which one do you do?
3. Imagine that both decisions could be awesome. What if you could succeed at both of them? Which one would you choose? Some of us don’t choose one option over the other because we’ve played it out and we’ve already anticipated failure. We’ve already anticipated that we won’t know how to do something or we’ve succumbed to our own doubt about something.
For example, if you’re thinking about leaving a relationship, consider this:
If I stay married, the marriage turns out awesome because I make it awesome, and if I leave, my life is awesome because I make it awesome. So knowing that either way I could have an amazing life, which one do I choose?
Whoa. This clears up decision making so quickly, right? And it’s true: you can feel awesome either way (but that’s another blog post).
4. The next thing I want you to consider is one of my faves. It’s that can you say yes to both things. I LOVE having it all;)
It’s super common to think “either this or that” when we are considering our options. We think one automatically excludes the other. This is a really great time to get coached!
We often think that if we say yes to one of them, we’re saying no to the other. Sometimes we don’t want to say no to the other, so we don’t make a decision.
But what if you could say yes to both things? Gasp!
Like, “Should I leave my job to become to a life coach?” What if you could keep your job and become a life coach in the evening? What if you could have both? Would you choose both instead of saying yes to one or no to the other?
I am really good at this because I’ve learned over many years to be efficient with my time. I get to do a lot of different things – I coach clients all over the world, I catch babies, I got my doctorate, I help people in integrative medicine, I volunteer in remote areas, I lead retreats, I teach new healthcare providers how to be good at providing care and being compassionate with their patients…
Do I do them all at the same time? Of course not! But I get to do them;)
Many people I know would have just chosen one of those things. And that’s OK too! It’s just that sometimes, you don’t have to. I decided I didn’t want to say yes to one and no to the other. (And it’s also not because I don’t sleep. I love me some sleep;)
5. Ask your “Future Self,” the you 10 years into the future, what they think, and why. Remember that your Future Self has already learned the Big Lessons and who knows exactly what you need to do to manifest your ideal life.
When I’m making big decisions, I often ask my future self what should I do and why. It was one of the first tricks they taught me during my first coach training in 2009, and it sticks because it is really, really good! She always seems to know exactly what to do.
When I think of myself 10 years from now, at 55 years old (!!!), what do I tell myself? It’s crazy how much wiser I am. I always have the best answers;)
6. Give yourself a deadline to make the decision. That’s right. You could go on and one ruminating. At some point, you need to stop it. There’s Parkinson’s Law: The amount of time that one has to perform a task is the amount of time it will take to complete the task. That includes decisions.
When the deadline arrives, make the decision and move forward.
I mean really, how long are you going to be deciding?
There’s actually no risk in deciding. The only risk you have is in the decision, in making the decision.
So give yourself until, say, the end of the month, or the end of next month, or the end of the week, and then you will decide one way or the other to do something.
That might feel scary to you. It did for me. But that means you’re doing it right. It’s okay to be afraid! Making decisions is what helps us move forward, to grow and evolve.
Know what else? It also helps us take action and therefore increases our confidence, because we juice up our confidence when we take action and learn from it. It also saves us time since we stop wasting time deciding!
7. Go over what is the best and worst-case scenario for each of your options. I like doing this because the worst-case scenario often doesn’t feel as bad as I think it will when I play it out. Plus, what we often find out in the end is that the worst-case scenario is missing out on the best-case scenario;)
8. I saved the best for last. One that works for me consistently is asking, “What moves me towards who I want to be?” So just be really clear and answer the question, “What moves you toward who you want to be?” It’s that simple. It works. Sometimes, another way to ask this can be to ask, “How do I want to feel?” Pick the thing that helps you feel that way. I do that a lot when I ask, “What will help me feel more free?” Deep down, you know what will move you towards who you want to be. And that, my friend, is what really matters.
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Pssst. If you want help creating the life of your dreams, schedule a free strategy session with me by clicking here. I’ll show you how it’s possible to get from where you are now to where you want to be.
***
If you want to join a tribe of people that will help you navigate this wild and precious life, come check out Freedom School – for rebels like you. It’s not just personal growth for rebels. It’s Jedi training for the new world.
“Wouldn’t it be terrible if the trees outside identified themselves by their leaves? These are very flimsy things to be attached to.” ~ Adyashanti in Emptiness Dancing
Indeed it would be terrible! Especially come Autumn when they all fall away! Imagine all those trees bending over with their branches frantically scrambling to pick up their leaves and trying to hold onto them, year after year.
Think about all the things we are attached to: our ideas, our appearance, our grudges, our “things.” We scramble in this way when we see them slipping away, our grasp becomes more firm, and our energy more scattered.
Yet there is so much we are meant to let go of to allow us to nurture our core, who we really are, and the things that are truly important. There is so much bullshit we mistake for things that are truly who we are, and they distract us from our truth.
Think of all the ways that you have been stopped from doing something new, opening your heart, or taking a risk in the name of something you’re holding on to. How many times have you said, “Oh, that’s not me/my style.” “I’m not ready.” “I’ll never forgive him/her for that.” “I’m not strong enough for that.” “I’m not good looking enough.” “I don’t deserve that.”
Here’s news: Some things are meant to be with us for only a season, some things we outgrow, some things were never a part of us to begin with…and we have to let go. Only in doing this can we have the energy and focus it takes to truly nurture our core and our roots.
5 Ways to Let Go This Autumn
1. Get super clear about what your TRUE CORE is…at least what it is for this season (things change – including YOU!). What is your identity?
This is not about the things you are simply “used” to identifying with. Not the characteristics in that box that people have put you in since you were 7 years old. Not the lessons you learned on how to protect yourself when your heart was broken 12 years ago.
Make a list of 60 characteristics that describe who you are, your identity. If you were asked to give up 1/3 of those, which would they be? Cross them out. Then someone asks you to give up another 1/3. Cross those out. And yes, do that ONE MORE TIME – another 1/3. Let them go. What is the 10% you are left with? How much time do you spend nurturing these characteristics?
2. Forgive Someone
Will ya let go of that grudge already?! It’s fine and dandy to pick someone to forgive for a minor infraction. However, I encourage you to dig deep with this one and find someone with whom it is a bit more challenging to forgive. Not for their sake, but for YOURS. It doesn’t take a Zen monk to realize that not forgiving causes more suffering to the person not forgiving that it ever does to the person not forgiven.
At the same time, there is an incredible amount of freedom that comes with forgiving. Is it really that important that your friend didn’t write or call for a few weeks? Or that you didn’t get invited to that one holiday weekend when everyone went to the ski cabin? Or that your meat and potatoes family refuses to comply with your vegan standards at Thanksgiving? And yes, is it really that important that your ex left you for someone else, or that your father was angry and violent…so important that it burns a hole in your heart to this day and keeps you from realizing complete happiness? Yes, it can be important, but not worth not forgiving and the suffering it brings you.
Forgiving does not mean forgetting. We remember things for a reason. It helps us to learn from our experiences, to protect ourselves, and to remember what makes us feel good as well. It teaches us what we want and don’t want. However, forgiveness allows us to move on, to grow, and to expand instead of constrict, contract, and limit ourselves. It does not mean you have to forget, and put yourself into the same negative situation over and over.
3. Forgive Yourself
Wow. OK. So you totally screwed up. Man, you really blew it. What the hell were you thinking?
WHO CARES?! It’s done. It’s over. You can’t change what happened.
However, you can change how you act now, and in the future. You can choose to respond instead of react. You remember what you did NOT so that you can beat yourself up about it every day, but so that you don’t make the same mistake again. You are allowed to grow and change. You are not your mistakes. You are a kick ass human being who is not broken or messed up or a lost cause.
You are brilliant, magnificent, and creative. You can be whomever you want to be, be however you want to be, and do it (SNAP!) like that! You just need to decide to.
So, stop beating yourself up about shhhtuff and forgive yourself. THIS will allow you to do things differently, because you acknowledge to the Universe – and to yourself – that you know you are capable of anything.
OK, now that we got some of the heavier “letting go” stuff out of the way, let’s get to some tangibles…
4. Get Rid of Stuff (e.g. Clean Out Your Closet, Remove Clutter)
This is totally about a big issue of mine. However, I have to assume I am not alone on this one. I am well-aware of the clutter my myriad t-shirts, yoga pants, tank tops, and jeans cause. Yes, I admit I even have dresses from the 90s. And maybe even one from the 80s. I like retro. Which would all be dandy if I actually wore them. And more than once every 3 years. Even though it was PERFECT for that rooftop party ages ago. And yes, that includes tutus…or does it?
In any event, get rid of stuff. If you’re stressed about the money you spent on them, sell them to a consignment shop, to a used clothing store, or get a big phat receipt from Goodwill for your donation. Just ‘cuz you bought it doesn’t mean you have to keep it in that big box called your closet. Things in there are for things that get worn.
5. Stop a Bad Habit
What is a habit anyway? It’s not something we need. It is something we’re used to. Food, we need. Eating after work at 10pm, a habit. Rest, we need. Plopping in front of the TV after work and zoning out, a habit. Self-soothing when we’re stressed, we need. Nail biting, smoking, and complaining to anyone around us, a habit. Habits are yet another form of unconscious attachment. Let go of one…at least for 21 days. It is said it takes 21 days to form a new habit – like not doing your old bad habit!
Some final thoughts from Adyashanti:
Self-inquiry is…not about looking for a right answer so much as stripping away and letting you see what is not necessary, what you can do without, what you are without your leaves. In human beings…we do not call these leaves. We call them ideas, concepts, attachments, and conditioning. All of this forms your identity. Inquiry is a way of inducing a spiritual winter in its most positive sense, stripping everything to its root, to its core…This is a falling into the most essential root of being.
Bam. That’s good, right?
As you probably know by now, “Ziji” means “radiant inner confidence.” This growth requires courage and faith in who you are, and that you are indeed magnificent. Play with the courage it takes to let go, to see your core, and consider joining the Ziji Up! Mastery Program
http://www.ultimateconfidencecourse.com
– the ultimate confidence course for intrepid souls like yours. It’ll give you an extra kick in the butt;)
To Your Freedom,
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http://www.adventuremastermind.com
***
Ready to dive deeper into this? Check out Freedom School and see what everyone’s obsessed about. It’s not just group coaching. It’s a mindset revolution that you won’t want to miss.
If you’re like most humans, when someone does something “mean” or says something negative about you, it can hurt your feelings. Sometimes, it can hurt a lot. Like, pizza-box-on-the-floor and-wine-bottles-strewn-about a lot.
In general, we see this “hurt” reaction as totally normal (unless you’re a sociopath or narcissist who couldn’t care less).
Example: Joe says Sally’s homemade essential oils smell like ass.
Sally feels a metaphorical punch in the gut (and feels sick to her stomach).
She complains about Joe’s hurtful comment to her friend.
They both agree he’s an insensitive jerk.
Makes sense, right? Most people would agree that encountering jerks can lead to being hurt. In fact, we blame a whole lot of hurt on other people – “mean” people, “selfish” people, narcissists.
But here’s the truth: the real reason it hurts is because of what we think about what they said.
It hurts because of the story we make up about what it means that they said that.
We know all this somewhere deep down, right?
While you may have heard all that before… here’s one surprising reason it hurts:
It hurts because often, a teeny tiny (or not so tiny) part of us believes IT MIGHT BE TRUE.
“No way, Ana! I don’t believe my essential oils smell like ass, and it still hurts my feelings when people say that!” Sally might say.
Second, we can likely agree that Sally makes Joe not liking her essential oilsmean something about who she is, something about her sense of self worth or confidence. If she didn’t, she wouldn’t care. If you’ve been reading my blog long enough, you’ve already got this down (if not, you may want to check out this confidence course).
However, the graduate school level of understanding our suffering steps into the next phase.
Do you know how someone that was 100% sure that their essential oils didn’t smell like ass would likely react? They’d think, “He’s got horrible taste! Sucks to be him!” Or, “Joe is freakin’ crazy. His nose must be broken.” Or, “Whatever, Joe. Next!” and they’d saunter on over to another friend’s house.
That’s right. If you didn’t have a sliver of doubt that what the other person was saying was not possibly true, if Sally did not believe – on some level – that what Joe said might be valid, it wound bounce off like the proverbial rubber.
Check out this ad that the LDS church took out in the program for the Broadway musical I just saw, The Book of Mormon, where the entire show makes fun of their religion.
Not that defensive, right? They can laugh about it because they believe none of it is true! They’re like, “Whatever, y’alls are crazy! People are going to LOVE the real book.” (the small print actually reads, “The musical is entertaining. The book is life changing.”)
Here’s another example that’s a bit more concrete: Let’s say your hair isn’t blue (and if you’re one of my rad clients with blue hair, just play with this for a minute;).
Someone on the street says, “Your blue hair is so fugly it makes me want to hurl!”
You’d be like, “Wow, that person is whacked.” And proceed to cross over to the other side of the street.
You can very easily feel unphased about this situation and your awesome hair because you know your hair isn’t blue. (I can see minds blowing. It’s OK. It hurts just in the beginning. Just a little.)
I know it feels a whole lot easier to want to blame the mean people, the jerks, the people who’ve got you all wrong. But trust me – life is actually a whole lot easier when you take ownership over your thoughts. When you free your mind from stories and insecurities and patterns that don’t serve you. When you free your mind from limiting beliefs.
Don’t focus on protecting yourself from the mean girls.
Focus on that lovely ball of brilliance inside your skull – your brain, your thoughts, your beliefs. That’s the only thing keeping you from freeing your Whole. Damn. Life.
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Pssst. If you want help creating the life of your dreams, schedule a free strategy session with me by clicking here. I’ll show you how it’s possible to get from where you are now to where you want to be.
***
If you want to join a tribe of people that will help you navigate this wild and precious life, come check out Freedom School – for rebels like you. It’s not just personal growth for rebels. It’s Jedi training for the new world.
Let me just start out by stating the obvious: relationships are hard. Anyone who says, “Oh, but they don’t have to be,” has either never been in a passionate one, or is full of sh*t.
It totally makes sense that they’re hard.
We take two mammals with sub-optimal communication skills (aka “language”) and some serious evolutionary biology along with a high likelihood of experiences of trauma with people they’ve trusted, and stick them together.
Then we expect them to go against everything their evolutionary brain has learned about being safe and avoiding discomfort or difficulty so they can experience some sense of…connection and love…and geez, it’s no wonder we can get into it with our significant other.
So let’s just remember: There’s nothing wrong with your relationship just because it’s hard.
However, what’s is wrong with most relationships is that we don’t let the other person be who they are.
We have a Manual for them. We have a long list – conscious or not – of how we think they should behave. How they should treat us when we come home from work. How they should react when we cry. What they should give us for our birthday. What kind of father or mother they should be. How they should smell (or not smell). How much sex we will have with them and what that sex is like. How much money they should spend and on what kinds of things.
“Oh Ana, but I am an exception. I don’t have a Manual for my partner!”
People who say this usually do so because thus far, their partner is following their Manual.
We usually don’t know we have one until it’s not being followed.
If you think you don’t have a Manual, just imagine your partner coming home and not doing everything you like them doing. If they normally cook you dinner, imagine them stopping. If they normally plan fun adventures with you, imagine them becoming a couch potato. If you normally have sex three or four times a week, imagine it dropping to once a season. If they usually end texts with the heart emoticon, imagine them changing it to goats and chickens. If they are always on time, imagine them being late. Always. By a lot.
You might be wondering why Manuals are even a problem. Don’t they just help us get our needs met?
No.
That’s another misconception about Manuals. They aren’t filled with objective “rules” that are legit. They are filled with expectations we have to protect us from feeling bad.
Requests are what help us get our needs met.
Manuals create suffering when we believe they should be followed in order for us to be happy.
Requesting that your partner not be late helps you get your needs met.
Getting pissed when they are always late because in your Manual they are supposed to be on time makes you unhappy. Again, you are not unhappy because they are late. You are unhappy because you expected them to be on time.
(I know. Crazy. We’ll do a call on this soon, because I know some of y’all are like WTF???!!!)
The other reason Manuals create problems is because people evolve. Well, at least people change (Freedom Junkies evolve;). When people change, the Manual doesn’t allow them to act differently. This rocks the boat, even if there isn’t anything fundamentally “wrong” with the change itself. I see this all the time in my coaching clients. They evolve. They start doing things differently. They are no longer following their partners’ manual.
Boom! Shit explodes.
When we decide to love someone, we need to also decide to let them be them. It’s really the mature thing to do, and the way a true Freedom Junkie walks their talk. The most freeing thing we can offer another human being is to let them be them and love them for it.
This does not mean you don’t make requests. It just means you don’t let yourself get all victimized and bent out of shape when the other person doesn’t fulfill them.
Some people ask me, “But don’t I have a right to have certain needs?” Girlfriend, yes. But you don’t have a right to make other people meet them. Ultimately, meeting your needs is up to you.
Plus, when you make your happiness depend on another person’s actions, you are giving all you power away. To them! To something you have NO control over! We don’t ever have control of other people, no matter how much we’d like to believe differently.
Trust me. I’ve been through this debate. I wish my husband was home more instead of up in the sky with his paraglider waaaay out of cell phone range in another time zone all the time, and I feel more than entitled to bitch about it. I wish my mother didn’t criticize me so much when I called her on the phone. I wish so many people who did things that I thought were f*cked up would just stop because “most people” would agree that I was right.
Well, “most people” aren’t who you chose to be your person to walk this life with right now.
If you are choosing to be with someone, then let them be them. Make your requests. They will either honor them or not. They get to be them – another adult, just like you, being them.
Choose to stay or go. But if you choose to stay, let them be who they are. Learn to give yourself what you need so that you aren’t relying on someone else for your happiness.
If you aren’t getting anything out of the relationship and want to go, then by all means go! But know that unless you’ve cleaned up your thoughts about what a partner “should” be doing for you – e.g. if you think they are there to protect you from feeling bad – you will likely repeat these same patterns in the next relationship.
Our relationships aren’t there to protect us from doing hard things, feeling hard feelings, or facing our bullshit.
In my mind, relationships are there to push our edge. To challenge us to grow. To help us evolve and learn how to free our minds so we can love wholeheartedly. Ultimately, this extends to all our relationships – friends, parents, siblings, colleagues…all the silly humans.
Chuck the Manuals.
It will actually free you up to love so much more deeply and freely.
And don’t worry – you will still be OK. If you’re doubting it, then we’ve got some work to do together on building up your self confidence – your ziji – so that you believe you are 100% capable of taking care of your emotional needs. Then, the other people in your life? They become people who are there to make life even more juicy.
Instead of your emotional caretakers, they become the cream cheese icing on that gluten-free Freedom Junkie cake of yours.
Yummmm.
***
Ready to dive deeper into this? Check out Freedom School and see what everyone’s obsessed about. It’s not just group coaching. It’s a mindset revolution that you won’t want to miss.
Did you know I used to live out of my 1997 Volvo station wagon? For 7 years it served me well. There was just enough room for me to curl up in my sleeping bag, and I had two small crates of clothes and a HUGE bin of climbing gear. Colorful prayer flags streamed from my roof rack, and my friends could find me by looking for these flags in any crag parking lot.
Later I lived out of a large 1990s Dodge Ram 15-passenger van, lovingly named Chomolungma (the local name for Mount Everest). She was a beautiful baby blue, and eventually died a peaceful death as I was driving her across the Bay Bridge in San Francisco.
Since then, I’ve often blogged about how I missed living simply in that way – having everything I needed in my vehicle so I could drive anywhere on a moment’s notice.
Recently, I ended up buying a 2003 Ford Econoline 350 Sportsmobile van, a beast of a van whom I appropriately named Mama Bear. I’m having the best time playing with her! It was a great decision – the freedom she offers me and my family when we travel is fan-freakin-tastic. (In case you’re wondering, I’m not going to use the #vanlife hashtag here – it feels weird for me, since living out of vehicles has been a mainstay for climbers for decades, and I feel I am returning home vs joining a new movement ;).
It feels good to be home.
Why have I decided to go retro (for me) with my travels and adventures?
Part of the reason is I realized some of my dreams of the adventurous life I wanted to live with my family were outdated.
In my 20s and 30s, I felt the most adventurous way to travel was to go far (ideally at least 9 time zones away) and long (5-6 weeks minimum).
I also still had my dirtbag mentality that if I was going to spend $1800 on a plane ticket, I better make it worth it and stay as long as possible. That makes a lot of sense when you only make $1800 a month as a climbing guide. Not so much now in my life.
My husband and I stuck to these far-and-long travel goals really well – even after our daughter was born. Twice a year we would go to Asia or Africa with her for 4-6 weeks, plus many shorter trips in-between. I felt so…unconventional!
Until I didn’t.
Instead, I discovered I started to feel freakin’ stressed about it!
I was definitely the primary caregiver on trips, and while my husband paraglided, I was often alone with my kiddo in a foreign land. It was somewhat boring a lot of the time since I was limited in what I could do with a toddler, and I craved adult conversations and a good friend, despite the epic surroundings and amazing cultures I was experiencing.
I also enjoyed working on my business on these trips, since that’s a long time to go without creating something fun for my peeps. Slow internet in these remote areas (if I was lucky to have it at all) totally stressed me out. I am not as patient with technology as I used to be).
For some reason, I didn’t “need” 4-6 weeks off anymore either. That might have something to do with not being able to do 30-day expeditions as much;)
With a kid, I also found that returning from long trips abroad meant messed up sleep schedules for her (and therefore me) for a long time. It also meant the house was a shit-show while I unpacked from being gone for so long. Inevitably some plant died or some house item broke while we were away, and I’d have to deal with a broken hot water heater or a clogged up toilet on top of everything else.
I eventually realized that for this stage of my life, I wanted to take vacations with friends and be completely unplugged – for shorter periods of time.
Gasp!
I wanted to not have my travels completely throw me off my game anymore. I love creating through my work, and work wasn’t something I needed to escape for as long anymore. I love serving others. And I didn’t need to be away from friends and family for long periods of time either (must be that I am intentionally creating my community to be full of pretty rad people!).
I would rather hang out with a girlfriend and my kiddo gazing up at steep granite peaks from an alpine tarn in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California than chill out above a glacier in the Himalaya sans a friend.
Conversely, I’d rather go to the Himalaya and be there 2.5 weeks completely unplugged than try to stress about internet connections and finding friends to hang out with for an additional month.
It took a lot to accept this shift, and I’m still integrating it.
I had to let go of an identity and a judgement that if I wasn’t doing something utterly exotic far away and for over a month, I wasn’t leading a truly adventurous life. Sure, other people could think car camping was adventurous, but I had the belief that I was supposed to be an example of what level of adventure was possible with a family. I believe am that…but the way I was doing it was no longer honoring my new evolving self.
Recently I was sitting at an alpine tarn with a wise friend celebrating my birthday when she reflected back to me that indeed, it can be hard to let go of outdated dreams. That phrase hit me like a train.
Outdated dreams.
Exactly! That’s what was going on!
I was trying to live a dream that no longer applied to who I had evolved into.
I was resisting this new desire because instead of seeing that I evolved into a new person, I thought I was de-volving into a more …boring person.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Me trying to live an outdated dream had me feeling incomplete and stressed.
Embracing my new dreams – adventures with friends and being totally unplugged on those adventures so I could be fully present the entire time – has me feeling excited and passionate about my travel again.
I’ve got a road trip planned in Mama Bear this November, and I’m going to leave her with some friends in New Mexico and drive her to my slice of heaven in Baja come Spring. I’m going to head to Asia or Africa or South America next year and plan to meet up with friends and stay for less time so I don’t need to be plugged in at all while there. I’m going to be so much more relaxed on those trips and just allow myself to savor every moment.
I am so fucking psyched.
What dream are you holding onto that you’ve outgrown?
Are you telling yourself you “should” hold onto it because you’d be failing if you let it go?
Could it be that instead, you have evolved into a new version of yourself with different needs and different dreams that are just as valid and perhaps even more thrilling?
Try to see what happens when you let go of that outdated dream and live into new ones. What happens when you honor yourself and what you want…now?
For me, so far, so freakin‘ good!
***
If you want to join a tribe of people that will help you navigate this wild and precious life, come check out Freedom School – for rebels like you. It’s not just personal growth for rebels. It’s Jedi training for the new world.
I just got back celebrating my birthday with some serious outdoor time in the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and then the east side of the Sierra Nevada in California (my absolute favorite place in the world). Can you say Endless Seas of Granite? My idea of HEAVEN <3
I meditated daily during this break, and I tell you – when I got back, I was a hell of a lot more patient with the world. Way more than I would have been had I just been hiking but not meditating.
Those of you who’ve worked with me know I incorporate mindfulness and meditation into my coaching programs.
Why is it that on top of encouraging my clients to have daily (and epic) adventures and to live unconventional + unapologetically authentic lives would I incorporate something as seemingly…”boring” as meditation?
The Power of the Pause.
Here’s the deal: once you start doing the hard work and pushing yourself to grow and evolve and shed the bullshit so you can be the most authentic version of you, you start to pay attention to how you think and how you feel.
On this path, we need to get curious about our thoughts and feelings because it is precisely these thoughts and feelings that get in the way of our evolution, of making the best choices for ourselves and taking a new path instead of the old ones that keep taking us down the same boring lane we are so sick of.
The hard truth is that most of us will find that many of our thoughts are about how inadequate or undeserving we are. We find that our feelings are often…shitty ones. Boredom. Anxiety. Loneliness. Anxiety. Anger. Anxiety. (can you tell which one I most struggle with?)
So why would we want to do something like meditate and intentionally spend time noticing and experiencing those thoughts and emotions? Why would we ever want to do something that felt so…uncomfortable?
Becoming aware of these negative thoughts and feelings is not optional if you want to evolve. It is a necessity.
We may feel we don’t have any control over our thoughts and feelings. However, once we recognize them, we DO have more control over how we respond to them.
At first there is just a millisecond between a thought and feeling before we take an action. Often, we aren’t even aware of the thought or feeling we have before we react…which is why our actions are often inappropriate or not in our best interests.
When someone is rude to us, we think “what a jerk!” and we might yell or just be pissed for the rest of the morning. If only we knew they just found out the love of their life was leaving them for another person. If we chose to have a different thought about them instead – one that gave them the benefit of the doubt – we’d respond differently. We’d also feel differently about the situation.
So how do we lengthen that pause?
Mindfulness. And Meditation.
These are the ONLY things I have found that help me stretch the time between a shitty thought or feeling, and the way I respond.
The more I meditate, the more I notice, “Interesting. I wonder why I am choosing to interpret things this way?” and I remember that my response is based on how I am thinking about the situation, rather that what is actually going on.
Eventually, after practicing meditation regularly (even for only 10 minutes a day), we can add a few more milliseconds between our thoughts and feelings and our actions.
That can make all the difference.
We can make better choices about how we want to think about the situation, or at the very least, choose a healthier response. One that makes us proud about how we showed up in the world.
Let’s face it: the world needs more people who care about how they show up.
We really only just need a smidge of time between our thoughts and what we do. Enough time to have a Pause. Enough time to make a better choice.
Sometimes (or often) my insight comes after the event. I still give myself credit for that, because hey, life is hard enough. But the more I practice, the better I get.
The times I let my practice slide, the less compassionate I am in the world. I just don’t have as much ability to see the other person’s perspective, or the bigger picture of a hard situation I am in. No bueno.
If meditation isn’t your thing, start with just trying to be more mindful. Savor that mango. That glass of wine. That sunset.
Take pauses throughout the day and try to notice things with every sense available to your body – the weight of your body being pulled by the earth, the texture of the ground you are on or the clothes you are wearing, the sounds around you, don’t just see the tree but also see the individual leaves and their textures and how they move in the wind; take in the scent of the air (or your b.o. if you were stuck in a tent during a thunderstorm like I was ;).
Just noticing LIFE more will help you notice your mind more.
Pick something right now that you are going to notice every single detail about – even if only for 5 seconds. Your breath passing in and out of your nose? A kiss? Cuddling with your furry friend? It’s not too hard to start.
***
Ready to dive deeper into this? Check out Freedom School and see what everyone’s obsessed about. It’s not just group coaching. It’s a mindset revolution that you won’t want to miss.
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I love this quote by Joan Rivers. I have to say I don’t think of Joan often when looking for inspirational quotes ?, but this one came through my feed and I was like, “Damn – that’s good!”
