Katy Perry Spoke to me About Self-Awareness

And in “spoke to me” I mean through her music.

Could you imagine……Katy Perry on speed dial. “Hey Katy, you don’t seem too busy right now, tell me, what are your thoughts on self-awareness?”

And she’d say, “Vicky, my main girl, are you not hearing my message in my song?”

And then I’d say “oh, you mean this one…..”

Self-aware3-Katy Perry“Thanks Katy. Talk to you later.” If I were texting I would just say “TTYL” but this is a conversation so let’s keep it real, yes?

Anyhooo, I LOVE this message. It so beautifully states that if we are not solid in knowing ourselves and what we stand for, we can so easily be carried along with a crowd, or one dominant person.

There are great leaders all around us, ones that are worthy of following. What we need to be clear on is when not to follow. By checking in with our own values.

It’s easy to know we shouldn’t join the hate campaign on another woman just because our friend / boss / colleague is upset with her. But the lines are often more blurred than that.

Let’s imagine, your office / group / organization is wanting everyone to join their fundraiser – run a half marathon to save the rainforest and the millions of animals being left with little chance of survival. A very worthy cause, no doubt.

Meanwhile, you rush past the homeless person sleeping on a subway grate for warmth EVERY morning because it hurts your heart to think of their suffering.

Do you “sit quietly, agree politely”? Or make a “choice” to suggest that you raise money for blankets and hot meals for people living without a home in the cold months. This may not be a cause close to your heart, but when you put your attention on what matters to you, you will stir up something you could sink your teeth into.

Katy has another genius line;

I went from zero, to my own hero.

And we don’t all need to be trailblazers and save the world. It’s often hard enough just saving the day for the people in our lives now.

The message I really wanted to get across was that self-awareness will save you time, energy and regrets. You’ll feel so much more fulfilled in 10 years time if you have been making choices based on what matters to you and you truly want to take a stand for.

I personally think this is a big, juicy, worthwhile topic and as always, feel free to get in touch with any questions or comments and also pop by the facebook group.

Until next time. Hugs.

Vicky x

Who Are You – Around Others?

Have you noticed you act differently around different people? There are people you feel relaxed around and the conversation is sweet and mellow and you just want to grab a warm drink and find somewhere soft and cozy to sit while talking to them. Then there are people that seem to bring out the worst in you. You brace when you see them and your behaviour becomes as unpredictable as the next sentence out of your mouth because you are in reaction mode.

So, you’ve done a bit of work and figured out a part of who you are when you are alone. Now it’s time to take a sneaky peak at who you are around other people, because when you show up differently in different situations, there is a disconnect.

It had been a long time coming for me. I didn’t give too much thought to who I was around other people. I’ve always been aware of my impact on others. I didn’t consider how I changed in different people’s company and their impact on me.

And I changed like a chameleon. It depended on my surroundings. Around some people I was a big personality – almost “larger than life”, and others I’d shrink in front of. I can’t tell you how many times I replayed conversation in the shower of things I coulda / shoulda / woulda said. I was extremely put together and eloquent in my shower replays. And sometimes it was embarrassing because I was aware my husband was getting to witness me showing up differently and that would go against my value of authenticity and cause me shame.

And then I became a life coach. And self-awareness became one of my foundation blocks that needed some big-time attention. Knowing my values and what I wanted to take a stand for in the world started to make things and people that didn’t fit suddenly stand out a little. And then a lot.

Here are a few of the obvious behaviours to watch out for:

Becoming defensive / angry

Becoming childlike

Becoming bitchy

Becoming competitive

Becoming superior to

The triggers that get these behaviours to come out could be wide and varied. What is worthwhile doing is identifying who you become around certain people and then choose who you would rather be.

So, what’s a girl to do with these people? First I’d like to offer the question to you – how would the wisest part of you, the part that knows you so well and knows what is best for you and knows how you want to show up in the world, handle these situations?

My personal remedies have been to firstly figure out my triggers. Fear or the absence of courage are usually the pesky creatures at the centre of a lot of my bad behaviour. Most commonly the lack of courage stems from the fear that “taking a stand”, for me or what I believe in, will be a fast track to getting judged or dumped as a friend or bad mouthed or mis-understood or thought of as a bad person or ALL of the above.

As I work through this (continually), I realize the people who matter roll with it and accept my change and those that don’t can choose for themselves. I wish them well as we ALL have work to do on ourselves.

And talking about getting to work on ourselves, I have made you a simple printable to be able to get your thoughts out of your head (I know I work better that way) and redesign how you show up in your life.

Click Here to Get Worksheet

Because when you know better, you do better. You could even jot or doodle your values around the printable page to make sure you are honouring the most important part of you as you redesign your relationships.

As always, get in touch if you have any questions or just to let me know how you are getting on. And feel free to join the facebook group and share in there or ask for support. Hope to hear from you soon.

Vic x

 

Who are you when you are alone?

Blog image-who are you when alone

In the theme of self-awareness being alone is an important step to having the space to be introspective and figure yourself out.

For me, the thought of being alone brings up mixed feelings. To get a whole day to myself feels so foreign to me now that I would have a hard time knowing what to do with myself.

My kids are older and they aren’t attached to my side but they’ll soon let their presence known when it’s time to eat, or get dropped off somewhere. And in the lulls, when there’s nothing to be done for the house or family, I have NO IDEA what I will do for me. It’s like all possibilities come to me at once and I’m paralyzed by choice. I wander, confused, around the house. I want to squeeze every drop of goodness out of this time……but doing what?!?

If I were being self-aware I’d tune in to the fact that 50% of my book purchases recently have been cook books. Do I want to cook something fancy? Or I could pay attention to my body. Am I craving movement or stillness? A walk or curl up with a book? Find something mentally stimulating or grab a colouring book? I have A LOT of choices.

And who are you?

When you take away the identities given to you – wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend, insert job title, what do you identify with?

Are you playful? Goofy? Nerdy? Nature loving? City slicking? Stationary addicted? Animal enthusiast? Yogi? Soulful? Spiritual? Level headed? Logical? Emotional? Honest to a fault? Artistic? Creative? Mathematical? A Leader? An activist? A contributor? The list is endless (thankfully, because I personally LOVE how different you are – it makes you VERY interesting to be with and talk to).

And how often do we get to talk about who we really are? We get wrapped up in general conversation more often than deep talk.

What really makes you tick? What gives you energy? What gets you excited?

We recently did a plan for 2016. If you filled it out I want you to revisit that plan AFTER you consider who you are. Truly and deeply. You may find that your direction doesn’t fully align with what you are discovering about yourself.

Take time to check in with your values. Are they being honoured in your life?

If you value family, are you making time and prioritizing them?

If you value learning, how are you keeping your mind busy?

In studying to become a coach I was taken through a values exercise and re-affirmed that I value respect for self and for others and fairness. I didn’t realize how strongly I felt about it. Once I acknowledged it, I could no longer ignore it and changed the way I behave. Instead of being triggered and getting angry, I suddenly had understanding and could communicate what I needed instead.

I also discovered how important adventure was for me. It explains a sense of restlessness when I don’t have any new experiences for a while. Believe me, this is good information to know about myself.

Some values are obvious, like honesty (I hope) and security. And some are a little more hidden like Originality, Accountability, Reliability, Tolerance.

When you see your values are getting stepped on / not honoured / dis-respected, then you are in a position of power and can choose how to handle the situation, instead of being grumpy for seemingly no good reason.

If you consider walking in the trail to be natures medicine but are filling your time up in the city, you could go a long time, not understanding your lack lustre feelings for the weekend, and begin to resent your plans and appear unreasonable. A simple fix would be to schedule time to honour your value of nature.

So, I’ll ask you again, who are you when you are alone?

Try the values exercises, get access below (you will get this automatically if you have already joined the Year of Growth).
Values Exercises – Yes Please

Review of 2015

This year the term Morning Pages kept coming up. I checked it out and thought it would be a fantastic process for me because I’m an over thinker and I have a ton of scattered thoughts, seemingly in every waking moment. So, the idea of writing for 3 full pages, with no other purpose than to get what is in your head out of your head so you can look back and pick out the gold, got my attention.

And then it lost my attention. Who has time in the morning to write for 3 full size pages? And I know I could make time. But I didn’t.

But I do see the value in picking out the gold.

So, I made a “Review of 2015”. And I filled it in. And I got so much out of it.

I didn’t write down resolutions or goals for 2015 (changing this for 2016) but I know what I was hoping and aiming for all year.

Here’s my Review of 2015. (to see a better copy click on the picture)

VBLC-My own 2015 review png

In the middle of the page I wrote out the most important areas of my life right now and started acknowledging my successes.

And I made space for where I fell short. It’s important to accept and to understand this part. And to take full ownership for it. You can only get the learning from it if you are truly honest and take responsibility. Once I’ve done this I can later decide if it’s still important enough to put back on the goals list for 2016 (watch out for the next post).

And I made it for you too. It’s simple and extremely effective. Download your free copy below.

My Review of 2015

In comparing this years review to last years, here are the comparables:

Everyone is still staying active. Mindset is huge in sports and remains the biggest roadblock to success in at least 3 out of 5 of us.

Our new experiences this year were trips and camps and mountains and volunteering. It feels like we were able to keep up a good variety.

Last year I had a minor infatuation with Paint Nite. This year my walls are getting a breather from the amateur art I was creating and instead we’ve been enjoying the new (in Canada anyway) trend of Escape Rooms. Being a detective in themed rooms, figuring out clues to advance to new rooms and hopefully escape before time’s up really was fun. It was nice to do something different. Until it wasn’t different anymore, so now we’re taking a break from it.

I turned 41.

I still never dropped that elusive last 10lbs. Even while training for a 50km trail race – so annoying to have a talent in weight retention.

Self care was still pretty rubbish but I’m making a push for success this month, I’ll be having my second facial in 2 months, which I was desperate for as my skin was in awful condition, and I’ll be heading to the hairdressers. The massage will have to wait until the new year.

Our social life isn’t awful. Still not as rocking as the kids’. Will put it on my goal for 2016 to do better spending time with people we want to spend time with.

I think my biggest learning of the year is to be aware. You cannot improve what you are not aware of. Sure, once you know there’s something that isn’t working it takes effort to put it right but once you get that ball rolling it gets easier. I’m enjoying the benefit of being aware and making changes.

Now it’s your turn. Put your attention on 2015 and get ready for a Super Sweet ’16.
Get your Review of 2015 HERE

Vicky x

How Well Will I Survive with No Kids “Needing” Me?

I recently sent out a survey to moms of teens. I want to get insight into what women are struggling with in anticipation of this next stage in life.

When our children were young we marked time as “before we had kids” and “since having kids”. Soon time will be marked “when the kids were at home” and “since the kids left home”.

In the meantime there is also the grey area of the kids are home, but they hardly know we exist except to feed them, do their laundry and be their safety net if they screw up.

Women have been sharing very honest thoughts in my survey about this time of life. It brings up a lot of thoughts and emotions. And I wanted to process my own thoughts so I thought I’d answer my own survey and share with you my journey.

Q. How do you feel about this next stage in life? (w/ kids that can fend for themselves)

A. Such a mixed bag of emotions. My husband and I have already started planning our life when the kids are all old enough to be at college or home alone (youngest babe gets done Grade 12 in 8 years!!!) and that is exciting. On the other hand I’m acutely aware of my teenager and her ever growing independence. Thankfully they don’t change from snuggling, mommy centred kids to full grown adults with lives of their own over night. Instead it is a continual emotional readjustment to years of small tweaks that move our teens a little further out into the real world and away from our protective arms. I’m sensitive to the fact that I need to keep my opinions to myself about a mean friend so as not to frighten her off. Sometimes it feels like I’m approaching a deer and the wrong move will send her fleeing.

In an ideal world we will still have lots to do with them when they are living away from home and this makes it doubly exciting.

Q: How much do you think about this next stage in life?

A: Often

Q: How often do you think about making changes in your life?

A: Often

Q: What changes do you consider?

A: Lots of them, hee hee. What we eat. Where we live. Career wise I am slowly making changes to incorporate more of what I love – coaching. Our social life needs to get on the calendar before we fill it with other stuff. Get comfortable with camping – roughing it style. I grew up in the UK, nothing to be frightened of there. Canada has bears – I barely sleep in a tent.

Q: What motivates you into action?

A: If I think about changing where we live and moving more into coaching it has to be vision / daydreaming that motivates me, which means the great life I envision pulls me towards it. Sometimes though, when I’ve procrastinated for too long I get so frustrated with myself that I get moving. With the camping situation it has to be love that is motivating me. I personally could live without it but it’s part of my husbands dream and he has agreed to live in the South of France with me for a couple of months when we have independent kids so I am easing myself into camping now – it could be a long road.

Q: What stops you from making changes for you?

A: How I might affect others. Yes, I said it. I coach around this because it is such a limiting belief but I do suffer it too. Sometimes I think “who am I to have the life I am dreaming about 10 years out from now” which is dangerous territory because I NEVER want to stop moving towards that.

Fear stops me too. In my tracks. That’s when I find distracting and numbing things to do. I’m getting better at recognising that about myself and training myself to stick with the uncomfortable feeling – work in progress.

Q: Where might you be lacking confidence?

A: Crikey, where am I NOT lacking confidence? I’m trying to keep away from age reducing my circle of confidence in respect to trying new things. I’m confident where I’m comfortable but that is not where I want to stay. I think lacking confidence is not a problem as long as you are willing to work through it still to get to where you want to be. Lack of confidence can be expected, just like fear. It’s what you do with those emotions that matters.

Q: What would you do with a “magic wand for a day” to improve your life?

A: Oooohhh, what to do, what to do?!?! I’m wary of quick fixes because I believe in the value of the learning, however, I’d take that magic wand to reset my body clock. I’d love to get away with 6 hours sleep a night and get up at 5am bright eyed and ready to rock it. As it is 7am still doesn’t feel good to me and that’s even after 8 hours. Which leads back to knowing I need to change my eating habits and up my water intake. I’d use that magic wand to condition myself to drink my 8 glasses of water a day.

There’s a lot to be learned with self reflection. I feel we don’t check in with ourselves enough. It’s far easier to pick up our mobile devices and check in with others instead.

If you are willing, share your responses to these questions with me here.

Dream up some idea’s of what you can do for yourself when the kids don’t need you so much anymore. You’re worth it.

Vicky x

The 5 Lessons I Teach Constantly

I have 3 daughters. I’ve told them so many important lessons; don’t touch the hot stove, look both ways before crossing the street, don’t talk to strangers, don’t eat yellow snow – all the important stuff.

As they grow older I also try to advise them how not to be manipulated. How to respect yourself at a high school party. How to respectfully make a teacher listen that you didn’t understand the lesson. How to respectfully disagree.

We all know that with kids, teenagers especially, it’s in one ear and out the other. My best guess is that about 15% of what I tell them is retained and helps them navigate life.

Sooooooo, I wait for the really teachable moments. Right after they screwed up, got hurt, were deceived, were disappointed, were bullied, In talking to them in those moments I was able to give real teachable moments.

All 3 of my girls have been bullied, excluded, ridiculed and embarrassed in front of their peers. They’ve all been winded by surprising actions of people they thought they could trust. They’ve all encountered an adult who is difficult to find respect for.

I truly love these teaching moments. It feels like these are the true life lessons that will help them always. If they can get these lessons now they will hopefully be less hurt, or more self reflective and able to adeptly adjust. For we all know, as Oprah has told us, that lessons will keep coming around until you learn them.

Life can be painful to the slow learners

So, on to those lessons. And although these are what I teach my girls, they are every bit as important for us “grown up girls” too. I have had personal growth from each of these lessons.

  1. Reflect. What do you want in this situation?  If you are storming away from an argument, once you are calmer you’re probably able to say you didn’t want to crush the spirit of the other person, you just wanted to be heard. When you can reflect and understand “I want to be heard” then you can tackle the situation very differently. What doesn’t work is thinking “I want them to shut up, go away, be somebody else, do something else”, which leads to lesson 2.
  2. Personal responsibility. The ONLY person you can control is yourself. Blame eases the responsibility off your plate and on to the other persons. How much power to change the situation do you have once you’ve dumped that junk “over there”? It’s still there, but now you are just hoping that it bothers someone else enough that they’ll get rid of it for you. A tiresome procedure. What you can do right now is go back to lesson 1, reflect on what you want for you, and get into action.
  3. Do not try and guess other people’s intentions. Everyone has an agenda, whether it is full of kindness or full of self preservation, it is there. When my girls are devastated at the behaviour of others I consider this an important lesson. We don’t know the other persons full story. We don’t know what they need to do to feel good about themselves. It sure is wrong of them to take 5 other people and ridicule you in front of your class. Remember, that speaks more about who they are than who you are. Please, please, please don’t change who you are to try and make that person or group of people happy. It NEVER works. So, what’s a girl to do? Go back to lessons 1 and 2 (I told you these lessons get a lot of air time).
  4. When you feel bad you do bad. My girls are not always the “victims” (I’m careful when using this word because I never want them to feel powerless). They have unkind moments too. As I see them happen in family life I am able to take them aside and ask “what’s going on?”. When I do this with a feeling of, I’m checking in to see if you are ok because this isn’t like you, the relief and sadness that comes out is powerful. If I can teach them to notice when their impact is negative and reflect back to themselves then they grow and potentially the other person does too (certainly they’ll have a better interaction with my girls at the very least). If they are able to understand that they were behaving badly because they felt hurt, tired, hungry, threatened, undermined or just plain bitchy, then they could do a pretty quick re-adjust.
  5. Be kind. To everyone. Granted some people are harder to be kind to than others but we don’t know peoples stories. As my kids figure out the personal responsibility bit and wonder “shouldn’t everyone be responsible for their own actions?”, I tell them that is true but again remind them that they are only responsible for THEIR OWN behaviour and how they treat someone is up to them. I tell them they must still have their own boundaries, and while they are with someone they can still be kind, even if the kindest thing they can do is smile and tell them goodbye.

So, these are the 5 lessons I seem to be constantly teaching in my home. The biggest take away I want for my girls, myself, and people in general, is self awareness. You can’t change what you don’t know is there.

Even a simple change in perspective can have huge impact.

Self discovery and development!!!! I seriously love this stuff!!

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4 Hours in the Car with my Teen – Part 2

Following on from my previous post here, in which I have my teen daughter in the car with me with nowhere else to go for a few hours and I started up a conversation about her grades, I dug deeper with our conversation, in which she surprisingly willingly participated, which brings us to this installment of what she discovered by using one of my coaching tools.

My teen has seen my coaching paraphernalia around. It was actually a timely question when she asked me about a week prior to our talk what the “being and doing” part of the system means.

She used every ounce of focus to listen (because I’m sure she regretted asking as soon as it was out of her mouth) as I described that who you are and who you are being should precede, in most cases, what you are doing. My example to her was, “a vegan should probably not be working in a chicken slaughtering plant” – I really do wonder sometimes where my creativity goes at times like this!!! I think she was more grossed out by the example than getting the point of it. Oh well, I’m sure I’ll get a do over soon enough. I think at the very least she understands I want, so much, for her to line up what she does in the world with who she truly is.

Back to the car ride.

She conveniently had pen and paper at hand so I decided we would do a Wheel of Life exercise.

wheel of life

I asked her to draw the circle and label the outside with the headings of the things that were important to her. For her it was family, friends, relationship, swimming, school, health and appearance, fun, hobbies (writing, drawing, singing, music).

I explained how to mark them from 1-10 and also made sure she understood that marking a 3 in friends didn’t mean they were bad friends, it might mean that something isn’t working in that segment, like time with friends, or communication with friends. I wanted her to be clear that there is no judgement on anyone or anything regardless of what number she assigned. What I do know about teenagers is they are fiercely protective of their people and things and I did not want her being cautious about sharing. I’m very aware she only knows me as her mother and not a coach so she doesn’t know the experience of me as unattached to the “why”, only to what will help her learn about herself.

I’m driving still so I’m not overlooking her progress but I honestly think it wouldn’t have made a difference. She was very involved in her own experience. She was interested in her own discoveries.

Once she was done we started the next part of the conversation:

Me:        “What area has a low mark that you would like to see improve immediately?”

Maddi:  “My hobbies.” (this is not what I thought she would pick but I had zero attachment to her choice)

Me:        “What number do you have your hobbies at?”

Maddi:  “A number 2”

Me:        “What does a number 2 look like?” (tee-hee-hee she was so into her experience here she missed the funny)

Maddi:  “I think about doing one of my hobbies but I run out of time and I never spend any time doing any of them.”

Me:        “And how does that feel?”

Maddi:  “Not good cos those things make me happy and some of the other distractions don’t make me happy”

We continued to discover what a number 5 would look like and even a number 9. 10 seemed a bit elusive to her (and that’s a whole different coaching session – haha).

She came to a conclusion about something I have been on her case about since December.

She has decided for herself that this is an important elimination in order for her to make time and space for something that she couldn’t previously pinpoint was missing.

She has declared her hobbies as a “must have” in her life. She has a better understanding for her need for a creative outlet.

She is hitting different and much better milestones than I hit at her age. I didn’t declare what was important for me and so I let others decide for me and I went along with the group…….and that is a whole other story.

So, back in December, for the holidays, we relented and got Maddi an iPhone.

She cried.

She was so excited that at 13 ½ years old she could FINALLY be like all (I’m sure not really) her friends and be able to communicate with the world like a “regular human teenager” via text (cos she still doesn’t actually speak to anyone on the phone).

It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. Sigh. For the last 5 months that damn phone has been the biggest issue in our house!!

Anyways, the icing on the cake, for me, was when she says she wants help setting boundaries around her phone. She feels trapped in needing to respond when she sees someone has messaged her or else she thinks she will offend them.

She finally understands that she is responding to other peoples agendas.

She knows how limited her time is (she is a competitive swimmer so is in the pool up to 9 times a week) and she wants time for EVERYTHING that is important to her.

She doesn’t underestimate what a hold the phone and the social interactions have over her. She has asked for my help.

She has done the hard work of going inward and really discovering what she wants in her life right now. And showing a continued commitment to what she wants will require work also. I know how easy it is to mindlessly get sucked into my iPad or TV watching and then regretting how I spent that time. I have had whole Saturdays lost doing mindless useless stuff that I didn’t want to be doing.

If she can get used to redirecting herself this way it will be a gift always. She can shift her attention, intention and direction whenever she chooses. And I hope she chooses often because it’s way too easy to get into a busy rut and forget where you actually wanted to be heading. Can you relate? I know I can.

If I can teach her this, and she uses it often, then I’ll be happy……..for a short time at least. Look, I’m her mother and there are so many more lessons I want her to learn.

After a period of silence in the car she turns to me and says “you know, I hate when we have these talks, but then it’s always really great in the end.”

Me:        “Well, if you’d just stop resisting and LISTEN to me we could have your life signed, sealed and delivered with a pretty bow – now wouldn’t that feel great” is what I wanted to say – but didn’t. I know when NOT to push my luck.

Momma really does know best.

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How to Make the Most out of 4 Hours in the Car with my Teen, part 1

We had an almost 4 hour drive ahead of us to get home. We’d travelled up from Toronto to Sudbury the day before just the 2 of us to see her 2 sisters compete in a swim meet.

I consider myself a very dedicated mother but if my teen had declined to come on this journey with me I think I would have skipped the 8 hours alone in the car, despite my low level anxiety for my 8 year old on her first “team travel” meet.

I really like my teen (so far). She triggers me FAST when she smart mouths me but on the whole she ain’t hitting the worrisome milestones I had already hit by her age so, for now, it’s mostly calm waters, and I like that.

Over the weekend she must have given her dad a test result that needed signing and returning to school. A test with a REALLY bad mark. Naturally her dad told me about it.

Now, I have a knack of taking information and running way into the future with it. I have a look around there and by the time I return to the present I have a whole load of lessons that need learning NOW so she doesn’t end up in that bleak place from which I have just returned. And, I know she doesn’t want to hear my wisdom, so, I freak out a little bit.

We are about an hour into the car ride when I ever so casually bring up;

“So…….What’s going on with your grades?”

I’ll spare you the pulling of teeth conversation that followed but which was started with “I dunno”.

My teen is the child that resists me coaching her. I am a certified life coach and she resists most things that are going to stir up emotion – making me need to exercise A LOT of self-restraint. At home she is very slippery because when a conversation heads in a direction that will bring up some emotion she can get up and leave the room. She can suddenly “neeeeed” to go to the washroom (who can argue with that?!). She can suddenly remember really important homework that needs doing (again, who am I to argue?!). She’s getting good at throwing me off her trail. #teentalents

She has been able to do, for a few years, what so many of us adults have mastered – avoiding the deep and difficult stuff – the emotional stuff – the important stuff. We’ll just deal with it later……right?!?

She is familiar with the art of numbing and distraction already. Yes, this REALLY bugs the shit out of me.

However, she was now a captive in our little enclosure on wheels.

Truth is, if someone does not want coaching then coaching should not be done. Only those who really want something to change will be open to the kind of conversation that can transform. But this is my daughter and I’ll keep showing up with as many resources as I have to help her keep learning and growing.

I could have gone the route that a school would and made some sort of growth plan with her, but would she stick to it???? Not likely!! I decided she needed to go deeper than that.

Me:        “What’s important to you?”

Maddi:  “My grades”

Me:        “How important?”

Maddi:  “OMG, sooo important, you don’t know how I worry, how I try and organize…….etc, etc”

Me:        “What else is important to you?”

We continue in a similar fashion. She tells me family, friends, swimming, animals, singing, drawing, writing are all very important to her.

I spend time going deeper into the things she says are important to her. I want her to do what she resists most – to FEEL why they are important to her. I want her to experience the happiness when she talks about them. Or where there is a lack of happiness and potentially some stress.

My usually resistant daughter is taking a long hard look at stuff that actually matters to her.

It turns out that something that is really important to her is not getting the time and attention it deserves. It has clearly shown its face and it cannot be ignored.

In the next installment I’ll tell you how I helped her get to such an important realization and what she is willing to do about it.

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Turned my mood around. Yay me!

This morning, I woke early so I could get a run in, make lunches, prep snacks and put a meal in the crockpot for dinner tonight. Oh, and get myself ready – which incidentally I didn’t leave enough time for again so again I am make-up-less. Yikes!!

Anyways, I’m not a natural bright and shiny morning person. Add to that the pots in the sink that were unlikely to get cleaned before I ran out the door, and the swim bags that weren’t packed ready for after school, and the clean laundry all over my bedroom floor because someone was obviously looking for an important piece of clothing to wear that day, meant that pressure was brewing before the kids came downstairs.

And then……I decided I didn’t want to feel this way. I don’t take for granted my ability to have control over this part of myself and so I chose to do something about it.

Off went the news, on went the music – loud, and by the time the kids did show their faces I felt like a whole new person.

The reason I’m writing about this is because I felt good about making the choice of showing up nicer for myself and my kids. It’s way too easy to feel justified in my grumpiness in the morning and continue being a bear.

For over a year I was a regular at yoga (which I really want to make time for again), during that time I really learned the power of deep breathing. Stopping and taking a deep breath almost stops time for a few seconds. It is a conscious action so it brings me into the present moment. I also use this as a reminder to check in with my body. I’ll notice where I am holding tension and let it go. There is a big shift that can happen in those 8-10 seconds of a deep breath. Give it a try.

What is it that you do to “reset” when you are feeling bad? Share it in the comments or share it with someone around you. I’m willing to bet that others would welcome the tip and even more so the reminder that they can do this small thing for themselves and change the course of their day.

One New Years Resolution Taken Care Of

I have planned to sit down and write a 3 week menu plan for a loooooong time.

I was probably initially hampered by my husbands resistance to the repeating of dinners. Meanwhile I was repeating dinners more frequently than every 3 weeks basically from lack of mental bandwidth to come up with anything else as I did a supermarket dash for that nights dinner.

So, once I put that dampener out of my mind I decided I would get to the planning.

To feed my household over 3 weeks worth of week day meals meant I had to come up with 15 breakfasts, kid lunches and dinners, 45 kid snacks, plus 15 more mobile snacks for between school and swim.

And you know that with 3 kids, they ain’t all liking the same stuff either.

Quite honestly, I was overwhelmed before I even began. To another mother with 6+ kids (because they all (need to) have insanely great scheduling skills), or other women who can organize just as well, this likely seemed a minor task, but for me, an indecisive Libran, this required big focus.

For months I avoided this project like I’m avoiding the scales right now after indulging in all those holiday chocolates, a bottle of Baileys (not in 1 sitting) and sticky toffee puddings, but then, with New Year approaching, I hedged by bets that I could get the 3 week plan done far easier than removing the 5lbs I guarantee I put on over the holidays.

Anyhoo, I DID IT!!! The plan that is. It’s done. Here’s the proof.

3 week food plan

Now I have my fingers crossed that it was worth it. I have visions of easy night before prep, clockwork school mornings and being able to partake in conversations because I’m not trying to figure out what to piece together and what won’t get my kids booed out of class when the school is doing a “freggies” competition (winners are the class with most fruits and veg over a week).

So, that was my accomplishment for this week. I’ll start on those extra pounds next week 😉

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