Emotions

Escaping your unset goals – procrastinating with short term pleasures

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Procrastinating

Procrastinating is a devious habit. The more you do it the more familiar and normal it feels. I know I have some perceived important, but scary or comprehensive, work to do when I find myself binge watching 3 chic flicks or rummaging through the pantry, for the fourth time in 15 minutes, looking for some unspecified treat.

Procrastinating doesn’t make you better or worse

You know that feeling when, after a day of doing nothing, you go to bed berating yourself for a “wasted day”? “What was the point of even waking up today? I haven’t done anything to push forward and the things I did do wasn’t even pleasurable. Tomorrow will be better, a fresh start! No more laziness, no more hiding, no more excuses.”

It’s a common misconception to associate procrastination with an inferior character. But putting things off doesn’t make you any worse, or better, than anyone else. Being stuck in measuring your value based on what you are or are not doing, in any given day, is just adding pressure to your life and also making you miss the point of being alive in the first place.

The definition of procrastinating reads; “putting of action until a future time”. What you’re doing then is pushing something, let’s call this something X, forward in your schedule. That doesn’t sound so bad does it? You’re still planning on doing it, just not right now.

Don’t fret about procrastinating. Loading it with guilt or giving it some loser-label will only make you refrain from changing. Like a tick, your subconscious, will dig in deeper to make sure you never have the chance to face what’s going on. If you equate procrastinating with being a looser, you’ve just made it even harder for yourself to notice when you’re doing it.

Be gentle towards yourself and don’t make matters unbearably difficult. Identify that there is something, X, that you seem to want to get done that, for some reason, fills you with resistance. It’s not worse than that. Right now there is some resistance to doing X.

What does procrastinating look like to you?

I watch movies, read novels or eat when I procrastinate. What is your preferred activity when you really should be doing something else? If you stop and think for a moment, what is it you do that feels good in the moment but that you regret later on?

Another question to ponder is how big of a problem procrastination is in your life. Habits and addictions are only bad for you if they feel bad for you (or someone else) 🙂 There’s no right or wrong in terms of what you decide to spend your time on. If you want to spend your day laying in the sunshine drinking piña colada then by all means. As long as you don’t interfere with someone else happiness or opportunity to do what they want to do you’re free to do whatever. No one should judge you for doing what you want to do.

If you procrastinate taking out the trash by drinking a cup of tea and relaxing then the problem maybe isn’t that huge. It’s when you stop taking action on the important stuff that the procrastination becomes an issue worth addressing.

When is it Procrastinating and when is it Enjoying your life?

Procrastinating is a sneaky habit. It usually comes in the form of something that contribute to the very point of being alive; as something you really enjoy doing. The activity usually is something that under different circumstances would have been irrefutably good for you. Watching TV or allowing myself a treat can be part of a relaxing or entertaining event that gives my life joy and connection.

Meeting my friends and catching up on their lives, helping each other with challenges and celebrating progress and important events, make me feel loved and like I matter. Spending time with the same people gossiping about problems or going through the same litany of events, reminiscing the past, without moving forward however, is just a waste of time. Procrastination hidden under the flag of “caring for a relationship/being there for someone”.

Why do we do it..

What makes you push your head into the sand in the first place? The generally known theory is that people procrastinate because of one of the following reasons;

  1. They’ve made the thing they have to do, X, into something too big so they can’t see the clearly everything that needs to be done. – They don’t know what to do.
  2. They don’t see the point of doing it – Why is it important and for whom?

.. and how do we get out of it?

There are some proven strategies that could be worth trying:

  1. Make yourself aware of your procrastination before you’re doing it!
    Take out that pen and paper and sit down and think through the last time you procrastinated. It’s important to do this when you’re NOT in the action but instead at a time when you feel calm and happy. Think through what you were doing. What excuses were you telling yourself and what activities were you indulging in? What were the signs that you now know were telling?
    If you write these things down it’s going to be real hard to BS yourself the next time you’re doing it.
  2. Remind yourself of why
    Sometimes, all it takes, is to think through why doing X is important and for whom. At some point in your past you decided that X was something you wanted to get done. Maybe because if you didn’t, you’d get pain from someone being disappointed or maybe because you wanted to help someone you care about. When you remember the reasons as to why you want X done you get motivation to move forward again.
  3. Give yourself a time limit
    We usually get our act together and get things done when we’re closing in on a deadline. All of a sudden NOT doing activity X will hurt more than actually doing it. If you find yourself stuck it can help to set your own deadline.
  • I will do what I want for 3 hours and then I will do X
  • I will free time in my schedule to distance myself from the everyday grind and really look at why I’m resisting X
  • Set a timer for 15 minutes and promise yourself that during that time you will focus 100% on pushing this activity towards completion. When you’re done schedule the next 15 minute session and then celebrate so you connect joy to the process.

Most importantly

Don’t blame yourself when you find yourself procrastinating!
Instead of hurting yourself when you’re already in a vulnerable state, which is true when you put important stuff off instead of dealing with them, be kind! Don’t make it ok but don’t make yourself into some worthless looser either. When you realize that you’re in that space take it seriously and talk to yourself like you would a dear friend. Let yourself regroup and find your bearing.

BeBrave

Is resting a waste of time or crucial for your success?

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Resting

“I’ll spend long days in my hammock just resting and doing absolutely nothing!”

It was the answer I got when I asked a colleague how she was going to spend her vacation. In a few heart beats I went through emotions and thoughts ranging from envy to judgement to hope and ending up in gratitude. In just that short sentence she’d freed me up to consider resting as a completely reasonable and valid choice.

Be mindful of the definition of the “what” you choose to do

Resting has always had a negative connotation to me. That is because resting has been anchored to sitting still, watching TV, maybe drinking some wine and enjoying a respite from life’s perceived “musts”. Someone said watching TV was a way to escape the goals they never set. Sitting still watching TV or talking about nonsense made my nerves stand on edge. I got irritable, tense and eventually I had to get up and do something.

One might think this has served me well. Avoiding TV and getting things done would appear to be an irrefutable good thing. It also resonates with the high achievers mantra of “always working hard and long”. But resting is crucial for long term success. If you don’t let your body, mind and soul rest and recharge you will break sooner or later. Always pushing works for a really long time, right up until it doesn’t any more. And then when you fall you fall hard.

I needed to change my view on resting. The first change was the definition of the activity in itself. It needed to be changed from “wasting time” to “loving and caring for myself”. The second was to change the actual activity I was doing while I was resting. I couldn’t get watching inane TV shows to mean I was loving myself no matter how hard I tried.

What does the word resting trigger within you?

My colleague at work, who was planning to spend a week or two in her hammock, is someone I know and respect. She delivers high value, she works hard and committed and I admire her. When she, with such certainty and obviousness, gave herself permission, to do what outwardly appeared as nothing, she led the way for me. All of a sudden I could look at my life and consider what resting would mean to me.

How about you? Do you get enough rest in your life? What would be a truly restorative activity for you? It’s not always easy to uncover since it can be very different depending on the individual and on the circumstances. Sometimes there’s an available shortcut to finding out things about yourself by using your feelings towards your peer group.

Close your eyes and picture someone you love being in trouble due to high stress levels and too little rest. Imagine this person not being aware of the need for rest and not seeing the limit of burn out drawing near. If you were to recommend this person some rest, what would you suggest as a truly resting activity?

Active rest is a good start

After redefining rest into something that was necessary, and as taking care of myself, I worked on finding the right resting activities for me.

For a time “active resting” became my crutch. Active rest means you stop whatever you’re doing and switch into something else that is still active. For example going to the gym or cleaning your house. I told myself that I was resting while I still got things done and still felt productive. It was working well for me for a long time but eventually the activities I chose wouldn’t restore me anymore. I’d feel increasingly tired and no matter how much I slept I would still wake up without energy. I came to accept that there were still some layers to this resting idea.

You need to restore yourself both physically and mentally. Sometimes your body needs actual sleep and stillness. Laying down, breathing deeply and calmly will start the repairing processes in your body. The same goes for your mind. If you spend most of your day trying to solve problems, analyzing situations and making tough decisions your mind needs time to center back into stillness.

Rest yourself into success

If you want to argue, that you don’t have time to rest, then think about the time you’ll be wasting when you’ve burned out. Also consider how much smarter you are when you are at your best. Making smarter decisions and working on the right things will move you forward faster than just grinding away at random things.

There’s another argument for resting properly. The feelings you experience on a daily basis will determine how you perceive the quality of your life. If you spend every day on the edge of energy deficit you will soon start to perceive your life as too tough and tiresome. It’s just no fun living without energy and vitality.

How would your life change if you made resting a natural part of you day and as a result you freed up more energy?

BeBrave

Your relationship to money will impact the amount you have

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Money

How do you handle your money? There are few areas that trigger as many instinctive reactions in people as money does. Everyone has a relationship to it and everyone has been raised by people that have their view on it. Do you talk about money with your children? Do you talk about it with you spouse? How does this subject make you feel?

What kind of person gets rich and how does living in abundance look like?

If you close your eyes and picture a person who is financially wealthy – what do you see? Try it. Be honest. What characteristics defines this person? What must this person have done to acquire all that wealh and what must this person have sacrificed to reach this abundance?

Is your view on this person a positive or negative one? If we use a scale where 1 is completely positive and 10 is all negative where would you score the feeling you have?

Some people vision a corrupt, soulless person with greed and selfish desires as the only driving forces. Some vision a striving, hardworking person who never permit herself to rest or to have fun. Yet others see a person worthy of admiration but up on a cultural pedestal far out of reach.

So far in this post I’ve posed a lot of questions. The reason for that is that questions are the best way to access your subconscious from where all the programming for your actions stem from. You are operating based on your subconscious truths and beliefs. If you have any traces of a negative view on abundance and financial success it will trip you up.

You might, consciously, believe and say that you’re all for being rich and living in abundance. But if any of the answers to the questions above contained doubt, contempt, worry, jealousy or any resistance at all you know that you have some subconscious ideas that are not going to help you reach your goals.

Your relationship to money will impact the amount of it you have

Any negative feelings towards money and wealth will impact your relationship to it. Some try to explain this phenomenon as something esoteric or supernatural. They might complacently say something like “You have to talk to your money and tell it how much you love it so that it’ll come to you”. I think that would be a super way for me to feel stupid, I can’t seriously see myself talking to a coin..

I do, however, believe in the power of my subconscious and that the way I feel when I talk about money and finances is part of how much or little I have of it. It’s not like the money has an awareness that keeps it from me if I don’t “love it”. It’s because any negativity I harbor towards it, or people that have a lot of it, will steer my everyday actions that in turn will impact how I earn/save and spend money.

My sister sent me a link to a Youtube video of an adorable woman, Gill Fielding, talking about wealth. I particularly love her enthusiasm about money – “I really LOVE money!” she says at one point. The video is about wealth and the secrets of acquiring it and making it grow. It puts a smile on my face, I can recommend it 🙂

What can you do to change your view on money?

If you have thoughts and emotions that are negative towards money sometimes just knowing about them and consciously choosing other thoughts is all that’s needed. But most often we’ve been impacted by beliefs about money and wealth from the early stages of childhood. That means that our beliefs are thoroughly imbedded in our subconscious.

How do we best access those inmost hidden places? With questions and visualizations.

Close your eyes again and picture a person that is abundant, wealthy and living a life of financial freedom. Become determined to present this person as 100% good and to bestow admirable, virtuous and inspiring qualities to her.

Now ask yourself:

  • What thoughts and beliefs does she have to enable her to act the way she does that results in this abundance?
  • What skills have been essential for her to reach this level?
  • How can she now impact the world and do more good?
  • What will you do when you have all these resources at hand?

Were your answers totally free from negativity? If not, then commit again to a completely positive view and try the exercise again.

As with changing any belief, impacting the ones around money will take some conscious effort. However, any work in this area will not only help you in relations to finances it will also make you more aware of other limiting beliefs that are potentially holding you back.

BeBrave

You cannot hide what you think and feel – it radiates

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Radiate

You radiate what you think and feel – even if you aren’t aware of how you might think or feel in a certain moment and even if the people around you can’t set their finger on what exactly it is about you, which makes them feel a certain way, they will still be impacted.

Communicating with your body

Have you ever walked into a situation where people have been arguing but trying to hide it? You might not even have heard the fighting, and when you walked in there were no outward signs, but you could feel the tension between them? Their anger or sadness was still emanating strongly.

It’s said that about 7% of communication between humans come in the form of the actual words spoken. About 25-30% is transferred in the tone of voice and the rest, about 65% is made out of body language. Even if you don’t say anything, no words or tone of voice is heard, you are still sending very strong messages.

Your body is the vessel that holds your thoughts and your feelings. If you keep a negative thought it will impact your feelings and in turn your body. People around you will pick up on the messages you’re sending.

The message gets scrambled by in-congruence

If you don’t truly think and feel what you’re proclaiming you will create distance. It doesn’t matter how eagerly you’re trying to convince with your words. The person you’re talking to will hear your words but will get an uncomfortable feeling. They will feel confused and might even feel stupid for not being able to believe you. If you send one signal with your words and another with your body language the signal gets really scrambled.

Imagine your daughter coming home from school distraught because of a “failed exam”. You might say “don’t worry honey, that C is nothing to worry about”. If you inwardly think that your daughter really could do better, that she’s just too lazy or you worry that she’ll never make it, you’re probably not sending signals that will sooth her anxiety. There’s a risk that she’ll be leaving that conversation more confused and unsure than before she came to you. She might not understand why but she’ll feel resistance to open up to talk to you again.

When I talk to my children about issues that I’m unsure of, that I don’t know the answers to, I tend to slip into preaching mode. I hide my perceived flawed ignorance behind some cliches or generalizations and I usually immediately lose their interest. They pick up on my scrambled message and choose to tune out. But when I’m honest, admitting at first that I don’t know and that I’m unsure, they will usually hear me out when I give them my reasoning so far. Thankfully I’ve come to value our open and honest communication more than being right and a know it all.

A strong message will impact the outcome – negatively or positively

Today there’s scientific evidence, within the Quantum physics field, that proves that what we focus on and believe is actually emitted from our beings. I don’t understand the science behind it, yet :), but I’ve had plenty of real life experiences to back up my belief that I can impact the outcome of my life by thought alone.

Like the way I always seem to be able to predict how a potentially tricky situation at work will actually go wrong versus when it’ll work out just fine. It always depends on how I walk into that situation – looking for failure versus looking for success. Crouching and trying to hide my worry versus standing tall and confident in the faith that we’ll find a solid solution.

Or when I’m actually convinced that my daughter won’t be up for some suggestion I have for the weekend and no matter how I phrase it she’ll balk at the idea.

What if you could choose what you radiate?

So the theory is that what you think and feel, even on a subconscious level, radiates from you and is picked up by the people around you. What if you could become more aware of your thoughts and feelings? What if you deliberately could choose the signals you’re going to send?

So how can we understand what is going on in our subconscious when it’s actually in our subconscious? J This is where writing and drawing comes in handy!

Pick a situation where you have a challenge impacting someone towards something you believe to be a really good thing. Maybe that someone even is yourself? Maybe it’s one of your children.

Take out a piece of paper and draw a scale from 1 to 10. The 1 will represent your belief that the outcome will never happen. The 10 will be defined as your complete belief that it will absolutely come true.

Take a good look at the situation and desired outcome and then draw a line, starting at 1 and ending where you subconsciously feel like ending it. Maybe you stop at the middle, maybe closer to the 10 or maybe you just get started on the line and your pen just stops moving.

Look at the line you’ve drawn and ask yourself what the reasons are for not going all the way up to 10. Write down any concerns or considerations you have about how it might not work out. Now you have your list of reasons why you haven’t been able to influence the situation in the desired direction. You’ve been emitting these obstacles and your signal has been jammed.

Knowing is sometimes enough

Sometimes it’s curative just getting these things down on paper. Sometimes it takes a bit more conscious effort to change these beliefs and replacing them with empowering true ones. Either way, knowing about them will give you the opportunity to be honest and open when you communicate which in turn will lead to more honest and productive relationships.

BeBrave

Provide a safe space to throw up in

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Safe space

How can you help your child get through difficult emotions? Can you provide a safe space and build trust enough that they will be able to tell you about their difficulties? Would you consider it an honor to hold her hair while she throws up?

When your loved ones are hurting

Not long ago I had a moment with one of my girls that had my heart clenched and my mind racing. She was open, vulnerable and talking to me.

All things I’ve wished for.

I’ve always felt I’d much rather know what’s going on inside of her than be blindsided by something further down the line.

So here we were but I was failing her.

She was letting all of her anxiety about growing up spill out. She was crying. And all I could do was force myself to NOT wrap my arms around her and promise I’d make everything ok.

In my mind all I could think was “how can I make her pain go away!?”. I managed to keep myself from forcing my physical clinginess on her but my mouth wasn’t doing a very good job. I kept trying to tell her how she’s gotten “it wrong”, “that life isn’t so hard – you just have to focus on the positives..”.. bla bla blaah…

She argued back and I kept trying to “enlighten”.

She kept saying “Mom, you don’t understand!”.

Don’t fight what is happening

It wasn’t until she turned quiet, tears softly rolling down her cheek that I got it. I had a moment to stop and just watch her. I saw the sadness and the frustration. I remembered times when I’ve felt the same and how lonely it feels when no one just listens. I remembered a quote that’s been at the core of my conscious parenting albeit not part of my instinctive routine;

Before she even cares about how much you know, she must know, truly in her heart, how much you love.

I stayed quiet and still, stopped trying to negate her hurt. Just watching her cry for a moment. Catching my breath and reminding myself that emotions aren’t dangerous. Relaxing into the moment and letting my need for things to be different dissolve.

I told her the truth. That I also feel overwhelmed sometimes. That I can find myself crying for no apparent reason or worrying about both small and seemingly huge life decisions.

I told her I’m sort of grateful that she’s spending some time pondering these big questions. That, maybe when she finds some clues she can share them with me.

She stopped fighting back against me the second I stopped trying to fix her.

Instead we talked. Back and forth. I listened to her thoughts and didn’t argue. I told her about some of my own worries and she listened. We didn’t resolve or come up with plans for actually solving anything. We didn’t have to, it wasn’t necessary.

We understand more about each other now. I feel closer to her than before.

Provide the bucket and gently hold her hair

I think it was Jairek Robbins, who first mentioned the concept of holding the basket for a woman while she cleans up. That sometimes women need to vent, to let go of some of the things that’s been building during the day.

Listen

Imagine a woman walking strongly through her daily life and imagine the world as a field of wildflowers and vines. During her dance, pins and needles get caught in her dress and her hair. When the night comes she’ll want to sit down and clean away the debris that’s attached itself to her. If you want to help her re-center herself the best support is often to just sit by her and hold the basket for her. Keep her company and hold the basket that she can throw the thorns, twigs and needles into.

Let her talk about her day and how different situations have made her feel. As she gets to speak about it she can release it into the basket and be free and cleansed.

You don’t need to help her pick out the thorns. All you need to do is to listen.

You don’t have to fix anything and you actually shouldn’t even try to help DO anything (unless specifically asked to). You sitting there, keeping her company, is all that is needed.

There is another, more vivid, metaphor on the same subject. Imagine the same basic situation – a woman has gone through her day and a lot of situations has occurred that have left her feeling a vast array of emotions. Imagine that she’s feeling ill because of all these emotions and that throwing up would make her feel calm and centered again. If you want to help her, then just provide the bucket and gently hold her hair while she pukes.

As a parent sometime all you can do is listen and hold the basket

I like these metaphors because of how vivid they are – I remember them.. usually.. eventually… Sometimes all you can do as a parent is to hold the basket for your child to throw up in.

If your child says “you don’t understand!” it’s a sure sign that it’s time to step back. Maybe it’s time to stop trying to shove that puke back down her throat?

It can be so difficult to just listen. You want to help, to give another perspective and to pass on all your own hard won life lessons. But what she needs is to find her own answers, fight her own battles, to learn to trust in her own ability to clean up her needles and pins.

If you are lucky you are invited to hold the basket – if you’re blessed and have earned her trust you just might get the chance to hold her hair while she pukes.

BeBrave

I want to freeze time – Teenagers wasn’t in the plan

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Plan

I‘m a sucker for making plans. I think it’ the predictability of a day’s schedule and the efficiency, that planning brings, that makes me love it so much. It’s not that I’m a slave to the plan, in fact it’s when I feel I have a good plan that I can be spontaneous and enjoy some lazy hours without guilt. I actually plan for free time and the possibility for spontaneous impulses.

There aren’t many areas in life that I don’t try to make plans for. Almost everything gets timelines, gap-analysis and goals. Most of the time this is a way of life that works wonderfully for me. I enjoy the feeling of progress and making plans gives me the opportunity to track the things I do and learn.

When my daughter’s dad and I decided to separate many years ago we planned, in detail, how we were going to communicate about it. We planned how we’d tell the girls and we talked through the message and feelings we wanted to convey to our friends and family.

All that planning proved invaluable when the time came to actually navigate those hard days. We had a plan, which we’d talked and thought through, that we could stick to. It left us stronger when the situation was really tough.

Irritatingly enough life has a habit of throwing situations my way that I haven’t had the time to think through or plan for. Sometimes even in the most obvious ways, that isn’t really a surprise, but that I still don’t feel prepared for.

Life happens – children turn teenagers even if you’re not prepared

Like when my daughter turns “teenage”– I mean, it’s not a surprise … I know her age, but I just haven’t gotten around to plan properly! The most obvious reason, for my reluctance to look at this situation, is the fact that I’ve never had a teenager before. I was just getting the hang of being a mom. A teenager? What happens now?

I had this big preliminary plan for making this event into something ritualistic and memorable. Making a big deal about her stepping into young womanhood so to speak.

I feel that we as a society have lost grip on those important teenage years when so much happens. This is a time when you grow up, you solidify ideas about who you are and what you’re capable of that might impact you for the rest of your life. In the west we’ve just capitulated these years into a malfunctioning school system. I feel like I’m supposed to hand over my kids onto an assembly line and hope they come out in a fairly good shape in the other end.

Wouldn’t it be amazing if we could bring back a natural place and respect for our young adults as the important next generation they represent? Give them meaning and a sense of belonging? Since we seem to have lost that natural place for them in our society my idea was to, at least, make that transition a celebration in our home.

But it’s happening and I’m not nearly as prepared as I wanted to be. I don’t have an emotional speech or a memorable family tradition to kick off. I don’t have a special gift to “hand down” or a plan for how rules and expectations should now change to demarcate the road of childhood into young adulthood.

Enjoying the moment

I won’t give up my planning in life and neither will I let the transition into young adulthood quietly pass by unnoticed in our family. But I learn yet again, on another level, that my life is happening right now. I become aware of how precious the time I have with our kids and with each other is.

In the end my daughter turning thirteen is not about me or a plan or a remarkable family tradition. In the end it’s another day in our remarkable life. A day to cherish and enjoy. A day to connect, to listen, to try to understand each other, to have fun and laugh together.

Freezing time so that I can catch up with my perfect planning is just not going to happen. Life kindly keeps reminding me to focus here and now. And there is so much to love right here and now.

The cup of tea she made for me just because she knows I enjoy it in the evenings. The way they sneak their hand into mine when we walk somewhere together. When they call for me because they want to share something important with me. The bubbling laughter and curious questions about big and small things.

What small things are you paying attention to?

How do you ensure that you enjoy every day life with your family?

And hey, please do share if you’ve got any great ideas of a valuable transition ritual into teenage life 😉

BeBrave

Make room for the feelings you want to experience

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Feelings

Which feelings do you experience in an average week? Most people I ask about this need some time before they can give an answer. It’s not something they’ve paid much attention too. Emotions and feelings are something that happens to you; “I feel low today”, “I woke up feeling sad”, “What he said made me feel so angry”..

Emotions and feelings

I just finished reading High performance habits, and in it Brendon Burchard expertly gives a possible definition and difference between emotions and feelings;

”Think of an emotion as mostly a reaction, and feeling is an interpretation. The emotion of fear can come up but you don’t have to choose to feel frightened and run away. You can experience the sudden emotion of fear, but in the very next moment choose to feel centered. Whenever you “calm yourself down” you are choosing a different feeling than the emotion that may have come up for you.”

This was a new distinction to me and one that I think will help me. I already believed there is a difference between the instinctive reaction, an emotion, and the feelings I choose to live in for a longer period. Learning that I could control my feelings, some of the time, was such a revelation and feeling of freedom. But I’ve also believed that the emotions themselves can be controlled/altered by changing your mindset and every time a negative emotion comes up I feel it like a reminder that I haven’t mastered this yet… And then I’ve blamed myself and for hours lived with the feelings of shame, frustration and guilt.

Metaphor for life

I’m always on the lookout for new metaphors, visual or written, for the mysteries of a life well lived. We’re all different in how we best absorb information and so I try to cover all bases and get as many angles as possible on the important things. Metaphors, just like stories, have a tendency to enter our subconscious and we remember them better than just mere facts. Recently I came across a new way of visualizing the saying; “what you focus on is what you get” –  Imagine your internal mind as a cup. In this cup you pour your feelings.  The feelings in it, at any given time, will determine – yeah, how you feel.

I bet you’ve encountered the self-help theories like the daily affirmations and gratitude practices? These theories are everywhere and have been for some time now. The reason they won’t go out of style is because they’re working.

Someone who consciously focus on things to be thankful for fills her/his cup with a dose of gratitude. If you think about how you helped your child with their homework yesterday, although you at first felt too tired to do it, you might notice that warm feeling of pride and satisfaction dripping into the cup. When you notice the sound of pure laughter from your daughters’ room your cup gets flooded with love and joy.

All feelings can’t be in the cup at the same time

You can feel many different feelings but they don’t fit in your cup all at the same time. You can find yourself unsuccessfully grappling for that true sense of gratitude or joy. Sometimes that is because your cup is already full with other feelings.

Your cup might be full with:

  • 26% guilt because of that chocolate cake you ate last night
  • 42% worry about your kids not seeming to have any friends at school
  • 12% stress over difficult assignments at work
  • 20% fear for how the future paychecks are going to come in

When you find your cup is filled with feelings you don’t like it’s time to drain in! A coach or therapist could be a great partner when you want to empty a cup brimming with negative feelings. If you think you want to do some cleaning on your own then I’d recommend a practice of mindfulness. Letting yourself be still so you can feel your feelings and just name them will help a long way. Contrary to the fairy tale truth where if you name a fiend it will appear I’ve learnt that naming a negative feeling will make the feeling weaker.

Fill your cup purposefully

In the same way it might be hard to connect to joy, when the cup is full with disempowering feelings, it’s equally difficult to find sadness or anger when your cup is already full with gratitude, curiosity or any other more empowering feelings.

This is what all the hype is about regarding choosing feelings “deliberately”, affirmations and journaling on things you’re grateful for.

The more you practice the feelings you want to experience the more easily they will fill your cup. It’s like the bottles of joy, love, focus and the others are placed furthest out in the cupboard. The other feelings get pushed far in to the back. Practicing means thinking about how these feelings feel and on different situations when you’ve felt them in the past.

Get a journal and in it write things you’re happy, grateful and amazed for. Write down situations where you showed up in a way that made you proud of yourself. Where you showed focus and grit. Maybe a situation when you felt truly loved or appreciated.

Do it often. If you can then do it every day. It doesn’t have to take long, just 5-10 minutes and you don’t have to think of something “new” every time, just write down what comes to mind.

If you do this you will have your empowering feelings close at hand and you will already have filled your cup leaving less room for negativity to enter your life.

Changing emotions

So feelings we can choose and I still believe that even emotions, the ones that come more on instinct, also can be changed. With enough time and conscious practice I think I’ll be able to change the underlying meaning I’ve anchored to a situation. In the meantime I’m going to focus on filling my cup on purpose and let myself be the work in progress I actually believe we all are 🙂

As always..

BeBrave

Self love – It’s a parents job to love and let go

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Teach self love

It’s hard to find a feeling more overwhelming than the love I feel for my children. The picture was taken when my daughter was about twelve months old and it reminds me of the role I believe I have as a mother. It’s my job to love my girls and to let go of them. To provide a safe haven that they can always count on and return to. I know that my love for them is always going to be more of my focus than their love for me will be for them. They are, and should be, busy going after life. Experiencing, epic failing, learning and adjusting. Having fun. Loving.

Loving her teaches her she’s worthy of love

I’ve listed my values and beliefs concerning my parenting on the MotherOfLions webpage; https://motheroflions.com/aboutcaution/ One of them states that “Children are born perfect and deserve love for who they are”. Children come to us perfect, innocent, present, joyful and it’s our job not to mess them up, not to dim their light.

As a parent I have an enormous opportunity to influence this new little human. By giving her my full attention, when she needs it, I teach her how worthy she is. When I express joy and pleasure for spending time with her I show how she has the influence to affect others positively. By me actively searching her out and asking for her company she feels she’s important.

The more I love her for just being her the more she opens up to me. I try to make it a habit to look into her eyes every morning and every night and tell her “I love you”. Sometimes she’s in a tired morning pre-teen kind of mood or in a busy don’t interrupt me kind of mood and just brushes it off. I believe it still seeps in. And sometimes she looks me right back in my eyes and tells me “I love you too mom”. You know.. with that presence and open honesty that completely floors me.

Your role as her parent is important

You can usually tell if a person was loved by her parents, when she was little, by how she shows up in the world. If you can provide a safe home where she feels loved and that she belongs you’ll have given her the baseline truth that she’s worthy of those feelings. She will expect it from life and what she looks for she will find. If she stays open and curious and keep expecting good things to come her way she’ll have an attitude towards people that is both disarming and magnetic.

But her understanding of the power of self love is more important

There is a video on Youtube called “Jessica’s Daily Affirmation”.  It shows a girl, approx. 5 years old, standing in front of her mirror stating everything she’s happy for and everything she likes. She likes her elephant and her dad (at least twice 🙂 ) and her sister and her hair and her pajamas 😀

I wish I could have given my daughters that idea when they were even younger and not already starting to care too much about what people think. I asked my daughter the other day if she’d ever stood in front of the mirror and told herself that she loves herself. She sort of balked at the idea. “No, that would feel a bit like bragging”. I’ve clearly got some work to do!

My plan is to keep depositing love into her emotional bank account (ref. Steven Covey) but also to try to figure out a way to explain to her, in a way that a 9-year old can relate to, how important it is to love oneself.

When she fills her own cup first she will have a continuous overflow of love to keep pouring on to others. If she loves herself she will treat others with even more compassion. If she doesn’t focus on loving herself first there won’t be enough of her for the rest of us – a very selfish way to handle her life 😉

My daughter is a complete love bug so my guess is those arguments will get her to at least consider practicing more self love.

Walk your talk – showing what self love looks like

Now read this post one more time – this time exchange all places that refer to a daughter with a reference to yourself. If you cannot show her what true self love looks like no amount of teaching or preaching will do it for her. You must do the work of looking inwards and finding what, if anything, is stopping you from loving yourself. Be courageous for yourself and your children and start a practice of looking yourself in the eyes, most easily done I a mirror ( 😉 ), morning and night and tell yourself that you love you.

If you want to take it to master class level then goolge “Mirror exercise” by Lisa Nichols. It’s a simple but very powerful exercise that feels SO WEIRD the first couple of times you do it. I highly recommend it 😀

BeBrave

How often do you let your inner child lead towards playfulness?

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Playfulness

What would change your feelings towards playfulness when you’re faced with a negative situation? What could you add or subtract to make an experience that you earlier thought of as an energy drain into something at least neutral or maybe even fun? When was the last time you stopped and listened to that inner child begging you to play?

Photo of the inner children

I saw the photo credited to Gerome Viavant , taken at Burning man, a couple of years ago. To me this constellation is truly inspiring and thought provoking. It’s a beautiful piece of art showing us our inner children. I realized many years ago that I have, indeed, a young girl inside of me. She’s about the age of five – you can reason with her but she’s kinda easily frightened. My girl usually needs me to reassure her and make her feel safe – she’s the voice of my girlish fears.

I’ve had occasions where I’ve had to take her by the hand and tell her it’ll be ok. Inside my mind I’ve literally said the words “baby, I know you’re afraid right now, but it’s going to be okay. We need to do this even if it’s scary”.

I’ve also had the distinct feeling that it’s that little girl who keeps me sulking long after I, as an adult, think it’s reasonable. When I’ve been in an argument with someone I care about and my conscious mind really only wants to get back on track with that person there she is, that pouting little girl, stopping me. An art constellation describing that voice would be more accurate with the inner children turned away in resentment and hurt.

The real photo, I believe, describes another voice. The one that doesn’t take things so seriously. More like that of Anna in Frozen – “Do you want to build a snowman? Come on, let’s go and play!”.

Can playfulness be a choice?

What would happen if you added a little, or a lot, more play to your life?

What addition would make your everyday chores more enjoyable? And what about exercise? Or spending dinner with your family? How could you bring laughter into dinner time in a way that’d leave you gasping for breath because you’d be laughing so hard? Would your teenagers look forward to family dinner time more if that was the setting?

I love using music to brighten my mood. Music and candles 🙂 Almost every family meal is accompanied by lit candles. The music we listen to differs a little depending on what time of day it is. Calm in the mornings, upbeat during the weekends and evenings. Sometimes we sing along and goof around or start dancing in the kitchen. Oh, yeah, we also spend some meals in silence because we’re just irritated or too tired to talk – we Are a pretty normal family 🙂

My point is this. Why would you want to do something one way when there’s possibly other ways to do the same thing that include laughter and fun? What does your inner child say? What are some things you loved doing as a child that would surprise your children or even your spouse if you did today?

Can cleaning your room be fun?

When my daughter Emelie was younger she had a really cool way of tidying her room. She’s always had a vivid imagination and she never minded spending time on her own. When the time came to tidy her room she made it into a game. I’d hear play going on in her room and sometimes go to remind her to get started. But she’d be in full tidying mode already half done – she’d “invented a game to make it more fun” 🙂

Her Pet shop pets were involved. She’d separate them into three different teams and then start a competition for them. The team that got their tidying done first would be the winner. Then she’d go through team after team and let each team progress in their area. The dogs would start with the table that was filled with pens, glue, paper and other traces of creativity. When they’d gotten a long way she’d switch to the cats team and get them working on getting all the laundry into the laundry basket. When almost all clothes were gone she’d move on to the third group (horses?, birds?.. don’t know..) and get them busy with tidying everything off of the floor. Then back to the first group and on and on until all groups were almost done – the exciting finale; which team would stand as the winning one?

It took her something like three times as long to tidy up but she’d have a great time doing it and it got done. A win-win for everyone 🙂

Would you like to share your ideas for making family life fun and enjoyable on a weekday basis? Please leave a comment and share! 🙂

BeBrave

The art of dreaming BIG, promising LITTLE and taking small steps

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start small

Taking small steps has not been part of my go to solutions for progress. Taking massive action á la no pain no gain has been more my tune. But like the snowball that starts small and grows into an unstoppable force I’ve started to suspect that there is truth, for me, in starting slowly and building my confidence.

“You should dream BIG!”

Yes. You really should dream big. Dreaming and visualizing a future that inspires you and those around you is essential for knowing where  to go. And you should talk about it. Talking and writing your dreams creates a special kind of magnetism that will pull you in.

When you talk to others about your dreams you also tap into a human drive; Social pressure. The human brain wants you to stay consistent with what you say so telling people about your plans will create healthy pressure.

There are two possible traps to be aware of when dreaming BIG.

The first is the risk of fooling your brain out of taking actual action. Since the brain doesn’t know the difference between that you think and what you’re actually experiencing it might get the idea that you’re already making progress. It will reward you with the chemicals of progress and you might very well settle in that happy feeling and “forget” to do what is needed.

The other possible risk of dreaming BIG, and telling people about it, is the risk of failing on your big promises. Look into the post about truth and keeping promises to get more background;

”The essential thing to understand is that when you talk to others, or think something to yourself, your subconscious is listening. If you say something and then don’t act accordingly your subconscious will get confused; “We said something but we didn’t take action on it. We better protect ourselves from feeling stupid/confused or like we failed. Let’s make that thing we talked about into something “not important”. We would never NOT do something that’s important so let’s make sure we don’t waste time on that unimportant thing! Ever!””

Dream BIG and promise LITTLE

Continue to dream BIG and talk about the dreams but maybe without a deadline? Promise LITTLE to yourself and even less to others. In fact – if you’re just starting to build credibility with yourself then start extremely small.

If you want to cut back on sugar for health reasons then don’t start with promising yourself to never eat it again. Start with maybe drinking one less soda per day?

If you want to start spending more quality time with your children don’t set the bar at spending two hours of deep and meaningful conversation seven nights a week. One; your kids will hate it 😉 Two; Maybe promise yourself that one night a week I’m going to set a reminder on my phone and when it rings I will go into my daughters room, sit down and say “I just wanted to be near you for a little while – is it ok if I sit here a couple of minutes?”.

Maybe you want to start exercising. Promise yourself to go on one 20 minute-walk this coming week instead of jumping into a stressful new routine that you’re not ready for neither mentally nor physically.

Building trust is the most important step

Making such small commitments might seem totally useless and idiotic. “How will taking one 20 minute walk bring me closer to my goals??” Believe me I know that doubt very well. I know the frustration that can kick you into action as well as the eagerness when you think you might be onto some new solution. I can get myself all A-type worked up and keep going HARD towards my BIG goals for a reasonably long time. But the BIG promises and vision always fails me when they are my main focus. I lose my initial momentum at some point and immediately my self-doubt kicks in and tells me “I’m no good” and that “see you’re not going to make it – again!”.

The trick is to build your trust in yourself in a pace that’s sustainable so that you don’t give that inner critic/fear ammunition when you’re weak. If you start small and keep hitting your goals then you will start to feel proud and slowly you’ll start trusting that when you say you’re going to do something then you do it.

Power of rewarding chemicals

Apart from building trust with yourself there is another theory that makes small steps so powerful. It has to do with chemicals. The brain loves “doing the right thing” – every time you do something you truly believe is good you give your brain the go-signal to release the hormone cascade that feels so good. You flood the system with dopamine and you think “wow, this feels good!”. You have that feeling of pride and happiness – you’re rewarded. This all happens subconsciously but that doesn’t stop it from impacting you both in the moment and in the future.

You will be automatically drawn towards the things that brought you pleasure. And it doesn’t matter how BIG or small the actions is. The only thing that matters is that you believe/decide that it is important. So though it might sound silly at first it’s all really just a smart management of your body’s normal functionality. How do you make a small step feel important if it doesn’t? Well, this is where complete trust in the aforementioned theory comes in handy. Do your own research if you’re not willing to take my word for it, which might be a healthy mindset since I’m no doctor with a degree 😉

When you look for the truth behind your reward system you’ll find all the evidence you need to start believing that steps, no matter how small, are the starting point for action and you’ll be on your way 😀

Triggers and momentum

Yet another way for optimizing how the human brain works is to use the power of triggers and routines. There is power in connecting one action to another. E.g. take your medicine when you’ve brushed your teeth or repack your gym bag immediately after hanging the wet ones up to dry when you come home. If you connect actions to each other and then focus on getting the small first action done then chances are that you’ll continue with the next actions as well.

Making small steps part of your life

Would you like to try using the power of small steps? What if it actually works? What if, at the end of this experiment, you have a bit more trust in yourself and you’ve started a few new habits?

For this exercise I will assume that you know an area or two that you want to change. Even if you’re maybe not completely crystal clear on what you want as the end goal I’m sure that there are some general directions you’d like to go in.

  1. For one or two areas, that you want to change/improve, pick one small action that you can take on a weekly basis. The actions should take no more than 15 minutes to do, ideally 5-10 minutes, and it should be something that leads in the direction you want to go.
  2. Make this a serious effort and research if you must to ensure that you truly believe that small steps give these valuable results.
  3. Make a plan! Take out your calendar and phone and schedule/set alarms for performing these small steps for the coming 6 weeks. You will have 6-12 (depending on if you picked one or two areas) dates and times for actions that should take no more than 5-15 minutes each.
  4. Notice if it’s working. Set another alarm for each of the days you’ve scheduled. Set it to the evening and when it goes off just take a quick note of how you’re doing and what the effects of doing your actions, small as they are, are on your mood.

Note; In my experience setting a small-step-goal to something that I can do in the morning has had the best effect. When I win the morning I tend to want to keep taking home other small victories throughout the day.

BeBrave

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