Thoughtful Thursday

For many years, I focused on the story of my past.  The choices I made and how I had fallen short.  Feelings of failure and inadequacy affected the actions I took in the future.  I believed that if I was harder on myself then I would be and do better.  I was wrong.  I could never beat myself up enough to find more happiness or success.  Look at the story you are telling yourself about your past up to this point in your life.  How are you allowing it to define you? Are you allowing the things you did or didn’t do in the past define you? What would your life look like if you could starting defining yourself from the future? When we recycle our past thinking we create more of our past.  One of my mentors, Brooke Castillo, teaches “if you want to create something new, if you want to implement a new idea, you have to think a thought you have never thought before." In order to grow and evolve I needed to turn my focus to the future.  The future is there for the taking.  The truth is, th

  "When we numb the dark, we numb the light." I love this quote from Brené Brown. Experiencing highly intense emotions can be very uncomfortable.  We can feel vulnerable. Most of us try to move away from those uncomfortable emotions so we don't have to feel vulnerable or uncomfortable. We don't allow ourselves to feel or process these feelings. We go right to numbing them by buffering them with anything that will give us relief as quickly as possible. In her book, The Gifts of Imperfection, Brené shares some things that we turn to "take the edge off" from feeling negative emotion. Things like "alcohol, drugs, food, sex, relationships, money, work, caretaking, shopping, planning, perfectionism, constant change, and the Internet." However, when we turn to our buffers we limit our ability experience the positive or comfortable emotions. Emotions like peace, love and joy. Brené also teaches that there is "no such thing as selective emotional numbi

One of the first things I teach my clients is the difference between our circumstances and our thoughts.  Understanding this one concept can change your life. Circumstances are those things that happen outside of ourselves and that we don't have direct control over. Often times, we believe that if we could just change the circumstances we could feel better. But most of the time this doesn't work. Whenever we focus on controlling, manipulating or changing the circumstances in our lives, we loose our own power. We find ourselves at the mercy of the belief that if the things outside of us would just change then we could be happy or feel better. If we could just lose weight.... If we could just have a different house.... If our children would just choose differently.... If we could convince our spouse to stop being so negative.... Then we could feel better. Believing this keeps us stuck in always searching and never finding happiness. Understanding this is so freeing and opens us u

Have you taken the time to ask yourself this question? For many of us, we describe ourselves by our occupation, our roles, our talents, and our appearance. Does this sound like you? I used to do this myself. I remember when my youngest child was getting ready to leave for college I found myself wondering who I was.   I had defined myself as a stay-at-home mom for so long. I loved this role and I am so grateful for the opportunity I have to be a parent. My children have been my greatest teachers and have inspired my growth in many ways. However, I was entering the season of life when all of my children would live outside of our home and they would be beginning their next season of life. I found myself wondering what my purpose was. I had spent 28 years taking care of my family.  In the process, I had lost touch with "who" I was.  What was my value now? If you have found yourself wondering the same thing, Life coach, Kim Giles, has shared some questions that I invite you to con