woman peeking over the top of a white sheet with eyes wide

Making Friends with Fear

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And learning to LOVE that part of yourself you’ve been rejecting.

If you’ve done boatloads of therapy and regularly practice mindfulness and are deeply (and daily) in connection with your life purpose, then perhaps fear isn’t quite as paralyzing for you. If that’s the case, I salute you, you highly evolved human! Go forth and prosper.

In my case, and the case of most people I talk to, fear is such a powerful force it is often the loudest voice in the room. In fact, fear is so big I’m going to start capitalizing it to convey the proper respect a force of that magnitude deserves.

And Fear is sneaky too. It wears all sorts of disguises, and is so woven into our habits of thinking and behaviour that we often call it by other names, saying things like “That’s just the way I am, I’ve always struggled with _______.”

Procrastination? Fear. People Pleasing? Fear. Perfectionism? Fear. Writer’s Block? Fear. Making the “responsible” decision when your heart is screaming at you to do something else? Fear.

Fear, Fear, Fear.

My own fears feel bottomless, endless, all consuming at times. Like a dense fog that fills the room and obscures everything else from view. Other times, like when I’m getting lots of exercise and time outside and making a lot of space to do things purely for the beauty or joy of them (often known as vacation) Fear can take more of a backseat and other forces like that of Inspiration or a sense of Meaning can float to the surface.

Fear has been such a powerful force in my life that it can be really painful to look back and examine all of the various choices I’ve made (or more often failed to make through avoidance) that were ultimately fear-based. It can be easy to judge myself (Fear) for how much I’ve let this thing control me, or to feel powerless against such an overwhelming force. It’s also tempting to get mad at my Fear voice and reject her, to lock that fearful part of myself up in a closet and pretend she’s not there, banging on the door.

But eventually that fearful self busts her way out and comes back at me with a vengeance, armed with catalog of all my various failings and embarrassments and worst of all, those times other people misunderstood or judged or rejected me. And what’s a woman to do against a lifetime’s worth of evidence that she’s better just stop everything and stay small and quiet to avoid further error?

So judging myself doesn’t work. And fighting my Fear doesn’t work either. Noted.

Where does this leave us then? In the epic battle (oops, there’s that antagonistic energy again) between our Fear and the bigger life or self that we are longing to step into?

For me, something I’m practicing is love. Yes, love, another force powerful enough to warrant capitalization. I’m working on shining a little Love on that fearful part of myself when she starts up with her endless list of concerns.

Instead of judging her or myself, or trying to fight her or shut her away in a closet, I’m giving her a moment of airtime to share her concerns, and I’m validating them like a kind parent would do, while still letting her know who’s in charge. She’s actually pretty sweet after all, this little fearful self, and she is only ever trying to protect me.

Oh, you’re worried people will think this post is stupid and not like me? I hear that. I know how scary it is for you to not be liked. I know it really hurts your feelings when that happens. But we need to write this anyway, okay?

Oh, you’re afraid that if you tell a friend you aren’t up for something they’ve suggested, they won’t like you anymore? That does sound really scary because I know how much you care about your friends. But it’s really important to be honest about our needs, because otherwise we end up feeling resentful, right?

Cheesy? Absolutely.

Embarrassing? A little bit, yea. Especially sharing this inner narrative with other people.

But damn is it effective.

And my fear of looking stupid or cheesy or preachy is still present. She’s with me right now. She’s always here, any time I write anything that I intend to share. But she’s chill now because we had a little chat about it, and she totally gets that I need to share my writing anyway. She knows that if something I write helps even one single person, then I’m doing what I’m here to do, and she respects that.

It’s this new thing we’re trying on: mutual respect.

So that’s it! Nothing earth-shattering, and yet maybe it is. So give it a try if you can stand the cheesiness of it all. And if you notice something feels a little different or a bit less scary, I want to hear about it! Reply to this email and let me know.

As a final note, you’ll see from the examples above that most of my fears revolve around others not liking me. Perhaps that’s my Enneagram 2 showing up, or it’s just incredibly human to be deathly afraid of rejection. Probably a bit of both, so that theme may be worth noticing in yourself too.

Until next time, be good to yourself, and to your Fear,

Karen

Just do the Bare Minimum

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No seriously, I mean it.

Full permission to do only what needs to be done right now. The less the better.

If you’re bursting with energy and ambition and excited to tackle all your goals, then great, get after it! You do you. But if not, if right now you, like so many of us, are languishing after a really hard year, then it’s time to scale way way back and focus simply on the one or two things that are most important.

As always, I’m speaking from experience. Some time last week, it became clear to me that I would “fail” to meet virtually all of the goals I set out for myself this month. I wasn’t sleeping, I was exhausted, and my whole body just felt off. I couldn’t get myself to focus on anything aside from being present with my clients in their sessions and responding to what felt like an overwhelming number of emails. I just didn’t have any more in me, and so nothing was getting done. Trigger the shame spiral of What’s wrong with me? Why am I so ineffective? What happened to all that good momentum I created last month? You get the idea.

A good friend and I meet via Zoom each month to discuss our goals, then follow up weekly with our progress and challenges, as well as what’s next for the week ahead. It’s been an amazing practice to do this together, and a lot of good has come out of it, but this also means that I can’t just tuck my unmet goals under the rug and pretend I don’t see them. I have to face them down at the end of the month and, worst of all, share with another human that I simply didn’t accomplish everything I set out to do.

So this past weekend, when I sat down to look at my goals for the month and make a plan for this week, the urge was strong to say oh, I’ll just do everything that’s left on my list. That’s what makes sense! Even though I’m exhausted and overwhelmed, I’ll just put my head down, power through, and attempt to complete everything I said I would this month. It’s the kind of thing I’ve done to myself in the past, completely setting myself up for failure, knowing all the while I was doing it, but not knowing how to simply give myself permission to relax and let up when I needed to.

I am struggling right now, and there is no room for anything extra. Sometimes it’s like that.

Fighting that reality only makes things harder on ourselves. This, of course, is the type of wisdom and generosity I always have for my clients or friends when they are struggling and being hard on themselves, but it’s harder to bring that compassion to myself when I’m dealing with my own challenges.

So this week I took my own advice and scaled way back. I threw out all of those ideas a much more energetic version of me committed to back in early April, and focused only on what I knew was most needed. My goals were simple, and focused on what I needed to build my strength and energy back up (and hopefully sleep through the night) so that I could start fresh in May.

Success this week looks like getting outside to move every morning, doing my blood sugar cleanse, and sharing my coaching newsletter. That’s it. No bells and whistles. Just three things that move the needle forward on my health, my mental health, and my work. When I settled on these three things, I felt my whole body relax. Yes, this is what’s most important. I’ll start here.

And if I could have picked only one goal to focus on, it would have been the morning time outside. Hands down. Each time I forget how important this is and begin to neglect it (which is often), I suffer. My energy suffers, my productivity suffers, my mental health suffers. It’s simple and obvious, and oh so easy to forget. When I get outside in the morning, breathe in the fresh spring air and get my body moving, I am a better version of myself. It’s that simple.

And that better version of me can blow through to-dos like nobody’s business. So, if I’m really committed to my goals, the most important thing I can do is to make sure she’s the one driving the bus.

So, a challenge: What are a few things that you can let go of right now? That you can move off of your plate until a later point? And what’s the one thing that, when you do it, makes everything else easier? It’s time to make that thing your top priority.

On that note, off I go for my final morning walk of the week!

Karen

Looking on the Bright Side

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I’m going to keep it super short this month because, frankly, I didn’t plan my time well, and short is all I can manage on this final day of March 😉

We’re more than a year into this crazy pandemic, and like everyone I’ve been through my ups and downs with it. Lately, I am struggling with an impatient sort of boredom, the sense of each week being just like the last. I’ll get to Thursday and think “awesome, it’s almost the weekend”, but then I’ll realize that my weekends are pretty much all the same too, and then before I know it, it’ll be Monday again and the cycle will start all over. I know many people felt like this LONG ago, but for some reason, it’s hitting me most powerfully right now.

So, to counteract this general malaise and sense of stagnation, lately I’ve been working on practicing gratitude more. I know what you’re thinking. Ah yes, I just need to practice gratitude! That should solve everything! Cue eye roll here. Seriously though, if you’re not in the mood for this particular type of self-helpy post, stop now and spare yourself. Sometimes we just don’t need to hear one more suggestion of how we can personally exert more effort in order to become better at surviving an insane world. I get it. I’m not always up for these types of posts either.

Practicing gratitude can feel hard sometimes, especially in the midst of a pandemic. If I’m not careful, it’s easy to turn an attempt at practicing gratitude into an excuse to feel guilty for all of the abundance in my life. Starting off with “I’m grateful for our beautiful apartment” conjures up thoughts of people who are being evicted during this time, or “I’m so grateful for this yummy breakfast” makes me think of all the millions of people who don’t have access to food.

But me doing that is basically the exact opposite of practicing gratitude. That’s practicing guilt, and frankly, I’ve had enough practice with guilt to last a lifetime. In case you too struggle with this particular form of self-sabotage, I want to remind you that feeling guilty does not help you put food in other people’s mouths or right the wrongs in the world. In fact, feeling guilty drains your energy and saps your motivation, thus preventing you from serving the world in whatever way you are here to serve. So stop doing it to yourself, okay?

So, what does practicing gratitude mean? I’m sure there are a million definitions, but to me it’s about cultivating awareness of the many positives in my life, and making a point of actively appreciating them. The awareness part is key because if we don’t even notice a certain blessing in our life, we can’t very well appreciate it, can we? Think of how many daily pleasures we took for granted until COVID forced us to realize how wonderful it really was to stop in a coffee shop, chat with coworkers over lunch, or go to an evening yoga class.

For me, practicing gratitude is about making an effort to notice all the blessings or simple pleasures that would otherwise fall below my conscious awareness.

When I’m journaling by my window in the morning, I’ll start a bunch of sentences with “I’m so grateful for…” and trust my creativity to do the rest. Focusing on the present moment and all of the things to be grateful for there is often a good starting point, leading to sentences like “I’m so grateful for all the cute dogs in our neighbourhood. I’m so grateful for this gorgeous warm day. I’m so grateful for my yummy tea.” You get the idea. Simple things. Things that exist, in that very moment, for me to notice and cultivate appreciation for.

Another practice I’ve recently picked back up is listing out 10 things that went well at the end of each day. Again, these are super simple: “I flossed my teeth tonight. I am in bed before 10:30. I didn’t watch any tv today.” Any small wins apply! Some days it takes me a really long time to come up with 10 things I feel good about, especially if it wasn’t a great day. But I think these are the very days it is most important to seek out the positives. So I sit there, wracking my brain and feeling annoyed by the whole exercise. But by the time I’m finished, I’ve spent that time training my brain to focus on the positive, to notice that, even in the midst of a crappy and unproductive day, there are still things that I can feel good about.

So I want to offer you a challenge, especially if you’re feeling a little blah yourself lately:

Spend a few minutes each morning, and a few minutes each evening, consciously focusing on what you have to be grateful for, or something you can be proud of. Small things. Try it out for a few days and just notice how you feel.

The cool thing is, as we start to train our brains to notice positives, they start doing that for us throughout our days. And that’s the whole idea. Lately I’ll often catch myself thinking “oh, I can put this on my list!” when I have a little win during the day.

On that note, I’m going to add “I sent out my March Newsletter” to my list of positives tonight!

Here’s to the little wins,

Karen

Emotional Heavy Lifting

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“Your feelings are like your muscles Karen, they want to be used.” 

A brilliant piece of advice from my dear friend and former roommate Tiffany, sometime circa 2009. I don’t remember the context, or exactly which type of “negative” emotion I was trying to suppress at the time, but her words have stayed with me over the years. I’d come home some weeks before her comment with a life changing concept from my Pilates Instructor (and now dear friend) Michael. I’m sure I was complaining about some exercise hurting or being hard, and he told me that my muscles want to be used. That this is why they exist, to be used.

For some reason this reframe totally blew my mind, and I shared it with Tiffany when I got home that night. So she was in a perfect position to use a similar analogy weeks later when I was trying to gloss over or suppress some sadness or fear I was feeling at the time. She’s right, of course, and our emotions exist for exactly this reason, to be felt. They exist to be felt, to tell us whatever it is they are trying to tell us, and then to move on.

I’ve come a long way over the years, but the temptation to ignore what I’m feeling is still a strong one. Yes, even though a big part of my job is to help other people sit with and process their own emotions, I still often struggle to do the same myself. Actually giving space to our feelings is so necessary because a) they don’t move on unless we give them expression, and b) suppressing them actually requires an enormous amount of psychic energy.

We don’t want to go there for whatever reason, maybe we’re afraid that if we start crying we might never stop, or that if we let ourselves feel the fear or the anger we’ll discover that it’s bottomless. Or it’s inconvenient because we just put makeup on and now it’s going to be a whole thing. So we avoid, delay, or numb ourselves with distractions, which works for a while.

The problem is that our emotions don’t actually leave us when we do this, they just go underground and fester until we can’t take it anymore and have a completely over-the-top reaction to something completely benign. Avoiding what we are feeling is also extremely costly energetically, and it leaves us depleted (and depressed) if we do this for too long.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, because it seems like everyone I talk to right now is running on empty. I wrote about exhaustion last month, and encouraged people to give themselves the rest they need. Now I’m beginning to wonder how much of our exhaustion stems from all of the energy costs of keeping the “negative” emotions at bay.

I keep using quotations around “negative” because there isn’t actually anything inherently bad about what we consider to be negative emotions. They are uncomfortable, I’ll give them that. Sadness sucks, fear is uncomfortable, loneliness is downright unbearable at times. But these emotions themselves are not actually harmful. They’re simply information, a form of communication from our bodies that is asking to be heard.

It’s been a pretty crazy year, and I think most of us have a lot of unprocessed grief and fear and anger just sort of lurking around and waiting to be released. Waiting to be felt.

So, with that in mind, here are a few things that made me feel this month:

Folklore – The Long Pond Studio Sessions – I’ve always appreciated Taylor Swift as a writer/storyteller, and it makes me so happy to see her going back to her roots with this album. In this documentary, she performs each song from the album and talks with her co-creators about the meaning of each song, and the unique experience of recording an entire album remotely. I specifically found the song “This is me trying” and the conversation they have about mental illness and addiction to be very powerful. In fact, it gave me a much needed ugly cry, and I felt about 10 pounds lighter afterward.

Expecting Amy – This 3 part HBO documentary follows Amy Schumer as she prepares to film her latest standup special, all while being pregnant and extremely ill with hyperemesis. I felt awe at how resilient she was in the face of seemingly constant suffering, and also a vicarious pride at how damn powerful she is as a woman at the top of her game and using her voice in the world. I also felt absolute rage at how poorly understood hyperemesis has been historically, and how long women’s suffering has been ignored or invalidated by the medical community (spoiler alert: they used to blame women for having the condition and accuse them of “attention seeking”).

The Weight of Gold – Michael Phelps narrates this documentary about mental illness among Olympic athletes, and opens up about his own struggles with depression, and how the Olympic Committee fails to support its athletes in this way. The film features other household names and highly successful Olympians, all of whom open up about the extreme isolation and emptiness that comes with their unique lifestyle, and the mental health challenges they’ve faced as a result. It was extremely moving to watch people who are held up as the pinnacles of achievement and strength admit to deep depression, thoughts of suicide, and their own sense of powerlessness in protecting their fellow athletes from an epidemic of mental illness. A must-watch and a powerful call to action in the continued fight to destigmatize mental health issues.

I hope something here gives you the space and the permission to feel whatever it is you’re feeling. The cool part is, just like after a dreaded workout, you’ll find you can breathe easier.

Until next time,

Karen

Woman curled up sleeping in a bed of white sheets and pillows

In Defense of Rest

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Anyone else feeling utterly exhausted lately?

Normally I’d assume it was just me and feel badly about that, but it seems like almost everyone I talk to is on the same page right now.

Tired. Overwhelmed. Burnt out. Whatever you want to call it, exhaustion seems to be the theme of January 2021.

And can you blame us? We have quarantine fatigue, election fatigue, compassion fatigue, and have been living with extreme uncertainty and fear for almost an entire year now. That’s to say nothing of the whole attempted coup situation…

It’s been a LOT. So perhaps it makes sense that we’re tired. I think a lot of us have gotten very good at “pushing through”, managing to keep things together and get things done, while simultaneously digging ourselves into a deeper energy debt in the process. I know I’m guilty of this, and it’s something I’m only beginning to shift.

What I’m practicing right now is being okay with my exhaustion. Holding it lightly. Letting it be what it is, and most importantly, actually listening to it. Like every human feeling, exhaustion is simply information, it is trying to tell us something. It’s telling us that we need rest.

* * *

Rest is such an undervalued concept, especially in American culture. Needing rest seems like a weakness of some sort, failure at a very core level. I think we’re all afraid that if we let ourselves rest, really take the time we need to recuperate and fill ourselves up again, that all our productivity will go out the window. This is definitely where part of my fear lies. I’m afraid that if I let go and let myself rest, push off that goal or that workout or whatever it is, I’ll become a complete blob and never accomplish anything.

But I’m learning. I went surfing recently for the first time in months, and literally the second I started paddling, I could feel my exhaustion. My arms were spent midway through the paddle out, and it took what felt like forever to drag myself out there. I could feel my weakness, my body just had nothing to give, and here I was paddling out into the ocean to spend hours chasing down waves.

And I tried, I really did. I paddled for wave after wave, my effort at maybe 60% of my usual capacity, and I didn’t catch a single one. I was never in the right spot, they kept rolling on through, and I just didn’t have the heart or the arms to catch them. After an hour or so, I had a completely revolutionary idea. I could simply paddle back in and sit on the beach while I waited for Jamie to finish up. I could stop trying that very moment, not in defeat, but in a gesture of deep listening. I could honour what my body was telling me, and go in and rest.

I’ve literally never done that before, not in over a decade of surfing. Sure I’ve paddled in without catching anything plenty of times, but I’ve always felt terrible about it, and fought to the very end in an attempt to avoid defeat. Feeling guilty for “giving up” before I caught something, sessions like that would leave me hostile for the rest of the day, ego bruised and touchy. I also couldn’t count the number of times I’ve stayed way too long in the water, trying and trying for just one more wave, only to eventually hit a wall of exhaustion so profound that I could barely make it back to shore, my body literally shaking with fatigue.

So it’s no exaggeration to say this time was a revelation. Bobbing up and down on my board, I sat with the idea for a minute and made sure it felt right. Then I paddled back to shore, threw on my hooded towel and smiled as I watched the other surfers, feeling proud of myself in an entirely new way.

* * *

This is now one of my big intentions for 2021 and beyond. To listen to my body and to honour my own needs, instead of acting like they’re some sort of inconvenience getting in the way of more “important” things. And I’m starting to get the hang of it!  I had ambitions of doing a specific yoga class every single Tuesday night this year, but last Tuesday, I just didn’t have it in me. Talking to another coach friend that afternoon, I realized that doing a few gentle movements and some squats for 10 minutes or so would honour my body’s needs for movement, without depleting my energy further with a full class.

This week, I had a bunch of things I wanted to get done, and then a bunch of things I needed to get done. It didn’t all happen. Staring down my to do list on Monday morning I was feeling absolutely awful about it all, desperate and anxious and super time-crunched trying to fit it all in. My big goal for 2021 is to get my new blog up and running and share something each month, and it felt like I would fail entirely if I didn’t hit “publish” in January.

When I actually sat back for a minute and thought about how I want to feel along the way to my goals, it occurred to me that pushing this start date back by a week wouldn’t be the end of the world. This too was a revelation. I’d been feeling all this pressure, this unbearable weight pushing down on me, without realizing that I was the one responsible. That pressure was completely self-imposed, and therefore I could also set myself free of it.

That old narrative started up almost immediately with “If you push it to next week, you’ll just keep pushing it and before you know it it will be 2022 and you’ll have done nothing. Nothing!” Forgive my french, but f*ck that. Yes my goals are important to me, deeply important in fact, but not at the cost of my sanity.

* * *

So this is the balance I’m trying to strike, and I hope you’ll give yourself permission to do the same. January is often a time of new goals and ambitions, and it can feel downright frightening to let up on those right now. But I promise you that if you truly give yourself the rest you need, you will emerge on the other side stronger, more motivated, and more powerful than before.

So please take this as your permission slip. Here’s a life coach saying “Who cares if you don’t meet your January goals!? Skip that workout if you need to!” I mean it. I really do. Like everything in life, work and rest must exist in balance in order for us to feel (and yes, to perform) our best.

So make some time for rest. Today and any other day you need it. I don’t know what rest looks like for you, or what’s possible, given the demands of your life. But I feel certain that, in addition to the external demands of your life, there is a lot of self-imposed pressure that only you can grant yourself freedom from.

So here’s to freedom, and here’s to rest,

Karen

Reflection in a sideview mirror of a blonde woman taking a photo

Who do you think you are?

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You know those moments when something hits you just the right way?

Like when you’ve heard a concept before, but then someone says it in a new way that makes sense to you, or catches you in just the right frame of mind, and suddenly it clicks? I had that happen last week watching a TED talk by Caroline McHugh called The Art of Being Yourself.

McHugh is a speaker, author, coach, founder, and all around badass. She also has a killer Scottish accent, so maybe that’s what got me. Either way, she talks about the different layers of identity in a way that I hadn’t quite heard before and found really helpful.

It helps to think of this model of identity as four concentric circles. Moving from superficial to deep, we have Perception, Persona, Ego and Self.

* * *

At the most superficial level, there’s perception, what other people see/think/believe when they encounter us. This is the piece that is completely out of our hands, as frustrating and sometimes agonizing as that can be. I’ve spent most of my life straining against this simple fact of life, believing that if only I tried harder or did something better, I should be able to control what other people think of me, I should be able to make them see me.

In truth, what other people think about us isn’t really about us. It’s about them. It’s about their own egos, and the ways that we either threaten or bolster the image they have of themselves and the world. Wherever we show up in our lives, every single person we encounter will have a unique perspective of us. While a huge part of me wishes it were different, I also feel a big sigh of relief that it’s not all up to me. I’ve wasted A LOT of mental energy over the years trying to control what others think of me, trying to prove that I’m good enough, that there’s more to me than meets the eye. Relief is letting all that wasted effort and misplaced responsibility fall away.

One thing I find helpful here is considering the fact that there will be as many different perceptions of me as there are people on the planet. Every single human I engage with has their own history, their own biases, and their own ego fears, and all of those things influence how that person will experience me. When I really let that truth sink in, it hits me that I couldn’t possibly control that, no matter how hard I try. So while it might hurt when I feel judged or misunderstood, at least I can let go of the self-blame that says “if only I did better…”

We are responsible only for how we show up. We are not responsible for how we are received. There’s power in remembering this. Freedom too.

* * *

Persona is the way we want other people to see us. It’s the image we are trying to project into the world to influence the way others perceive us. Your persona is unique to you because it’s based on your beliefs and your values, sort of an idealized self. But it’s not YOU at your core. Persona is an image, a positive distortion like a ‘personal brand’ or a social media presence, polished to perfection. Persona is about you, but it isn’t you.

For example, I want other people to see me as smart, kind, confident and interesting. Those are qualities that I value, things I aspire to be, so I want others to see them when they look at me. And while I may be those things much of the time, or at least when I’m at my best, I can also be moody and petty and insecure and flat out boring. Some days all I want to do is lie on the couch and watch old Sex and the City episodes, which I can’t imagine qualifies as either a marker of intelligence or an interesting way to spend a Saturday. This is where things get tricky with personas. If we’re busy trying to prove to the world that we’re one thing, that leaves a lot of other parts of ourselves we’re trying to keep under wraps, fearful of being exposed.

* * *

Going a level deeper, our ego is the way we see ourselves. Much as they feel like they are, our egos are still not us. Our egos are beliefs we hold about ourselves, ideas of our own specialness, and also the ways we imagine ourselves to be unacceptable or flawed or uniquely burdened. Our egos exist to maintain our sense of separateness from others, so they love to engage in comparisons to keep those walls up. I’m as guilty of this as anyone, but aren’t we all addicted to comparing ourselves with others?

We make comparisons in order to feel better about ourselves when we’re feeling low, and to feel worse about ourselves a good portion of the time too. Or at least I do. This is a pattern I’ve noticed recently. Any time I start thinking “damn, I’ve come a long way in the last few years” and start feeling good about myself and my future prospects, my ego jumps in to say “Well what about Nadia? She’s running two successful businesses.”

In an instant, I feel less connected to my friend. Instead of simply being two souls on our own paths who have much to share with and learn from each other, suddenly we’re competitors fighting over the same piece of pie. Her success is my failure. What an isolating way of approaching the success of someone I love. But this is exactly what the ego wants, to keep us safe by keeping us separate.

* * *

What struck me most about the ego portion of Caroline’s talk was the idea that it’s possible to develop an ego based on what she calls interiority, rather than one based on comparison with others. Interiority is all about being yourself. Comparing yourself only to your own values and beliefs, and what you think matters most. This is a big part of the coaching process, helping people to get clear on what they actually care about, what excites them and pleases them and brings them joy, then using this as the blueprint against which to evaluate how they’re living. I still catch myself in comparison mode more often than I’d like, but being focused on my own values helps me catch myself in the act, and reorient myself toward what really matters.

Though she doesn’t explicitly say it in the talk, I do also think there is tremendous value in making comparisons with ourselves. And I don’t mean thinking “I used to be skinnier back in high school” and feeling badly about that. I mean comparing yourself favorably to past versions of you. I mean taking the time to notice and appreciate your progress on the things that matter to you. I have x more clients than I had last year. I never used to have a daily journaling practice, and look at me now… You get the idea. Feeling a sense of progress is one of the most potent motivators out there, and it feels good too.

So go ahead and make comparisons, just do them with yourself, and in a way that serves, rather than diminishes you.

* * *

Finally, at the deepest level, there’s the self. Not the you that you wish to be, not the you that others see, and not even the you that you think you are. Just you. Pure presence. The one who notices a particularly beautiful sky, or appreciates the warmth of a coffee cup in your hands or the way the leaves glow with green after the rain. The human soul that exists underneath all of the thoughts and feelings and fears and stories. I don’t know about you, but this is a part of myself I’d like to spend more time inhabiting.

In the rare moments of pure presence I have experienced, the rest of the layers simply fall away. It’s just me out there in the waves, feeling the cold water against my bare hands and face, or on the yoga mat, muscles burning and breath heavy, but right there, 100% present in my body and in the moment. As far as I can tell, these moments of presence are what make life most rewarding, but in our increasingly distracted culture, they can be hard to come by.

So what brings you back to yourself? What place or practice quiets all of the noise and allows the fears to fall away?

Whatever it is, I hope you find it. We need our egos to survive in this crazy world, but it sure is nice to take a break from them once in a while.

Wishing you a break from the noise this holiday season,

Karen

Person standing against twilight sky, letting a fan of leaves drift from their hand

Letting Go of the Old

/in /by

Fall has always been one of my favourite times of year.

Nothing compares to that crisp back-to-school feeling when you step outside in the morning, or the vibrant oranges and reds of the autumn leaves. For most of my life, fall meant that a long cold Canadian winter was on the horizon, but even that dread wasn’t enough to stop me from feeling a burst of excitement when I first noticed the hint of crispness in the air.

Living in San Francisco is almost an absence of seasons in many ways, but I still feel the pull of fall. It’s a season of change, of letting go. First the leaves transform completely from their summer green to reds and oranges and yellows so bright and beautiful it almost defies belief. Then once the dramatic display is complete, the trees release their leaves to the earth to start a whole new cycle of life.

* * *

In a way, 2020 has been all about letting go. So much fell away from us all at once, and we just don’t know when the life we once took for granted will come back, or what things will look like on the other side of all this. But in the space left behind by the loss of so much, new things have emerged. That’s just how it works. In order for something new to come in, first we must create space by letting go of the old.

For me, 2020 has allowed me to let go of teaching Pilates and step fully and unapologetically into coaching full time. This change was forced on me by the circumstances of 2020, but how wonderful, because it would have taken me so much longer to come to this decision on my own. And how well-timed too, because more people than ever need coaching right now, and now I have the space to take them on.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, about how we must make space for whatever is next by actively practicing letting go.

I’ve been on a tear the last month or so, going through and decluttering each room and each closet one by one. Fall just hits me that way, and I’m determined to rid myself and my space of any excess, any things that are no longer necessary for the version of myself I am stepping into. It’s a weird hobby of mine, but a very satisfying one. Each time I part with something old, I know that I am not only passing it on for someone else to make use of, but I’m also freeing myself up to allow whatever is next to come in.

When I cleaned out my closet a few weeks ago, I decided to give away half of my yoga pants. It just made sense, and it felt like such a concrete way to signal the closing of one door and the beginning of a whole new chapter. And I’m not rushing out to buy something new to immediately fill that void. I’m just creating space, and trusting that something new will come in when the time is right.

* * *

I’ve also been practicing letting go of old beliefs and habits. I use the world ‘practicing’ because changing our beliefs isn’t as simple as giving away an old sweater, never to be seen again. Our belief systems and the narratives we carry about ourselves and the world are deeply ingrained in us, and have been with us most of our lives. So I’m making an effort to notice the beliefs and habits that are no longer serving me, and consciously choosing to let them go. And when they pop back up again a day or week or a month later, I can notice them and say “Hey, didn’t I get rid of you already?” and let them go once more.

I’ve created a little ritual to help me practice letting go. This started a few years ago, during another season of decluttering, when I was forced to confront how many damn seashells I’d collected over the years, and the fact that most of them have been sitting unseen in a box in my closet. I made a commitment to stop hoarding things that didn’t belong to me, and to return them to their rightful place in the Pacific.

So a few times a month, I bring a shell from my collection along with me on one of my beach walks. I think about what I most need to let go of as I walk along playing with the shell between my fingers, and after sufficient walking, an answer comes. Always. It’s kind of amazing what happens when you simply make space for things to emerge.

* * *

On my walk last week, the answer hit me with a force. It was a perfect day, so warm I was tempted to go for a swim, which virtually never happens here. I walked and walked along the strip of sand that hugs Crissy field, all the way past my favorite old pier, thinking of what I most needed to let go of. I felt the urge to lie down in the warm sand and listen to the sound of the waves gently lapping against the shore, and decided to follow my impulse, ignoring the nagging thoughts saying I really “should” rush home and get to work. It was just too perfect a day and I couldn’t face going back yet, not when I still had hours before my first client, and ample time to prepare.

It hit me then, lying on my back on the warm golden sand. What I most needed to let go of was impatience with myself. I can be so impatient with myself, or rather, I always have been. Working on a new narrative here! But the old familiar song goes: I “should” be publishing more writing, I “should” have more clients and be charging them more, I “should” really be marketing myself like crazy on social media, and just hurry up and become wildly successful and perfect already. You know the drill. Should, should, should.

I don’t know about you, but for me, the more I focus on the shoulds, the ways in which I find myself lacking, the more elusive those things actually become. It’s like they can sense my desperation and they want no part of it. Conversely, the more I relax into myself and trust in my passion, my ability, and the fact that I know without a doubt that I am doing the work I am meant to be doing in the world, the more easily things come to me. It’s almost like magic.

* * *

After soaking up the glorious warmth of the sun above me and the sand below me, in no great hurry I stood up, brushed myself off, and walked into the water as far as my shorts would allow. “I’m letting go of impatience with myself” I thought as I felt the shell’s contours between my fingertips one final time before pulling my arm back and throwing it as far as I could into the blue green water. Then I stood there for a minute, feeling just a little bit lighter.

And impatience with myself will return, I have no doubt. But now that I know how good it feels to set it aside for a while, I feel sure it will be much easier to notice and release it the next time around.

So, in the name of creating some space for yourself, what’s one unnecessary burden you could lift from your own shoulders? What’s one belief, expectation, or even piece of physical clutter you would like to release yourself from? And what might you be calling in by creating that space in your life and your mind?

Of course, I’m hoping that next week allows us to let go of an enormous burden that’s been weighing on us for four years now, but one thing at a time.

Until then, stay safe and stay sane,

Karen

Tiny bud of a green plant, growing in the cracks between old metal pipes

Hope is a verb.

/in /by

Hope feels hard to come by right now, doesn’t it?

Losing Ruth Bader Ginsberg felt like the death blow 2020 had been holding out on us, just in case we hadn’t all had enough already. That news took the legs out from under me for almost a week. “Well, it’s over.” I remember saying to my husband when I heard the news, a half folded t-shirt hanging limply from my hands. “That’s it. That’s the end of the dream of this country.”

And while I could certainly be accused of being dramatic, that’s what it felt like. That news hit me like a ton of bricks. I found myself powerless to do virtually anything for days afterward, fully convinced that my own life and my own actions were small to the point of irrelevance, given everything that’s going on.

* * *

A good friend of mine works for Collective Impact, a progressive non-profit focused on social and digital organizing. She emailed me last Monday to say that since RBG’s death they’d raised over $400K for key Senate races and signed up thousands of people in swing states to vote and/or work the polls. All this in just 2 days! The loss galvanized people, it woke them up and got them into action. Sure, they must have felt grief and fear and a deep sense of loss, but they let that move them toward action, rather than away from it.

I felt briefly buoyed by her optimism and this coordinated action of so many good people. “But I can’t even work the polls, let alone vote”, I said glumly to myself, and sank straight back into my own helplessness. I’d read a few weeks ago that in most places people must be registered voters in order to work the polls. Having my mood and perspective thus confirmed, I quickly closed the browser and sunk further into my powerlessness.

At some point last Thursday though, I got sick of myself. I got sick of saying “why even bother, nothing matters anymore”, and I decided to actually DO something. Anything. “Hope is a verb” came to me, and it felt important somehow. Right now hope does feel very much like something I must do, rather than something I simply have on hand to employ at will.

I’d always thought that since our beliefs guide our actions, belief must come first. But what if it works both ways? What if we can also use our actions to trigger feelings of hope? What if we can use action as a way to signal to ourselves that we have not yet given up?

* * *

With that in mind, I spent the five minutes it took to discover that I can work the polls (bless you California!), and registered to do so. I felt the weight of my helplessness lifting ever so slightly. “Well at least I can do that” I said to myself, and that felt like something. Suddenly I remembered a series of upcoming writing workshops I’d been meaning to register for, taught by the incredible Steve Almond.

Calling these “Workshops for Democracy“, Steve asks that you make a donation to a candidate or cause of your choosing, aimed at social and electoral justice. So I reached out to a friend, and now we’re set to take a workshop together.

**FYI I made my donations to Turn Texas Blue and Black Voters Matter, both of which I encourage you to check out if you haven’t already!**

That too, was something. Nothing earth-shattering, of course, but it was something. It was a small action that was within my power to take, a way to reach toward the world that I believe in. Will that alone sway the election? Of course not. But it was something, a teeny tiny ripple.

I imagine some hostile commenter jumping in to say “This? This is all you’ve done, all you’re doing? And you think that’s enough?” That voice is nothing more than my own Judge, that nasty voice I carry with me that wants me to remember at all times that I am not, have not, and never will be ENOUGH. The voice that always finds me lacking. Ironically, my Judge actually believes it’s helping, that constant badgering of me will spur me into action to just hurry up and be better already.

But the voices of shame never help us. The more guilty I feel about not doing/being enough, the more paralyzed I become, and the less action I take. Conversely, the better I feel, the more I do.

The better I feel about my own actions in the world, the more empowered I feel to take further action.

* * *

So I want to challenge you. What’s one thing you could do today, one concrete action that would leave you feeling empowered? What can you do to charge up your hope batteries a little?

It doesn’t have to be something huge or even outward facing. It could be the tiniest thing ever, just some small movement in the direction of remembering your own power. A hopeful action for me last week was cleaning my bathroom, strange as that may sound. It had felt grimy for a couple weeks, and every time I went in there, it bothered me. But I hadn’t done anything about it, because why even bother, right? And so it became a reminder, countless times a day, of my own powerlessness. Tangible evidence of my inability to effect change.

Last Friday I finally cleaned it. And while I certainly didn’t save the world with that action, I reminded myself of my own power. I reminded myself that it feels much much better to take action (even if it’s not fun), than it does to let something grate on you day after day, without DOING anything to change it.

Writing is a hopeful act for me, this belief that sharing what I’ve experienced might be of value to someone in some small way. So today I wrote. And who knows what impact that will make, or whether or not my writing “matters” in the great scheme of things. But I hope it does, and that’s reason enough to do it.

* * *

In the spirit of hope and remembering our power, here are 3 things you could do right now that are massively important and needed:

If these feel right for you and aligned with your values, please do so!

Finally, the #1 most important thing anyone can do right now is to talk to their family and friends about voting – and then get those family members and friends to do the same. When you talk with family and friends, and ask them 1) if they’re registered to vote and 2) if they have a plan to vote (and follow up). Then ask them how they plan on reaching out to their other family and friends to do the same. Who will they call or reach out to?

For some people, I know that talking to your family about voting may be about as much fun as cleaning your bathroom, but just remember how much better you’ll feel when it’s done!

* * *

I’ll leave you with two final quotes about hope that I’m appreciating lately:

“You don’t resist because you have hope. It’s only when you resist that you can see hope.”   – Coco Wong (Hong Kong protester)

 

“Choosing hope affects what gets my attention every day.” – Dr Edith Eger (Holocaust survivor)

Here’s to choosing hope, today and always,

Karen

P.S. Huge shout-out to Collective Impact for sharing their tips on actions to take right now, and for the rest of their amazing work. They’ve now raised over $2M for key senate races and registered 35K people to work the polls. There IS hope!

Poster of a frowning yellow cartoon face, held up by two hands.

The Upside of Judgment

/in /by

I’ve been thinking about judgment a lot lately. It’s something we do so naturally as humans, and it’s especially easy to judge others right now, isn’t it? I judge people for not wearing masks, I judge people for being Republicans, I judge people for being more concerned about the media-hyped “looting and burning” than they are about Black lives.

But I also judge people for much smaller offenses:

That person who fails to use their turn signal, causing me to get stuck behind them for an entire green light cycle? “SELFISH”

That person who leisurely walks across the road in front of me as I’m driving down the street, or pulls out of his driveway despite oncoming cars, forcing others to stop and wait for him? “SELFISH”, “ENTITLED”

That person who drives slowly in the left lane, oblivious to the backup behind them and causing everyone around them to behave less safely? “SELFISH”, “CLUELESS”

My neighbor who washes his driveway, literally washes his driveway with a hose, every single morning? “WASTEFUL”, “SELFISH”

* * *

Doing a quick scan of my go-to judgments, it’s clear that selfishness is one sin I cannot tolerate. My reaction is visceral, I feel it in my belly. How could you be so selfish? The state is burning down, water is not an infinite resource, how can you possibly think it’s okay to waste so much of it every day??? Get a broom for god’s sake. Just get a broom.

Anyway…

Clearly this one is still a struggle for me, but I’ve been working on my judgments a lot lately. I’m participating in a training program that’s all about uncovering and diminishing the power of our Saboteurs, those internal voices that get in the way of our growth and happiness. It turns out that the Judge, that voice that is constantly finding fault with ourselves, with others, or even with circumstances, is the ringleader of that internal chorus.

So I’ve been paying more attention to my Judge lately. Being on the lookout for that voice has definitely been uncomfortable, because it’s made me realize I’ve been living in Judge-mode all day every day. It’s automatic to the point of invisibility. But with awareness comes the ability to shift things, and over the last few weeks I find myself being less judgmental, both of myself, and of others. It’s so interesting what happens when your internal landscape changes. Everything changes.

* * *

When I was out for a morning walk last week, I saw a woman running toward me with a phone in her hand, looking down at it constantly. Normally I judge the crap out of people for doing this because phone addiction is a thing that really bothers me, but this time my immediate response was quite different. Upon noticing her, the first thing that floated to my mind was “I’m so grateful I don’t have to do that”. I felt deeply grateful for the fact that I routinely leave my phone at home while I’m out for a walk or doing other things, that I get to have uninterrupted time with myself and with nature.

It was such a nice moment. Gratitude is a much richer experience than the fleeting sense of superiority I would normally feel in that circumstance. And the truth is, I have no idea what’s going on in that woman’s life. For all I know, the only way she can get out for a run is to endure the compromise of still being available for either her job or her children. Maybe getting out for that run represents a victory of independence and self care on her part, and here I am judging it as not good enough. Or perhaps she simply is addicted to her phone, like so many people are. In which case, she is deserving of my compassion, not my judgment. I’ve struggled with plenty of addictive behaviors over the years, and still do to some extent. I’m just grateful tech addiction isn’t one of them.

On the same walk, another woman ran by, another woman I would typically judge on sight. “Why have you made such efforts to look good when you’re out for a run?” my Judge would usually say. Why the makeup and coordinated sports bra and pants? And surely if you’re so hot you need your whole torso exposed, it doesn’t make sense to be wearing full length pants. Why aren’t you wearing a t-shirt and shorts like a real athlete?

To be fair, I live in the Marina in San Francisco, which has got to be the world capital of athleisure, so my Judge has had a lot of practice critiquing this particular ensemble. This time though, my thought was simply “That’s a great colour, she looks really nice.” It’s pleasing to look at beautiful things, and by removing my Judge from the equation, I was able to simply appreciate her well coordinated outfit and fit frame.

* * *

There’s another layer to this though, something I’ve also been exploring lately. When I’m triggered by other people, when something about them really gets under my skin, I’m asking myself what that says about ME, rather than what it says about them. Sure I have strong values around substance over style, and am disheartened by what feels like an ever increasing pressure for women to look perfect and sexy and instagram-ready at all times, but it’s not just that. There’s something deeper.

What is this woman doing that I do not give myself permission to do? 

She is out in the world, trying her hardest, even when she is exercising, to look her best. To be bright and shiny and pretty, and to show off (oops, there goes my Judge again) how nice her body is. Hmm. No, that’s not really something I give myself permission to do. That’s not something that feels safe to me. When I do look my best, when I do my hair and wear make up and put on an outfit that really highlights my body, I’m uncomfortable with how much both men and women look at me. I feel judged and on display, and that doesn’t feel safe for me. It makes me want to hide. So I feel resentment when I see other women doing something I don’t give myself permission to do.

I resent her freedom to shine bright. 

And let’s be real, I’m probably never going to go for a run in the most on-trend outfit and a full face of makeup, because that’s just not who I am. But I do get a lot of joy out of playing with clothes and accessories, and I would LOVE to be able to go out in the world looking (and feeling) my best, and spend exactly zero energy agonizing over how other people feel about it. My sense is that if I keep quieting my own Judge more and more, I’ll live in less fear of being judged by others.

And that is definitely a worthy goal.

* * *

So what are your go-to judgements? And what might they say about YOU? If you dig deep, you may find that they help you clarify your values and practice gratitude, or they may be an opportunity to explore some of the ways in which you are holding yourself back and living out old stories.

Exploring the driving examples from earlier, I can’t imagine a more unwelcome quality in my family than selfishness or a sense of entitlement. Those were trained out of me from a very young age as just about the worst things a person could be. “Don’t always raise your hand to volunteer or answer a question Karen, because one of the other kids might want to do it”, that sort of thing. And while that was all very well-intentioned, it resulted in my borderline obsession with how my own behavior might be impacting others, and a reticence to take up any space whatsoever.

So there’s something for me to work on. And while it’s always important to be conscious of our impact, for those of us who have been conditioned to play small and not take up too much space, we may have something important to learn from the more “selfish” and “entitled” people we see all around us.

So here’s to exploring your own Judge, and may they lead you toward greater self-knowledge,

Karen

Woman at the beach. Holding her arms wide, face to the sun

Give Yourself a Break… from Yourself

/in /by

Life’s been quite a ride lately, hasn’t it?

Things are intense right now, on so many fronts. The tragedies of the virus and its ensuing economic fallout, and the fight for racial justice and police reform being met with further brutality and downright fascism by the current administration. And we’re all biting our nails for November too, because lord knows what will happen then. It’s A LOT, and that’s to say nothing of however you or your loved ones have been personally impacted by all that’s going on. 

But I’m not here to talk about all that’s wrong with the world, because you don’t need any more of that. I’m here to talk about taking care of your inner space, because, quite frankly, that’s all we have. 

I firmly believe that taking care of our own mental and emotional wellbeing is fundamental to our ability to better serve the world. This belief grows stronger each time I fall off my own self-care practice and become completely useless to those around me, something that’s happened multiple times in the past five months. Each time I have to claw myself out of a hole lined with “I should be doing more, there’s no time for self-care right now, that’s a privilege and you don’t deserve it” I start to see the light again. It’s only when I’m taking care of myself that am I strong enough to face the work that needs to be done, both in the world and in myself.

For me, taking care of myself means getting outside for a walk each morning, meditating, and journaling before I engage with technology or start my workday. Each time I fall away from this practice, it’s a slow downward spiral until a week later I start wondering “Why am I so depressed? Why do I feel so overwhelmed and unmotivated?” 

When you know what works for you, what makes you sane and strong and stable, you have to honour that every day. 

It’s that simple. Self-care is not a one and done solution. The harder I resist this truth, the more painful the reminders become. 

* * *

And speaking of painful reminders, I’ve been learning more about saboteurs lately. By saboteurs, I mean those judgy voices we have in our heads that tell us we’re not good enough, not smart enough, not doing enough, not successful enough, or that we shouldn’t even bother trying to change. You know the ones. We all have our own unique saboteurs, our own personal chorus of inner haters, but there are some universals as well. This assessment helps you recognize some of your top saboteurs, and is a fun (if somewhat confronting) tool for self-exploration! 

Unfortunately, our saboteurs are too often the voices we listen to and take counsel from, because we’ve been taught that harsh voices are necessary to help us grow and change. As hard as it might be to accept, these harsh voices do not serve us. In fact, they’re the very voices that keep us stuck. They make us feel panicked, ashamed, afraid, defeated, hopeless and most of all frozen. And that’s exactly what they want, because they exist to preserve the status quo in our minds and in our lives. They’re strong mental habits that keep things ‘safe’ and familiar, even if familiar sucks and we are desperately longing for change. 

I have some STRONG saboteurs, and they’ve gotten louder than ever lately. Something about the complete uncertainty of the future combined with a heightened awareness of my own privilege has woken them up in a big way. 

Here’s a few familiar hijackings:

There’s so much that needs to be fixed in the world, there’s so much I want to do, so much I want to say! What’s the point of even trying? Trump is going to burn this country to the ground. What could you possibly do to make a difference anyway?? Even your best intentions are probably ignorant or pointless and everyone is going to hate you.  

I miss my friends, I miss my family, I miss my Tuesday night yoga class. Oh poor you, is this deadly pandemic that’s disproportionately impacting people of color putting a damper on your social calendar? At least you have a roof over your head and food to eat. You should be grateful. And besides reading a bunch of books, what are you actually DOING to make any of this better? Oh what, you’re overwhelmed? Is this all too hard for you and your fragile white feelings? Get over yourself, other people have real problems. 

You get the idea. 

And while some of that might seem like good self awareness, it’s not actually helpful. It doesn’t serve. The tone, the utter contempt with which I am treating myself, all that does is feed my shame and guilt and sense of powerlessness, the very emotions that get in the way of me taking positive action. 

* * *

That’s the great irony of saboteurs. We listen to them because we think they make us self-aware, that they make us “realistic” about ourselves and our limitations. Most of all, we listen to them because we think they’ll help us grow, make us better people. In reality, they keep us spinning our wheels, exhausted by all the negative emotions they generate, and feeling too small and too scared to take a single step forward. 

Sometimes I still let these thoughts run away with me, but the more I come to understand my saboteurs, the more I can recognize when I’ve been hijacked. For one, I completely stop breathing. If I let these thoughts run wild, I get so caught up in the panic that I literally start holding my breath, a classic anxiety trigger. That’s the crazy power of saboteurs, they trigger our sympathetic nervous systems, start flooding our bodies with cortisol, and before we know it, we’re in “fight, flight or freeze” mode, which is a super toxic (link) place to live. 

Luckily, once you’re aware of your own saboteurs, intercepting them is surprisingly simple. The quickest way is to simply get present, to get in touch with your senses, your breath, the sights and sounds around you. Anything that gets you into your body and out of your racing mind helps to break the cycle. This is why taking a few deep breaths when you’re really stressed can be so powerful. 

* * *

And this is where that self-care practice comes in. Taking a walk and practicing mindfulness before I start my day means reading “Trump sends more troops to Portland” is less likely to trigger my victim saboteur, the one who says “why even bother doing anything at all?“, and puts me in a depressive funk all day. 

With all that’s going on right now, staying sane is no small feat. But it is a worthy effort, a little mini revolution. And when we let go of our saboteurs and their lies, we remember that the more we fill ourselves up, the more we have to give.

So what does self care mean to you? What makes you feel strong and calm? What daily practices can help you navigate this exceptionally difficult time in the world?

If you’re struggling with negative self talk, or looking for support to set up self care practices, you know where to find me!

Wishing you strength and calm amidst the chaos,

Karen