Transformed Thinking #4

“Manifesting Through Your Words”

Do you magnify your negative emotional state of well-being by talking about it repetitively with others?

Every time you repeat a story that involves a negative emotion it reinforces the experience that your body has from it.

Catch yourself when you are talking with others, are you seeking for agreement/validation about how bad a situation is? Or are you truly trying to find a resolution for the experience?

Be mindful of what you are manifesting by reliving the negative.

What kind of seeds are you planting if the narrative is negative?

Transformed Thinking #2

Letting Go!

What if we got real honest with ourselves and practiced releasing things we could never control to begin with?

What if we released our need to know what happens next?

Freedom is not easy when all we know is busy and bondage, but what if we shattered the patterns and set ourselves free from our thinking?

Release what we thought we needed, loosen our grips, unlearn what’s not serving us, let go of the old and focus on a new way of thinking and living.

Let’s create a new balance in this new season.

Transformed Thinking #1

There is Gray!

Not everything needs to be perfect. Its beautiful here in this space where there are shades of gray. We can choose to see the world in gray. My father challenged to me 13 years ago and said, “Nicole, look for the gray.”

A healthy person has the ability to see the full spectrum of color and variations. If the rigidity of your thinking is at the high-end of perfectionism, perhaps you are missing out on a large portion of beauty in this life.

Much of life takes place in the gray areas. Most experiences in life are not all good or all bad, but somewhere in between.

Build a practice of seeing different shades and see how your thoughts become transformed.

Identifying "'Stinkin Thinkin'" #4

Discounting the Positive

Rejecting positive experiences by insisting that they “don’t count”.  Having thoughts that say “it wasn’t good enough” or that “anyone could have done as good” when you clearly did a good job - these are examples of discounting the positive.  Discounting steals the positives and rips the joy out of life making you feel inadequate and unrewarded.

Being Ignored

Do you spend too much energy trying to make others comfortable and feel included that you leave yourself feeling strange and awkward in the process? What if we decided to make ourselves comfortable? What if we listened to our instincts? What if we held boundaries?

Well I decided to make myself comfortable and some have not appreciated the boundaries. Actually they were ignored! Yes, Ignored. I was ignored. My wishes ignored. My feelings ignored. When they finally tired of bumping up against my boundaries, I was blamed, yelled at and stomped on. People act out when they’ve crossed a line.

Today I am mindful of my environment. Who influences me and speaks into my life? Who inspires me? Who I choose to spend time with. Life is too short to people please and worry about whether others are uncomfortable, its non of my business. I’m my business!

I’m so grateful for this lesson. I’m free to spend time with my fantastic family. Creating new relationships. Nurturing and going deep in my relationship with my best friend. I’m so clear about honoring boundaries. I’m so clear about living into my values. I’m so clear about what healthy relationships look like.

Are you being ignored? Aren’t you tired of it? What are you ready to do about it?

Restoration

May is an excellent month for looking back to see how I’ve been doing with achieving my new year intentions. Well, I can honestly say I’m right on track of restoring my peace and serenity!

The meaning of restoration is bringing back to a former position or condition. Another meaning of restoration is to receive back more than has been lost to the point where the final state is greater than the original condition. I’ve been restoring my peace and serenity by living into my values and holding my boundries by understanding that relationships change when similar values are no longer shared and when people are growing differently. This is normal and okay, its called growth. If a relationship doesn’t align with your values, its okay and healthy to let it go. I’m getting back to my former place and perhaps even greater than my original condition. All of my own personal coaching sessions have been about growth and analyzing what my deepest core values are and recognizing when something has rubbed up against them.

Last weekend, Mother’s Day, I attended a women’s conference with my niece called “Renewed”. It was wonderful to be in the community of other similar minded women all checking in with themselves and being self-responsible for their lives and how they want to live their lives. It allowed me to reflect and take a quick inventory to see where I am and where I’m going.

Where are you with your yearly intentions?

What are you working on?

What would you like to restore to its original condition or better yet, greater than the original condition?

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Recovery From Miscarriage

This blog has been in my heart for years and I’ve been procrastinating it because its painful. However, I know it needs to be shared. I’m writing now because I have a strong feeling there are people, women and men, who need to hear it. My prayer is that it will bring hope to one person.

On our wedding, August 19, 2000, our justice of the peace asked in a whisper if we planned on children, Hal and I both nodded yes and she instantly projected her voice to shared a blessing of procreation.

Two years later, December 7, 2002, we experienced a miscarriage, May 8, 2003 a second miscarriage, April 9, 2004 (Good Friday) our third miscarriage. People said its common. Our general practitioner sent us to a specialist. There must be an explanation, a ‘fix’, a something that they can do.

Test after test and another two miscarriages while in the care of the specialist. The specialist did discover things about me but nothing as to why my body was miscarrying our children. There wasn’t an explanation, a ‘fix’, a something that they could do. He literally threw up his hands and said he was so sorry for us.

Our hearts were broken. We didn’t know how to cope. We didn’t know where to go for help. I drank vodka to drown my sorrow, my feelings of unworthiness, and all of those lost dreams. I felt like a failure. Between the fourth and fifth miscarriage my drinking escalated and become unmanageable. All of this was tearing my husband I apart. I could not go on and my husband would not go on watching me kill myself with alcohol. The ultimatum was set down, he reached an emotional bottom, the five miscarriages brought me to my knees and to my last alcoholic bottom.

I found help. It was November 11, 2007, I quit drinking, got sober and started to heal my sorrow and grief. December 3, 2008 we had our sixth miscarriage, I did not use alcohol to cope, to drown my sorrow. I found a solution. Twelve years later, as I live in long term recovery, I have six small holes within me and I’ve grown strength around each of them. My eyes fill with tears and my throat constricts as I write. Its painful, but where there is sorrow there is joy. I have joy today.

If you are struggling or someone you know is struggling with miscarriage and alcohol, you are not alone. There is help. Please reach out, I would be so happy to share my personal coaching journey from sorrow to joy.

CHECK-IN WITH MY HEART - Daily Practice

Over the last 12 years, I’ve learned that I must have a daily practice to check-in with my heart, do a self-examination, and work on my spiritual growth. All of us could benefit from this. No one is exempt from the possibility of going back to old ways.

We need to look at four areas of our lives on a regular basis.

• Check-in with your body. Ask yourself, “What is my body telling me?” Your body is a barometer of what’s happening inside of you. For example, if you have tense muscles, you probably have some stress. If you’re tired, hungry, or stressed out, those can be clues that your life has gotten out of whack and you may be headed for problems.

• Check-in with your emotions. Make sure you’re allowing your real feelings to surface instead of pushing them down. If you try to put a cap on your emotions, the pressure will build up and you’re bound to explode. Check in using your heart by asking yourself the following questions:
  H: Am I hurting?
  E: Am I exhausted?
  A: Am I angry?
  R: Do I resent anybody?
  T: Am I tense?

• Check-in on your relationships. Ask yourself if you’re at peace with the people in your life (current and past relationships). You may be re-living a hurt from years ago that will eventually torpedo your new way of living and thinking (recovery).

• Check-in on your spiritual life. Are you relying on God on a moment-by-moment basis? Remember, the quickest route to a fall is to begin thinking you can handle things on your own.

Go through this process frequently. This could be a new daily practice for you.

At any time of the day, when you begin to feel the pressures build up, go through the four areas above and see if anything stands out. Then, at the end of the day, build into your life a time to acknowledge your failures and celebrate your successes. And then look more deeply and mindfully at your daily life to make sure everything is in order. If not, time to become rigorously honest with yourself and get to work. That is, if you want to think and life a different way.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful to live in peace and serenity by living by a practice?

A practice to dig deep and get honest with yourself. I encourage those who do not have a daily practice, to create one and follow it during this spring season. Those that do have a daily practice, I challenge yourself to dig deeper to bring about more change and transformation.

Professional Coaches Exposed

This week I gathered with my tribe of professional coaches to discuss a bouquet of topics.  One of the topics was to educate and expose the public to professional coaching and as a member of the International Coach Federation (ICF) that's one of my responsibilities and acts of service.

The International Coach Federation (ICF) defines professional coaching as:

"partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential."

The best way to experience coaching (if you haven't already) is to have a session.  I'd be thrilled and honored to introduce you to and expose you to how professional coaching sounds, feels, and looks like.  Let's connect!