The Love Your Life Podcast

The Love Your Life Podcast Episode 26: Endings Are the Place We Begin Hi, and welcome to The Love Your Life Podcast. I’m glad you’re here. Today we’re talking about endings—something we all face, again and again. This time of year brings a lot of them. School years wrap up. Kids move on to the next phase. Some of us are sending high school graduates out into the world. And honestly? That’s been one of the hardest transitions I’ve faced—not when I graduated, but when my own child did. Endings come in all shapes: Jobs change. Relationships evolve. Kids grow. Bodies age. Dreams shift. And eventually, life itself ends. As William Bridges puts it in his book Transitions, “Transition is the natural process of disorientation and reorientation marking turning points in the path of growth.” And yet, most of us don’t give ourselves space for that disorientation. We want to rush to the fresh start and skip the messy middle. But real transitions begin with endings. Not just the event—but what it means internally. How we’re changed by it. Let me ask you—what’s ending in your life right now? A role? A belief? A relationship? A version of you? And how are you responding to it? Are you letting it go—or clinging to what was? That image of the monkey trap comes to mind—reaching in for the fruit, refusing to let go, and staying stuck because of it. That’s how we can get with old identities, patterns, even pain. Not because they serve us—but because they’re familiar. Scarcity tells us, “This might be as good as it gets.” But what if that’s not true? What if letting go is how we clear space for something better? Letting go isn’t easy. It takes courage and a willingness to accept what is. So, here’s what I want to invite you to do this week: ACTION ITEM: Write down your answers to these two questions: What is ending in my life right now? What emotions am I feeling around that ending—and what are they trying to tell me? Name it. Sit with it. Let yourself feel it instead of stuffing it down. Most emotions, when given space, move through us in under five minutes. When we avoid them, they stay—sometimes for years. Socrates said, “The secret of change is to focus all your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new.” But you can’t build the new until you acknowledge what’s ending. This is where real clarity begins. Thanks for joining me today. In the next episode, we’ll talk about the neutral zone—what I call “the soup”—that awkward, messy, middle part. And why it’s so important not to rush it. Until then, honor the ending. Let it do its work. Talk soon.

Hello and Welcome to The Love Your Life Podcast – This is Episode #25 – Curiosity Does a Lot More Than Kill Cats! I am genuinely excited to talk about one of my favorite and most useful feelings today — the feeling of curiosity. More often than not, we stay focused on feelings we don’t particularly like or want — things like anxiety, loneliness, anger, fear, or overwhelm. And we know that where our focus goes, our energy grows. So, the more we pay attention to how anxious or angry we are, the more anxious or angry we become. And here’s something that might surprise you: resisting something we don’t want is actually the same as focusing on it. That’s why what we resist... persists. So one of the most powerful shifts we can make is simply becoming aware when we’re resisting — when we’re wishing things or people were different, or when we’re caught up in emotions we don’t want. Because once we notice that we’re focused on what we don’t want, we gain a beautiful opportunity: We get to interrupt that pattern — and redirect our attention toward something that will actually serve us. And this is where curiosity comes in. Curiosity is the feeling that helps us build a bridge — a bridge away from what we don’t want, and toward what we do. That makes it one of the most valuable tools in any emotionally intelligent toolkit. If you’ve ever been gripped by the struggle and overwhelm of negativity, you probably know exactly how it shows up for you. Some people tell me it feels like a black hole, with slippery walls and fog swirling around their heads. Others say it’s like a loop of loud, demanding voices they can’t turn off. Personally, I’ve found myself in stretches where everything feels hopeless and negative — and I don’t even realize it until I hear the way I’m speaking to myself or the people closest to me. However your own personal vortex of doom presents itself, I want you to hear this: It’s only an illusion. You don’t have to believe everything it tells you. You don’t have to take every feeling at face value. But — and this part is important — you do have to wake up to it. You have to realize that these feelings are not in alignment with the most joyful, loving, empowered version of you. And today, I want to show you that the fastest way to break free... is curiosity. So Let’s Talk Brain Science (Because It’s So Cool) and you know I am always in awe of how incredible it is that our emotional and physical systems are so delicately balanced. Curiosity is a lot like gratitude because curiosity literally changes your brain. When you get curious, your brain releases dopamine, which is a feel-good chemical that fuels motivation and attention. At the same time, your hippocampus — the part of the brain involved in learning and memory — lights up. That means when you’re curious, you’re not only more engaged, but you actually learn and grow more easily — even if the topic isn’t directly related to what you were curious about. With the dopamine flowing and the hippocampus lit up Curiosity is fueled to moves us out of negative emotions like fear, anxiety, and overwhelm to name a few - and into a space with more possibility and openness that is a lot like exploration. Curiosity has the power to invite softness, compassion, and sometimes even awe when we discover something that we had never noticed before. If you think of children learning new things, they are not usually scared, but they are almost always present. This is the type of energy we are able to step into when we invite curiosity in as the antithesis to fear, anxiety, criticism, judgement, sadness, hopelessness, and anger. Hopefully this information ignites a spark of curiosity today - Maybe you are questioning if this could actually help when you are in your next swirling vortex of doom? Maybe you doubt that it could be that simple, if this is you, ask yourself to consider that maybe I’m on to something and it could possibly be worth your time to find out? Maybe you are just tired of always feeling negative, and you might muster a little grain of hope to consider that there might be something here that you have been looking for today. That is curiosity my friend! Today I will share 3 steps that can move you from negativity, to awareness, to change - and then I will share a couple examples with you to illustrate how curiosity helps us at any age or stage. Step 1: Reflect on Your Daily Emotional Landscape Each night, ask yourself: What were my top three feelings today? If you notice that your answers are consistently negative — frustration, exhaustion, resentment — that’s a signal. Not a judgment. Just a signal. And it’s time to get curious. Step 2: Ask Gentle, Honest Questions Start asking yourself questions about your emotions — not to fix them, but to understand them. “I wonder why I felt that way today?” “What might have been going on underneath that irritation?” “Was I tired, hungry, stressed, or overloaded?” “What was I needing that I didn’t get?” These kinds of questions aren’t about solving a puzzle — they’re about opening your mind up to different possibilities to consider. Curiosity doesn’t expect specific answers, but it does invite you to greater awareness. And that’s where transformation begins. Step 3: Gently Redirect When You’re Stuck When you find yourself spiraling in a negative loop, practice gently redirecting your attention by asking: “What am I not seeing yet?” “If there’s something here for me to learn, what might it be?” “What else could be true in this situation?” You’re not pretending things are okay. You’re simply creating space between yourself and the story your mind is stuck on. And that space? That’s where insight lives. . Thank you for joining me today for Episode 25 – Curiosity Does a Lot More Than Kill Cats! If this episode sparked something for you, I’d love to hear about it. Send me a message or share your insight with someone you love.

Hello and Welcome to the Love Your Life Podcast - This is Episode 24 - The next right step. I had a fantastic session with one of my beautiful clients yesterday and decision making came up. It reminded me that it would be a great podcast episode because it is so fundamental to how we do all the things in our lives. Each of us has a pattern for the way we make decisions. Some of us get through decisions with less stress than others. Some stages of life seem to have more frequent decisions than other stages, and some decisions have bigger results than others. No matter where you are in the stages, the stress, and the opportunities to make decisions, I can predict that you will have a chance to practice what you learn with me today sooner than later. Before we get into the practical tools, I want to start with a story—because sometimes the clearest truths come from the simplest places. Aesop’s fables have been around for thousands of years, and in a way, they’re like ancient life coaching sessions. They use animals and metaphors to teach us about ourselves, our patterns, and our choices. And today’s fable, in particular, speaks right into the heart of decision-making—especially when we’re stuck in our heads with too many options. Let me tell you the story of The Fox and the Cat. One day, a fox and a cat were talking about how they would escape danger if it came their way. The fox boasted, “I know a hundred clever tricks to get away.” The cat replied, “I only know one—but it always works.” Just then, they heard hunters coming. The cat immediately climbed a tree and hid in the branches. The fox, in a panic, couldn’t decide which of his hundred tricks to use—and in that hesitation, he was caught. The moral? Better one safe way than a hundred you cannot decide between. So often in our lives, it’s not lack of options that paralyzes us—it’s the overwhelming number of them. We overthink. We hesitate. We wait for the “perfect” choice to appear. But the truth is: clarity often comes from action—not from thinking harder. Have you heard that one before? It is a good one. Especially in our modern world that is rich with so many good things. Today I want to share 5 things that will help with any decision you have to make. #1 - Beware of the temptation to believe there is only one right answer. IF you are like the fox with lots of options then you can become paralyzed when trying to choose the right one. I have talked to you about cognitive biases before. One such bias or distortion is called splitting. Splitting is a mental operation that divides the world into black or white thinking also known as binary thinking like - Good/bad, Right/wrong, Fair/Unfair, Always/Never win/lose success/failure to name a few - Splitting things into categories is developmentally appropriate for humans to do as children who are trying to make sense of a world that is unpredictable and emotionally overwhelming. .It helps them create order and safety which supports emotional regulation early on as effectively pushes the pause button until they can gain more information and experience to grow into more nuanced thinking. It also helps to lay the groundwork for moral development. Children love boundaries because they feel safe, splitting is like a moral boundary. The more rigid it is the safer it feels at first - so children start to notice the things that will keep them safe - but as we grow we have the capacity to add context, empathy, reasoning, into our thinking which gives us the opportunity to learn how to integrate opposing things and allow them both to be true. LIke the concept that smoking is bad for your health - but it doesn’t mean you are a bad person if you smoke. Or the idea that my friend was mean today, but that doesn’t mean she's a bad person. Little kids don’t understand this from the get go. We all have to develop through this cognitive processor that we start with toward more emotional maturity, and most of us eventually do, but that doesn’t mean that there are not remnants of it ready to jump in when we are tired, stressed, or not intentional. And as it turns out - making decisions is one of those areas where our default programming loves to jump in and overly simplify a process with the hope of providing a sense of safety as fast as possible. But once we start on the path of craving safety, we are more likely to invite fear into our equations. And Fear is never the fuel we want to use to build a life that we love. Safety can be good- but it eventually gets cold, dark, and lonely as we hide away in our safe places. So when making decisions be alert and aware when your brain offers to you that there is a right or wrong decision. When you catch yourself doing this - You can soothe yourself by reminding your brain that there is not one right and one wrong answer - there are simply results that you might like more or less than other results, and you invite yourself to be curious about what those results would be that you would like most. The sooner you get yourself settled and the sooner you can begin the search for the result you think you will like most and begin the process of choosing that. Which is commonly referred to as a decision! Lol 2: Get the Thoughts Out of Your Head You might have noticed when you approach a decision that your options start spinning around in your head all of the time. I think of it like the little spinning wheel on the computer screen while the computer is loading. There is one fast way out of that and that is to get it all out of your brain and into a more tangible form which is best done by writing it out. Your brain is a terrible storage device. Put your thoughts on paper where you can see them clearly. You can call it a thought download, a brain dump, or thought vomit. Just get it out and give yourself a chance to look at it. Ask yourself what you are worried about, afraid will happen, or avoiding first. This allows your lower brain to get out all of the things that it is trying to protect you from. You will feel so much better when you notice the things you want to avoid. 3: Then Get curious- and know your own mind We have already noted that we don’t make our best decisions fueled by fear - so let’s use curiosity to help us here. You are still going to be writing during this part of the process. Start by asking yourself what you need to know to make this decision. Gather any information that your brain comes up with. As an answer to this question. Next ask yourself what you would prefer as the most ideal outcome? This can be tricky if you have only ever looked for the right/wrong answers- But it is so important to take into account what you would actually prefer. You are the one who gets to write the story of your life - don’t let your default programming determine that for you - to me that would be like letting AI decide for me - If it feels overwhelming - just promise yourself to stay curious about that. Depending on the decision, you might break down how the outcome would affect you and the people you are deciding for/with in different ways. I like to use these areas to keep in mind- Physical - Emotional- Fiscal - Social - Spiritual - Familial If you take the time to write down what your goals are in these areas first, you can then get curious how your decision would best align with these goals. The best decisions are going to be in alignment with your goals and values. After you have done the work to know your own mind - you can invite others into your collection of information if your decision involves or affects them. Don’t muddy the water by too many other opinions though - 4- Make the Decision -.and immediately choose to stop deciding- you can do this by Set a deadline. Give yourself a reasonable timeframe to think, gather information, talk to who you need to talk to, and get clear. Make the decision. Once you’ve made it—commit. Don’t revisit it every day. Don't keep circling. I tell myself all the time to fish or cut bait - once we make a choice we need to let it go - and if I have made a choice - I don’t get to beat myself up regretting it - I minimize this - by Set a future date to re-evaluate. If the decision needs adjusting later, you’ll know when to revisit it. Until then—trust yourself and move forward. This frees up so much mental energy. Constant reconsideration is exhausting and rarely helpful. You made a thoughtful choice. Let it stand. 5: You Get to Pivot Here’s the truth: There’s always another next right thing. No decision has to be final forever. You get to choose again. You get to adjust. You get to grow. So if you’re tired from thinking about something too much, take a deep breath and remind yourself: “I don’t have to find the one perfect answer. I just need to take the next right step.”

Welcome to The Love Your Life Podcast, This is Episode #23: It’s Not About You The thing I love most about coaching is the way it can help us improve our relationships. With higher levels of awareness leading us to personal responsibility, we set ourselves and those we love up to become more curious about the people around us which then leads to more compassion for their perspectives and personal struggles. As you have spent some time with me in previous podcasts, you might have already grabbed a hold of an idea or a thought process that has helped you to become more aware of what is going on in your own mind. Awareness is the number one most important first step any of us can make if we want to progress towards change, which could be a myriad of different goals: changing our behaviors, changing our feelings, changing our levels of acceptance for our circumstances, increasing more love and connection in our relationships, etc. Oftentimes, awareness can feel awful. Once we start seeing what we are bringing with us everywhere in terms of our attitudes and actions and start to take 100 percent responsibility for it, it is impossible to not see the things we have done that we are not proud of. If you have hit this stage already - congratulations! You are progressing into the next stage which is using this awareness to make subtle shifts in your thinking, which will change how you feel and how you behave in any given area of your life. You are not doing it wrong, you are simply beginning the process of waking up for the fog that has kept you from seeing the power you have to be the creator of your own life. As I say this, it sounds kind of flowery, and mythical. So let me try another way to explain it - So many of us have spent our lifetimes believing that our circumstances are in charge of how we feel and interface with our life. We believe that feelings are unpredictable and are made or managed by how many good or bad things are happening to us or around us. This is a very vulnerable way to live. It feels out of control, powerless, and sometimes like we are victims to the whims of the people and entities around us. What I am offering as the next step is the understanding that as we become aware of what we are thinking and start to connect our thoughts to the creators of our feelings, and we step into responsibility that those feelings drive the actions of our lives which create the results of our lives, it feels like power and a new form of control. We are no longer victims to the people and entities around us, we are in the driver's seat of what we feel and what we do - and with that awareness comes a bit of remorse for the things we have done when we believed that we were not responsible for our feelings. It also brings the awareness that you have options and choices to make in how you want to create, set up, direct, and interface with your life. You are in charge and this is great news! No one can tell you how you have to think about your life, and no one can limit what you want to create in it. Awareness of this process is such a gift! (which is why I am on a mission to make it available to as many people as I can!) Frequently when I am coaching a client they feel remorse that they didn’t know these things sooner in their life. They wish that they could have had it when their kids were younger and they could have taught them better, or built a stronger family culture. I myself had to slog through this kind of remorse. I had to go through the process to learn that everything happens in perfect timing. This kind of thinking helped me feel grateful that I got my hands on this knowledge when I did. Even though gratitude feels better than sadness that I missed out earlier, it doesn’t take away my awareness that the sooner these principles and practices are gifted to a human, the better off that human is because they will have more clarity as they set up the foundation for their future sooner than I did! So if you are someone who loves younger people and wants to share this information with them, this episode is for you and for them! It is the number one thing I wish I could help younger people understand so that they can shield themselves with this belief when people around them behave poorly. That is - that what other people say and do, or don’t say and don’t do, tells you more about them than it does about yourself. In fact, their words and actions can lead you to understand what they think, you can actually start figuring out what their thought models are, and you will be able to do that long before they do, with my help. What is a thought model anyway? A thought model is the name for the process I have been teaching since episode 2 in this podcast - it is simply that we all have circumstances outside of our control. These circumstances are made up of the people, places, and things around us. They are the facts of our lives, it can be as big as the economy of the world, or as small as what someone whispered as they walked by you in the hallway at school. But circumstances are just facts. They don’t mean anything until we think a thought about them. We think thoughts about circumstances because our brains are always trying to make sense of how the things happening around us relate to ourselves. There are a number of reasons the brain does this. For today, let's just go with the understanding that it is a primary survival instinct because our ancestors who were hyper-aware of their needs, dangers, and social status had a better chance of surviving and passing on their genes. It's important to understand that this is the default mode of your brain. It is what your brain does consistently when not managed. As we grow, we are better able to manage our brains and have them work for us, instead of against us. And understanding the thought model helps us grow into this ability to manage our thoughts- Once you understand that your brain is always thinking thoughts about the people places and things around you, you are ready to see how that relates to the next step of the thought model - That is that the thoughts you think, contribute to and sometimes outright create the feelings in your body. Feelings are simply vibrations of energy that pulse through your body like waves - and they are generated by your thoughts. By being informed of this early in your life you are at an advantage. You don’t have to be scared when you feel feelings, even when they are big ones. They are simply vibrations of energy in your body - and the best part is that you have more control over them than you might have believed when you thought your circumstances created them. The truth is that we are all the buffer between our circumstances and our feelings- The thought model continues to teach us that once a feeling is vibrating through our body, that vibration of energy drives our actions or our inactions - and those actions and inactions combined together, create results in our lives. You might be saying, ok Ronda, this is all fine and good, but why do you want me as a teen or young adult to know this about myself and the people I bump into on the daily? And I am eager to answer that question today! It is because when you understand that every person on this planet is walking around thinking thoughts about their circumstances (which ps you are a circumstance to other people frequently) and that the thoughts they think create their feelings, and that those feelings, drive their actions and inactions - then you can understand why I am telling you that what other people say and do and don’t say and don’t do has nothing to do with you! It is only giving you clues to what they are thinking - because those thoughts are creating all of their feelings, actions and results. The person who can be curious about what other people are thinking and question why someone does what they do, is the person who is better able to stay insulated from the actions of others, and is the person who is able to become aware of what their own thoughts are about themselves and others - it saves you a lot of self induced suffering, Let’s look at some examples - that can help me illustrate my point with the most clarity I can. Here is a pattern that plays out in educational institutions daily. Sam says to George, you are so weird. Why are you hanging out with losers? This is the circumstance - are you having a reaction to this right now, just as I speak it? Let’s look at two possible options for George to react. The first would be a reaction that is not aware of thoughts, and is unmanaged. George - could feel embarrassed when he heard Sam say this, and he then entertained the thought that his friends are losers, and he must be a loser too as long as he is around them. This feeling of embarrassment would produce specific actions - like avoiding his friends when others were watching, trying to act like he doesn’t like them either to Sam, he might abandon his own integrity and say things he doesn’t believe that are negative about his friends, he might even speak disparagingly to them in front of others - and he would then in effect create the result of isolating himself from his friends, and create a situation where he has lost connection to peers and even more sadly lost connection to trusting himself. As he created isolation and disconnection from good friends in his life, he would be creating more evidence that he doesn’t have good friends and that he has indeed lost them or is a loser- Here is how this could play out differently if George had the super power of understanding that Sam’s words mean more about Sam than they do about him. This is is how it would shake out - Sam says to George, you are so weird. Why are you hanging out with losers? When Sam says this - George is instantly aware that Sam is giving him a coded message - and George shifts into a feeling of curiosity. He listens to what Sam says, and wonders what feelings are driving Sam’s actions? Is Sam feeling judgmental because he has grown up being judged by outward things? Is Sam lashing out because someone hurt him recently? Is Sam pointing out something negative in others because he feels lonely and excluded from friends himself? Is Sam having a hard time in his own life, at home, with school, or any other area? AS George fuels his thoughts with curiosity about Sam - nothing Sam says feels so personal - He doesn’t shift to believing Sam - He doesn’t shift towards defending himself or being embarrassed because Sam is right - He simply stays curious about what Sam is teaching him about Sam. It is much easier at this point to notice that Sam is feeling something - that created the energy to speak negative words - which create the result of George steering clear of Sam in the near future - or at the very least - suspending trust towards Sam. and George walks away unaffected by Sam’s Negativity. Case Study 2 - Here is another scenario I hear frequently. Elizabeth walks into a room where she doesn’t know anyone - Maybe it’s a new class schedule and her close friends aren’t in her lunch time, or she has moved to a new school and doesn’t know anyone, or it is a new season of a sport at a new level and they all played before but she didn’t play with them - you pick for you how this might look in your world. But Elizabeth walks into a room where she doesn’t know anyone - and nobody looks up from their phones or their groups - no one says, hello. No one invites her to sit near them, in fact, they act like she isn’t there. Elizabeth doesn’t know that all of these non actions are telling her something about the people in the room - she thinks it means something about her - Her thoughts are - “What is wrong with me? Why doesn’t anyone see me?” This jumping off point - spirals to other thoughts - like “ What am I going to do? Feeling a little panicky, or I knew I shouldn’t have worn this outfit, or maybe, I can get my mom to come get me?” These thoughts lead her to feel embarrassed about herself, nervous and panicky about being in a place where no one cares about her, and drives her to sit separated and not initiating any conversation, eye contact, or smiles herself- Which creates the result of further separation and no chance to get to know anyone in the room. This can go on as long as Elizabeth keeps believing her thoughts that something is wrong with her - or as she shifts to judging them for being non inclusive snots - and new friendships will not be made. Let’s try on the circumstance with an Elizabeth that understands that what people do and don’t do tells her something about them, not about her. When she walks in the room and nobody looks up, makes eye contact or invites her to sit - she is aware that her brain wants to look inward - instead she remembers she needs to stay curious right now and figure out the clues these kids are giving her. She wonders if she has ever been in a room of people she is comfortable with before and not been aware enough that someone was new and not including them? She remembers that there was that new girl at the church meeting recently that she didn’t go introduce herself- she kind of kicks herself for that in this moment, and also realizes that sometimes people are just distracted. She wonders what these kids are distracted with? Do they use their phones as shields because they have social anxiety? Are they having a bad day? Are they worried about not fitting in? Is it possible they are judgmental and self absorbed? Sure - that could easily be the case - and she remembers how that one girl in the bathroom didn’t sound very nice talking to her friend about the teacher. But she reminds herself that she wasn’t judgmental when she forgot to talk to the new girl at church, she was just distracted and a little nervous - This curiosity feels soothing - like she can look at herself from outside her body and see what it's like to be a new person in a room of full of people- She uses this moment of soothing - to scan the room and look for someone that looks sad, bored, or isolated themselves - and chooses them as the person she will go sit by and practice her reaching out skills that she has been learning with her life coach, Ronda. She takes a deep breath and wills herself forward - She decides to go with the Use an Observation + Question Approach- This means that she sits herself comfortably near the person and speaks out loud an observation about the room of people. It could be something like - wow - looks like there are a lot of people on their phones right now - Followed by a question: Do you think the teacher will ask us to put them away when they get here? Once the person looks up from their phone and answers, Elizabeth moves into the next step Ronda has taught her - which is to Introduce Yourself with Confidence She has the person’s attention and she is not expecting the other person to do the work to help Elizabeth feel better - she knows that is her own job. She looks her in the eye and says “Hi, I’m Elizabeth. I’m new here and excited to meet everyone. What’s your connection to this group?” This is a great lead in because it is using curiosity - it works because It breaks the ice quickly and invites the other person to share about themselves. And remember - brains are always happy to talk and notice things about themselves. This helps the person feel comfortable around you, and at the very least - have something specific to answer- From there - Elizabeth can continue asking her questions - and keep the conversation moving along- or feel like she can at least sit by someone and not be awkward. In the best case scenario - it could be enough of a shake up for the person you introduced yourself to to keep them talking and not hiding - I have had people tell me that they select the person they will go sit by in different ways The most success will come when you are on the lookout for something that you might have in common with someone - it makes the curiosity natural - and easy to respond to when a question is asked. The most important thing in this kind of circumstance - is to stop your brain from going down the rabbit hole of thinking bad things about yourself and to access curiosity to look outward and play with understanding what is going on in the thought models of the people around you. It helps each of us turn into a bit of a detective instead of beating up on ourselves for no good reason. Let me close today by sharing that the very best super power is that you will learn to lean into curiosity AS we invite curiosity into our lives more consistently - life gets better, we attract great people to be around us, and we stop getting hung up on focusing on what people around us think and feel about us, while having more energy to be aware of what we think and feel about ourselves. Whether you are 15 or 50 - these principles work!

If you’ve been following along, you know that in the last two podcasts, I have talked about different angles of accepting the circumstances of our lives, or the things we cannot control as a way to create more peace in our life. You have also heard me speak about the 50/50 before. When I refer to that, I am saying that earth life is made up of 50 percent positive and 50 percent negative circumstances. If these are the odds I’m going with, then it is inevitable that there are going to be painful experiences around this place and that they will be fairly consistent. It is a life skill to make peace with the pain. And today, We start with learning how to not turn the original pain into more suffering by resisting it. Let me share two stories to illustrate what I mean. Have you ever read the fable from Aesop about The Bald Man and the Fly? This is how it goes - One day, a bald man was sitting outside enjoying the fresh air when a fly landed on his head. He was Irritated by the fly’s buzzing, so he swatted at forcefully at it, hoping to get rid of the pest. Unfortunately, in the process, he smacked his own head hard, causing himself more pain than the fly ever could. The fly, thought this was funny and mocked him saying: "You tried to kill me for such a small offense, yet you've only brought more harm upon yourself!" The bald man replied, "I would rather endure a hundred blows from myself than let a creature like you go unpunished!" Of course the moral of the story is that reacting harshly to minor annoyances can cause more harm than the original problem itself—a direct parallel to the idea that resisting pain only increases suffering. As I say - Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional. Aesop seems intent on teaching us a lesson on being patient and not letting small grievances escalate into larger self-inflicted wounds. This is very similar to the phrase adding insult to injury. The injury has already happened - why spend our time insulting ourselves about it additionally? The injury or initial pain would, of course, be the fly landing on our heads - but the insult or the suffering comes by hitting ourselves over and over as we are mad at the fly. Here is another similar story. Pretend you have just watched someone you care about get bitten by a poisonous snake. You know logically that their first instinct should be to get the venom out of their system and seek medical help. But instead you watch them focus all their energy on chasing down the snake to get revenge. They are limping through the area with a shovel while screaming madly at the snake. They taunt it and challenge it hoping it will reveal itself to them, so they can hit it back, but their only result is that the snake is nowhere to be found and their activity drives the venom deeper into their circulation and delays them from getting to the anti venom. In the end, the longer they wait to get the medicine, the more harm is done to their body - and there could even be lasting consequences. Notice that the snake bite is something that they had no control over - it is the injury - or the pain - or the fly from Aesop's fable - or the rock in the river bed. It is reality. What happens next determines how much suffering takes place - and this is exactly what each of us has the opportunity to decide for ourselves. Buddhist teachings have a concept called dukkha, which refers to suffering, dissatisfaction, or discomfort in life. The Buddha taught that suffering arises not just from painful experiences themselves but from our resistance to them. Clinging to how we wish things should be, rather than accepting what is, creates unnecessary suffering. In the snake and the fly story the “victims” focus on the thing that went wrong that they could not control. They get angry about it, they seek revenge or retribution, they use the choice and control that is theirs- which is the ability to choose how they will react- in a way that only brings more pain and harm to their situation. They add insult to injury. They create suffering where only pain exists, and they argue with reality as they do so. Notice that their frustration, anger, and resistance to their original pain point fuels actions that are not productive. This is one big aha that all of us can use to our benefit. When we take action from negative feelings or energy - we will almost always create results we do not love. The trick is to allow the feelings that painful circumstances stir up - learn from them, then settle them down and figure out how to take action only when fueled by better, more productive feelings. My favorite feelings to help clients grab ahold of when they are pulling themselves out of circumstances that aren’t their favorite - is curiosity, trust in self, and hope that things will get better. But the first step towards settling things down is Acceptance. Learning how to accept the things we cannot control without drama reduces suffering immediately. I bet you will find that This is not the norm if you look around you at the people in your life - so to practice acceptance on the level I am suggesting is quite radical. Which is just what I will call it today. So What do I mean by Radical acceptance? Radical acceptance is the ability to accept situations outside of our control without judgment and on purpose, and I mean all circumstances, which in turn reduces suffering. To be clear, It is not about agreeing with or approving of a situation; it’s about acknowledging the reality of our circumstances, and then not reacting in negative ways, which will help us not to make things harder for ourselves. One of the very first things I do to help myself and others acknowledge reality is to label my circumstance as clinically and factually as I can. Which means that you don’t use adjectives - and you try to just state facts. Then,I tell myself that this is the part of my story where such and such fact happens. Ok, self, this is just the part of the story where we experience health concerns. This is much different than saying - this is the part of the story where I die. Or This is the part of the story where the children move away. Instead of this is the part of my story where I am left lonely and ignored by my bratty children that should care more about my feelings. Notice how the drama increases with my adjectives? This is the part of my story where my husband and I have things to figure out is a much more factual and less dramatic statement - than this is the part of the story where my selfish husband doesn't hear me or see me, and I’m left holding the bag of a lifetime of his bad habits. This is the part of the story where this person does not want the same things I want. Is easier to make peace with than - this is the part of my story where I am not good enough for them and I never will be good enough for anyone worth having. The latter really does sound and feel like punching ourselves over and over in the face just like the bald man went after the fly. So the way you label your circumstances matter - pay attention to the way you tend to narrate your circumstances in your head. Slow down, take away the adjectives, and try to be as factual as possible. Once we have acknowledged what the reality is - we can remember that we have a choice about how we want to proceed. We can choose to resist it - or we can do our best to accept and allow for it. A phrase that I use on repeat when I am working on accepting a difficult circumstance is to remind myself that nothing has gone wrong here. This is earth life. I am on earth. Of course there is a part of my story like this. Nothing has gone wrong. This helps me not get too worked up about the drama of any given circumstance. I see how this leans into the Buddhist practice of mindfulness. which helps us observe our emotions and thoughts without becoming attached to them. So once I have labeled my circumstance as clearly as I can - and have reminded myself that it is ok that this is part of my story - I can be in a place where I watch my thoughts and feelings to see what they are telling me. And as I watch I remember that I do not have to believe every thought I think. This means I can acknowledge and feel pain without arguing with it which would then turn the pain into suffering. IF you want to learn how to be more radical in accepting your life - this is going to include all of the people in it. They are going to do and say a lot of hurtful things. They are going to disappoint you and outright accuse or dislike you. They are going to neglect and forget about you, and you are going to be tempted to chase after them and prove how wrong or selfish they are. But I must inform or remind you that this is not resisting - this is not accepting - this is creating suffering out of pain. I have clients that take umbrage with this part - they can get caught up with how important it is to set the record straight - They want to make sure the other person sees them - hears them - and acknowledges that they are wrong - But ask yourself what you would do if this person and their words and actions or non words and non actions were simply a rock in the river bed you are flowing down? This will give you a better answer on how to handle them with acceptance and grace. When I push people towards accepting others, some will inevitably confuse it with condoning or forgiving someone for their behavior. This is worth addressing today. Let's look at it in a kind of case study. Let’s say you have a family member who repeatedly lies to you - and you are consistently emotional about not trusting them, and being hurt and offended that they are not honest with you. Then I suggest you are going to have to practice some radical acceptance of this person - because this is someone who is not yours to control, you don’t have the power to change them, and you are really suffering because of your focus on their negative behavior, meaning you can't stop thinking and talking about it to those in your inner circle. You tell me that this is not a good idea because you believe that if you accept their lying, it means you are condoning it. But radical acceptance isn’t about approving of their behavior—it’s about acknowledging reality as it is so that you can stop suffering over something you cannot control. When you resist reality, you stay stuck in frustration and disappointment. But when you accept that this person is someone who lies, you free yourself from the emotional turmoil that comes from expecting them to be different. You will still have feelings about it, but they won’t be masked by anger and frustration - they will be more like sadness and loss, and will be easier processed when you can see and name them for what they are. From that place of clarity, you can decide how to interact with them in a way that protects your peace—whether that means setting boundaries, limiting your engagement, or simply choosing not to take their dishonesty personally.. You don’t have to forgive someone to accept what has happened, and you don’t have to accept someone’s behavior to stop suffering from it. Acceptance is about you, not them. Which leads me to the next stop on the brain train trying to get to acceptance - which is the argument that acceptance will mean throwing in the towel which feels especially scary when it's someone we care about. If this is the case - the push towards acceptance will elicit some big feelings and lead us to try harder to save the people we care about from themselves and their poor behaviors because we love them too much to let them be less than they could be. But notice what the results usually are when we resist people who tell us who they are , especially when it is in the name of loving them. We almost always will create tension in our relationship, which will make the person we are trying to “help” feel defensive which means they will resist us more - and create even more distance than our resistance to their behavior created in the first place. We will tell ourselves we are chasing after them and resisting the reality they are creating because we want to have more love and connection, but we will only create distance - and disconnection. The proof is in the pudding - acceptance makes space for more love and connection and resistance creates less love, more disconnection, and far less peace. Radical acceptance is not about giving up; it’s about letting go of the struggle that is keeping you stuck. It’s about reclaiming your energy from places where you have no control and redirecting it toward what you can influence. When you practice radical acceptance, you create space for more peace, more clarity, and ultimately, more freedom. You stop fighting battles that can’t be won, and instead, you learn to navigate life with grace and resilience. You allow yourself to feel pain without adding unnecessary suffering. And most importantly, you recognize that the power to create a life you love doesn’t come from controlling everything around you—it comes from how you choose to respond to it. So the next time you find yourself resisting a difficult situation, ask yourself: Am I making this harder than it needs to be? Am I arguing with reality? If the answer is yes, take a deep breath, step back, and remind yourself that you have another option. Acceptance, surrender, and non resistance are my favorite go to’s . I hope they can help you break free of your next struggle. Because in the end, life will always bring both joy and hardship. The question isn’t if you will face challenges, but how you will choose to meet them. And when you meet them with radical acceptance, you give yourself the ability to love your life, no matter what.

Hello and welcome to the Love Your life Podcast - This is episode 21 - Surrender In our last episode, we talked about resistance—the mental struggle we create when we argue with reality. We learned that what we resist, persists. Today, I will help you see what happens when we stop resisting? What happens when, instead of pushing against life, we choose to surrender? The law of non resistance teaches us to be like a mountain stream that peacefully goes around the rocks, boulders, and debris in its path without making a fuss. It always makes it to the bottom of the hill and creates so much beauty for those of us that get to sit by its side.  The opposite is when we resist or  we argue with the obstacles in our path. Which would be like a stream yelling at every rock or branch on its way down the mountain and stopping the flow to their destination until the rock or branch either moves or apologizes for being there in the first place.  I know it sounds kind of ludicrous to think of a flowing stream of water stopping and arguing with rocks and trees along it’s way - but that is figuratively what so many of us do with the circumstances of our lives. Humans have this unique tendency to lean towards the dramatic when life presents an obstacle in between where we think we want to be and where we are?  The concept of  surrender— does not mean, just giving up, It is a powerful tool for freeing ourselves from unnecessary struggle and drama. What Is Surrender? According to the Britannica Dictionary, surrender means:"To agree to stop fighting, hiding, or resisting—because you know that you will not win or succeed." I think the thing to pay attention to in this definition is to notice that surrender means to stop resisting or fighting. This tells us that if you need to learn how to surrender then you are already engaged in a struggle - So learning to surrender is your second line of defence if you didn’t quite manage to practice non resistance with things in your path - it means you are river that has stopped flowing while you argue with a rock in your path. Just like a river refusing to flow - the pressure will keep building the longer you stand there and argue - so the sooner you get to understanding that arguing with a rock - or reality - however you want to name it - is futile. You are not going to win - and it’s time to surrender and move on. Some of us who have been arguing with reality for longer or louder than others- don’t even like the name surrender.  They think it sounds like defeat. I want you to hear from the get go that surrender isn’t weakness - it is wisdom.  It isn’t even a passive pose - it takes work. Neither is it actually giving up - it is more like using your wisdom and clarity - to fuel your ability to refile something into the category of God’s to control or theirs to control - and then making the decision to pry your fingers off the strangle hold you have on whatever you are resisting. Michael Singer is the  author of The Untethered Soul, which is a book I HIGHLY recommend if you are someone who struggles with surrender and resistance.  And He says that in …"The moment you stop resisting, the moment you accept things exactly as they are, the weight lifts." And that’s exactly what I”m hoping to help you do after you spend your time with me today. I want to help you lift the weight of unnecessary struggle. Why Do We even resist in the first place?  We resist because we have a thought error. That thought error is simply that we think we can control something that we cannot control.  I want you to keep remembering  that last week I introduced sorting circumstances into three categories- Mine to control, theirs to control or God’s to control. If the circumstance you struggle with does not reside in your category to control - you will have to make some kind of strategy to stop resisting - or if you are already resisting - you are going to have to figure out how to surrender to it. There are frequently pretty little words along the path to resistance, like I should or I shouldn’t.  Or they should or they shouldn’t - or I just want …. Them to be safe, or happy, or healthy…. Fill in the blank with something that seems nice on the surface.  And because it is so pretty you will get distracted and start trying to make your child be happy by manicuring every single pebble on the path they will walk - instead of helping your child learn how to have the emotional resilience tools to walk on any kind of boulder strewn path - If you have done this for any amount of time - you will understand that eventually trying to control things that are not yours - even when you have had such lovely reasons to do so, will bite you in the butt.  Your resistance will wear you out - and surrender will sound like a good idea. There will also be false pieces of evidence that lead us to believe we CAN control things outside of us. This is always a fun one to uncover - because if you have had success in life, or had things go the way you preferred - and you believed that it happened because you had been perfect and controlled yourself in contorted or exaggerated ways - then you will keep trying to be perfect and turn yourself into bigger and bigger pretzel knots - so that you can control something that was never really yours to control in the first place, but seemed to line up with your actions.   You will most likely have examples from just this week of living here on earth where you tried to or were tempted to try and control something that wasn’t in a category you can control. Things like other people’s feelings is a big one to learn how to stop resisting. Many people believe it is their job to make those around them feel better- but it is actually impossible to control the feelings of others. We never get to control what others think - so it is impossible to control how they feel - oh they might tell you that they are happy when you do x,y, and z, and they are unhappy when you do A,B,C - but that doesn’t mean you are controlling their feelings when you choose to do or not do things - that is a thought error fueled by past experiences that appeared like you were in control - but give a toddler exactly what they want and then watch them lose their mind anyway a time or two- and you will begin to see that it isn’t about how perfectly we do things people say they want - it is more accurate to say that it is about what they think about the things we do and say or don’t do or don’t say. Viktor Frankl, a Holocaust survivor and author of Man’s Search for Meaning, which if you haven’t ordered and read after my first few episodes- you might want to consider doing that now….  Anyway, he offers this wisdom: "When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves." Surrender isn’t about accepting defeat. It’s about shifting our focus from what we cannot change to what we can. I noted before that many people think of surrender as weakness - but I am offering it as a strength - Fighting against the realities in our life is what makes us tired - and tiredness makes us weak - Surrender means we stop the fight against things we cannot control and use our energy while it is stronger to focus on the things that we can control but still require our attention and effort.   It is always beautiful to me when I am coaching someone to watch them surrender to their reality - and truly stop the struggle with something that is gutting them - and then invite them to tell me what they are going to do now that they have decided to stop using all of their energy to yell at the giant boulder that they have been focused on. Once they surrender and flow around the boulder - an entire new path is clear before them, and they can almost always tell me what they will do next - and the weight that they let go of in front of my eyes - is palpable=- their next focus is done with so much more ease. This reminds me of the Zen proverb that says,"Let go or be dragged." When we resist it feels like being dragged through life- when we surrender we go with lightness - lightness meaning  they go with less heaviness  - and also meaning they go with more light as in their path is brighter.     It is also important to note that we not only struggle and resist our own realities - we actually use our great brains to make up things to resist - like expectations about what we think should happen - and fears about what we think could happen - This is very very common to be so gripped by the belief that what we are afraid of will happen and spend all of our energy resisting that prediction.  This kind of resistance is next level because we are literally doing the whole thing in our own heads - but we are robbing ourselves of real life connections and experiences because we are so dug into the activity of stopping the entire river from going down the canyon while we fight with a rock. So take a second here and ask yourself: How often you hold onto expectations, frustrations, and fears—dragging them with us when we could simply release them? Eckhart Tolle says - The moment you completely accept your non-peace, your non-peace becomes transmuted into peace. Anything you accept fully will get you there, will take you into peace. This is the miracle of surrender” I am going to be bold here and tell you that fighting what is - is actually the thing we do because we are weak - or emotionally immature - when we are mature and strong we are able to surrender better and faster -  And this is good news - because all of us start out in life in a childlike and immature state - and the goal is for all of us to grow into a more mature adult. So no matter how old you are, wherever you are on the spectrum of arguing with reality vs surrendering to it - there is room for growth - you are on a spectrum - and just by becoming aware that there is an alternative to being mad and dramatic about what is - you are giving yourself the opportunity to step out of that habit and grow.   I think it is perfect timing today to repeat the serenity prayer together -  "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,courage to change the things I can,and wisdom to know the difference." This is what surrender looks like: Accepting what’s out of our hands while taking responsibility for what we can influence. 🔹 We don’t control the world, but we control how we show up in it.🔹 We don’t control others, but we control our own thoughts and actions about them and around them.🔹 We don’t control the past, but we control how we move forward. We don’t control nature- but we can control how we respect it. IF surrender feels unnatural to you - that’s okay - it does take practice to increase your surrender capacity.   I like to invite my people to write down the top five things in their life that feel the most prickly, annoying, agitating, or angry about - and then write out what you can and cannot control about these things- Whatever lives in the cannot control side of things means that you have found the perfect place to practice surrender -  Practicing surrender looks like - awareness - when you catch yourself being attracted to the annoyance or drama of it all - use the image of the river floating around the rock and then down the river out of sight. Surrender looks like - repeating to yourself on purpose and as long as it takes- this is not mine to control. This is not mine to control - and then we follow this up with a predetermined mantra that we do believe and can control.  It could be as simple as - I am ok. I am ok. All is well. Surrender can look like the practice of feeling your feelings - You can go learn exactly how to do this in episode 7.  I love this practice - and it is a beautiful way to allow your own feelings about any situation - with out fear or resistance. Surrender also means you stop fighting against your expectations and fears- my favorite way to do this is to remind myself that of course this should be happening to me, right now. Life is 50/50 and this is part of the 50 that isn’t my favorite - this is ok - nothing has gone wrong here. However, wherever, and whenever you choose to practice letting go of the things you are fighting against in your life this week- I can guarantee you one thing - It will make you feel better. And when you feel better - you do better - and when you are doing better - you like being you and you like being in your life a lot more than you did when you were arguing with reality. I will share with you that one of the biggest fights I have ever had with reality lasted years. I honestly believed that there were people in my life that needed to change because they were behaving  poorly - and creating problems for me. While I believed this, I became an altered version of myself. I literally set up camp in the river stream and held back the equivalent flow of the great Mississippi while I argued with this giant rock in my path. The preoccupation with this effort took me away from being the person I wanted to be.  It robbed me of peace, connection, and experiences, It also stalled my personal growth. Not until I truly understood and believed that It doesn’t matter what other people do or say or don’t do or don’t say - did I break free and figure out how to control what I can control. Once I figured out how to focus on controlling me - I was able to find lots of tools to help me manage myself. They came to me almost effortlessly once I had ears to hear and eyes to see. They say that when the student is ready - the teacher will appear. My teachers were patiently waiting in line for me to listen to them. This podcast is my homage to them. If you are a student looking for your teacher, I hope this podcast can be one of your resources. If you know someone who is also looking, send them a link today. I am doing my best to make this information available to anyone who is ready to stop resisting, quiet their struggles, and start controlling more of themselves than they did yesterday. If you are interested in more focused help to get you through a struggle with more directness and less time floundering -then go to my website - Rondaloveridge.com and sign up for a free discovery call . I can help you see a new way through or around.  For Today - remember that when you argue with the rocks in your path - you will waste your energy - let go of the war with things you cannot control - and waive the white flag of surrender. Your body, your mind, and your people will all thank you for it.  Talk to you soon!

Can you  name the famous movie character who gave us this line? If so, kudos to you! If not, stay tuned and it will be revealed to you before I finish today! Over the next few episodes, we’re going to explore three powerful tools for freeing yourself from unnecessary stress and suffering. They are: Non-Resistance, Surrender, and Radical Acceptance. These are different approaches to the same core truth—Which is that life becomes easier when we stop resisting reality. Think about what it is like to swim against the current versus the current - it is so much easier when the current is behind us instead of against us - that is exactly what I mean when I say that life is easier when we are not resisting Reality -.   Let’s start with words from one of my favorite thinkers, Byron Katie:"The only time we suffer is when we believe a thought that argues with what is." "If you want reality to be different than it is, you might as well try to teach a cat to bark. But no matter how hard you try, the cat will just look up at you and say, 'Meow.'”    Teaching a cat to bark is the ultimate exercise in trying to change something that you cannot change - and have no control over -    Let's Take a moment to think about How many things we might resist on a daily basis. The weather, your child’s behavior, what your spouse does or doesn’t do, politics, genetics, health, the traffic, your appearance, grocery prices, your own emotions, and any general wishing that people or things would be different or should be different.   We all do it, and no matter who we are, resistance doesn’t change reality. It only makes life more difficult - If you have listened to Episode 5 on the 50/50 - you will recall that life is 50% positive and 50% negative - so if you are resisting reality you will be resisting at least 50% of the details of your life- that is a lot of energy spent being mad, frustrated, or disappointed about things you cannot change- it feels like you are carrying a weight on your back while you swim against the current of the details of your life. Which is why the sooner we stop resisting - what is - the sooner we feel better.   Have you ever heard of the Law of Non Resistance? It  is one of the 12 universal laws - It teaches that when you resist something, you actually give it more power.    This means that the energy you put into frustration, judgment, or avoidance only amplifies the very thing you don’t want. Tony Robbins says, ‘Where focus goes, energy flows.’ And that’s exactly what happens when we resist something in our lives—we pour our energy into the struggle.    Think about the last time you resisted a situation, whether it was a difficult conversation, an unexpected setback, or even the weather. The more you focused on how ‘wrong’ it was, the bigger the problem seemed."    Carl Jung coined the phrase, What you resist, persists." and Eckhart Tolle - added Whatever you fight, you strengthen.    No matter which phrase you like the best, they all tell us that the things we resist get more energy - and that energy creates more of what we don’t want.    One of the most fascinating examples of this is judgment - I have noticed that the simple act of judging something negatively makes me more likely to actually create the very thing I am judging others for. It is kind of like the mote and the beam parable which teaches us that when we are so busy focusing on tiny mistakes or problems of others we miss the giant mistakes or problems in ourselves.    This is why learning to stop resisting reality is so important, it will- mean that we learn to stop giving our attention and focus to the things we don’t want - which frees us up to shift our focus more to what we do want.   - Let me share a couple examples of how shifting our focus changes our results:    Example 1: Circumstance: Reading a Story in the News    🔹 Resistant Thought: "People should be kinder." → (Feeling) Anger, disappointment → (Action) Complain, look for more evidence of unkindness → (Result) I become unkind myself.    🔹 Acceptance Thought: "People can only know what they know." → (Feeling) Compassion → (Action) Get curious, seek understanding, take action where I can → (Result) I contribute to kindness rather than amplifying negativity.    Example 2: Your Child Comes Home Crying from School    🔹 Resistant Thought: "I just want them to be happy." → (Feeling) Sadness, frustration → (Action) Try to fix, dismiss their feelings, get upset with whoever hurt them → (Result) Prolonged unhappiness for both of us. 🔹 Acceptance Thought: "They are entitled to their feelings." → (Feeling) Presence, calm → (Action) Listen, validate, allow them to process emotions → (Result) They feel supported and learn resilience.    In each of these examples - the circumstance - or the reality is the same - but the way we approach the reality with our thoughts creates completely different results -    This is the difference in resisting reality versus accepting our reality. It is also why I can tell you that you can love your life more today than you did yesterday without changing people and things in your life . But changing your mind in relation to them creates entirely different feelings about your life.    My favorite visual for thinking about the law of non resistance is a mountain stream. I love to hike -and when I am out hiking, you will almost always find me taking time to sit by water - and running water is my favorite. I love the sound of it, I love the coolness of it, I love watching it - I love everything about it. I bet you have been near mountain streams yourself. When you picture water flowing down a mountain and it hits a rock, what does it do? It flows around it right? It doesn’t stop and argue, saying, “This rock shouldn’t be here!” It simply moves around the obstacle, always finding the path of least resistance. If we had to listen to water arguing with every obstacle in its path, it would certainly not be peaceful to sit near itt. And that is exactly what happens in our lives. It is not that there are obstacles, difficulties, or things we don’t like in our lives that saps our peace, it is that we resist and argue with all of these things in our own minds and frequently out loud! This is incredibly energy draining and peace disrupting.   Think about how it is when you see someone inside of their car alone - and you can see them gesturing and yelling - but you can’t hear them- They are arguing with the reality of traffic - but the only peace that is really compromised is the quiet that could have existed in their own car.    If we take our cues from the mountain stream, instead of resisting life’s difficulties, we would move through them with grace—acknowledging what is and flowing forward.    And the result is instantly more peaceful and enjoyable.    My best mental hack to help me notice when I am resisting reality is to sort things out in my mind to figure out if I have control over something that I am bothered by. Because I have learned that so much of our suffering comes from trying to control things that I simply cannot control.   So I ask myself: whose business is it, really? And it will fall into one of three categories.  🔹 My business: How I respond, how I show up.  🔹 Their business: Their thoughts, actions, and emotions.  🔹 God’s business (or reality’s business): Everything outside of any one’s control.    These three categories help me sort out where I have power to act very quickly, and the power to act is the only control I have. Whenever I catch my clients resisting their own realities, I help them quickly sort out their control by asking:    Whose business are you in right now? Or Whose job is this to manage?    It is a fantastic practice to notice when you feel frustration or tension and then ask: "Am I arguing with reality? Whose business am I in? Or Whose job is this to manage? If you can’t control it is not your job.   And if it is not your job, stop resisting what is and move on - By simply noticing, you will create space for a shift that allows you to move on - or flow around the obstacle that is robbing you of your peace.    I have time today to give you some real life examples of how dropping the focus on what you don’t like and don’t want - helps bring more peace.    I had a client who constantly resisted feeling anxious. Every time she felt overwhelmed, she’d say, ‘I shouldn’t be feeling this way! I need to get rid of this anxiety.’ But what we were able to notice together was that every time she told herself she shouldn’t be like she was - she just felt more anxious about being anxious.    Through coaching, we worked on accepting the anxiety—allowing it to be there without fighting it. We made her anxiety be a rock in a river bed and when she noticed it - she learned to name it, describe it, locate it, and then just allow herself to see it, but not get attached to making it mean anything except that it was a vibration in her body, and she could go on with the flow of her day and thoughts without being scared of it. It just was - until it wasn’t.    And just like any area of life - when she stopped giving it so much attention - it and allowed it to just be - the feeling lessened. She could move through it instead of being stuck in it.    There is probably a feeling that you are more likely to get stuck in than others - we all have our own favorite indulgent emotions - what is yours? What would it be like if you didn’t let anxiety, fear, or overwhelm mean anything was wrong? It is just a feeling that humans feel - and it can be acknowledged, but it does not have to mean anything - you can just flow on through it? Would that change the way you experience parts of your life?    Another client of mine was struggling in their marriage. They had a long list of ways their spouse ‘should’ be different. They wanted more affection, better communication, and a stronger emotional connection. And while those desires were valid, the constant resistance—wishing their spouse were different—was keeping them stuck in frustration instead of love.    We worked on shifting their thought from ‘My spouse should be more affectionate’ to ‘I can love them as they are and show up the way I want to.’ And you know what happened? When they dropped their resistance, their relationship improved. Not because their spouse changed, but because they stopped needing them to."    The list of shoulds we have about our partners, our family members, our coworkers, or anything in our life really - are likes rocks in the river - the more we believe that people and things should be different - the less peace we have -    Using the sorting technique of whose job it is to manage what should be different - helps you practice letting go of your resistance to what is - and leads you to a more peacefully experience those you want to love better than you currently are.    If your energy goes where your focus tells it to go - let's practice energizing the things we like about the people in our lives, instead of the things we wished were different.    Let go of what is not your job to control and control what you can - which is yourself - and how much you love others.    Resistance is like carrying a heavy weight, while you swim upstream, simultaneously trying to teach a cat to bark. —it only exhausts you.    But when you release the need for things to be different than they are, you free yourself to take inspired, effective action.    Byron Katie - said when I fight against reality, I lose. But only every time.   The choice is up to each of us how much we want to fight with reality - but the outcome is the same for all of us - it robs us of peace, makes life more difficult, creates friction and distance from the people we love,  is exhausting, and after all of these negative results- we will still lose -    So cue the tagline - It is Useless to Resist - Darth Vader used these words against Luke Skywalker as he tried to turn him to the dark side - but I am using them to lighten your load! So stop resisting you must - if you want to love your life more today than you did yesterday!    Thanks for  spending your time with me today! The topics of non resistance, surrender, and acceptance are particular favorites of mine. Let me know in the comments what you think about them. If you have someone you know who is tired from resisting what is - send them this episode right now. It is a simple thing - that you can control- .   Talk to you soon!

Hello and Welcome to The Love Your Life Podcast. This is Episode 19: Are You Lovable? Before we jump into this burning question - don’t forget to visit The Love and Confidence Podcast episode 115, for my interview with Laerke Nielsen that aired yesterday. Our conversation was such a powerful reminder that when we truly know our worth, we navigate life with more confidence and clarity. And that brings us to today’s question—one that so many of us wrestle with: Are you lovable? Have you ever wondered this? Perhaps you come at it in a different way? Maybe you question your worth instead of your lovability? Many people, often unconsciously, believe their worth is tied to how lovable they are. You might be surprised how many of us are asking questions like this to ourselves. Have you ever caught someone you love speaking this outloud or caught yourself thinking it? Here are some other questions that might tip you off to consider if you are pondering your lovability? Do people like me? Am I enough? Am I too much? Would they still like me if they knew this (fill in the blank thing) about me? Why didn’t I get invited to the event? Why don’t they call/text? Did I do a good job? Another way to tell if we are not feeling lovable is to pay attention to things we do. Here are some common actions that give you a clue about that. Over-giving – Hoping that doing more for others will make them feel loved and in return they will love you. Posting on social media – Fishing for likes, comments, or attention to feel seen and valued. Testing boundaries – Pushing limits in relationships to see if love is conditional or unconditional. Clinging or withdrawing – Either getting extra close or pulling away to see if someone chases after them. Whether it is questioning our worth, or questioning our lovability, all of these questions and actions have something in common. They are all outward focused. When we question if we are lovable we are asking if people around us see something worth loving in us. We are wondering if we are attractive enough, smart enough, good enough, sweet enough, contributing enough, strong enough, or “whatever enough” to be loved. Today, I want to help you consider that wondering if we are lovable enough in the eyes of others is the wrong question. Because it is actually never about how lovable we are, rather it is about how able to love others are. One thing to keep in mind is that what others say and don’t say, or do and don’t do - is always telling us something about them. How can I be so sure about saying this, you might ask? It is because I understand what drives actions - and it is never a circumstance that creates our specific actions or non actions- It is always what we think about a circumstance. And as wonderful and as important as we are in our own minds, we are only ever a circumstance in somebody else’s life. We do and say things that are merely facts for others to think thoughts about, and those thoughts - create feelings - and those feelings fuel the actions that they do or do not take - so the way people speak to and treat others is always a clue for us to understand what they think and feel - true it could be a clue to what they think and feel about us - but it is never because we are lovable, worthy, or good - it is only ever because of how the people around us are able to manage their own thoughts and feelings. Which is based largely on how they have been loved and treated by others to start with. And don’t forget - no matter how perfect you are - you never get to control what others think about you. A great example of this- is the story of Beauty and the Beast - The Beast basically does everything possible to be unlovable. Locks Belle’s father in a dungeon, holds her captive, yells at her, doesn’t shave, sabotages her friendships with the candles, is scary, and most likely has bad breath. In true timeless fashion, this story has endured because of its universal appeal. Most of us can relate to the Beast—we all have traits that aren’t always easy to love. But as the saying goes, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Belle demonstrates this throughout the story, not only by seeing past the Beast’s rough exterior to recognize his true character but also by embodying self-respect and strong personal values. She refuses to compromise her standards when Gaston demands her love, stands firm in her loyalty to her father despite how the townspeople perceive him, and ultimately proves that true love is about understanding and seeing beyond surface-level flaws. Belle repeatedly shows us what true lovability looks like. The townspeople, on the other hand, reveal their limited capacity to love. They fail to see the goodness in those who are different from them, choosing instead to follow the crowd. But it was never about Belle, the Beast, or her father being lovable - it was always about the ability of the people around them, and the ability inside of themselves to love. Over the course of a lifetime we will be bumping up against all kinds of people with all kinds of different levels of love ability. Some of us will have the misfortune of being raised by people with very low abilities to love- this frequently starts the thoughts very very early that lead us to believe that the problem is with us - we must not be lovable - because the adults around us are acting like there is something wrong with us. They even say things that imply or outright accuse us of being less than lovable. The thoughts we start thinking as a child then get free passage in our minds all the way through to adulthood - and eventually these thoughts become beliefs - we don’t even question if they are right or wrong - we accept the labels of not enoughness also known as unlovable. Others of us are raised by and surrounded by people with much higher levels of ability to love. They see the good in us even when our exteriors are prickly. They are not bothered by the ages and stages that we go through because they have the ability to see us for who we actually are and that is perfectly worthy of love as the perfectly imperfect humans we are born as. And Most of us are raised by people that get it right sometimes and wrong others - but they are trying to improve what they got handed to them. AS we venture out into the wide world we will run into teachers and coaches with different abilities to love and reflect worthiness to us, peers with vastly different abilities - coworkers, partners, and family members with different levels of emotional maturity and ability to love. No matter who we encounter, and what they say or don’t say, do or don’t do—will always reflect more about them than about us. The key is to recognize this and catch yourself when sneaky thoughts creep in, making you question your own worth or lovability. If you’ve experienced trauma, it may be even harder to challenge the voices that say you’re unworthy—especially if unhealthy people in your life reinforce that belief. Often, they project their own pain to feel better about themselves. But let me be the voice that tells you they were wrong. You are, and always have been, worthy of love. It has never been about you—it has always been about them. When we seek external validation for our worth, we’re not seeing the truth about ourselves; we’re seeing a reflection of others’ ability to love. And the good news? Our ability to love—both ourselves and others—is something we can grow. The more we embrace this, the less power others' opinions will have over us. I’ve seen this in kids on the basketball court, in teens on social media, and in adults questioning their relationships. The thoughts we absorb early in life can define us—unless we choose to challenge them. I hope our conversation today gives you more of a desire to challenge any thoughts you think that label you as less than and that you let me be a voice that tells you the truth: You are perfectly worthy of love. Because lovability was never the question. Love isn’t something you earn—it’s what you already are. Whether or not those around you reflect that back to you, it remains the truth. And remembering this truth will allow you to love yourself and your life more deeply than you ever thought possible. Best of all, not one person has to change how they treat you to be able to move forward and grow in this ability—you have the power to do it now. Thanks for hanging out with me today! I think love is such a valuable feeling to invest in. I am amazed at how much it grows when we are brave enough to share it with others. If you know someone who is easy for you to love, share this with them, and maybe this information will make its way to someone who really needs to hear it. You might be just the right rock, thrown in just the right water that makes just the right ripple, to just the right person, at just the right time. Stranger things have happened! Talk to you soon!

Hello and Welcome to The Love Your Life Podcast, Episode 18 -  5 Powerful Practices to Improve Any Relationship. I had a fun opportunity this past week to be interviewed for an episode on the Love and Confidence Podcast by Laerke Nielsen,  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-love-confidence-podcast/id1662409219 I am in episode 115 that comes out on February 20th, The Secrets to Long-lasting Love. It was a fun conversation about some best practices that go into lifelong relationships. She even got me to share an interesting story about when my husband broke up with me after we had dated a few months. Spoiler alert: he came back!  Laerke discusses all things love, dating, and confidence weekly and is a fantastic coach. If you want to grow your thinking around your personal confidence and/or your confidence in your dating life, she is a great resource. I’m putting the link to her show in the notes for this episode.    Our conversation reminded me how much I enjoy coaching on relationships, and since this episode is coming out on Valentine’s day, I wanted to give you my top 5 tips that increase love in any relationship and that you are absolutely in control of.    1- Know yourself.  No one is going to know you better than you are going to know yourself because humans can’t read minds. It’s up to each of us to figure out the things we like and don’t like and then to speak up for it. When you figure out your own likes, dislikes, needs, and wants you will be better able to find someone who fits you. The best relationships have the same want matches in life. Don’t default to matching up with things you don’t want. That is a lower level of interaction. You deserve    If you have gotten in the habit of ignoring your own needs, or judging yourself for having them, you are at risk of waking up some day in a world of things you don’t like.   It is always worth the effort to figure out what it is you want for your life. Knowing who you are already, helps you map out what it will take to get you to where you want to go. It also helps you sort out who you want beside you as you go. 2- Be Responsible.  When you know what you want in your life, don’t sluff off the responsibility of getting it to someone else. Human minds are prone to looking for someone to come and save us or fix things for us. Brains don’t like to be uncomfortable. They would rather be safe and certain.    In relationships, when we wait for our partner to do things so that we can be happy, we end up in emotionally immature loops. We begin to focus on what they are doing or not doing, and try to get them to do things just right so that we can be happy. When the focus is on changing them, we will inevitably end up disappointed because we don’t have the power to control others. But we do have the amazing power to control ourselves.    Being responsible for our own feelings, needs, and desires lifts a burden off of our partners and frees them up to love us right where we are instead of giving them the job to fix things for us.    If your brain notices that you would like something - then it has notified you that you are just the person to make that something happen.   3- Be curious-  Curiosity is a super power we can bring to all areas of life, but it is extra awesome in our relationships. When we are curious, dopamine is released in our brain as a form of anticipated reward. Not only does dopamine feel great, but when applied to dating and relationships it also makes us more interesting and attractive.    Curiosity is a signal to others that we are open and interested in them, which helps them feel safe. It is like they can see our vulnerability of openness and meet us with their own vulnerability.    Curiosity also signals to others that you can manage your own feelings and even handle theirs. When you are curious you are letting others know that they are worth your time, even and especially when they are different from you.   Have you ever been around people and noticed that they didn’t ask one question about you? It can come off as arrogant when people don’t show interest in others, but I find that frequently when someone shows little curiosity in others it is more often that they are telling us that they are not very confident in themselves. They don’t trust themselves to know what to do with the unknown information you might present to them if they ask too many questions about you, or they might suffer from comparing themselves to others and therefore don’t like to find out much about people around them as a way to protect themselves.   Lack of curiosity in others and the world around you can become a bad habit that keeps you stuck in life. If you want to progress in any area of your life, start getting curious and the world will open up to you.   One great thing about curiosity is that it is pretty easy to practice getting better at it. If it is not natural for you, you can decide ahead of time that you are going to ask questions about the people you spend time with? Set a goal to ask two questions about the next person you interact with and train yourself to lead out like this. Before you know it, curiosity will be a habit that helps you and those around you feel more loved and connected.   4- Be forgiving.  We can’t control the people in our lives or the circumstances of our lives, but we can control how we react to them.   One of the best practices to have in healthy close relationships is forgiveness.   There is an art to forgiving. To forgive others we have to be aware of the thoughts we are thinking that lean towards condemnation or judgment. You won’t be able to feel true forgiveness until you pull away from those thoughts and get a little curious about why someone would do the thing that hurts you.    It also takes some work to understand within yourself why it hurts. Oftentimes the hurt we feel from others comes from previous things we haven’t cleaned up, but we put that old pain onto a person who is right here in front of us. It’s not really fair to give them the past baggage, and it doesn’t help you relieve yourself from the old pain when you bring it into the present without being aware of it.   In a way, when we practice forgiveness in the present, we start to teach ourselves how to let go of past wounds also. An additional bonus that I see all the time is that when we learn to forgive the people in our inner circles, we also get better at forgiving ourselves. The pattern of forgiving or not forgiving is always always connected to how we talk to and forgive ourselves. So it’s winning all around when we practice it in our relationships with others.    5- Look for the Good -  Last week I taught you that your brain is a magnet and the thoughts you think tell it what to attract. If I could help the people I love do one thing, it would be to help them remember that they are going to see what they look for. If you are looking for the things that are wrong and not working you will find them. And while you see the negatives you will not see the positives at the same time. It just doesn’t work like that.    When I was newly into the coaching phase of my life, I had a daughter in highschool. Her room was always messy, no matter what I tried to do to motivate her, it didn’t help. She is a person who does things brilliantly, but she does them on her own timeline. She has been teaching me this since she was a small child, but at this particular time I was riding the wave of being worried that she wasn’t doing all the things she needed to do to be prepared for her future, and that she was falling behind, and her room was a mess. Did I mention that part?   Well you might be able to see that I was magnetizing my thoughts by noticing the mess and all the things I was worried about not doing “right”. She finally got fed up with my negativity, and said, “Mom, the way you are acting, you would think I am on drugs and failing out of school. But I have a 4.0, I have two jobs, I am on a varsity sports team and a club team, I go to church, I am saving for college, and if I get any spare time, I stay home and read. What do you want from me?”   And her words hit me like a dagger. What more could I ask of her? A clean room paled in comparison to all the things she was carrying on her young shoulders, and all the things she was doing right. I went to my room and cried. I had stopped seeing the brilliance in my beautiful shiny girl because I had let an unmanaged mind focus on something that was temporary, and didn’t really matter. Not only did I see it, I was talking about the temporary things so much that I was starting to invite her to see herself that way too. Thank goodness that she was able to use her words to protect herself from my barrage of negativity, because I needed that reminder. I needed to see the good.    These principles, that coaching has given a voice to, have given me so much opportunity to see the things in my life that I am responsible for, accept that I am creating the results I do, ask for forgiveness for the negative results I don’t like,  and then give me the way forward towards growth and change. The change has been towards something that is so much better for me and for the people I love.   I would go on to become a mother who started doing laundry for a highschooler, cleaned her room consistently, and spoke love into every hoodie I folded and dirty sock I lifted from the ground. I pray that my apology was received in time to not damage my relationship with this incredible girl, and that I will be a better mother for it going forward. Thanks to her, I became a mother who practiced seeing the good. I am not perfect at it today, but I find that I am able to course correct faster than I used to. I am definitely more sensitive to the negative thinking when I trip into it with all of the practice I have done.   These 5 skills we have discussed today will improve romantic love in your life, so yay for valentine’s day! Ha-  but as you can glean from this last story, they will increase the peace, connection, and love in all of your relationships.    I am sincere when I say to you that you will love your life more today than you did yesterday if you are willing to lean into your relationships with more personal awareness, responsibility, curiosity, forgiveness, and positivity than your human brain does naturally when left on auto pilot.    If you have enjoyed thinking about relationships today, consider this:   Love is like chocolate—way better when shared! 🍫💖 If this episode made you smile, gave you a fresh perspective, or reminded you of someone special, don’t keep it to yourself! Send it to a friend, share it on social media, or leave a little love in a review. The more we spread love, the sweeter life gets! Happy Valentine’s Day, Now go share the love! And I’ll talk to you soon.

Hello and Welcome to the Love Your Life Podcast! This is Episode # 17, Magnetic. I have been thinking about you all week! I left you with an invitation last episode to consider stepping towards something that scares you or you don’t think you can do. Did you come up with something in your life that feels like this? Are you considering tackling it anytime soon? I would love to hear what that is in the comments of the show. This week I want to teach you about a superpower you have that is also a weakness. This is not surprising because strengths are almost always connected with weaknesses. I think of them like different sides of the same coin. If you pick up a quarter off the counter it always comes with a head and a tail. They are inseparable. Most of our strengths and weaknesses are like this. I’ll give you an example. Early on, I noticed my husband’s talent for organizing processes and paying attention to detail—especially at work. It was great for us because he was highly valued by his employers. He quickly earned promotions and saved companies money. However, that same strength became a challenge at home. I prioritize efficiency and speed whereas he is more focused on doing things “right”. I do recognize that I have benefited from his measure 29 times cut once approach, but it is painful during the 28th measurement. This became especially evident when my kids hit middle school and started struggling with math homework. What should have been a 30-minute homework session often turned into a 3-hour marathons when dad was involved because he wanted to refine their processes and teach them why his way was better than the teacher’s way. Many tears have been shed at that kitchen table covered with math papers. I’m not sure my children will ever understand that his focused and detailed strength is anything but a weakness! To be fair he is not the only one around this place with strengths masqueraded as weaknesses. We’ve got a couple of daughters that are the most stubborn humans I have ever run into, and I come from Missouri so that is saying something. They are virtually immovable when they have dug into a decision on something they will or will not do. I perceived it as a weakness as I have butted heads with their younger selves. I will never forget the standoffs with these tiny tyrant toddlers. Once we lost an entire morning of happiness because I wouldn't let her have ice cream for breakfast. I can’t even begin to describe what travelling was like when she knew how to get out of car seats and refused to stay in them anywhere we went or fought like a tiger every time I put her in. Even though the struggle has produced plenty of tears, it is admittedly one of their greatest strengths. Being immovable when you are going after a goal in your life or when you believe yourself to be in the right, especially as a woman in a patriarchal society, is actually a gift. I pity the fool who tries to cross them! And I take great comfort now that they are out of my house, that they will hold their own in this big wide world. I invite you to think about the people you love the most, and also think about how this applies to yourself. What is it that you love about them? Or what do you see as their greatest strength? You were probably attracted to that thing at the beginning of knowing them and hopefully still are today. But consider with me now what the weakness is that comes from that very same strength? Then ask yourself which one you spend the most time thinking about? The strength, or the weakness? The thing you like, or the thing you don’t? Even though we are initially attracted by the strength in others, we find that over time we notice the weakness more than the strength. This happens because our brains come wired with a negativity bias. A bias is simply a mental shortcut that helps us process information quickly. I touched on this a little in episode 3 when I introduced you to your sweet little lizard brain. Negativity bias is the brain’s tendency to give more weight to negative experiences, thoughts, and emotions than to positive ones. This means that we notice, remember, and react to negative stimuli more strongly than positive ones of equal intensity. It's a survival mechanism. Our ancestors had to be highly attuned to threats (predators, poisonous food, social rejection etc.) to stay alive. While modern life is far less dangerous, our brains still operate as if detecting and avoiding threats is the priority. And our brain has many biases - or shortcuts that help us process information quickly. It is amazing how efficient it can be, so that it can reserve its energy to scan for danger and keep us personally and our species in general alive. I want to introduce to you to another bias today called confirmation bias. It is basically a mental habit of favoring information that matches what we already think or believe and ignoring or rejecting what doesn’t, it is the shortcut the brain uses to reinforce the thoughts that we think. It’s easy to see how biases like negativity and confirmation create problems, so why do we have them? Because, just like any coin, they have a strength or purpose—they help us process the world faster. Our negativity bias kept our ancestors alive by making sure they remembered which berries made them sick or which rustling in the bushes meant danger. And confirmation bias is actually a sign of efficiency—our brain is designed to recognize patterns quickly and reinforce what we already ‘know’ so we don’t have to start from scratch every time. But The problem isn’t that we have these biases; it’s that we’re often using them against ourselves instead of for us. But once we recognize them, we can redirect them—using the same mental shortcuts to focus on strengths, possibilities, and proof that life is working in our favor There are plenty of studies out there that help us understand these processes in the brain. Donald Hebb who is known as the father of neuropsychology discovered back in 1949 that our neurological connections become faster and faster the more often they are used. Today Hebb’s Rule is a foundational principle in neuroscience, stating that the more we think a thought, the stronger the neural pathway becomes. There are lots of studies, big words, and technical language that can teach us this information, but my simple way to describe it helps my clients and I cut through the sludge in our thinking patterns quickly and easily by picturing our brain as a magnet, and the thoughts we think are the directors that select what we attract to the magnet. Once we think a thought, our brain goes to work bringing every bit of evidence it can to our awareness that the thought we think is correct. Brains are such powerful magnets for the thoughts we think, BUT they are not doing any work to filter out if those thoughts are actually TRUE when fueled by confirmation bias- and they certainly don’t care if the evidence they bring to us to support our thoughts makes us feel good. This means our brains want to be right- more than they want to feel good. So think of this giant magnet in your head that is continually pulling evidence around you to prove to you that you are right, and remember that your brain also has a negativity bias. Which as a reminder means that when your brain is left unmonitored it will highlight to you all the things that it doesn’t like or is scared of. And you will start to see how easy it is to constantly believe the thoughts you think about the weaknesses of yourself and those you love. And you will notice that it does not feel bueno. Soooooo what does the brain do when you think the thought “my child is so stubborn? She doesn’t listen to me?” Your brain instantly goes on the hunt for every shred of evidence it can find to show you that your child is stubborn and doesn’t listen to you (which it has thousands of little memories of, especially the older the child gets,) and as those pieces of evidence pile in, they start to compound. So you can easily go from being annoyed that your child is stubborn and doesn’t listen to you, to a full on panic that your child is going to die because they will one day be so stubborn that they won’t listen to the airline directions when they tell them to put their seatbelt on and then they die in a plane crash because of it. I know this is a funny exaggerated ending, but this is one of the most common thought processes I help people see in themselves on a daily basis.Because our brain is such a powerful magnet for evidence that the thoughts we think are true - It will end up creating the wildest stories. I’m not joking, and you are probably believing some exaggerated stories right now, and are not even aware of it. You are more likely to notice that you are worried, sad, disappointed, scared, or lonely than you are to notice what the thoughts are that magnetize the evidence that makes you feel so wretched. I run into these thoughts on a daily basis with my clients. Here are some very common ones. -I have too big of a personality. I am not enough. My child will never be happy. My partner doesn’t see me. I can’t handle this circumstance. I can never have what I want. My daughter doesn’t care about me. My spouse is driving our children away. I am too old for this. My body can’t do the things it used to. No one listens to me around here. I’ve ruined my children. -my sons never call. The best parts of my life have already happened. I can go on and on = and I have no doubt that if you don’t hear yourself in one of these lines, you have something similar that is a thought you completely believe, have tons of evidence for, and is absolutely limiting you from seeing the positive in an area of yourself, your life, or your people, I promised you as I started today that I was going to tell you that you have a super power and that it is also a weakness. AS I have talked you might have noticed that negativity and confirmation biases definitely create weaknesses, I mean they are magnetizing evidence for things that make us feel horrible without any effort on our part. This is true, but remember that every coin has a head and a tail. The flip side of every weakness is a strength. What if all it takes is to wake up and be aware that we have a wired in bias, and that when we think things we are magnets for evidence - that evidence will make us feel bad or good - it just depends on the evidence we are calling in. If you have gotten in the habit of only noticing your weaknesses or the weaknesses of the people around you, you will not be feeling great about them or yourself, or your life. But if you use the information I am offering today to examine what the strengths are that are connected to those weaknesses, you will then have the opportunity to give more thought and attention to the strengths. Once you start noticing what the strengths are you can use the great magnet of your brain to attract evidence that these thoughts are true. And The higher the quality of the thoughts about people, the better the relationship you have with them will be. I have mentioned before that I am a firm believer that the quality of our life is determined by the quality of the relationships in our life. I also believe that the quality of the relationships in my life is determined by me. Namely by what I think about them. I start with the relationship I have with myself. If that is fueled by negative thinking that attracts evidence of everything I am lacking and limits everything I think I can do, nothing outside of me is going to make that feel better. Which means, I have to start working on those thoughts first. Then I work outward from there. I have a relationship with my husband, with my family members in all generational directions, with my friends, with my clients, and with my life. Every time I think a thought about any person or thing I relate to, I am sending my brain on the errand to collect evidence that I am right about them. So instead of being right that your child is stubborn, your spouse doesn’t know when to let up, you are too much, or your life is not what you hoped it would be - Practice thinking thoughts that are the opposite of these and see what evidence you can look for on purpose in your life until your brain starts easily magnetizing the new thoughts. It will feel a lot better to think that your child is determined, that your spouse is dependable, that you are enough, and that your life is constantly evolving towards more of what you want and less of what you don’t want. If your negative lizard brain gets loud and tries to tell you that these new thoughts are wrong, give it a little nudge with your curiosity instead of a free pass of acceptance. I’ve told you before, and I’ll tell you again - you don’t HAVE to believe every thought you think. Your brain is a magnet, but you get to choose what it attracts. Choose wisely, and you’ll shape a life that feels amazing —not just one where you’re ‘right. And that my friend, will definitely help you love your life more today than you did yesterday, and it makes the promise of tomorrow even more sweet because after you have done the initial work to challenge the old patterns, and start to establish new ones, the new ones will eventually run on auto pilot because you will have become a magnet for good. Thanks for spending your time with me today! Make sure to like this podcast, leave a comment, and share it with those who want better relationships in their life. Talk to you soon!

Hello and Welcome to the Love Your Life Podcast - this is Episode 16 - Quitter’s DayI I am so happy you are here with me again today! It is definitely not quitters day for my podcast. I am committed to turning out weekly episodes each Friday that deliver tried and true principles that help you think new thoughts, and create new results in your life - all in 15 minutes or less. Today has the promise of being an impactful one if you listen to the end. Did you know there is a day called quitter’s day? It is not labeled on calendars that you buy and it doesn’t populate onto your online calendar when you click the box for holidays in the United States, so you might not have heard of it before, if you haven’t let me be the first to introduce it to you. Quitter’s day is the second Friday in January. You can probably guess where it comes from now that you know the date. And you are right if you are guessing that quitter’s day is the day that most people quit their new years resolutions - One of the resources used to arrive at this specific date is Research by the fitness app Strava, based on data from millions of users. They found that this is when motivation tends to drop, and people abandon their goals. Strava is an app that you can link to watches and phones that record your minutes of exercise daily. It records your routes, your time, breaks down your minutes per mile, and then keeps the information for you and can give you reports on your exercise trends throughout the year. It is also able to connect you with your friends and family that are doing the same. It has all kinds of nifty features. I became familiar with it when two of my daughters trained for and ran their first marathon in September of this last year. Their friends made them a sign that said pain is temporary but posting on strava is forever. I decided to use it after watching my girls cross their finish line, and I signed up to run a half marathon a few months later. It was an awesome tool as I planned, trained for and completed the running of my own race and I thought it was very clever how it connected you to your community. It’s fascinating to me that even with all of this social support and connection, record keeping, and live interaction with your goals, that the majority of people using it only made it two weeks into a new year's goal. A Pew Research Center Survey from January of 2024 found that only 3 in 10 Americans are making new year's resolutions in the first place, and then only 9 percent of them made it to their goal. And the older we get, the less likely we are to even make resolutions. I don’t know if these numbers represent how likely people are to make goals at other times of the year, but I am curious about this as we discuss goals today. A good definition of a goal is an idea of the future or desired result that a person or a group of people envision, plan, and commit to achieve. Notice here that a goal is simply a result we want to create in our future. The majority of people look for me as their life coach when they are really tired of the results they have created in their present lives and are willing to go through the discomfort that is required to create different results in their future. And I never tire of teaching them that the results of our lives are created by what we think and feel and not by our circumstances. Which is such fantastic news! Because circumstances are rarely in our control, but what we think is. And If we get to choose what we think in any given circumstance, then those thoughts will create specific feelings and those feelings will drive specific actions that create specific results. Let’s say it backwards - Results are created by the actions we do or do not take, those actions are fueled by our feelings. Our feelings are created by our thoughts. If we want to create a specific result or goal, then we can go about it in several ways. We can think about the result we want to create, and then figure out what actions we need to take to accomplish it. We map out those actions in our mind or on paper. Then we look at them and ask ourselves what we will need to feel like to complete those actions, and then we figure out what we will need to think to create that feeling. The result will be created by doing the actions, yes, but the actions will only be able to be done if we stay in the mindset that creates the fuel to do them. Here is a personal example of this. When I wanted to start running again, I decided I wanted to create the result of the ability to run 13.6, 12 minute, consecutive miles in a row. I was 51 years old, and I hadn’t been a consistent runner in more than 10 years, so I was starting from zero. My immediate actions were to run two minutes alternated with walking two minutes, and I would do that 7 times in a row the first week. Then weekly expand the running walking ratio until I strung together running an entire mile without walking. The actions of this process were repeated over and over again for three months - In the past I had plenty of my own quitter days when thinking about or starting up running again, but this time, I had this thought model in my back pocket. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to push through the discomfort of it all if I was giving myself pressure or talking negatively to myself. I also knew that I was inspired because my daughters did something that they used to believe they couldn’t do. And it reminded me of myself as a 14 year old freshman in high school watching the one mile relay for the first time. I saw the anchor leg runner, grit her teeth and sprint an entire quarter mile. Her determination was inspiring to me, but I instantly thought that I could never be that tough. As long as I thought that thought, I never even tried. Which is what we call failing ahead of time - or in this time quitting before I even started. Eventually, I got curious enough to question that thought telling me I couldn’t do it, and I started to wonder if I actually could do it, until I decided to at least try it, and I was able to try it because I told myself that I didn’t have to be amazing at it. I just had to try. And when I tried, it turned out I could do it. And when I realized that I could do it, it gave me the guts to dare to be amazing at it. And when I dared to be amazing, it turned out, I actually was amazing at it. As I remembered this experience in my past, I could see that I had let my thoughts trip me up again in recent years - there were thoughts that told me I couldn’t run anymore. They said I used to be a runner, but I was too old now. They told me it was too hard, and I didn’t need to do hard things anymore. And I had been believing them. Those thoughts fueled the action of not running. But what if I was wrong again, just like I was wrong in highschool? As I questioned my limiting, quitting producing thoughts, I started to get curious. But what if I could still run? What if I just don’t need to be as amazing at it as I used to be? What if I could do it even if it wasn’t pretty? What if I could do it even if it was hard? What if it was even supposed to be hard? Could I still do it then? And then I found my thoughts, I remembered that I’m a person that can do hard things. and I granted myself permission to not be good at it. That permission made room for lots of new feelings. First off was Desire. Permission allowed the desire to be louder. The next feeling was a surprise. It was Humility. I had been prideful when I didn’t want to do it if I couldn’t be amazing at it. The feeling of humility allowed me to do something without needing it to look good. I also felt hopeful for the first time in a long time because I was able to kick the thoughts out that predicted failure. They had kept me from even starting for years. Once I felt hopeful, a little spark of determination started and then I caught sight of my old familiar friend grit. Grit showed up after desire, hope and humility, and determination got the gears turning. Grit had to come in and provide fuel when I was out running and I wanted to quit. I summoned grit by thinking, “all I have to do is to put one foot in front of the other. It doesn’t have to be pretty.” And I did! I kept putting one foot in front of the other - and created a new result in my life. All because I thought new thoughts and I created better fuel for my actions. Ironically, I did it with Strava measuring every minute I ran - I guess I was actually an outlier for their statistical average measurement of goal quitters. And isn’t that just the thing - There will be times in each life that we fall in line with the statistical averages of our demographics, but there is always a chance to be an outlier. I have found that the odds are not in our favor if we want to really love the lives we live. It’s hard to feel true satisfaction and connection in the relationship we have with our life and the people in it when we are allowing our lives to be fueled by unintentional thoughts. Our brains are wired to show us the things we don’t like, don’t want, and are scared will happen. It requires a little bit of present day awareness about the things we habitually think - to be able to give ourselves the chance to disagree with these thoughts and practice thinking new ones. Running a half marathon is small potatoes in the race of life, but it had big lessons and reminders for me. Feel free to learn from my past mistakes with thoughts that kept me quitting for over a decade before I even started, so that you don’t stall yourself in the things you want to do for as long as I did. I have learned that it is important to pay attention when my brain offers me the thought “ I could never do anything like that.” or “I could never be that good.” or “That is too hard for someone like me to do.” I now know that when I think these thoughts - it is like a huge flashing light telling me this is exactly the next right thing that I NEED to do. Vincent Van Gogh said -"If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced." – Ralph Waldo Emmerson said, Always do what you are afraid to do. Joseph Campbell said “ The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.” And of course my favorite German Philosopher Wolfgan Van Goethe has given me these words to live by since I was 17 - The moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would have never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings, and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now. I didn’t know when I was 17 that the secret behind deciding to set goals and making commitments to myself and my life was fueled by feelings that were created by the thoughts I think And yet, even now with this knowledge it does feel like it is a bold and magical experience to think up the new results I want to create in the future while I am still just the same old me in the present. But my friends! This is how we move towards creating better for our future selves whether we are 17, 47 or 77! NO matter what your practice with goals has been in your past - the act of noticing the results that you have in your life today that you don’t want, and the practice of thinking ahead and setting goals that will create results you like better for your future self is only one thought away from where you are now. So what is it you want to improve this year and gift your future self with something better than you have now? Maybe you will know what you need to do because you are scared of it like I was, or you have been believing that you cannot do it? Is it the time to improve your relationships or create new ones? Is it the year of fiscal responsibility or health? Could it be the year that you choose to become more emotionally mature and you decide to stop letting the people and entities around you determine what you feel on a daily basis? Maybe it is a year of transition and the schedules and people you have relied on in the past are all changing - and you have to figure out how to change with it? Maybe you have grown lax with your spiritual and emotional practices and you want to recommit? Or you have struggled with self confidence in the past and you want to be more intentional about how you show up in your life? Perhaps you need to just start with one little thing like van gogh says and learn how to paint. Or like I had to remember I could run, so that you will then have the evidence to tackle the next big thing in your life. I can promise you that if you stop the judging, minimizing thoughts your brain offers you in any area you are considering that lead you to quit before you start or shortly thereafter, and you muster even the tiniest desire to get curious and believe you are capable of something new, that you will be on your way to loving your life more tomorrow than you did today. And that my friend, is an amazing feeling. Have you ever noticed that a candle loses nothing by lighting another candle, and the more candles that are lit the brighter the path for others to follow? It’s amazing to me that light is such an easy thing to share. In fact, when a light turns on - we can’t stop those around us from seeing it. Especially if they are in the dark. If this podcast is helping you see things in a new light, I would be honored if you would share it with the people you know who want to see their own path better and thus make it easier for those who come behind them to follow. Talk to you soon!

Hello and Welcome to the Love your life podcast - this is episode 15- No time like the present. Welcome back, I love that you are here with me today in this space where we talk about thriving in the lives we create instead of merely surviving our circumstances. Today, we’re diving into the benefits of living in the present. Let’s start with a story you most likely know: A story that uses the concepts of past, present, and future. It is the iconic story of Ebenezer Scrooge from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Scrooge is a perfect example of someone disconnected from the present. He’s consumed by regret from his past and fear of his future. His life is dominated by greed and loneliness, and he misses every single chance possible to connect with the people and life around him. He is the epitome of letting his lizard brain trap him in a cold dark cave stashed away from actually living, and he does a great job trying to drag everyone else around him into their own caves or at least to follow the rules of his cold and dark cave when they are around him. But then, he has a life-altering experience, with the Ghosts from Christmas past, present and future. All three ghosts have important messages, but today we will focus on The Ghost of Christmas Present that shows him the beauty and joy available in the here and now. Of course it doesn’t hurt that he got a little bit of fear put into him by Christmas future, but When Scrooge finally wakes up on Christmas morning, he realizes that all he has is the present and there is no time to waste. He is eager to get out and live in a better way than he ever had before. He course corrects from greed to generosity. He stops isolating himself and begins to connect to people in his life. He starts serving others, and I always love how it helps him SEE the people and things in his life in a different way. Like how in the world had he not seen how cute Tiny Tim was before that - for realz. Basically, He starts to live more fully in the moment. Now , Obviously, most of us are not the exaggerated version that Scrooge is in the way we approach our daily life, but this story has had the staying power it has because it hits on universal human behaviors. Every single one of us is faced with the challenge of balancing our present moments with our focus on past and future - We have to figure out how we can show up in all of our todays in a way that connects us to the people we love. We have to balance letting go of regret and pain from the past, which requires repentance and forgiveness on a continual basis, and we have to break free of the fear based stories that our brains tell us about our futures. These predictions of all manner of bad things in the future control us in our present. We also have to not let ourselves be completely driven by what we want to create in the future - whether that be bank accounts, pretty houses, perfect resumes, or just the appearance of fitting in with everyone around us, and let these pursuits take us out of noticing what matters most in our day to day lives - which in my book are the relationships we foster with the people around us, with ourselves, and with God or the divine. We only ever have today to create this balance- and this balance is what will help us feel peace and love for our life. So Today let's talk about _______ things we can do to help ourselves create this balance in our everyday life. I’ll start with our body. So many of us lose connection with our physical body when we eject from our present focus. Coming back into a balanced relationship with our body is key for several reasons. First off -If we are neglecting to take care of our health because we are hustling for tomorrow - we have to acknowledge that we might have less tomorrows we get to choose what to do with. Because illness robs us of choice. We have to see that there will never be any time but the present to take care of ourselves. Every single investment we put into our health has exponential benefits for our future. If we are neglecting our physical bodies because we are depressed from past focus - we have to wake up and see that this only creates more of what we don’t want today and that one of the biggest keys to free us from depression is movement and care of our physical bodies. - So what is your plan for taking care of your health? -- there are so many ways to choose from - just make sure you are choosing something and not accidentally falling into inactivity. Drink your water, move your body, sleep at night, brush your teeth, all the things! Having a healthier body gives us a better chance to strengthen our mind/body connection- which benefits the present immensely. I have talked to you about feelings here in podcast land before - The vibrations of emotions in our body that are created by our thoughts is one of the beautiful systems set up to connect our bodies with our minds - If we stay connected to our physical bodies and we Learn to pay attention to our feelings, we will move through the negative feelings in a much cleaner way, and invite more positive feelings in as the fuel for our present actions. Go back and listen to podcasts 6 and 7 for a feeling your feeling refresher because the better you get at feeling your feelings - the better you will get at living in the present. Another way to strengthen your mind-body connection is stillness- Time outs are not just for children. Do you have planned stillness in your days? This can be your spiritual time, your meditative time, your writing and reflecting time, or your checking over your body and mind time- Whatever you want to do - choose it on purpose. Make a plan today for how you want to fit this in. WE call ourselves human beings - but we tend to be human doers - If we want to be more connected to our bodies - we are going to have to get better at being - and that requires stillness. I find that I can be still in all kinds of random ways.- When I go for walks my body is moving - but I frequently use this as a time to quiet my mind. I turn off the music or the podcast - and I do a senses check in. What do I see? I describe the colors and shapes and textures I see around me. What do I hear? I practice listening for the closest sound I can hear and identify it - and then I practice listening to the furthest sound away I can hear and identify. What do I feel? The sunshine on my skin, the wind in my face, the texture of my clothing, the ground beneath my feet. What do I smell? Flowers are my favorite when I’m outside, but sometimes its wet leaves, or car exhaust, or humid air before a rainstorm - and I end with What I can touch? I bend over and feel a blade of grass, or a piece of cold ice, or a crunchy leaf, or the asphalt below my foot. Checking in with each of my senses is an awesome way to still my mind and bring me back into my body. Once I’ve reconnected everything back together - I like to pray as I walk and then stay as open as possible to the thoughts that cross my mind from there. Stillness also looks like looking at the leaves in a tree from my hammock, writing in my journal, praying, meditating, breathing exercises, and stretching. Whatever quiets your mind and helps you just gets to count as stillness for you. I’d love to hear in the comments what your go to is. AS you create the practice of health in your body and mind - you will have a better shot at slowing things down when you are with people and trying to soak them in. Of course this will require putting down screens, phones, and books. And choosing to prioritize people. I am not always the best at it, but here are some of my favorite ways that work for me when I do manage to stay present focused. I love to look at the people I love and try to memorize them in that moment - or take a mental snapshot. My kids get annoyed and sometimes tell me to stop being creepy - but that's a them problem! I like to hone in on details like what their eyes look like in a specific light - how their smile lights up their face - what their habitual fidgets are - like the tapping of their leg, the drumming on the table or the way they hold their fork. I take a minute and try to record the sound of their voice on my heart. Of feel how their hand fills up mind as we walk across the parking lot. It really does slow time down for me and the normal mundane things end up having the power to take my breath away. It is such a beautiful way to stay present and add satisfaction to your life. The other day I was looking at my husband's face and noticed a new wrinkle around his eye. It comes out when he smiles. His sparkly blue eyes have been a magnet for my attention from the first day I met him, but this specific time I felt my heart speed up and time slow down at the same time. Because That wrinkle is mine. He smiles every time we make eye contact. I don’t always sink into it - but when I make the effort to see what is in front of me - there is literally love that comes out of every crease in my life. You will have opportunities to take these mental snap shots consistently each day - and when you do you will hopefully land in the same pool I do which is Gratitude. There are few things that help us stay present as much as the feeling of gratitude. We talked about that in episode 9 when I taught about what chemicals are released in our brains from this feeling. It is a wonderful concoction to medicate ourselves with daily. Feeling grateful for what we have in the mundane moments of our lives because we have learned to be present pays off massively when the big mountain top moments roll in. If you get good at feeling grateful for the smudge marks on the sliding glass door from little fingers, or the smile of your person at the end of a long day, or the smell of a clean bathroom that your teenager cleaned by them self, then you can expect to feel blown away with joy when bigger things happen. But it will be a quiet joy. Because being present is almost always an inside job. Another one of my favorite practices that keeps me focused on my present is service. When I am taking care of others - I am living in the present. All the other things drop off of my radar - sure there might be dinner to make, steps to get in, or a podcast to record when I’m done, but when I’m serving someone else those things drop off for the moment. There are so many ways that we can grow our ability to stay present in our lives. We will talk more next week about how to leverage our daily actions for our future benefit, and that is always at play, but learning how to do the daily things in a way that is grounded, connected, and purposeful without shifting to auto pilot and without wishing it away is a skill that not only benefits us but also has the power to stick the people we love to us like glue. Because if you haven’t noticed yet, everyone you know wants to be seen and heard more than almost anything else. The more we stay present the better we get at seeing and hearing - and the more our people will want to be near us because being seen and heard - and loved exactly as we are is the safest feeling in the world. All worries float away and time stands still. And that my friends is an easy recipe for loving your life more today than you did yesterday. SO Just like Ebenezer Scrooge, we all have the opportunity to wake up and embrace the gift of the present moment. By connecting to our body, feeling our feelings, being still, taking mental snapshots of our people and life, practicing gratitude, and giving service, we will grow our ability to stay present in our lives. The more we stay present, the less we will be plagued by regret about our past and anxiety about our future, but most importantly the more we will love the life we are living and the people we are living it with. There is literally no time like the present Thank you for spending your precious present moments with me today. If you found this episode helpful, please share it with someone who might need a reminder to be still and refocus. And don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. Talk to you soon!

Hello and Welcome to the Love Your Life Podcast. This is Episode 14- Regret This month we are talking about time and what we create for ourselves in the present when we emphasize the past, present, or future with the focus of our attention. Regret is a feeling that comes for everyone at one time or the other, and it’s a perfect example of how focusing on things in our past can affect our present. We create this feeling when we think thoughts like: If only I had done this>>> I wish I had not done>>> What was I thinking when I >>> Why didn’t I do that one thing instead of that other thing>>> And once we start thinking thoughts like these we pretty much stay in the spin and repeat cycle ruminating about things we cannot change from our past, and freezing us from moving forward in our present. An official definition for regret is - an emotion that arises when we reflect on past actions, decisions, or events. It is often accompanied by feelings of sorrow, remorse, or disappointment in the present. It involves a longing for different outcomes or choices and is typically marked by a sense of loss or missed opportunities tied to those past experiences. The thing that is the real biter about regret that differentiates it from disappointment or sorrow is that we experience deep heavy regret most often because we believe we had the power to change something but didn’t, so we carry the burden of responsibility along with the sadness. Today we are going to notice how the brain can turn any decision we make or don’t make and any action we take or don’t take into regret because it is going to regret things you do, and things you don’t do. This makes it virtually impossible to avoid regret over the course of a lifetime because the brain is able to damn us if we do and damn us if we do not. When I first recognized this, I was surprised. But now that I know, I see it all the time, and I laugh at myself when I am making a decision and I try to figure out what I will regret more in the future. Because it turns out no matter what I choose- at some point I have the potential to regret it, so I have to trust in future me to manage her feelings and stay kind and compassionate towards the me who makes the decision and takes actions or inactions in the first place. One reason we are so prone to create the feeling of regret in our life is because our brains love to tell us that there are right or wrong choices. Human brains love Black and White thinking. The polarization of right or wrong feels safe - and when it can file things as right or wrong quickly, the brain can rest and not have to do that extra hard work that is required to reason, listen, stretch, open up, be willing to be wrong or feel uncomfortable when things are more gray or beige than black or white. When the brain can convince us that something from the past is clearly filed into a wrong choice category, and we feel awful about it, we are more likely to stay stuck as we stew and fret by thinking about the past and wishing we had done things differently, but obviously having no power to change anything in the past. While we spin in regret in the present, we do not take actions that push us to learn new things or master new skills, thus avoiding taking on things that require a lot of focus and energy from the brain. This way it can stay feeling really safe and enjoy the satisfaction of being correct while it traps us in a dark cave and retains all of its capacity to keep scanning for danger, and keep us alive. I guess we can say that biologically, there is an advantage of regretful thinking, because our more cautious ancestors that spent more time in their caves being safe from predators lived to reproduce another day. And if Regret is the feeling that keeps you hiding in your own dark cave, well then welcome home. But what do we do to get out of the dark and lonely caves that Regret traps us in? Let’s explore a few tactics today- #1 - is to catch yourself doing it! You can’t change anything until you are aware of it. So start paying attention to those sneaky little thoughts that tell you something in your life is bad because of a past choice. I get how tempting it is. But as believable as the thoughts are - they are not serving you. #2- Many of us really do believe there is a right choice and a wrong choice for most things, and I was one of them for many years of my life. Now I have a more nuanced understanding of choices that I can offer to myself and those I love. We may never know if something is as simple as black and white - or right or wrong - but we can always take a step back and see what results have been created by any choices we make. After all a choice is a thought that we decide to think, or unintentionally think, that leads to a specific set of actions or inactions, and the sum of those actions create results - Once you see a result you have created, you can decide if you like it or not, and then make the next best choice. It is likely that 50 percent of the time we will like a result and possibly choose to keep repeating it and 50% of the time we won’t - When you have a result that you don’t like, your brain might think thoughts that create the feeling of regret, but you do not have to believe those thoughts. You can use the feeling of regret as an indicator that you don’t like the result you created and decide it is time to course correct from a past decision or action , and then release yourself to move on-... #3- Consider joining the great thinkers and coaches who consistently suggest that everything that’s meant to happen, does happen. This idea is in the same vein as accepting reality instead of fighting against it. It would look something like this. If your brain tells you that you should have been a lawyer instead of a teacher, you remind it that if it was meant to have happened, it would have happened, and since it didn’t, It wasn’t meant to happen. Then ask,so what do I want to be happy about for being a teacher today? Or what if you keep thinking the thought that you should have had another child and now it’s too late? And when you catch it, you remind it that if you were supposed to have had one more, you would have. But you didn’t, so how can you feel grateful for the children you do have today? This is a way to shift your brain's focus off of something that can no longer be controlled, and soothe it by focusing on something that you can control in the present. #4 - Is to get curious about why you did or did not do whatever your present self is wishing was different from your past. Were there things that were programmed into us socially, familially, or culturally that we had not caught onto yet? Were we in a hurry, impatient, or uninformed? Was there some way we could have known different, and if not, how do we make peace with our past self? Getting curious about our past selves actually changes our brain in the present because it triggers the brain's reward system and releases dopamine. And at the most basic level, dopamine feels good, which is much better than the feeling of regret - so curiosity shifts us from staying focused on something that is unchangeable and feels horrible, to a place of being able to learn from our past selves, while placing us in a more forgiving state of mind. AND #5 -Is to practice forgiving ourselves. Because Ultimately the feeling of regret is tied to judgment - When we look at past choices of actions or inactions - Our present self judges our past self for not doing the best or right thing. When you understand that you are dealing with a judgmental jerk as I like to call my little sweetie when she is on a regret rampage - you can start to understand that what is needed to break out of the ruminating cycle is a load of compassion and frequently, forgiveness. Forgiveness is a work that no one else can do for us. It’s always an inside job. Forgiveness of self is a really good skill to practice. We get better at it when we learn to love our past self and feel gratitude for the hard work they did to help us be the human we are today. Past us did the best they could do with the knowledge, resources, and insights we had at the time. We didn’t know then what we know now. Maya Angelou said- Do the best you can until you know better. Then, when you know better, do better.” Past me did the best she could do - and present me knows somethings that past me didn’t know - instead of spending my time berating past me, I can forgive her, and then I can stand up and be accountable for doing better today. When we are able to think like this, the feelings of regret that pop up in our lives can be a gift to our present self. Because Regret becomes the indicator of the desires we have to be better. To evolve, to change, to grow. But it is only when we move our thoughts to the present where we take action and the future where we envision something different - that we will break the grip that regret has on us while we focus on the past. If I am judging myself for my behavior in past relationships, I can catch myself and use that as an indicator that I want to improve my current relationships and not make the same choices I did before. And as a side note, I’m not sure any regret can engulf us more than perceived parenting mistakes. I feel it and I feel you if you struggle with this one. Don’t forget that not only can you forgive your past self, you can also ask your children to forgive you. Don’t underestimate the power that this kind of vulnerability creates in your families. If I am regretting things I did not do with my education or career in my past, I can forgive myself for not using time back then, stop blaming those who were around me, and use this desire for better education or career to make choices in my present that improve my life today and give myself more currency in the future. If I am judging myself for not taking good care of my body in the past and disparaging myself for the accumulated results that cause pain presently, I can forgive my past self and start to do better now so I can hand off a healthier condition to my future self. My race is not over yet. There is much goodness available for all who are brave enough to look at the past with curiosity, compassion, and forgiveness, and resist the urge to believe the worst of ourselves. Let's end with the actions you can take from this podcast today to apply immediately that will snap you out of past self focus and free you to create different results for today and tomorrow. Acknowledge and accept your feelings: It’s okay to feel sad or disappointed. Let yourself feel it. Reflect: Get curious. What were you thinking or feeling at the time of your decision? Learn: What lessons can you carry forward? Make amends: If you can, fix what’s fixable. If you can’t, let it teach you to do better next time. Practice gratitude: Shift your focus to what you’ve gained or how you’ve grown. Bonus points if you Write down one regret, reflect on the lessons it holds, and take one action today to move forward. Share it with me on social media or send me a message—I’d love to hear your story. Talk to you soon!

Hello and Welcome to the Love your Life Podcast. This is episode 11, Past/Present/Future Self With the arrival of the new year, we begin the process of acquiring new calendars to record our activities and looking at 12 months ahead of us to fill in with our plans. We have gone through the process of ringing in the new year and bidding farewell to the one before it. For some this is more formal and structured than it is for others. Some of you are well on your way to setting new goals and realigning yourself to create new things, and others of you are disenfranchised with failed attempts from the past and won’t touch a new year’s resolution with a ten foot pole preferring to just keep on keeping on without the pressure of new things. Whatever camp you land in, this episode is for you! Today I want to talk about how there are always three of each of us at any given moment. There is the past self, present self, and future self. All three exist in me at all times. This trio of self is always working together sometimes for my benefit and sometimes to my detriment. The more I understand how they work together, the more I can shift this fun little trio to be working for my benefit and not unintentionally let them hinder my personal progress. I love thinking about this idea! I am always me in the present. In fact there is truly never any time except this present moment, - that must be what Mother teresa meant when she said, “Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin." Yet as I curl my toes in the carpet right here and now…. in this instant, I have past me on one shoulder and future me on the other shoulder. I can choose to pay attention to any of the three of us at any time and the amount of time and attention I give to each one will greatly determine what I feel in the here and now. Because no matter if I am thinking about my past or thinking about my future, I will only ever be able to feel a feeling in the present. Our brains do not separate our thoughts and feelings in time. Whatever positive or negative thing I am thinking about the past will create a vibration of energy in my physical body right here in the present. Likewise whatever thoughts I predict about future events will also create feelings for myself in the here and now. Let’s run a quick little experiment. Think about one of your favorite days from your past. Really give it a go. What is around you? What does the sky look like? What are you doing? Who were you with? What did you love about that day? How do you feel right now as you think about it? I am picturing my first date with my now husband. I can recall so many details, we hiked up to a waterfall and talked the entire way. It was sunny to start, but cool in the mountains, and the feeling that comes to me presently about that day is a feeling of wonder and delight. I was struck by wonder then that there could be a person that I could that easily feel comfortable with so quickly, and 27 additional years together only magnifies that feeling for me now. Conversely I bet you can also think of a memory from the past that makes you feel pretty awful. Whether it be loss, disappointment, or physical pain, we can all mine the past for things that were really hard or sad. When you think about something like this, you will also feel the pain of it in the present today. It doesn’t matter how long ago it was. The same experiment will work when you think about your future. So many people experience anxiety in their everyday lives. Anxiety comes when we think about the future and predict that something bad will happen, but we are actually in the present moment and can do nothing to help manage whatever negative prediction we are making about the future. It doesn’t matter that this negative thought has not happened yet and may never happen, we experience all of the same feelings in the present that we are predicting for the future, and I would say we actually experience stronger feelings in the present because we are helpless to make anything better. Whereas if something calamitous happens to me in the present, I am able to shift into damage control mode immediately, and things are usually never as bad as I predicted they would be when I am managing them in my present. To try this out, think about something that you used to fear would happen that actually did happen. Was it as bad as you predicted it would be or was it somehow easier than you thought and somehow you managed to get through it? Now play out a scenario in your mind of something you are looking forward to happening in the future that is going to turn out great? Perhaps a wedding day, a baby born, a trip you are planning, a surprise for someone you love? How do you feel right now when you think about it? The point of all of this is to notice that what we think about whether in our past, our present, or our future can only ever create feelings for our present self to manage. It is beneficial to be aware of this because just as you can only feel things in your present, you can also only ever take actions as your present self. Think about how this works? You can think about every single detail of your past in a good or bad way, but there is not one thing you can go and change about it. People who spend a lot of time thinking about the past wishing that it was different than it was or agonizing over something they did that they want to change but can’t, create a lot of negative feelings that lead towards depression in the present. There is literally nothing that can be done about the past, except to learn from it, forgive it, and eventually to consider changing the way you tell the story about your past that is defining you as a victim or a villain. You can also spend a lot of time- and trust me almost everyone does - predicting bad things in your future - and trapping yourself in the fear and anxiety of that in the present. Just like past thinking there is truly nothing you can do about negative things in your future because you are not there yet. Even if what you are predicting is a “realistic” prediction, you can do nothing until it is actually playing out - this is a sure fire formula to create the feeling of anxiety in your present - which traps you and holds you hostage from doing happy and healthy things that if started now could actually make the future better. If feelings are fuel for our actions - and you are constantly telling yourself stories about bad things that have happened or will happen - then you will be fueling your present life with sad and anxious thoughts, and if you are paying attention, you will notice or arrive at the conclusion that sad, anxious, and depressing feelings do not produce results that are happy, peaceful, or positive. My favorite ancient Chinese philosopher, Lao Tzu, called it a long time ago when he said. If you are depressed, you are living in the past. If you are anxious, you are living in the future. If you are at peace, you are living in the present." So why am I telling you this today in January of 2025? Because I want to bring you to an awareness right now as your present self. If you want to create a life that you love for your future self you are going to have to wake up and start doing the work to create it right now as your present self. You will never arrive at some magical happy place in the future because you will only ever be you in the present even when it’s 2050, you will still be living in your present. This means we must practice daily to manage our present self and create a habit of happiness. . Your past self is your teacher for your present self. Your present self is the only self that ever gets to take actions and create things that you can enjoy in the present and gift to your future self. Your future self is someone that you want to develop a relationship with so that you are motivated by love for them and use that as the fuel for present actions. We must be wary of falling into the trap of believing every gloom and doom story that our brain tells us about our future. We need to wake up now and realize that we are the ones creating the stories we are picturing for them. None of it is written yet, so have a talk with yourself if every story you tell about the future produces anxiety and negativity in your present. For sure there will be things that you cannot control that will happen along the way, but learning to empower present self and trust him/her to do what needs to be done when unforeseen things arise is the ultimate definition of self confidence. And a beautiful form of loving the future you. Let me add that, I think it is also important to pour some love out for your past self because you also have a relationship with that kid. So much can be gained by learning to forgive that self and to praise them for the things that they did well for us. When we think about past self that way, we create beautiful fuel for present actions and will take the results from present actions right to our future self. You have heard me talk about the generational relay race we all run a leg in. So many of our present attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors come from the things we inherited and watched play out by the examples of previous generations. But just because we saw it, experienced it and learned it, does not mean we are trapped into repeating it in our own lives. We each have a decision to make to allow in what we choose. That is why the work we do to clean up what we have been given from previous generations and hand off better examples to our children is one of the most beautiful things about life coaching. It is the same with our own past, present, and future selves. This trio of self is in a constant relay race handing the baton back and forth. But the past does not define the present. So if you have made mistakes in the past, don’t waste your precious present time by agonizing and judging. That will only keep you trapped. Do the work to forgive that kid, and let go of the shadows it casts on today. Use the present to be thoughtful about what you want to create in your life. Whether it is in the form of new year's resolutions or just a general philosophy that you develop about what kind of person you want to be. The present is the only time you have to work with that will change the race that future you will eventually run. To help you consider what you might want to bring into your present life this year, ask yourself where you want to be going? Where do you want to be in five years, ten years, 30 years? When you get a few items on this mental list - ask yourself if the things you are doing today are action items that will create those future results for yourself. If they are not, make some adjustments! Because there is no time like the present - literally - Thank you for joining me today! I can tell you that my present self is thrilled to be here with you. I am looking towards the future to figure out how to create actions today that will give more people access to the insights that coaching provides tomorrow. Don’t hesitate to leave a message and let me know what you would love to hear more about. And as always, don’t forget to subscribe, like, and share!

Hello, and welcome to the Love Your Life podcast. This is episode 12, Love. Today we're going to talk about love. It's my favorite feeling and it's what I'm inviting each of us to partake in every time we join in and listen to the podcast with me. It seems fitting that I should break down the what love is since I'm using it in my title. I think it's safe to say that cultures and societies around the world in general would agree that we need more love. So let's use our time today to help us create more love in our own lives and spheres of influence. And if enough of us do this, the collective love account will rise.. The problem I see is that love can feel elusive for some of us and many times outside of our control. It can also be hard to remember that love is available to us when we're focusing on things that are outside of us, . Even when we're doing good things for a good reason, we can get lost in the pressure, the hurry, and the work of it all, and end up feeling all of the feelings that are anything and everything but love. So let me simplify it for you. I think I can even give you An equation before we get off today that will make the outcome of love more predictable and consistent for you to start with. Let's decide what love is just like when we talked about gratitude. Love can be things that we do. which would make me classify it as an action. In fact, my favorite song about love is titled Something That We Do by Clint Black. It's back from the late 90s. It says, love isn't something that we have, it's something that we do. I do agree that there is so much love to be found in the actions that we take and many times even in the actions that we intentionally do not take. But you're probably starting to catch on that I'm always telling you that actions are things that we do because of what we feel. Back in podcast number six, I introduced the idea to you that feelings are fuel for our actions and understanding that feelings are vibrations of energy. That are created by our thoughts and that the energy of these feelings drives our actions for me. is and was a game changer because it labels and demystifies the process of where feelings come from. And I don't have to be at the will or whim of my feelings. I get to understand that I'm a participant in the process of feelings. If you're sitting around waiting for other people to do things that make you feel loved, thinking that you only get to feel love if someone else does something good or kind or attractive, then you are at the mercy of people and the world outside of you, and depending on who and what you're surrounded by, it can make love feel very far away. On the contrary, if you understand that love is a feeling, and that feeling is created by the thoughts you think, you will have the power to feel love anytime you choose. This makes thinking thoughts that create the feeling of love in our body and actual skillset instead of something that happens to us, falls upon us or can be given or taken from us. I think about the idea of lovability a little differently now than I grew up thinking or understanding. I used to think that lovability was something that people are or are not. Like I'm lovable to others when I behave sweetly and am clean and look good. Or others were lovable when they did nice things for me, acted in ways that I like, showed me they care about me, or when my kids were asleep instead of throwing fits. The problem is that if you only get to feel the feeling of love, when things outside of you are generally working in your favor, and you only get to feel loved by others when you're at your best, which will never be more than 50 percent of the time, you're pretty much sunk. A better way to think about lovability is to separate the words and to think about it as your ability to love. Like, I have a high level of ability to love, or I have a high level of love. ability, or he has a low level of ability to love, or he has a low level of love ability. It has nothing to do with what people outside of us bring to the table, and everything to do with how we think about people and things outside of us, and how we think about ourselves. Because it can be hard to feel love for others when you don't know how to feel love for yourself. So if the feeling of love depends on me, Or on my ability to think quality thoughts about the people and things around me. This means I can choose to feel this feeling any time I want to. No matter how imperfect the people and things around me are. And this is fantastic news. Because I don't know about you, but I know for sure I'm not always lovable. And some might say, not often lovable. But I can love me anyway. And I know that the people around me are not perfectly lovable and I can love them right where they are too. One of my favorite things about being a life coach is that I get to see love as a fuel for people's actions up close all the time. Most of the people I work with are fighting for more love in their lives, in one arena or another. Whether it's taming some habit or belief in strains relationships or learning how to surrender and accept the people we do love exactly as they are, the desire to feel more love is the driver. Maybe someone is noticing that they're so focused on work that they're depleted and short tempered at home, and they want to figure out how to balance their life. Love is the driver. Others think they want to change things in their lives, like their homes, their jobs, their locations, or their partners, so that they can feel more satisfaction and love for their lives. And they find out they need to love it just the way it is before they make a change. This is because they need to develop the skill set of thinking quality and loving thoughts about imperfect things that they have right now. , if they want to have any chance to think quality and loving thoughts about the next set of imperfect things they bring into their world, because we can all change circumstances as much as we want, but we will always bring our thinking patterns with us to every new person, place or thing we get to, and those thoughts will determine how we experience the next new and shiny thing, I see people look in the mirror at self every day and help them learn what they can control and what they cannot control. Every time someone takes a step forward in the realm of personal responsibility and emotional sovereignty, the chance for more love is created and it is one of the most beautiful things on this planet. So where is it that you want to feel and create more love this holiday season? Do you want to start with accepting yourself right where you are and let go of expectations that turn you into a pretzel? I invite you to decide today that no matter what you get done this season or this lifetime, You are worthy of love. Pick one thing about yourself that's not so much of a stretch to love and practice appreciating that until it's easy to love it. Then move on to something that you feel a little more judgmental about and be curious about a way you could appreciate that attribute of self. What if you're so busy feeling resentful that there are too many things you're supposed to do and you can't feel love and joy doing them anymore? This is a perfect place to up your ability to love. My favorite reframe here is to ask yourself what you actually want to have happen. You might actually want to make cookies, but you got sidetracked by feeling overwhelmed. And then you reframe that job into a should, or a have to category. As long as it stays filed in have to, or should land, land, it will be hard to feel love or positivity even. So ask yourself if this is something you have to do or something you want to do. If it still feels like it is something you have to do, then I would ask yourself if you really want to believe that thought. What would happen if you didn't do it? Maybe the consequences of not doing it are something you're not willing to live with. Well then, my friend, it is actually something you want to do. Because you could certainly let the consequences happen, but you're choosing not to. And once you're choosing it, you get to remember that nobody is pushing it on you. This is all yours. And if you're going to choose to do it, I might as well find a reason inside of that choice that feels more loving and less resentful. I can feel annoyed all day that I have to get the Christmas decorations up or my kids will be disappointed and then resent my kids and Christmas. Or I can remember that it's not my job to manage their feelings for them and that disappointment is always an option. , but that I actually really like when they are excited to sit by the glow of the Christmas tree. And I can let that desire be the thing I focus on. Their faces in the glow of a Christmas tree, their smiles when they eat my warm bread with butter, their excitement when they open a present they really wanted, are all things that I want. None of it has to happen, but I sure love it when it's here. So what do I want to do about all the details between now and then? I've now shifted the fuel for my actions when I think about what I want, and what I want is to feel the feeling of love that comes when I think of and serve others. Which brings me to my conclusion today. The very idea of Christmas brings the chance to think about so many loving things. Whether it be from the religious perspective that there's a God from heaven who came down in human form and started that journey as a helpless babe in the humblest of circumstances so that he could make a sacrifice for the sins and imperfections that are inevitable in this human condition we are all experiencing. And we remember that no matter what gift we try to give others, it will never equate to the gift he gave to the world when he laid his life down for us, which is the ultimate reminder of love. Or whether it be from a secular perspective, where we take the time to think about what a good and kind Santa figure will bring to those little ones around us. And we join in the spirit of it all and think about what gifts we can give to those we love. and those in need. And we reach outside of ourselves to do good and kind things for others. That is also love. There's so much light and goodness in this world. . And light has something going for it that dark does not have. Light will always take away dark, but dark cannot take away light. It's up to each of us to decide what we're going to look for. And if you focus on what you want to find, you will be able to think the thoughts that create feelings that will lead you to it. So what's the equation for love I promised you at the beginning today? My equation is thoughts create feelings, feelings drive actions, and actions create results. So, plug in love into that equation. Loving thoughts equal loving feelings, which create loving actions. which create the results of more love in your life. It is always the thoughts that begin each equation. Thank you for spending your time with me today during this holiday season. I feel so much love when I think about what I want to share with you and when I think about who might be listening and where you are in your lives, what trials you might be facing, what circumstances you might want to change, and what desires you have in your heart, I hope you're able to make the little thought corrections or decisions you need to make to suck all of the goodness, love and joy you can out of this time of the year. I'll talk to you soon.    

I’m thrilled to dive into this topic today because I honestly believe that the better my relationships are the more I love my life. I know I am not alone in this. I love coaching on relationships, and many of my clients come to me because they are unhappy in their relationships. It feels like Holy work to me because when we strengthen our relationship with ourselves and those closest to us, we create ripple effects that heal past generations and empower future ones. This work isn’t just personally transformative—it’s the foundation for breaking old patterns and building generational healing. I think of the generations like a relay race. Our parents hand us the baton that they got from their parents and we run our stretch of the race before we pass it on to the next generation. Each runner tries to make the leg of their race a little better than the ones before them. Even if I get the baton in last place when I move us further ahead I help the whole team get a better time and definitely make less work for the next runner to keep up. Each family has individuals who improve on the patterns they inherited, some in very big ways. We call them cycle breakers—or generational shifters. They are the people who stop negative patterns that were demonstrated to them and choose to heal wounds instead of passing them forward. Healing ourselves in the present doesn’t just stop negative patterns—it reverberates backward and forward. It allows us to forgive the past, love the present, and give the next generation the freedom to focus on their own growth. Improving the quality of our Relationships is the perfect skill to work on improving for your leg of the race. And I have an empowering truth for you today, You don’t need anyone else to change for your relationships to improve! I say repeatedly that, “The quality of our relationships depends on the quality of our thoughts about the people we relate to.” Great relationships aren’t about finding perfect people. They’re about choosing to think compassionate, forgiving, and loving thoughts about the imperfect people around us—including ourselves. It’s easy to believe that our feelings about others depend on their behavior. But here’s the truth: what you feel for someone is determined by the thoughts you think about them. Because your thoughts create your feelings, nobody else will have the power to make you feel anything - and vice versa - you don’t have the power to control what others feel. I love to talk about the concept of unconditional love and loveability - I promise we will get to that eventually. But for today - stick with me as you digest the idea that you have the power to have a better relationship with even your most difficult person simply because of the way you think about them. For example: your friend is often late, you might think, “She doesn’t care about me.” This thought creates resentment and distance, even if her tardiness stems from overwhelm, not indifference. your sister gets a call from your mom while you don’t, you might think, “Mom loves her more than me.” That thought magnifies perceived slights and erodes your connection. Your wife says she wants to remodel the bathroom, and you think, “She is never satisfied, or what we have is not enough for her.” The thought brings lots of examples to your mind about the areas she is not happy with and soon you believe you are not enough for her. This thought changes the way you feel about yourself, and about her. When in reality, she just didn’t like the crack in the bathroom tile. When we focus on negative thoughts, they multiply and create disconnection. But just as we have the power to think these thoughts, we have the power to change them. Remember what Viktor Frankl said, “Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” The sooner we wake up and take responsibility for what our thoughts create in our relationships the sooner we can start to change. Waking up to our own power and responsibility can be hard because our culture often emphasizes getting others to meet our needs. Books like The 5 Love Languages encourage us to understand how our loved ones best receive love— and then gives the speaker the responsibility to express love better for the receiver. This reinforces the idea that others are responsible for our feelings. The truth is, we are responsible for our emotional experience. No one else can control the thoughts we think or the feelings we generate. When we place the burden of our happiness on others, we give away control of our happiness. Eleanor Roosevelt put it perfectly: “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” No one can make us feel anything! Our own thoughts create feelings. When you really understand this, you start to see how relationships can be damaged by tiny, unchecked thoughts like: “They don’t appreciate me.” “I’m not enough for them.” “They care more about someone else.” These thoughts feel true in the moment, but they are actually just stories our reptilian brains create to help us make sense of what is going on around us. Just because they are offered as a possible interpretation, does not make them true. The more we feed them, the more they grow, eroding connection and fueling negative actions like avoidance, criticism, or withholding affection. This is exactly the kind of thinking that is benefited by moving upstairs to let our thinking brain examine the information and give it the chance to decide what we do think about our people and what we WANT to think about our people. I might think that it is true that my sister is bossy- I’ve seen her round up the troops and get things moving over and over again - but when I think that she is bossy, I don’t feel very close to her. I mostly feel annoyed and resistant. To move it upstairs to my thinking brain gives me the opportunity to reframe - the truth is that she frequently has a vision of what she thinks will work best, and is willing to voice it to get others moving forward. I benefit from this when I don’t feel like getting things going. I’m glad she is comfortable leading out for our family, AND I can always decide to do something else or communicate with her when I disagree with her plan. When I take the time to think through it - I feel appreciative of my sister’s strengths, and also more trust in myself to do what I think needs to be done. It benefits my relationship with my sister, and also my relationship with myself. Win/Win I’m going to keep boiling this down here: the quality of your relationships isn’t about what others say or do—it’s about how you choose to think about them. By taking ownership of your thoughts, you get the power to create love, compassion, and closeness, no matter the circumstances, and no matter what you used to think. I am not saying that we should condone harmful behavior or never set boundaries. I am saying that it is beautiful to wake up and understand that our emotional experiences become ours to shape. I’m not asking you to change all your thoughts today. I’m simply inviting you to notice the power you have. Pay attention to the thoughts that shape your relationships. Are they building connections or creating distance? One way or the other, you get to choose, and you don’t have to wait for anyone else to change! I love the quote from Rumi that says, “Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.” When you realize that the quality of your relationships depend on the quality of your thoughts, you can start transforming your relationships— Once you are willing to take responsibility for the quality of your relationships with others, it stands to reason that you will notice how much control you have in the relationship with yourself. You better believe that the kind of thoughts you think about yourself create feelings, actions, and results in your life. Pay attention to how you talk to yourself and you can start selecting your thoughts better immediately. My favorite thing to do with any relationship is to take a minute and review what I think about the person I want to focus on. Negativity bias is real - so our brain is mostly going to be serving up the details of the things we don’t like when unchecked - but when you become intentional you get to notice things that feel way better. Ask yourself -What are their strengths? What do I love about them? Is there something I wish was different about them? How often do I focus on the things I wish were different? Is this more than I remember their strengths? If this is off balance give yourself an invitation to practice remembering what you love about them when you see a text come in from them, or a phone call, or you are preparing to meet them in person. You can even change their name on your phone. Make their contact name something like Thoughtful Shane, Happy Laura, or Generous Nate. This is your brain's cue to remember what you want to remember about them. It helps you reinforce a neural pathway you are working on making stronger. And it creates wonderful feelings that drive better actions that create stronger relationships. And don’t forget- Stronger and higher quality relationships increase the quality of your life immediately - I happen to be from the school of thought that my relationships are the most important thing in my life. Learning how to think about relationships in different ways has given me the tools I needed to adjust as the people in my life grow and change. It gives me the mindset that allows me to allow them to be themselves and do the things that their hearts lead them to do, and it fills me with so much love and satisfaction that I get to know them and support them as they grow. If you want to love your life more today than you did yesterday - pick someone close to you to practice thinking great thoughts about. And if you want to help me in my mission of getting these coaching principles to as many people as I can, send this podcast to them so they can feel more love for their people today too. Because if we all learn to be wise and change ourselves- none of us will have to waste our time trying to change others who are not interested in changing. We will just love them right where they are. Talk to you soon!

This is Episode 9: Gratitude Today, I want to talk about gratitude as a feeling. Previous episodes have introduced you to the concept that thoughts generate feelings, and then feelings drive actions. Gratitude can also show up in the actions we take. In fact, grateful actions produce amazing results in this world. Let’s not underestimate the power of sincere thank you’s and acts of service that stem from the feeling of gratitude, but for now we are going to dive into the thought play ground of being instead of doing. . When you think about gratitude as a feeling, you will notice that this feeling can be located somewhere in your body. Take a minute and think about how and where you feel gratitude. I notice gratitude in the heart center of my chest. It is warm, and has a bit of weight to it. Sometimes gratitude creeps up from there and feels constricting in my throat as it works itself up to my eyes to leak out in the form of tears. Gratitude is a moving emotion for me. It has the ability to produce actions quickly- like talking to someone nearby or calling or text someone - but I find that I love sitting with the feeling of gratitude on purpose without moving, to savor it more than I used to. After you have taken a minute to notice how you experience the feeling of gratitude in your body, stay curious and start asking yourself what kind of thoughts you think when you feel this feeling. When I feel grateful, I tend to link it with the awareness that I am seen or known by people around me and by God, or that I am lucky to have an item or a person in my life. When I ask myself to think about the things I am grateful for, I often picture them in my mind visually- and feel the glow around each image in my mind before I feel it at my heart center. The thing about Gratitude is that I don’t automatically feel this feeling just by looking at my car - or my child - I have to attach the awareness that I am lucky to have it, or that someone thought of me and provided their words, actions, or items for me to share. Most of the things I am truly and sincerely grateful for are the most common and frequent things and people in my life. I only get the gift of feeling the feeling of gratitude when I remember to think how lucky I am to have them. And what is super cool about experiencing gratitude is that I can call this feeling into my life no matter what the circumstance is or how bad the day, because I control it with my thoughts.IN fact, the harder the day or the experience the more powerful it is to summon the feeling of gratitude to help myself through it. Most people believe that feelings come into their lives based on their circumstances. When we interact with our feelings like this, we are at the mercy of the people and circumstances around us to allow us to feel positive emotions like gratitude. This is a limiting way to live because Life is going to give you just as many circumstances that are negative as there will be positive, so it could feel very yo-yo like to let circumstances be in charge of your feelings of gratitude. It is also more likely that if you are not choosing to invite thoughts of gratitude into your life on purpose, that you will get into the habit of only noticing what isn’t working and never acknowledging and giving thanks for what is. There are multiple reasons why you will want to give this practice of gratitude more attention. Let's take a look at them - First Science. I personally believe that truth is truth no matter what vocabulary words you use to speak it or describe it. Gathering scientific data deepens my understanding of emotional and spiritual practices and illuminates why I might want to continue or start incorporating them into my life. And scientists know a lot about the chemicals that the thoughts, feelings, and actions of gratitude produce in our brain. The list is impressive! When we express or feel gratitude, we activate the brain’s reward system and the neurotransmitter dopamine is released. Dopamine feels good and encourages you to repeat the actions or thoughts that created it in the first place. Gratitude is also linked to higher productions of serotonin, a known mood enhancer and depression reducer. When we express gratitude to others, the brain releases oxytocin, a hormone associated with social bonding and trust. This can strengthen relationships and fosters feelings of connection and empathy. Gratitude also has the ability to trigger the release of endorphins - and we all learned from Legally Blonde, that endorphins make you happy and help keep you from shooting people. So you are going to want to get as many endorphins flowing as you can. And if all of this positivity wasn’t enough, Gratitude has been shown to lower the stress hormone cortisol, which helps reduce anxiety, produces better sleep, and improves physical health. When you start to understand what is going on in your brain when feelings of Gratitude are created, you find a world of motivation. People literally take drugs to experience the chemical benefits that Gratitude produces. The beauty of this is that the side effects expressions of gratitude create in a life are much more connecting and healthy than drugs. Religions and great thinkers throughout time invite us continually to incorporate an attitude of gratitude into our being. Even if they didn’t have the information on brain chemicals back in the day, they had the insight to know that it was an important player in the creation of a happy life. The Bible says in 1 Thessalonians 5:18, “In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ” we find directives about Gratitude from every religious perspective, cultures, and times around this world. The Bhagavad Gita Represents Hinduism when it says that “When a person performs their duties with a grateful heart, they achieve the highest purpose of life.” This quote points that it is not the duties that one performs - but the state of the heart as one performs them. And I adore this quote from Buddha : Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn’t learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn’t learn a little, at least we didn’t get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn’t die; so, let us all be thankful.” He is truly committed to finding something to be grateful for, and sometimes we have to look harder than others. It reminds me of the way my favorite irish blessing goes - May those that love us, love us; and for those that don't love us, may God turn their hearts; and if he can't turn their hearts, may he turn their ankles, so we may know them by their limping." It is something about the idea - that you might not have it exactly how you want it, but there is still good to be found when you look for it. The Qur’an says that If you are grateful, then God will surely increase you [in favor]. — Qur’an This feeds into the idea of the law of attraction that teaches us that the feeling or practice of Gratitude is the foundation that becomes the magnet for any other good thing we want in our life. If you are a person looking for more of anything in your life, you are going to want to start with doing the work to be grateful for what you already have. Cicero teaches us from ancient Greece that Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues but the parent of all others.” I love this idea of Gratitude birthing other beneficial feelings and behaviors. And Taoism chimes in from La Tzu in the Tao Te Ching to Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.” Just sit for a minute with that one - To give us the directive to be content with what we have leads us to see that nothing is lacking. When nothing is lacking we have everything we need. If gratitude is not the parent of other virtues - it is certainly the birthplace of abundance. Gratitude is truly a universal theme that transcends time, cultures, and religions. You can think of it as a directive, and you can also think about it like I do in my coaching practice as an antidote that can be applied to many negative spaces in life. I have seen Gratitude Heal dissatisfaction, egocentricity, unhappiness, yearning, confusion, unmet desires, relationship disagreements, loneliness, loss, illnesses, and so much more. I believe in its healing powers so much that I have a policy that I teach consistently. It is that it is not wise to change any aspect of your life at all, until you can get grateful for what you already have and learn to truly love what already is. Learning to be grateful and see the good in what is, gives us all the ability to move towards more good, and thus multiply the good in our lives instead of running from one negative space to the next and bringing all of our negative thinking patterns with us. You are never going to be able to create positivity in your next chapters if you can only see negativity in the current chapter. And gratitude is the cure. The best thing you can do today to medicate yourself with Gratitude is to improve your practices and awareness of Gratitude. I recommend that each person starts lists of what they are grateful for. If there is a particularly unhappy or scratchy area or person in your life right now, start looking for what you can be grateful for surrounding it or them. You will find the things you are grateful for when you send your brain to go looking for what you would not have in your life without that person or thing. You might have a mother in law that is hard for you, but you would not have your spouse without them. This is not some trippy mind game, this is the truth. Acknowledge what is at its most basic form and you can find something to be grateful for in almost any person or circumstance, just like Buddha taught. And keep in mind that you are the only person who gets the benefit of thinking thoughts that produce gratitude - no one else feels what you are feeling - you are likewise the only person that has to feel the feelings you generate from negative thoughts - You are inflicting your own pain and holding your own medicine at all times - choose how it is that you want to feel and think accordingly. The notes app on your phone is a great tool to record your thoughts and feelings of Gratitude. You can compose the list verbally or type it in. You will also have it with you at all times and can add to it frequently when you have quiet moments. Once you have the list written, read it every morning before you get out of bed and take the time to slowly picture and savor each of the things on the list you are grateful for. Challenge yourself to add to it every single day. Once you start seeing the world through the filter of gratitude, it will reveal more and more things to be grateful for. Then at night read it before you go to bed. Let yourself fall asleep thinking about the things and people on the list that you feel sincere gratitude for. Notice what gratitude feels like in your body and hold the feeling there as long as you can. You can even experiment with trying to expand the area that feels that delicious warmth of gratitude. If it starts in your heart - expand it to your entire torso by giving it more thoughts of gratitude. Sometimes I even feel grateful for feeling grateful! I predict that if you apply this practice this week of Thanksgiving - there will be no thing that you will want for Christmas. You will be so in awe with the beauty of your life as it is already constituted that you will absolutely want to give more than you get. This is the magic of how the thoughts of gratitude create the feelings of gratitude and those feelings change our actions. With all the happy chemicals and hormones that Gratitude creates, you will definitely love your life more next week than you do today. And that my friend, is how you change your life when you change your thoughts. I am definitely grateful for what this podcast does for me as I spend time remembering the things I share with you here. I am grateful for what the practice of coaching brought into my life and for the beautiful people who have entrusted their thoughts and feelings to my care as they work through the things that are holding them back. I am convinced that there is nothing more beautiful on this earth than to witness a human soul willing to take responsibility for the negative results they have inadvertently created and begin the process of change. If you are looking for help on your journey, go to RondaLoveridge.com and sign up for a free consultation call. I can help you figure out what you are thinking and doing currently, that is creating results you don’t love, and fill you up with awareness and tools that give you the power to love yourself and the people in your world more than you can currently conceive. Talk to you soon!

Hello and Welcome to the Love Your Life Podcast Episode 8- Expectations The last two episodes have been laying the groundwork for understanding our feelings - and I gifted you a very useful tool to process your feelings in episode 7- I hope you have all taken the opportunity to grab my free list of feelings download from the website this week. It can help you move forward with the first step of naming each feeling as specifically as possible. This week I want to talk to you about how expectations have the pattern of creating big feelings, and what we can do about that in regards to the holidays. The definition I will use for expectations is that they are beliefs or assumptions about what will happen in the future or how something should turn out in the future. Expectations are stories we are telling in our own minds about future events. When we predict stories into the future it is often based on information from past experiences, societal norms, personal desires, or what we believe is likely or deserved. Expectations can be directed toward ourselves, other people, events, or outcomes. Sometimes we expect that things will be great and then reality comes in way worse than we hope/predict/expect - the space between our expectations - and reality is the space where all the big feelings live. I am certain that you can think of a time when your expectations were not met and remember how you felt. I have clients tell me all the time that this is why they trend towards pessimism- they are trying to manage their expectations and not be let down in the future by having too much hope and optimism in the present. The problem with this is when we spend time in the present thinking about negative things happening in the future - we feel bad right now in the present -Because negative thoughts produce negative feelings - instantly - and we only ever exist in the present. Which is why pessimists are not typically very happy people. They’re always scanning for bad things. This means they are perpetually stuck in the present feeling the effects of their thoughts that catastrophize things in the future and they continue this habit by also cataloging what is not working in the present. - if you have noticed that a person can be super pessimistic and then have an event go better than they predicted - but they don’t seem to slow down and notice that it is good because they don’t have a habit of dwelling on good things. Now - Excessive optimism has its own pitfalls. It can lead to denial of problems, unpreparedness, or unrealistic expectations. This is a lot like the catchphrase of toxic positivity, which is the belief that one should maintain a positive mindset regardless of circumstances, to the point of ignoring, minimizing, or invalidating negative emotions or legitimate struggles. And if you remember - life is half and half -so we are in trouble when we try to pretend there is nothing negative going on here. There is however, a sweet spot in the middle - which we could call healthy optimism - or optimistic realism, where we can learn to get our expectations closer to reality while still having a growth mindset that stays optimistic and scans for an abundance of good in the world, while moving towards goals and creating all kinds of new and good things in our lives. Before I go into the sweet spot of healthy optimistic realism - I thought it would be beneficial to tell you about areas in life where I coach people who have gotten swept away into negative emotions because of unrealistic expectations - Awareness is always the first step to helping ourselves figure out how to feel better. Waking up to our own specific patterns and habits - can feel heavy at first - but stick with me, and look for yourself in these examples. If these examples are not typical of you, maybe they will help you understand someone you love, or maybe they will give you an insight into something you do that is similar. Marriage - it’s not all a bed of roses - as my grandmother in law repeated obsessively while I was engaged to her grandson. She was right - there are a lot of prickly thorns in a marriage- because life is 50/50 - and if you go into marriage expecting it to be easy and not take 100% of your effort, commitment, responsibility, and forgiveness, you are going to have a lot of big feelings when it is harder than anything you’ve ever done or experienced. Relationships in general are a hotbed of unmet expectations - like Extended Family Relationships- Most of us are the very most comfortable when people act and think like we do, and we tend to seek those people out. The problem with families - is you get what you get and you don’t get to pick them. - says country music singer Kacey Musgraves in her song Family is family. So if you expect all of your family members to do and say things the way you would, you are going to have a lot of feelings because the reality is, they are simply not you. But don’t underestimate the value of differences! This world needs every person’s different and unique viewpoints to move us all forward. There is already one of me - that is plenty enough for this world - The more we learn to be curious and interested in the different viewpoints - the better we get at managing all kinds of expectations - and meeting each other right where we are at. The next relationship that comes to mind is our Children - Children are a study on unrealistic or unmet expectations! They are the literal master class on it. From the moment we arrive we are continually measuring our expectations with reality - and learning how to readjust- Sometimes we even think we get the hang of it, until the kids hit the teens, and early adult years, but I have watched parents struggle to manage their expectations with their old kids like me, I don’t think it ever ends. I have moms of college kids that are always managing feelings because the kids don’t call to talk anymore - and the mom’s they think they should - or kids date people you don’t like and you think they shouldn’t - I help a lot of people manage their expectations with what they think they should be able to accomplish with their time - and what is actually realistic and fair. Should’s and shouldn’ts are big clues into what your expectations are. There are also expectations about doing really hard things like college, and sacrificing early on in your career with massive time outputs and you finally “arrive” and it doesn’t feel like you thought it would? Those are some pretty complicated feelings and take a while to unbundle. What about your expectations about health and aging? What it will be like when you retire - could tag along in that area. And of course holidays and traditions that we create and experience with our families give us ample opportunity to notice our expectations and learn to adjust. This list is not exhaustive, but hopefully I have you thinking about where you have expectations that could use a little tweaking to bring yourself a little closer to reality - and it begs the question.. how do we find the balance of bringing our expectations - closer to reality while still staying optimistic, hopeful, and generally positive about our present and our future. The answer brings us back to healthy optimism or realistic optimism as a tool for this - and I will share three steps that you can focus on to get a handle on bringing your expectations closer to reality. #1 - Focus on reality: by Acknowledging facts, challenges, and limitations without fixating on the challenges and limitations. when we make them facts we neutralize them - because they are simply the circumstances of our lives and we get to think anything we want to about them. #2 Maintain hope: Believe in the possibility of positive outcomes and focus on solutions. This goes along with what I taught in Episode 1 -we have a circumstance - now, what do I want to do about it? The answers are full of hope because we are in charge and get to decide how we want to proceed. #3 Take action: Prepare for difficulties while staying motivated and adaptive.When our actions are fueled by feelings of hope and confidence in our abilities to grow and adapt - our actions - are much cleaner and useful - Let me show you how these steps could apply to managing expectations for the holiday season - thanksgiving is a week from now and there is plenty of time to adjust your expectations There are those of us that have high expectations of the holidays being picture perfect and emotionally connecting. Others see the holidays coming and immediately start expecting the busyness and drain on their energy and finances and start feeling the stress and anxiety before the holidays even start. Still others expect to feel isolated or alone and don’t manage to pull themselves out of this expectation - and trap themselves in that energy immediately. Whatever your emotional pitfall has been about the Holidays historically - pay attention to that and notice what you are thinking about and feeling this week before thanksgiving. I am always going to be encouraging you to write things down - and this is a super beneficial exercise right now- What are the facts, challenges, and limitations for the coming holiday? Don’t add adjectives to this list - just try to be as factual as you can. So and so will be there -- there might be sleeping arrangements to be made - and travel times to consider - there is food to be planned, bought, prepared based on food allergies and preferences and traditions- who will do what? Each personality that makes up the gathering might have different needs, different weaknesses, and different strengths. Get curious about them. Nothing is good or bad - it just is - so be aware of it - and write it down - This is the realistic part - Next step is to maintain hope - This is where we think about the positive outcome we hope to experience with the gathering and notice when we start to slide down the swirling vortex of doom and negative predictions - sto and p that before it starts - Your job is to remember what you hope to create and to start making plans that account for the realities of your family and your gathering. This is where you remind yourself that there is most likely going to be some kind of behavior that you don’t like from people you are not in control of - So what are you going to do about? That is what the last step is for Take action - Carry out the plans you make ahead of time that are fueled with optimism but grounded in realistic expectations. Leave the room when your uncle starts to talk about politics. Volunteer to bring your own version of mashed potatoes if you don’t want to eat your cousin’s dairy laden bowl - Set up boundaries for your time and leave when you say you will. If you have expectations about where you will sleep - make sure that is nailed down ahead of time. We all know that if the baby doesn’t get their naps it is a problem for everyone - but I have also found that when I don’t get enough sleep, I am shot- so make plans and take responsibility for your own physical needs. If connection is what you desire - set mini goals for yourself to have personal conversations with people when you are in your best space - so if grandpa typically drinks too much - fit that conversation in at the beginning - and let go of your expectations for him to be anything different than who and what he is. Bless his heart. My number one- go to thought when I am at holidays and family gatherings - is that everyone is trying to do the best they know how - if they knew better they would do better - but it’s not my job to teach them today. Each of us has our own individual operating manual that is simply a list of our expectations about life and behaviors, but we rarely give the people around us the manual to study up on and then to act accordingly for us to be perfectly happy and at peace. Learning to examine our own expectations - is a skill that reveals our personal manual to ourselves- and also teaches us to look for the clues that those we love are giving us through their own feelings and actions. Learning to examine your own expectations regarding the coming holidays is one of the best things you can do to make the holidays a beautiful and connecting time instead of a pressurized field of hidden landmines for yourself and those you love. Let’s end with a little more wisdom from Kasey Musgrave.. Family is Family is really one ofmy favorite song to help adjust expectations with reality- In fact, when my first son - in law started coming around engaged to my daughter - I played this and sang this as much as I could - to help him set realistic expectations about us. She says - Family is family, in church or in prison You get what you get, and you don't get to pick 'em Yeah, friends come in handy, but family is family They show up at Christmas, get up in your business They might not be fancy, but family is family You might look just like 'em, that don't mean you're like 'em But you love 'em I hope learning to manage your expectations helps you feel more love for your family, yourself, and your life, this holiday season. We will be applying this understanding of expectations - in the Love Your Life Lab the month of December - and will be adding to it with several more tools to make this holiday season the most peaceful and full of love you can imagine. You can find information about the Lab on my website, RondaLoveridge.com Thanks for joining me today - I am cheering for your every success. Let me hear all about it in the comments of the show!

Hello and Welcome to the Love Your Life Podcast. This is Episode #7- How To Feel Any Feeling. Last Episode I introduced you to the idea that Feelings have two Jobs - 1) to fuel our actions and 2) to deliver messages to us. Brooke Castillo teaches that everything we do or do not do is driven by how we think we will feel. By becoming aware of our feelings and choosing which ones to fuel our actions, we can significantly impact our results in life.. Today I am going to teach you how to feel your feelings. All of them. Any feeling that your brain ever helps you create. This is super useful information because so many of us have practiced every way possible to not feel our feelings. We call this buffering - and I will definitely get to that in future podcasts. For today, you have certainly heard the phrase - bottled up emotions. This means that you’re keeping your emotions inside rather than expressing them or processing them. While it might seem like a way to maintain control, bottling up feelings can lead to emotional overload and sometimes physical symptoms like stress, fatigue, or illnesses. In the long term, finding healthy ways to express and process feelings can lead to better mental well-being and stronger relationships. Learning how to Feel any Feeling - or Process any Emotion - is the way to uncork the bottled up emotions you have inadvertently been hiding from because the feelings are there whether you ignore them or not - but they cannot be released until you listen to them. So listen up! This is important stuff - I am going to teach you how to feel your feelings, also known as releasing them, also known as magic. You laugh now - but wait until you have practiced releasing feelings that you have avoided before and you will think you have a new magic wand. It is that powerful. I give you Six steps to Feel a Feeling: Name it. Stay present and curious enough to name it. A catch phrase found in psychology these days is Name it to tame it. It comes from Dr. Daniel Siegel, a UCLA psychiatry professor and author of The Whole Brain Child, The idea is that naming your feelings can help you feel less overwhelmed and reduce the intensity of the emotion. It can also help you create distance between the emotion and the intense feelings that accompany it. The more descriptive you get on the name the better you will get at releasing the feeling. This means pushing yourself to be more descriptive than just sad, mad, happy, or good. When you are sad, is it more like disappointed or left out? When you are mad, are you actually furious or are you feeling unheard? The better you get at naming it specifically - the sooner you can loosen the feelings grip on you. It really is important - and As a special gift for listening to my podcast today - I have compiled a gorgeous list of feelings that go beyond the basics of sad, mad, and happy that you can download from my website at Rondaloverdge.com - You might be surprised by how many different nuanced names we have in the English language for emotions. Make sure and go get the list for yourself. Step two is to locate it in your body. To do this ask yourself where this feeling is living in your body? Each vibration of feeling tends to stay centered in a specific region of your body. Can you think of where you typically feel stress? A lot of people will feel stress in their shoulders, neck, or head. What about anxiety or worry? You are possibly familiar with a sick feeling in your stomach when you are feeling anxious. Some of these locations are fairly common between us all, but you will find as you pay attention and get curious that there are certain patterns that are unique to you. I had a client once whose arms would go numb when she was driving towards a social gathering when she didn’t know many people there. Her arms would literally stop performing the act of driving her car in an effort to alert her that her thoughts were telling her that this is a bad idea and dangerous even. Another client is a writer by trade and when she experiences a specific kind of anxiety or fear her hands can’t type on her computer - they get tingly and basically freeze. It is like they are saying - hey listen up! You might think you are going to carry on with business as normal, but we are telling you there are more important things to pay attention to- and we won’t do what you say until you pay attention to this dangerous thing we are warning you about. Now that she knows that her hands do this, she is able to be aware of the feelings quicker and deal with the emotions. A good practice for noticing where your feelings are located in your body is to - take a minute to remember one of your very favorite life moments - then notice how you feel while you are picturing it. I have a specific image of my oldest daughter running into my arms when she was 3 years old with her arms reaching for me and pure joy on her face. I felt so much love and joy in that moment that I promised myself I would never forget what it feels like to experience pure joy and happiness. I can remember every detail about the park we were at, the coolness of the shade tree we were under, the sound of her laughter, and the clasping of her little arms around my kneck as I scooped her up. When I put myself back there - I know that this feeling is pure Love - It is living in my throat and behind my eyes - and pours out of me in the form of tears. What is an experience you can go back to where you were overwhelmed with a positive emotion? Name that feeling - then notice where that feeling is living in your body. Sit with it for a minute and enjoy this good feeling - After all it is not just negative feelings that produce sensations in our bodies - Sadly when we get used to ignoring our negative feelings, we also numb ourselves to feeling our positive emotions. To practice with the good is to expand the breadth and depth of your human experience - and you definitely want more of that in your life when you are building a life you love. Step 3 - is to describe the feeling. Namely, shape, size, color, and movement - not everyone can come up with all of these things, look for what is intuitive to you. Is anxiety dark, heavy and slowly throbbing - or is it orange,fast, and bouncing all around or something else entirely? Is fear tight and restricting in your throat with heat - or is it dark, sticky, and cold in the pit of your stoma, or something else for you? I once had a client describe the feeling of doom as dark black and foggy that was filling up their entire brain and was also loud and screaming. He described it so clearly that I could see it with him as he sat with his eyes closed and visited it. Know that It doesn’t matter how your emotion presents itself - what matters is that you close your eyes and get yourself in your body. Climb down some ladders from your head down to wherever it is located, turn on your flashlight, and take a good long look at the feeling. Send your little thinking brain self right up to it and get curious. As you look at it describe it out loud - I see you worry - you are dark and shifty and heavy hiding in the corner of my lungs - Then you are ready for step four, which is to talk to it. I think of it as pulling up a chair next to the feeling and keep that flashlight shining on it and really get comfortable and curious with it. You are looking at it and seeing it now - you can ask it what it wants to tell you. Oh, hey there Anxiety, I see you here in my stomach, all hot and red and pulsing quickly. What is it that you want me to know? Then you wait and let it speak to you. You will be surprised how clearly it can communicate to you when you talk to it. Remembering that feelings are messengers helps you open up to listening for one. Step 5- is to tend it and time it. In other words, you babysit the feeling until it is ready to go. Don’t leave it alone now that you have gone down where it is and turned the lights on and learned what it wants you to know. Once you have the message you can decide if you believe it or not. Whether you believe it or not, the feeling will release once it is soothed. We try to teach our babies to self-soothe when we teach them to go to sleep on their own, this is very similar to that. You are now in the realm of self-soothing instead of running to change a circumstance - you are sitting with the feeling and communicating to it that you hear it and that everything is ok because now that you have received the message, you will take care of things. Soothe the feeling like you would a little toddler that you love. And Step 6 is to time it- Just settle into your imaginary chair - be patient and turn your timer on on your phone. I mean it. You are going to time how long the feeling stays in that shape and form and sensation. Be patient. You are not in a hurry. You are conducting an experiment - and it is important data to collect. I have seen people go from panic attacks that take them out for days - to sitting with the feelings for ten minutes - and then the feelings stay for less time each time they go through these steps until things that once caused panic now only stay for seconds until they are noticed, heard, and released. I had a feeling that woke me up in the middle of the night for years. It was a familiar feeling that my entire adult life I had interpreted as hunger. But this time as I got up to go eat something, I remembered what I had learned about feelings and I stopped and asked myself if it was possible that I wasn’t hungry, but was actually feeling something? I discovered very quickly that the feeling was worry. I honestly didn’t know what I could even be worried about right then, but I followed this process and realized that I was actually truly concerned about one of my children. My wonderful brain was so concerned that it woke me up in the middle of the night to deliver the message that I needed to protect my child. Once I realized what it was, and assured myself and my brain that my child was safe, I got the timer and proceeded through this process. This feeling stayed for 3 minutes- and then it kind of floated out the top of my head. I sat there in awe - I had literally experienced this feeling off and on for 25 years and never actually learned what it was, a feeling of worry delivering warnings. How could this be possible that I could release it so quickly? It did come back minutes later - delivered the same message, I tended to it with my six steps, it left again after staying 1 minute - then the feeling came back - again 10 minutes later and only stayed for 10 seconds. I think of feelings like waves of the sea - they come in and they go out - and they come back- but the better I get at processing them, or feeling them, - the longer it goes between their return and the shorter the stay. They might start as waves that are minutes apart, and then go hours, and then days, and then weeks, months, to years. I’ve been hit by the feeling of loss so hard that it takes my breath away and makes my legs weak. I have to bend over to breathe - but even as I stoop there in the pain of that moment, I can say to myself - this is loss - this is loss - this is loss - of course you are devastated. You are believing you have lost something that you will never get back. When I acknowledge that this is true on some level, I am able to then remember that there will be new things that fill in the spaces of what is now gone, and if I am patient and brave, I will find something that is also beautiful, even though it will never be the same. And then I stay there with loss until it is sure I have heard how bad the situation is and it verifies that I will pay attention and it departs - my brain needs someone in charge to step up and manage what has gone wrong. I have found that there is no better person for that job than the owner of the thoughts, which in my case is me, and of course in your case will be you. As a recap - here are the steps - Name it Locate it Describe it Talk to it Tend it Time it Remember that there is no right or wrong way to experience a feeling. They are vibrations in our bodies. We do not have to be scared of them. They have messages to deliver, and the messages can be true or false. No matter what the message is, they need to be heard. Bottling the feelings by buffering and ignoring them only makes them stronger and more intense and will eventually blow out of the strongest resistance sideways and create results that will not be pleasant. There is literally nothing gone wrong when you feel a feeling. It is the mind body connection working in its finest calibration when we do. The sooner you recognize it and allow it - the sooner you can let it move through you. Tears, weak limbs, breathlessness, ringing in your ears, and many other expressions of a particular feeling, are all part of the deal. They can come at inconvenient times, but the sooner you can excuse yourself and go sit with them, the better off you will be. If all you can manage to do is to name it - start there - but if you are feeling big emotions - you will want to try to make it through this entire process to free yourself from their intensity. This is a fantastic piece of knowledge to deliver to your smaller children. With kids under 12- I mostly stick to helping them name the feeling and then sit as patiently as I can with them while they are acting out the energy of the feeling. Even kids as young as 3 can grasp the idea of naming the feeling. Are you sad? Yes, sweetie - you are sad because you can’t have icecream for breakfast? I’m sorry you are sad. It’s that simple. When I stay present and curious with anyone who is having feelings, I can almost always help them identify what it is they are feeling, whether we are in a coaching container or not. Truly, just helping someone you care about name it and find out they are heard as they name it lessens the energy of most feelings. This is a skill that I teach in all of my coaching containers, whether you work with me 1:1 or in my Love Your Life Lab, we practice this as often as we can and learn how to apply it to big and little feelings. The better you get at feeling a feeling - the more emotionally regulated and mature your responses are to your life’s circumstances. The lab is starting back up in December, and Our first monthly topic will be managing our feelings during the holidays. The topic will be delivered on the First Tuesday of December, which is December 3rd, 11:00 am Central Time on zoom and then recorded and kept in the membership library app - it will followed by group coaching calls each week that give you the opportunity to be coached and have follow up on the homework for the month. January we will be launching in depth into the way our thoughts create our results - and how to start thinking intentionally to create new results in 2025. Membership to the Lab is a great gift to ask for yourself for Christmas, At only 39$ a month, it is less than taking someone to dinner, but will impact every relationship in your life in an incredible way. Don’t forget to consider gifting it to your best friend, sister, daughter or mom to come with you as you learn principles like these and many more. You can find me at Ronda Loveridge.com R O N D A L O V E R I D G E .COM to sign up for the Lab or to download your free list of emotions that will help you get more specific naming your feelings and fast track you towards taming them. If you are interested in creating a gift for someone you love I can custom make pre paid memberships for you - email me at [email protected] for that - that is R O N D A L O V E R I D G E @gmail.com If you learned something new and valuable today, or even if you were reminded of something you hadn’t thought about for a while, and find value in that - I would appreciate it if you would like, comment, and then share this episode with someone you care about. Talking about what you are learning here with the people in your circles will help me serve my mission of bringing these principles to everyoneEve I can possibly reach. Every human is worthy of the gift of understanding the power of their thoughts as they create their lives daily. I personally believe we are all worthy of loving our lives as much as possible too!

Hello and Welcome to the Love your Life Podcast - This is episode 6- Feelings I hope you are having a great day and have taken some time to notice the 50/50 negative/ positive ratio in your life that we talked about last week. There has certainly been an opportunity in the USA to notice both sides with the presidential election. Today we are going to be talking about feelings - so no matter what your ratio was this past week you are going to leave today understanding more about them than you ever have before. First let's clarify the difference between a sensation in the body vs. a trauma response vs. a feeling. Sensations are physical feelings that start in the body from one of our five senses - sight, hearing, taste, touch, or smell. They go from body to brain. Example is I touch the hot stove and my hand immediately jerks away with the sensation of heat before I can think about it. Trauma response or stress response is the name for what we do when we are in Fight, Flight, Freeze, and Faun -These are automatic, instinctual reactions triggered by the sympathetic nervous system when we perceive a threat or feel unsafe. These responses evolved as survival mechanisms and are deeply rooted in our biology. They are often automatic and out of our conscious control, kicking in before we can logically assess a situation. A classic example of a stress response is a person experiencing intense anxiety and sweating when they unexpectedly encounter a dog after having been bitten in the past. So sensations and stress responses start in our bodies, are automated and out of our conscious control - But A feeling which I will sometimes refer to as an emotion - starts in the brain with a thought and then moves through the body as a vibration. Remember, the Latin root for emotion - means energy in motion. Each feeling’s vibration is a different frequency than another - and we learn with experience to tell the difference between them all. When I am talking about feelings today and going forward I am talking about this definition of feeling. I mentioned that there is a domino effect that happens when we think a thought about a circumstance in episode 3. The thought creates a feeling. The feeling becomes fuel for our actions - and the sum of our actions creates the results of our lives. This is happening over and over again daily with each thought we think. Thoughts are the catalyst for our results, but the feelings those thoughts create are big players in how it all happens. Let’s talk about two jobs that feelings do for us. #1 - Feelings are fuel for our actions and our inactions. The thought starts the energy into motion that is a specific feeling. I like to picture a sound wave going from my brain throughout my body. The specific frequency of that wave is a specific feeling. That wave of energy is the signal to my body of how we are going to act. Whether it is something I do or that I don’t do. If I am creating the energy of excitement by thinking a thought like, I can’t wait to see what Santa brought! You are going to see different actions come out of me than if I was thinking - I never get anything I want. Which would produce an energy or feeling of disappointment and resistance as I come down the stairs on the same morning. One set of actions would be light and quick whereas the second set would be heavy and slow. It’s super helpful to think of your feelings as fuel. One way to tie it into your physical experiences is to Think about how much differently you feel when you drink a cup full of caffeine vs. when you drink a cup of water. Each helps create a result in your body, but it’s a different result. Water doesn’t energize me, like a cup of coffee or coke does - and coffee doesn’t quench my thirst like water does after working out in the sun. I choose the drink depending on the result I want. When you think of feelings like this - you start to see that you can choose them instead of having them choose you. So many of us walk around experiencing feelings as foreign entities that keep tagging along with us with no choice or control of our own because we notice that we feel certain ways when certain things happen to us. But to move forward in our emotional growth and health we have to start seeing the connection of the feelings to the thoughts. It is clarifying when you see a common circumstance like the presidential election this week producing so many different and polar opposite emotions in people. It is the exact same circumstance but there is not a universal feeling that emanates from its center. That is because there are millions of different people experiencing the circumstance and each one is thinking a thought about it that produces different feelings. We don’t have to think of the feelings as right or wrong - they just are - But let’s give them credit for what they produce in us. Here is an example of how different thoughts about the election could produce different feelings that fuel different actions. If you think thoughts like my neighbors are horrible people for supporting fill in the blank. You are not going to experience a feeling of love and compassion that drives you to bake cookies and sit down and have a conversation with them with curiosity. You are more likely to feel anger, mistrust, or disdain for them. This will fuel actions like glaring at them from behind your blinds, staying inside when they are outside, not speaking to them, and possibly taking their yard sign and throwing it away when they are not looking!  Whereas if you think something like What am I not understanding about the neighbor, sister, or friend’s viewpoint? You might muster up some curiosity and a feeling of openness that would fuel opposite actions from my first example - you might actually bake them cookies, sit down to get to know them, wave at them when they drive into the street, and open your windows and yourself up to go meet people where they are. Different feelings fuel different actions. You might have heard the saying "It's hard to hate up close."? This idea suggests that the more we get to know someone personally, the harder it becomes to dislike or judge them harshly because we begin to see their humanity, struggles, and unique perspectives. I think it is a code for - I think different thoughts about people when I know and understand them vs. when I don’t. Good ole Abe Lincoln said, "I don't like that man. I must get to know him better." His life forced him to figure out how to understand the thinking of good people north to south that felt completely different feelings and to then find a way through to middle ground. The thoughts we think, and the feelings those thoughts create, will fuel the actions we take. It is a cautionary tale for us all because if we remain unaware of the power of these thoughts and feelings we will unintentionally end up hiding behind blinds and never getting to know people who have different perspectives than we do - and the divisions will only get bigger and bigger in our world. Feelings are also constantly fueling the actions and inactions we take in regards to our health, our finances, our relationships, our education, and our work. It’s also a hopeful tale - because once we accept responsibility that our thoughts create our feelings and not the circumstances or people around us - we can decide what we really want to create in our lives and start to choose feelings that fuel the intentional results instead of the unintentional results- The second job feelings have is to be messengers.  Each thought we think creates a feeling, and that feeling delivers the message of the thought to us. Since we think many of the same thoughts day after day, we often stop noticing them. But when we remember that each feeling is tied to a specific thought, we can use the sensations in our body as clues to uncover what we're thinking. Becoming aware of your feelings can help you identify your thoughts, offering another pathway to greater awareness. An example is that you might not notice the thought that whispers to you over and over that your children don’t love you or they wouldn’t throw clean clothes on the laundry room floor for you to pick up - but you do notice that you feel blind rage when you walk into the laundry room and see the clean clothes you just folded thrown around and blended in with the dirty ones. That rage has a message to deliver - it wants you to know that your children don’t love and respect you. When you slow down and pay attention to this feeling and receive the message you now have the opportunity to decide if you believe the message or not. I spent years losing my mind when I walked into the laundry room - it was a game changer when I realized what I was making it mean every time I saw my efforts dismantled. Thank you feelings for the message! Turns out my children did love me the whole time - but we all needed a better process - which I was able to think up once I was not fueled by rage. If you are like me, you never had a class as a child that taught you what feelings are, what they do, and how they help you. As a girl of the 70’s and 80’s I mostly only ever got the memo to control my feelings and not have negative ones. Ie - ignore - distract - and hide them - and get on with life - I have now learned that feelings have an important role that helps me create beautiful things in my life. I use them to fuel the things I want to do - especially the ones that are scary, hard, and new- and I negotiate with them when they are fueling inaction and hiding that stops me from progressing. They also help me understand what my unintentional perspectives are which give me the opportunity to interface with thoughts and processes I have absorbed that I never had decided as a grown up if I want to keep believing. Feelings can be big, loud, and scary - They tend to get louder and bigger the longer we ignore them. They have a message to deliver and they are going to do it come hell or high water. If yours are screaming at you, consider this your call to sit down and have a good listen to what they have to say. You might not want to hear this, but your action item for this podcast is writing down what you are feeling and then getting curious about what message that feeling is delivering? I would invite you to notice what your top three most consistent feelings have been each night before you go to bed this week. Then ask yourself what you think they are telling you?  It will be an enlightening experience. You might be surprised what your feeling’s messages are, and you should be prepared for the messages to not necessarily be true. That’s ok - apply the good old american freedom of speech idea with your feelings - let them tell you every single message they need to deliver without editing them - Just sit and listen and write down what they want to tell you. Because after all I have shared today, the craziest thing about feelings is once you pay attention to them you set them free. Join in next week and I will give you the blueprint for feeling your feelings and setting them free. You might be surprised how much more you love your life when you are listening to your feelings and using them for intentional fuel than you did when you were ignoring them. Thank you for spending some time with me today! I love imagining who you are each week and considering what might be most beneficial to share next. If it has been beneficial today, I ask you to subscribe to the show and share with other people who want to create more peace in their own lives, who want to evolve, or people who are working really hard to build lives they love but can’t quite figure out how to manage the circumstances they have been dealt. If you are finding that these weekly tidbits are giving you constructive and expansive things to think about- then you will also want to consider joining me in The Love Your Life Lab. We cover one topic a month, and work together to help bring awareness and then actionable items with a personalized game plan to each member’s life. We meet on zoom the first Tuesday of each month at 11:00 am central time. If you can’t join live for that, the recording goes into a membership app that you keep on your phone and can access anytime - then we have weekly live coaching calls at various days and times that you can join to get coached personally or hear others get coached. This is relaunching in December after a three year run, and then a pause and a revamping while I got the podcast up and running. You can sign up at rondaloveridge.com - and I will also link it in the show notes. The Love Your Life LabIt is the lowest price in the industry because I truly believe that life coaching and life coaching principles should be available for all no matter what your economic circumstance is currently. So for less than a co-pay for one mental health visit - you can have a weekly check in that keeps you moving forward. Check out https://www.rondaloveridge.com/RondaLoveridge.com and I’ll see you next week!

I am excited to be with you today! I have so many things that I want to share with you! Each week I am practicing constraint by dishing out only 15 minutes or less of the golden nuggets that have transformed my life. Today, I am going to introduce a new theory to you which I will call the 50/50. I learned this concept from Brooke Castillo, the creator and owner of The Life Coach School. The 50/50 is simply that life is not supposed to be, nor will it be more than 50% positive or 50% percent negative. I love the idea but I have some clients that push against this. They insist that their life is more positive than negative or another person might insist that their own life is more negative than positive - I am here to tell you that the exact breakdown has much to do with your perspective. Whichever way you want to slice it, the good news is that if you are noticing there are negative or unfavorable things in your life that nothing has gone wrong! Welcome to earth! Really hard things happen here like death and divorce and natural disasters…… and so do breathtakingly beautiful things like a baby's first smiles, and love's first kiss. The list can go on, but if you are truly out there living there are going to be good and bad things that happen consistently. The thing is that when we focus on the negative and think about how bad it is we make the experience of it worse than it has to be - just like my hero Viktor Frankle taught. To accept that negative things are part of life is to normalize them - Accepting and normalizing difficult things is a way to stop fighting against them and in the resistance make the bad things bigger. If you think about it, to live a full life, you will actually want to experience negative emotions. Who wants to be happy when someone you love dies? Mourning the people, stages, and sometimes things we lose in this life is a way of honoring what we have had - to me it is one of the highest forms of love and gratitude. I know that when I go through difficult things, I experience all kinds of emotions of, doubt, judgment, fear, and sometimes even shifts into physical pain - like when I prepared to run a half marathon last week after not having run for over 10 years, The fact that I did experience all of those emotions and physical pain made the accomplishing of the goal that much more triumphant. There was more confidence where there was once doubt. There was more gratitude for my body’s capacity where there was once judgment for its limitations. There was joy in the movement where there was once fear that I couldn't do it anymore. What I am saying is that If it had been easy = the reward would have been less. If there was no negative - how would we know when something was positive? We would be living in such a small bandwidth of life that we would miss out on the goodness that is possible in this life. Let me share with you a time that the 50/50 has helped me personally to stay more neutral during trying times. When my 3rd daughter was graduating from highschool, and the graduation was over and the party was done we were going to be preparing for my oldest daughter’s wedding a month or so later, and it was my birthday to boot on the day the phone call came that told me my dad was having heart attack symptoms and needed to be on his way to the hospital. I hung up the phone with that feeling of fear and dread that sits hard and heavy in your stomach. I had so many good things happening that already felt like a little more than my emotions could handle, and this health situation felt like a threat to all of them. Would I have to miss some of them, what was the right thing to do, what did I need to do right then, why was this happening to me right now? And when I got to that question, I had an answer - of course it is happening to you - and even now - because life is 50/50- Of course it is happening - this is earth life and you are no different than anyone else - How do you want to handle it today? When I asked and continue to ask myself this question - The golden question I gave you in Episode 2 - How do I want to handle it today - or what am I going to do about it - I put myself in the driver's seat of my own life controlling what I can control with the best of my abilities. The awareness that things are not only going to go wrong, but are actually supposed to, is a gift you give yourself because it brings peace by clearing the fight out of you and gets you to the baseline of acceptance - You will know you are not accepting the fifty/fifty of life if you think thoughts like these: Why is this happening to me? Why does this always happen to me? This is not fair. I never get ahead. I always get knocked down. Nobody else gets hit as much as we do. I shouldn’t have to deal with this. Do you ever think thoughts like this or something similar? T hese thoughts are the kind of thoughts that keeps us stuck focusing on being a victim of circumstances instead of accepting them and then deciding what to choose to do that is in our control. It leads us to think of life like it is a bully that only picks on us which is an isolating and scary feeling. The concept of 50/50 immediately levels the playing field. All people will experience 50% negative and 50% positive throughout the course of their lives and sometimes in the same day or same hour, your brain can not be trusted when it tries to tell you that others have way more of the positive than you do. It is more correct to notice that you just are not privy to their negative 50. Hang with me while I tell you a story from a Chinese parable that dates back to the 2nd century B.C- This story is an example of how taoism, considered one of the world's major religions, views fortune and misfortune, and is a perfect flow into navigating our lives with the concept of the 50/50 and accepting what is. Son - has a horse Horse runs away-Who Knows if this is good or bad - Comes back with a bunch more –Who Knows if this is good or bad - Gets bucked off and hurt-Who Knows if this is good or bad - Spared from going to war -Who Knows if this is good or bad - I LOVE this parable! It highlights that in the good things there are seeds of bad things and in the bad there are seeds of the good. In other words it is an even 50/50 split. So let me end by inviting you to do a quick scan of your life. Where do you think you are on the scale of 50% negative and 50% positive? Does your brain believe you are more or less one of them? Do you think it is supposed to be different than that? Do you ever catch yourself being mad when negative things happen to you? Like the universe is out to get you? Or like negative things must be a judgment from God? What would it be like for you if you made peace with the plus and minuses of your life and called the balance sheet neutral? IF you were not fighting against what is currently the reality of your life, kids that are needy of your attention and resources, a job you don’t love, a family member you think should be different than they are, a rough fiscal year, a marriage that is not all roses all the time, physical ailments that have to be dealt with, questions that don’t have answers, or a new stage in your life that feels confusing, just to name a few - If you were not fighting against these kinds of crunchy things and wishing they were different - how much space would you free up in your mind and heart by simply accepting them and then asking yourself what do you want to do about them? You could also borrow a thought from our Chinese parable’s father - and tell yourself that you don’t know if what is going on is good or bad - time will tell - so chill out for a bit and let time do its work for you. In that simple analysis and question to self - you could neutralize a chunk of your negative 50% of life , and when you get to neutral - you have a chance to start looking around at what is working for you and what is good today. Start a list right now on the notes app on your phone of what is working, what is the part of life that is 50% great right now. Let’s keep this list running and growing through Thanksgiving - I can tell you that with a list like that in your mind and in your heart - you can’t help but love the life you are creating daily a little more than you did yesterday. That’s all I got today, friends! Thanks for spending your time with me. I hope I went on a good walk with you, rode in your car to somewhere you wanted to go, stood by you while you cooked dinner or folded the laundry, or maybe even shared in a moment with someone you love. No matter how I got to tag along, I am honored to be included and hope it was counted in the positive side of your day! Don’t forget to follow, leave a rating or a review, and share with your friends and family! You might not know where someone is in the flow of their negative/positive ratio today, but there is a 50% chance of hard things at some point - so help me get this information to them sooner rather than later!

We covered some good ground on thoughts in the last episode, but I am not ready to move forward to a different space until I give you a little more information about thoughts and where they come from and how we interface with them. Today we are going to talk about separating thoughts that are not the most emotionally mature or in your best interest from thoughts that are more mature and in alignment with your greater desires and belief systems. Let’s take a minute and learn a little about the brain. There was a school of thought in the 1960’s led by a neuroscientist named Paul Mclean that divided the brain into three categories and gave it names according to evolution. I borrow the name reptilian brain from that school of thought. - it is composed of the brainstem, which includes the cerebellum. Scientists are always learning and adding more information to our knowledge bank, but I want to keep it simple here and for my purposes we can think of the reptilian brain as the area of our brain that stays focused on self preservation and preservation of family, gives desires for basic physical needs, and helps us with fight, flight, freeze, and fawn when we are in danger. As the brain stem area is the oldest part of our brain I often also refer to it as my inner caveman, It is a professional scanner for danger and it wants to keep us and those we love safe. In the old days, it did so by noticing the danger in time to send us to our caves where we would stay out of danger and live to eventually reproduce and keep the species going another day. The second level of the brain is the limbic system - it is located deep within the brain and above the brainstem - It is small in size but does the big job of regulating emotions, behaviors, motivation, and memories. The third and top level of the brain is the cerebral cortex and I’ll be referring to the front part of the cortex in the frontal lobe that we call prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex helps to regulate emotions, controls impulses, and it plans for the future.. It is involved in our ability to pay attention, predicts consequences of behavior and helps people consider many streams of information at once. I frequently label the Prefrontal Cortex my thinking brain, and think of it as the best version of myself. When my thoughts are organized, mature, forward thinking, able to forgo pleasure in the moment for something better in the future, it is most likely coming from my prefrontal cortex. Whereas when I am reactive, impulsive, and immature, and or impatient - I will most likely be thinking with my reptilian or lower brain. As you start to become aware of your thoughts and consider where they might be originating in your brain you will become more familiar with their tone, patterns, and opinions. The Lizard that speaks from the lowest level is a lot like a tyrant toddler. It wants what it wants, it doesn’t really care what the consequences are, it is negative, likes to call names, and is quick to escalate emotions. I have found that the words of my small children best give voice and understanding of the reptilian brain. One of my favorite quotes from my littles was when I would say something like stop being mean to your sister. They would always say, but I wasn’t trying to be mean. I would always respond, you don’t have to try to be mean. You have to try NOT to be mean. And so it is with lizard land thinking - you don’t have to try to be worried, scared, nervous, angry, anxious, or trapped, you have to TRY NOT to! You have to learn how to shift your thinking to your prefrontal cortex upstairs! It is a valuable exercise to see this voice in your head as a less evolved and less mature version of yourself, even as someone other than yourself. One way to start seeing the lizard brain and the thoughts it shouts at you as separate from self is to give it a name. I call mine my little sweetie because I have found that being mad and arguing with what it says doesn’t really get me anywhere, but when I think of it like a funny little toddler I am nicer and talk in a more soothing way to it. I have had clients name their lower brain some pretty fun and unique names. One of my favorites was the one named after her coworker that was always complaining and stirring up problems in the workplace. When she caught herself thinking in a similar way she called it by the coworker's name and disempowered those thoughts. ANother favorite is the client who calls hers Crood - from the movie the croods - she notices that hers sounds alot like the dad who is always trying to keep people safe. Have fun with naming your lizard brain. Name it something that is easy to remember, feels funny or friendly, and has the power to separate it from you. Calling it by a name also gives us the awareness to remember that we don’t have to believe everything it has to tell us. When I remember that these thoughts don’t represent myself the best, I catch on quicker to being curious, doubtful, and even critical of them instead of just following orders without questioning them. Calling out where my thoughts come from by name is also a way for me to remember who exactly I am talking to. That old brain wants to protect me from anything dangerous or uncomfortable at all costs. It would prefer that I go hide in a cave and stay safe, but it doesn’t care that the cave is dark, lonely, cold, and uncomfortable too. So when I remember where the thought originates, I can remember what it’s intended result will be, and I can shift my thinking up to my prefrontal cortex to process up there and consider what it is that I want in the long term. If you have ever felt the feeling of being stuck, trapped, or not progressing, you can know it is coming from lizard land and your brain is trying to keep you safe in a cave. It will be up to you to shift your thinking upward to decide if you want to stay in the cave or face the elements outside that might be difficult, but can be gotten through to do the things you want to do in this world. The practices of Mindfulness and meditation are wonderful roads into becoming aware of what you are thinking. It is the practice of becoming a watcher of the mind. There are so many teachers out there that have much expertise to share. There are even apps to be purchased to put on your phone that will lead you in meditation. All of it leads to slowing down the mind and letting go of attachment to what the thoughts are telling us. I had my first touch with mindfulness in Yoga 18 years ago. I swear that my favorite Yoga instructor was my first life coach. Thank you, Lisa. I will love you forever! Her invitation to be present at the end of each class and to lead us into noticing what our thoughts had to tell us were some of my first touches with being still and watching my mind. I have been continually learning and growing in this area ever since. Last episode I taught about a thought download - I am going to keep reminding you of it because it is the most beneficial thing you can do to isolate your thoughts. When you see them in black and white you can start to categorize them based on how you know the reptilian brain vs. your thinking brain communicate. If the thought is coming from your reptilian brain, you need to immediately get curious and will want to doubt what it is telling you. Doubting the thoughts will be like pushing the pause button. It will give you a space between the thought and the reaction and this space is where you climb up the stairs through your brain to get to the top floor and use better reasoning skills to decide what you want to think and eventually what you want to do about the thought. It does require effort to shift the balance of more thinking upstairs than downstairs - but it feels so much better to be living in the sunshine upstairs, than the cave downstairs. Thank you for spending your time with me today. I hope you have found something new to spark some curiosity and get you inspired to increase your practice of noticing your thoughts. Since thoughts have the power to create results in our lives, we want to be careful and more intentional with deciding which thoughts we choose to keep thinking. I have chosen to think about you as I have compiled my thoughts for the podcast today. If it has been something that adds value to your life, I invite you to follow, like, and share. This will help me fulfill my mission to help as many people as possible have the tools to be more intentional and have more control in their lives. If you have ever felt trapped in your life’s circumstances, you know what I mean when I say it is dark and lonely in the cave our lizard brain sends us to. Use this podcast to help break some fellow lizards out of the dark! Talk to you soon!

Last episode we introduced the idea of circumstances not controlling our lives. I hope you have taken some time to think about how this can be true in your own life and are ready to learn more! Because today we are talking about how powerful our thoughts are and how they create the results of our lives. Thoughts are how we describe the circumstances around us and how we make sense of our worlds in the form of a running commentary/story in our own mind. Thoughts tend to have plenty of adjectives in them that are describing what is happening around us - Thoughts don’t just contain themselves to describing the present - I have found that thoughts love to jump forward to the future and make lots of predictions about what can and will go wrong - Unmonitored thoughts are more likely to be negative than positive. I like to remember that the people who survived the calamities of the past with all of the dangers, famines, wars, plagues, and just regular old problems were the ones who were good at noticing danger and then avoided it. They were the ones who lived to reproduce - according to Darwin’s theory of evolution their offspring would receive the benefits of their adaptations which in this case are the negative awarenesses that the survivors had. In today's world there are not many lions, tigers or bears to watch out for , but that does not stop our brains from combing through every situation and possibility to warn us from danger - These warnings come to us in the form of our thoughts. Thoughts are also good about going back into the past and assigning all kinds of stories and explanations about past events to make us feel all kinds of feelings in the present. Your brain has something to say about most anything you notice - as we go through this podcast today pay attention to what you are thinking about this information. It will have a story for you. Something else that is fascinating to me about thoughts is that We tend to believe most every thought we think. Partly because we have thought our own thoughts so many times that we don’t question them, and partly because our brains are wired with a confirmation bias. I could talk about thoughts all day long because they are so fascinating and we learn so much about ourselves and others when we get curious about what our thoughts are and why we think them. I don’t have to believe every thought I think, or every thought I hear spoken, but I can almost always learn something from every thought about myself or about the person speaking it. Once we think a thought - we set off a chain of events that will eventually create a result in our life. The thoughts we think manifest in our bodies as literal vibrations of energy, like you ring a bell and sound waves emanate from it- that is what a thought is like in your body - this vibration of energy is what we call a feeling or an emotion. I was delighted to learn that the latin word for emotion which is “emotere” literally translates to "energy in motion" AS the energy or emotion vibrates through our bodies, we have effectively created a fuel for our actions. Specific emotions create a specific fuel which creates specific actions. This means that we don’t do happy actions when we are sad, and we don’t do angry actions when we are peaceful. When we think thoughts that create the energy of anger - we do actions that are angry like stomping, cursing, yelling, hitting, or growling.. When we think thoughts that create the feeling of hope we do things that are hopeful. Hope filled actions are gentle, kind, consistent, calm, and measured they are typically small and simple things that add up over time. The sum of our actions that we do or do not do based on the energy of how we feel that are created by the thoughts we think, create the results of our lives. This domino effect of thought - to emotion - to action- to result is happening over and over in our lives with every single thought we think - it is rare that we catch the thought before the feeling , action , or result when we are first catching onto this - but you can probably tell me results in your life you are not happy with today - or feelings that you feel frequently that you don’t like, or things that you do that you have been trying to stop or things that you don’t do that you have been trying to start. The diet industry makes millions telling you the things to do and not to do to create the result of weight loss - the problem with this is that we can recite correct actions until the cows come home - but until we change the thoughts we think and create new emotions - the actions will only change for small bits of time - this is what happens when we write knuckle anything - we control actions but fail to recognize that the real power lies in changing our thoughts. As I shared with you the story of Viktor Frankle in the concentration camp - you will remember that he noticed that all of the people living the same horrible circumstance thought different thoughts about it? The thoughts they dwelt on even had the power to make the difference between life and death in that circumstance. Thoughts are no less powerful in our lives today. If circumstances where in charge of what we think - then all of us would have the same result to every circumstance that we have in common - this is just not the way it works - This is why becoming aware of what we think about on the daily is a game changer! If we want to create different health, financial, or relationship results in our lives we need to change our thoughts and then the actions will fall into place with much more ease than before. If we want to have more peace in our life - it’s the thoughts. More or less of any feeling in our life - it’s the thoughts. Change your thoughts and you will change your life! Most of us walk around believing that the results of our lives are created by the circumstances which is why we get so focused on trying to change the people and things around us. If we are unhappy with anything in our life, it must be the circumstance that is creating that - so we must change circumstances to change the things we are unhappy with. The problem with this - is that most circumstances are out of our control because they involve other people or entities - and when we try to control other people we are in a losing battle. We will never be in charge of what other people do or how the universe operates around us - never - to accept this is the beginning of peace - and to understand that we can control what we think about it is the beginning of power. If you have areas in your life that you are not happy with, this is your call to start asking yourself what you are thinking in regards to these spaces? A great way to become aware is to start a thought download practice at the end of each day. Set the time for 10 minutes and ask yourself what you were most worried or bothered about that day? See what your brain has to say by writing out every thing that crosses your mind . Do not edit yourself - just write!. Ask yourself what went right that day before you finish and tuck yourself into bed with a reminder that things are going well. The next morning you can glance over what you didn’t like about the day before and decide to pay attention to those same thoughts creeping into your day. Researchers believe that we think 60k thoughts a day and 90 percent of them are repeats from the days and weeks before - if you are stuck on something negative that is not serving you, chances are it’s going to tell you the same thing over and over again until you notice it and challenge it. Your job is to catch whatever the negative thoughts are - and ask yourself if this is a fact or thought? If it is a thought - do you want to keep thinking that thought, or is there something that is more true, that feels better? Catching one negative thought today and challenging it today and tomorrow and the day after that is a sure fire way to lighten the negative load you carry. When I drop the negative thoughts that weigh me down, I feel so much better. I really do love my life more when I choose to think about it with optimism and hope. Today, I hope that you can see you have more of a choice in this regard than you might have known before you listened. This information about thoughts has been around for a very long time - Marcus Aeurelis is quoted as saying “ The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly.” Hopefully today you learned something new or remembered something that you already knew but needed a good reminder. Maybe there is someone else in your circle of friends that also could use a reminder about the power of their thoughts. It would be awesome if you would share this episode with them and let them know you are thinking about them. Thanks for spending your time with me today. I know there are so many ways you could be spending it. I am honored you took some time to be with me. I would be even more honored if you liked this enough to subscribe to my future podcasts and find out next week how to think a new thought. A like a share and a comment would be awesome too! Talk to you soon!

So let’s jump right into our topic for today which is the school of thought that the circumstances of our lives do not define us. What do I even mean by a circumstance - This is important to get straight because you will hear me refer to circumstances frequently. When I say circumstance - I am always referring to the facts of your life. Circumstances are the events around us- the exact words people say to us - the things people do around us or towards us -the state of the world around us - the things in our worlds - are you catching my drift? The closer we get to having a circumstance - be a statement of fact - without adjectives attached to it - the better we will be at detaching ourselves from the circumstances we experience. We start shifting out of circumstance and into the world of thought when we notice adjectives and emotions floating around our telling of an event or circumstance around us. The fact is that we are all born into a specific set of circumstances. Many are more favorable than others - but all have negatives and positives- The most inspirational stories are those who were able to rise from difficult circumstances and do something unexpected or out of the ordinary for their set of circumstances.. The story of Helen Keller comes to mind - A virus took her sight and her hearing from her at 18 months old - her story of overcoming and that of her teacher Anne Sullivan to persevere even when the outcome seems distant is a perfect example of overcoming difficult circumstances - Did you see the movie of Madame CJ Walker on Netflix called self made ? Wow that’s a great story! She is recorded as the first female self made millionaire in the guinness book of world records - Born a black girl in 1867 in Louisiana - orphaned at age 10- started working as a child - and made it through a world where women had few rights and opportunities for money - and a black woman in the south on top of that! Well before the civil rights movement - Every circumstance she had looks like a dead end on paper - but she did not let those circumstances define her and she kept at it and produced extraordinary results- I spent a decade of my life reading about the horrors of WWII- i even arranged to travel to Germany when i was 20 and visited the Dachau concentration camp - - I couldn’t believe the things they went through - I tried to wrap my brain around how the German people were led down the path of behavior that created the horrors. There are thousands of stories of ordinary, courageous people stepping up to save lives while endangering their own - The world was trapped in a giant unfavorable circumstance but people kept pushing past their human limits and frailties to come out the other side. When I read the book “ man’s search for meaning” by Viktor Frankl - which he wrote 9 days after being released from a concentration camp -by the way - - I started to have insight into why I was so attracted to all of the WW II stories- I was trying to understand how people made it through - Viktor spent three years in four different concentration camps - one of them being Aushwitz where his mother and brother were murdered - while imprisoned he noticed that the people who focused on all that they lost and all that they didn’t have died - faster - He also noted that those who remembered that their humanity could not be taken from them even when everything else was - had a better chance of surviving - they chose to still help others, even when it increased their chances of punishment/death. They chose to share - to speak kind words - to watch out for each other - to remember the beautiful things from their past lives - and to have faith in a higher power - In short - they chose - to not be defined by their circumstances - This is the most appalling circumstance I can remember - yet out of it came people who chose to double down on their humanity - their beliefs in goodness and the control that they did have - Listen to these quotes from him - Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.” ― Victor Frankl he one thing you can’t take away from me is the way I choose to respond to what you do to me. The last of one’s freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in any given circumstance.” ― Viktor E. Frankl Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation.” ― Victor Frankl The freedom to choose how you will respond to any of your life’s situations is the place that you have control - The control to choose one’s attitude in any given circumstance is the one thing everybody on this earth has and nobody can take it - And in the space of creating a life that we love - the very first and most important thing we can do is to start to separate our circumstances from the results of our lives- The more we believe that the things we don’t want or don’t like about our lives are controlled by our circumstances ( people places and things outside of us ) The less power we have - and the more trapped and stuck we feel - But when you start to wake up and see that no matter what the circumstance is - you are still the acting free agent that gets to choose what you will do about it. The more time we spend focusing on what we don’t like about things and how sad it is that those things are in our lives - the less energy and power we have to actually do something about it - We lose our ability to choose - because we forget that there is ALWAYS a choice - In this podcast space - I will be coming weekly to help you find more power in your life - by reminding you that your circumstances do not define you - Listen to what they post in the museum at dachau : In the museum at Dachau it says - Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it," George Santana Let’s comb through the past looking for those who chose to not be defined by their circumstances - who overcame - let’s not repeat the mistakes of the past - let’s choose to learn from the successes of the past - You won’t have to look far - most likely your own mother and father had to overcome circumstances that were not favorable- for sure your grandparents and their parents did to - The teacher with a smile on her face greeting your small child as they walk into school tomorrow morning - probably had to get through some of her own stuff just to be there that day - You most likely have circumstances that have made it difficult to do the things you want to do and be the person you want to be in this day or in this lifetime - Hear me now - You have a choice - choose today to identify the things that you wish were different in your life - and decide today to stop focusing your energy on how sad it is that these things are in your life- and ask yourself the golden question - Ok - so what am I going to do about that today? This one question will give your amazingly wise and brilliant brain the opportunity to start showing you the path forward - Join me in getting curious about all of this - and come back next week - to find out how your thoughts about your circumstances are the key to making the changes you are yearning for and how they are directly related to how you feel on a daily basis - If you will ask yourself my golden question from today each day this week what am I going to do about that today? - I will make a promise to you that you will find more power in your life than you did yesterday - And I don’t know about you - but when I feel powerful - I like my life more than when I don’t. You might be able to join me and notice that you like your life better than you did the day before. And that my friend, is how you are going to take a step towards loving your life - because after all - it’s a pretty good one - it just needs a little attention.

Hello and Welcome to the Love YOUR LIFE Podcast- This is Episode 1 - Who and Why -    I am Ronda Loveridge and I am thrilled to be here with you today!   I have listened to podcasts like it is my job the last 5 years, but this is my first time doing the talking. I Love, Love, Love the podcasting world with our exchange of ideas and access to them any time we want them. What I have to say isn’t new information but it is packaged in a down to earth way that is straight forward, no nonsense, and at times very personal. You will have the chance to really get to know me the more time we spend together, but today I will give you a short introduction.   I am a midwest girl who was born and raised in the Kansas City, Missouri area. I got everything good you can imagine from living in a small town and was surrounded by more love and support than I could ever describe. When the time came to launch, I was hungry to see the big wide world and spent the better part of a decade all over acquiring an education, traveling and growing. While I was out and about, I met the most incredible man. It didn’t take us long to see that we wanted to build a life together, and that is what we have done these last 26 years.    I threw my all into raising our four beautiful daughters and before we were done, we added one son to wrap things up nicely. He has kept me on my toes as we have sent all of the girls off to college, travels, and eventually marriage for the two oldest. I graduated to the title of grandma thanks to the most darling little granddaughter this last year, and can not believe I am here, but so it goes. My world, like yours, is ever expanding.    While the girls were little I worked in the language education field. I taught English to non native speakers from many different countries and Spanish to English speakers. I loved giving people the help they needed to express themselves in the foreign spaces they placed themselves in and took great satisfaction in watching people of all ages get the confidence they needed to navigate their worlds with their words.   The funny thing is that there came a time as the girls started to leave for college that I no longer had all the words I needed to talk myself through the transition of our family dynamics, and As life would have it, I was hit with multiple fronts of change at the same time. It knocked me out of my regular emotional orbit for a good while, and it became apparent that I needed new tools to navigate the changing landscape of my life.    When I went looking for help, I found life coaching. The way the information was presented and the power it gave me to improve any area of my life that I focused on felt like magic to me. In fairly short order, I was back to myself and then some.    I came out the other side with new insights and perspectives that have not only helped me embrace all the things that life has thrown at me since then, but I have grown immensely in my abilities to be responsible for my own thoughts and feelings, my relationships across the board have improved, my health has improved, and the amount of love I feel for my life and all of the people and things in it has overwhelmed me with gratitude.    This gratitude I felt for coaching inspired me to get certified and start my own coaching practice.    I have been at that for the last 4 years and the evidence that I have that all of us ordinary people can pull ourselves out of our darkest places and take control over our lives with curiosity, responsibility, forgiveness, and grace has multiplied exponentially. I am yet to meet a person who cannot be helped by learning the principles that life coaching teaches. It doesn't matter how wonderful your life is already - Coaching can make it better. Likewise- It doesn’t matter how hard it is right now - Coaching will help you make it better.   Because of this, I am on a mission to help everyone I can possibly reach to become aware of how powerful you are in the creation of a life you love to be in.    In our modern world, we tend to chase after changing the things, the circumstances, and the people in our lives so that we can be happier. If you stick with me, I will teach you how to change your mind about the things, circumstances, and people in your life. Once you catch on to how this is possible, and start to believe that you are capable of it, you will never look back. Even when things happen to us that we did not choose, there is a way through when we remember that we still get to choose how we will respond.    Viktor Frankle - was a holocaust survivor who we will talk about next week. For now, listen to what he said, Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.   If you are like me, you will love the feeling of freedom that comes from continually growing in your life. As you become aware of old thought patterns, habits, and results you are currently creating in your life, you will then have the choice to change.   That my friends, is how you make your life a really really good life. You might even start to LOVE it!   Thank you for listening to my first podcast!  I hope you can follow through and join me next week as I lay out the argument that our circumstances do not define us.   If you can think of someone you love who would be great to discuss these ideas with, make sure to like and share with them.    A rising tide lifts all the ships in the harbor at the - so let’s get as many ships in this harbor as we can!