Lesson Learned from "Dancing With the Stars"

I have become addicted to this seasons “Dancing With the Stars”. The dynamic cast (as well as my obsession with all things Kardashian) drew me in. I was so happy when I witnessed and heard Maks Chmerkovskiys’ controversial statements Monday night regarding bias judging, as well as his proclamation that DWTS is “my show”. I knew it would just draw up some good drama! I was right. The drama carried over into last night’s results show and this morning.

Since Monday the media has been salivating with the story and “Good Morning America” interviewed him this morning to talk about the controversy. I was utterly taken aback when Maks proclaimed on GMA that he wasn’t going to apologize (and the last time he apologized was to his grandmother on her deathbed). He claimed he was purely speaking the truth and he really didn’t care what others (even members of the DWTS cast) thought of what he had to say.

At first I was negatively shocked by the comments he had made, and immediately judged him for being egotistical and simply a jerk about the situation. But then I took a minute and thought about it. He is only speaking his truth. He is being honest to the one person that matters, himself.

What if we all spoke our truth without fear of what others would think? How freeing would it feel? How many times do you walk through your day telling little white lies like, “sure, I would love to assist on that project”, or “no, I don’t mind at all picking you up on my way to work”? When in reality you are seething because you would rather poke your eye out than work on the project, and picking up your co-worker will make you have to leave the house 15 minutes earlier. We put our truth aside so that we don’t disappoint or hurt someone’s feelings.

In the most basic form, sentences are just words put together. They don’t really mean anything unless we attach meaning to them. If we could digest this, we may be able to handle the truth (even if it isn’t what we expected) without producing negative emotions.

After really thinking about this truth thing, I changed my opinion of Maks. I’m sure what he said had been on the mind of other contestant’s on the show. He was just brave enough to say it. Maks explained that he immigrated to the US from Ukraine as a child. In his home country, he would not be allowed to speak the truth. He is taking advantage of the freedom that citizens of the United States are blessed with. So why don’t we take advantage of it more often? I think DWTS would be way more entertaining if all the stars and professional dancers gave their honest opinions regarding the feedback from Len, Carrie Ann, and Bruno.

Fighting with Reality

"Circumstances are reality and when you argue with reality you lose, but only 100% of the time."

-Byron Katie

I love this quote from Byron Katie. Whenever I read it I find myself letting out a sigh of relief. I think, “I don’t have to do anything, life plays out as it does and I cannot control this. The only thing I can control is the story I tell myself about life.”

How many times have you told yourself the following?

-That shouldn’t have happened

-He/She shouldn’t have done that

-I shouldn’t have done that

-How could this happen to me

-I don’t deserve this

Recognize how you feel when you think the statements above. Do they bring feelings of joy, gratitude, and happiness? Or do you feel resentment, regret, guilt, and anger?

Whenever I start to tell myself, “that shouldn’t have happened”, I start to feel confused and try to come up with answers and tell myself stories to justify why the circumstance occurred. I argue with myself to find the answer to why it happened. I become angry at myself or others. It doesn’t feel good. I lose.

It’s factual that we cannot go back and change the past; however, a lot of times that is exactly what we try to do. We argue with ourselves and others over circumstances that occurred yesterday, last month, or years ago. We will never win this game.

So what can you do? You can reevaluate the judgment that your mind has created around the situation. You can look closely at the story you are telling yourself about the circumstance. How is this story serving you? Are there other ways you can look at or think about the situation? Once you start to inquire more within your thoughts, you start to be a little more open to reality. You start to understand a story about the situation that may feel better. That doesn’t leave you losing.

If you are interested in inquiring more on your thoughts and the effect they have over your reality, I highly recommend you check out The Work of Byron Katie.

Awestruck

My husband and I just returned from our final vacation of the summer. We visited family on Cape Cod, and then went to Martha’s Vineyard for a wedding of a good friend of mine.

Throughout this last year, I have been fortunate to spend some time in the Caribbean. The crystal clear ocean and white sand beaches are truly stunning. However, nothing compares to spending time near the Atlantic on the east coast.

Do you remember the first time you saw the ocean? I was around 9 or 10 and my family went camping with some friends in Maine. I will never forget when I walked over the sand dunes and saw for the first time the massive body of water, the Atlantic Ocean. I gasped out loud and was speechless. I saw the most beautiful navy blue water with no end in sight. It was completely mesmerizing (kind of like watching a camp fire). At that moment I felt so small and insignificant compared to this ocean. So much history has occurred within its boundaries. It’s the most beautiful thing, yet it can be deadly. I started thinking about all the marine life that was thriving underneath the water – a whole new world under there…

Now that I am older with much more responsibility and experiences under my belt, beautiful things in life sometimes pass me by without me giving it a second thought. I’m always moving fast trying to get the next thing accomplished. This trip to the ocean reminded me to slow down and absorb all the beauty this world has to offer.

The Joys of Transition

Since leaving my job, I have been journaling my transition - my transition from full time employment to self-employment/entrepreneurship. It’s interesting to me how quickly we forget how we react when going through a major transition in life.

It has been 4 months since I left my full-time job. I can look back now and realize that I really didn’t have a concrete game plan in place when I left my job. Yes, I planned on pursuing a career as a Life Coach and by December want to own my own coaching business, but I didn’t fully think about everything that would have to transgress between now and then. I couldn’t get past my excitement of leaving a 40 hour a week job that I had become stagnant in. The excitement was as far as my feelings would take me.

Once that first Monday came around where I didn’t have to wake up and drive to an office I felt lost. I didn’t know where to start. I was close to paralyzed with indecision. There were days when waking up was difficult because I had a whole day of nothing planned and that made me anxious. I tried to incorporate a routine workout program, only to feel so tired in the morning that I would sleep through my “scheduled” workout. I would come up with great ideas on programs to create, or ways to advertise myself, but then fear would overcome me and I would hear a little voice saying, “that’s stupid, no one cares, don’t do it”, and I would follow the voice.

I became angry with myself. I thought something was wrong with me. I would constantly ask myself, “Why am I so tired? Why can’t I make a decision? How did I just spend three hours on Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn? What do people think of me? Wonder if I completely fail at this entrepreneur thing?” This went on for weeks.

Then slowly, I began to have more energy. I found myself waking up at 6 am for my morning ritual of watching Joyce Meyer on TV, prayer and devotion, then working out. I actually started sticking to an exercise plan. I realized that as I was exercising, I would come up with ideas, and these ideas would put me on a path of action for the day. I set out to accomplish a few things each day, even if it was just to pay the bills. Once I accomplished one thing, it gave me the momentum to keep going.

I realized that when I have an idea, I have to jump on it before the devilish voice defeats me. Acting on the ideas generated meetings with people, where I was actually getting out of the house! Instead of feeling overwhelmed, I started being more aware to what felt right to me. This lead me to make more confident decisions, and once I decided on something I moved right ahead without questioning myself.

I was reading my journal of the last few months and I realized how far I have come. I am in no way where I want to be, but I have more focus and confidence and my thoughts are so much more positive! I feel so blessed for pursuing a career that I am really passionate and excited about. I look forward to the challenges ahead. I feel blessed for everything around me and for what the last four months have taught me.

I wish I would have remembered that with any transition (high school to college, single to married, job to new job) there is an adjustment period. I believe it’s your unconscious mind telling you that things have changed and it may take a while to get back on a comfortable track. I would have been kinder to myself and enjoyed the time knowing that this too shall pass.

How Wealthy is Your Emotional Bank?

"The happiest moments my heart knows are those in which it is pouring forth its affections to a few esteemed characters." - Thomas Jefferson

I recently spent a fun-loving weekend in Boston celebrating my girlfriends last days as a single woman. I have known her from the time we were 3 years old. We went through elementary school together and then in middle school we were placed on different “teams” which separated us from having any classes together, and hardly seeing each other between classes. We drifted for a bit, but in High School we became close again. We introduced each other to new friends and shared experiences such as crushes, proms, first boyfriends, applying to colleges, petty adolescent female “cattiness”, my parents’ divorce, alcohol (this experience didn’t end well) and partying. I always knew I could count on her. She was a solid fixture in my life.

We both ventured on to different colleges and in that time we gained more friends. None of these friendships replaced the strong foundation of the relationship we had with each other.

After college, I moved to California and she moved to Boston. Our friendship remained.

At some point in our early 20’s we both ended relationships with our boyfriends. We became single woman in our 20’s trying to navigate our worlds. We leaned on each other more than anything. We had phone calls multiple times a week. A lot of times they were consumed with three topics – boys, money, and career. We became experts in each other’s life. We would make early Saturday morning phone calls to share our Friday night details. We often joked that we were leading parallel lives – she was living it in the big city and I was living it in the suburb of Syracuse.

Then three years ago, I met my husband and a few months after that she met her soon-to-be husband. Once again, our lives paralleled. Now she’s getting married, close to a year after I did.

Looking back on our friendship, the thing that kept us in tact is that we constantly invested in each other’s Emotional Bank.

What is an Emotional Bank? This is really similar to a regular bank account. Deposits of cash are made and cash is withdrawn. However, with an Emotional Bank, cash is equated to support, kind words, a lending ear, air plane tickets, long phone conversations, lunch dates, etc. For example, spending a half hour talking to a friend about her broken heart generates a deposit from you in her Emotional Bank. If it’s a good friendship, she will deposit into your Emotional Bank at some point by comforting you.

See, my friend and I would constantly make deposits in each other’s banks. She flew out to see me in California – that was a HUGE deposit for me. In return, I withdrew from my Emotional Bank and would visit her in Boston. One of us constantly made an effort. We haven’t lived in the same city in over 10 years, and yet we are still bonded. Our Emotional Banks are overwhelmed with deposits.

This is really as simple as give and take. When you give something, most of the time you receive something in return. It may be a tangible or non-tangible (friendship) item. But, if you keep giving –or withdrawing from your Emotional Bank for someone and they aren’t making any deposits back, you will soon become bankrupt and it will probably be the end of the friendship. I’m sure you have said, “I can only give so much!” once or twice when you are in a relationship where you felt you were giving your all and not getting anything back.

I’m not writing all this to share about my great friendship, though I do feel gratitude toward our friendship. My intention is to get you to think about relationships that you haven’t been feeling so great about, or a friendship that’s dwindling. Think about a way you can make an Emotional Deposit in someone’s life? It may take time to really build up the Emotional Bank, but eventually, you will start to feel those deposits returned to you in amazing ways, along with the blessing of a healthy friendship.

Interview with Andrea Owen from Your Kick Ass Life Coaching

I came upon Andrea Owen while searching YouTube for coaching clips. This video appeared called “Kick Your Gremlin’s Ass” and I was totally intrigued. Not only was the video hilarious, but it was so true to life for me. I immediately hopped over to her website and have been following her inspirational messages ever since. I was super excited when she agreed to be interviewed for my blog! Check it out!

Andrea Owen is a professional life coach and speaker. She is passionate about empowering women and girls to value their character and feel beautiful by manifesting respect and love for themselves first and foremost. She has helped hundreds of people manage their inner-critic to break through and live their most kick-ass life.

I love the name “Your Kick Ass Life Coaching”. What inspired this name?

For almost 10 years I've lived by the mantra, "Life is too short for it to not kick ass". Even before I knew what life coaching was! A few years later I started a blog under the name "Live Your Ideal Life" which was okay, but didn't really match who I was. When it came time to launch my business I purchased the url, but something inside me was dragging my feet. I kept going back to my mantra and talked it over with a friend. She asked me why I didn't have "kick-ass" as my business name and I said, "I cannot use the word "ass" professionally!" and she laughed and responded with, "Why? Are you afraid you're going to offend someone?" And Your Kick-Ass Life was born.

What has caused you to be an activist for women and girl empowerment?

It started years ago when I met Jessica Weiner who is the Global Ambassador for the Dove Self-Esteem fund. She trained me to host workshops for young girls to help them build self-esteem and confidence. Also, I spent some time working as a personal fitness trainer. Many of my clients were up for working on their bodies, thinking it would bring them happiness. It was overwhelming to me how much some of them lacked self-esteem. I wanted so badly to help them, but it was beyond the scope of my job. Those two things made me realize my true calling: To help women empower themselves and to love themselves in order to live their own kick-ass life.

Tell me a little bit about those gremlins?

Your gremlin is your inner-critic. The voice that is sometimes mean, perhaps it tells you you're stupid, ugly, whatever. Or, it may just strip you of power, telling you you can't follow your dreams because it's too risky, too much money, you're too old, etc. Our gremlins have evolved with us and grown up with us and will always be with us. Some people live their whole lives assuming that this is their truth, because the gremlins primary job is to present itself as truth. Sneaky, right?

This is the one thing my clients tell me helped them the most when we work together. The thing they walked away with as being the most helpful. So, I decided to save people time and money and put together an ebook and workbook called, "Kick Your Gremlin's Ass: Manage Your Inner-Critic to Live a Kick-Ass Life".

While we can't remove it from our lives, it certainly can be managed!

How do you manage to balance your family and business?

I don't. ha! I honestly think "balance" is unattainable, just as "perfect" is. I feel it's just another thing for us to think we need to have in order to not only be happy, but something to think everyone else has except us. I think we can have harmony instead. Whenever we say "yes" to something, we are saying "no" to something else. When we focus on the things that we value the most and the things we truly love, harmony is with us.

Has your potty mouth ever gotten you in trouble? LOL!

Not yet! My writing style is exactly how I am in real life. People that know me very well have told me they can hear my voice when they read my writing and I take that as such a compliment. I don't believe in sugar-coating, I think we get too much of that. The hard truth is hard to come by, but so very important in our own self-discovery and growth. And a few f-bombs never hurt anyone. When I first started writing, I censored myself and it was no fun at all. How can I write about LIVING your life and being your authentic self if I'm feeling ashamed to say the word, "shit"?