We all struggle.  We all suffer on the inside.  Every day…

We worry.
We procrastinate.
We feel overwhelmed.
We feel angry.
We feel lonely.
We don’t feel good enough.
We wish we were more fit.
We wish we had more money.
We wish our jobs were different.
We wish our relationships were different.
We think post-COVID life should be ‘back to normal’ again.

And yet, every one of these struggles is self-created.  They are real, but they are only real because we have created them in our minds.  We have attached ourselves to certain ideals and fantasies about how life has to be right now in order to be good enough for us.

We worry because things might not turn out how we expect.  We procrastinate because we fear discomfort and failure.  We feel overwhelmed because we think we should be further along than we are.  We feel angry because life should not be this way.  And so it goes.

But again, it’s in our heads.

And it doesn’t have to be this way.  At least not for YOU.

You can [Read more…]

Where you ultimately end up this year is dependent on your daily attitude and response.

This morning one of our coaching clients, Monica—a recovering victim of a fairly recent and debilitating car accident—was smiling from ear to ear the minute our FaceTime coaching session began.  “What has you in such good spirits today?” I asked her.  “I’m thinking differently about things…about how lucky I am to be alive,” she replied.  “I thought the injuries I sustained in that accident last year signified the end of life as I know it, but now I realize they signify the beginning.”

All details aside, Monica decided to begin again, in her mind first and then in her life.  It’s taken her several months of healing and practice, but she has consciously let go of the “shoulda, woulda, coulda” attachments in her head about her circumstances, and she has stepped forward with grace and determination.  Her new beginning has nothing to do with the recent New Year, and everything to do with a new way of thinking.

Truth be told, today is really the beginning, for all of us.  And we can prevent the wrong thoughts and beliefs from getting the best of us as we move forward with our lives in 2021.  We can train our minds to make the very best of the present moment, even when our circumstances are far less than ideal.  All it takes is practice.

The mind is like a muscle, and just like every muscle in the human body, it needs to be exercised to gain strength.  It needs to be trained daily to grow and develop gradually over time.  If you haven’t pushed your mind in a dozen little, positive ways over the course of time, of course it’ll crumble on the inevitable days that get overwhelmingly stressful.

The easiest way to begin strengthening the mind? [Read more…]

As 2020 winds down, I know many of us are yearning for a very small and selective range of life experiences—the happy holidays, the normal times, the settings and experiences that make us feel comfortable. And yet, the full range of our present reality is quite different. This year continues to give us an extensive array of experiences that evoke feelings ranging from sadness to struggle to pride to anger to love to loneliness… to happiness to hope and more. These feelings are all part of being a living, breathing human being, regardless of the season of our lives.

So, we can revolt against the unfairness of life—the unfairness of having to deal with pain, having to cope with uncertainty, having to feel lonely and uneasy and upset. Or we can [Read more…]