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Self Worth

Where does your self-worth meter sit?

When we unpack our personal problems, I would say 95% of the time it comes down to an issue of worthiness.

Fact is, we are all born worthy. But somewhere along the way, we started to doubt it. We unknowingly allowed a poisonous idea to creep into our brains and it became our go-to thought to explain most anything that went sideways in our lives.

But it was the thought error of a child. That sweet adorable youngster, who didn’t know any better, came to an incorrect conclusion.

That inexperienced young brain wrongly attached the meaning “I am not worthy” to someone else’s actions or words or to a random event.

They were wrong, but it happened. And once the thought was established, that sweet little brain used it again and again until the thought grew legs and became a belief.

We all have areas of our lives where our self-worth meter has a low reading.

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Making Decisions/Thought Loops

Decisions are not always easy to make. We spin. We go back and forth. We weigh things out and ask for help yet still we feel unsure and conflicted.

Yet our minds crave resolution. And when that thought loop is open and our issues are unresolved, we become preoccupied and fixated.

I often won’t sleep well if I have open thought loops. And I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one who wakes up in the middle of the night spinning on something that seems unsolvable. (and our half-asleep brains are always so reasonable)

One of the things that keeps us from being decisive is the idea that we are faced with one decision that is right and one that is wrong. We get focused on making the right decision, when in fact, there is no right or wrong decision, there is just a decision.

Your brain wants to keep you from acting due to the fear of failure. But failure (if you choose to use that word) is just information.

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We must get better/Closed doors

For things to get better, WE must get better.

For things to change, WE must change.

There is no way getting around this.

In our current situation with the pandemic, it’s as if the door to life as we once knew it has been closed.

Some people are standing at the door, jiggling the handle hoping if they do the right thing it will open.

Some are standing behind the door with their arms crossed, pissed off because it’s closed.

But others are looking for windows.

I know a lot of people are trying to be patient while they wait for things to go back to normal.

Except I don’t think we are going back.

We all must be flexible, adaptable and willing to change.

Flexibility often relies on your skill set, and now is a great time to be open and willing to developing new methods of doing things.

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Letting Go

What are you willing to let go of in order to get what you want in life?

I was working with a client one day and used the analogy of a boat.

Many of us build amazing boats, filled with wonderful things. We work on our boats for years and they truly are lovely…but they are tied to the dock of the ‘here’.

We have never taken them out of the harbor, even though we built them so they could sail on the ocean.

We tell ourselves ‘one of these days’ the time will be right.

But for now, we would rather stay in prep mode. We have tried to imagine the future but the water between the dock ‘where we are’ and the shore ‘where we want to be’ seems scary and unknown.

One of my clients was bound to her dock by a story of inadequacy from her childhood. A story about family dynamics and the effect it had on her. She had spent years in therapy and self-analysis and had a very thorough understanding.

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Do You Like Yourself?

Do you like yourself?

I remember my life as an angsty teenager, and I am pretty sure the answer back then would have been a hard no, accompanied by a long list of reasons why.

But now that I am all grown up, I don’t have problems like that anymore.

Oh wait. Yes I do.

One of my favorites these days is when I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror and all I see is this older woman looking back at me. I don’t always recognize her, and there is a moment when I seriously wonder what she is doing in my mirror. I have no idea why I still expect to see my 20 or 30-year-old self.

Hmmmm. Unless it has something to do with the fact that the only pictures of me in our home are of a younger version, usually with great hair and make-up. Seriously, I just had that realization. Wow. (add – find new/old pictures to my list of things to do for next week) But I regress.

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