*Feel free to skip the intro and go into the strategies at the bottom if you'd like!*** ----------------------------------------------- A few weeks ago, I felt like I hit a wall. (That sounds more extra than it is/was). I was looking around at all the things that I wanted to do and how it felt like I wasn't making any progress and also how it felt that forces outside of myself were impeding movement even when I had the energy/motivation/oomph to make things happen. I felt defeated and that is a feeling that I DO NOT experience often and I DID NOT like it one bit. I bounce back, I pivot, I change course, I remain optimistic-perhaps even delusionally so, ha! In short, I show up. I see opportunities for growth and improvement in most situations, so it's hard for me to stay down. I love this about myself so it felt extra challenging when it felt like I was stuck and when it felt like I wasn't myself. Strange feeling. I only remember feeling like this maybe 3 other times in my life. Thankfully, each time, there was a 'cause' or things that I can point to that needed tending to, so experience has taught me that this was solvable but I needed the reminder. (So super thankful for the conversations that I've had recently that helped me with recalibration. Beyond grateful). I also needed to recognize three things: 1) the values that were at play that contributed to me thinking that I had limited options , 2)the expectations and 3)the strategies to employ to get me back to feeling like movement was happening. Look at me being a human being. Who would have thought?! ha. I'm just kidding, I know I'm a human. Below I'm going to focus on some research backed strategies to help with reframing our mindset and keep the momentum alive even when things feel like they're not moving. :) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. 1. 𝐈𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐟𝐲 "𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐃𝐢𝐩" 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 "𝐌𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐲 𝐌𝐢𝐝𝐝𝐥𝐞" First, know that what you’re feeling is actually a normal part of any bold venture.

This is part of a real life journal entry from this past week. A small glimpse (but not the full picture) of part of my thinking world. Good times. ha! But here are some questions for YOU: What's something that you held back on or postponed due to not wanting to face the truth earlier on? What were the factors at play and what were the effects? Is there something you're holding back on now? AND Have you ever faced a difficult truth that ultimately improved your life once you accepted it? _______ part of entry_____________ "There is nothing covered that shall not be revealed and nothing hidden that shall not be known". "Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate." We hide because we're ashamed, because we're afraid of consequences, because we're afraid of how others may react, because we're afraid of loss, because we're afraid we'll finally have to face ourselves and own our own desires and wants and needs and so we end up sitting in darkness feeling lost, feeling the weight of our own prison. We fear that the thing that we're hiding about ourselves says something irredeemable and puts us in a less than perfect light or a less than expected light. We fear that exposure would lead to such drastic change that we won't know how to handle it. But the reality is that the truth exists, whether we hide it or not. We just end up complicating it more-ensnaring it in chains of our own doing without giving it room to actually breathe. To actually breathe...Breathe. When it has breathing room it can be looked at for what it is and we can also get curious about what's underlying it. We often only take a look at the lie or the undesired behavior and are so ashamed by it that we try to shut it down...but underneath that there can be something that's making it grow further (be there to begin with). If we're wasting so much energy on keeping things hidden from ourselves and others, we're denying ourselves the opportunity to see what's really there and that's denying our potential for growth, our potential for healing, our potential for real life transformation. Buying into our own bullshit. Ain't that some bullshit? Lord help us all. But me especially. Obvs.

Nature is perhaps one of the more externally calming forces for me. The "pauses" that I take often involve nature in some way. I also have my daily 4a.m. quiet time that helps with grounding the day in gratitude and reflection but nature is usually where I feel the most present. Deep conversations with people that I connect with can also have some similar (but different)effects. These photos/video are all from this past week.. (While I'd recommend just sitting in nature and just taking it in and not thinking about documenting it as there are so many benefits to just being present in nature, this tedtalk talks about some of the cool things that have been discovered as a result of taking pictures) What are the things (internal or external) that are most peaceful for you?

Our brains/bodies are SOOOOOO frickin' cool!!! I woke up at my usual time this morning (4a.m.), got ready for the gym and read and journaled until about 6a.m.. This is the usual routine. Although fully caffeinated, at 6a.m. a wave of tiredness hit me and I decided to not go to the gym and take a nap before work instead and slept until 8. (this is unusual--I usually force myself to go even if I'm tired)...(side thought: In college I used to have redbull and it would be funny because within an hour of having it, I'd still be able to go to bed...good times). Anyways, this whole situation got me wondering about the why and I think that the mental load of the activities (and the CONTENT and EMOTIONAL LOAD/MANAGEMENT of what I was thinking/writing about) this morning kind of depleted me just a bit. And this made me think of the lower amount of energy investment I've been putting into things as of late. (I was writing about truth which took me down a cool path but at the end (and it's not really the end), I started digging into things more and that ended up being it's own journey that I know will be going on for a long time. But, I knocked myself out in the process. ha. So, I woke up and started looking up things about the brain because I'm often energized by learning new things and engaging in conversations (my whole job is dependent on me being alert/engaged) but this time it wiped me so I wanted to know the science behind what was happening....nerding it out ). The video talks about HOW to address/ manage energy! :) So here are some fun facts for you (that you may have already known, but they're interesting anyway). It's okay if you don't read it all....I'll be using this moving forward so I and my clients will be benefitting! :) BUT, it might be worth reading to gain an even deeper understanding of what's happening if you feel depleted! :) (Thanks to notebooklm for condensing a bunch of different articles and spitting out some cool facts about the 𝐧𝐞𝐮𝐫𝐨𝐛𝐢𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐩𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐧𝐞𝐮𝐫𝐚𝐥 𝐫𝐞𝐠𝐮𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧)

Growth has an interesting way of creating friction. Quite frankly, it can be a pain in the butt. But...it can be so incredibly rewarding too. The spaces, routines and sometimes even relationships that once felt comfortable can start to feel restrictive as we change. Sometimes we can think that the growth is actually kind of 'easy' and the hardest part of growth isn't the growing itself but rather it's watching the people around us struggle to adjust to who we're becoming/what we're choosing to spend our time doing. And depending on their reactions (OR our INTERPRETATIONS of their reactions), we can end up feeling threatened and can start feeling defensive. Fight/flight/freeze mode can be activated even though nothing bad is actually happening. Even though good things are happening...and even though good things can happen relationally through the changes. Not everyone will celebrate our growth but the people that truly want the best for us (and for themselves) will. It doesn't mean that they'll go along with us and it might mean that they'll challenge us, but ultimately, there would be support for our wellbeing. Sometimes change can challenge someone else's expectations, expose their own discomfort, or changes a dynamic they've grown accustomed to. It changes the unspoken agreements that exist in relationships. It can challenge the status quo and that can feel threatening but that's a normal part of change. We can't just assume that others will automatically jump on the bandwagon just because we say so. We can't expect that just because we think a change is important that others will think so too. Growth often requires a renegotiating of relationships to some extent. It doesn't mean abandoning them and it does mean giving some grace to others as they process what's happening and as they see how the change fits their lives. They're allowed to have their own feelings about the changes too. One of the better ways of going about this is learning to hold two truths at once (yay dialetics): staying committed to your own development while remaining compassionate toward those affected by it. This doesn't mean that you just give up the change or have others dictate the change, it just means that we consider others as we navigate it. If you're in a committed relationship this becomes a point that can't be skipped if you want the relationship to survive and thrive.