And

"And" has become my new favorite word. I use it now instead of the word “but” in so many places.

As I sit here this morning sobbing in fear and gratitude, the word “and” becomes even more profound.

I’ve been suffering excruciating monthly pain for well over a year. When I say excruciating here is what I mean (those of you who have borne children may relate to this better than others.): If a 10 on the pain scale of 1-10 is Pitocin-induced triple contraction labor for hours on end (without an epidural) – my current pain is a 15.

15.

Rolling around on the floor, screaming, sobbing, gnashing of teeth – you get the idea. This happens every month for over two weeks. The length of time between cycles has been steadily shortening. I’m getting about 10 days off now.

Four years ago I had an ablation to relieve my massive menstrual bleeding. I had a friend who had had one and swore by it. No more bleeding. No cramps. No hysterectomy. Just blood-free, pain-free living. Who wouldn’t want that? So I signed up and got mine. Easy peasy.

Apparently, unbeknownst to me, there is a thing called, “Post-Ablation Syndrome” that about 30% of women get 30 months post-ablation. Lucky me! It has to do with scar tissue forming and the uterus not being able to do its monthly squeeze. The ablation never really worked for me the way it did for my friend, and now it’s become a thing much worse than what it set out to cure.

So, this brings me to “and.”

I have REALLY resisted having a hysterectomy. I had a lot of really good reasons – my naturopath agreed – for not wanting to have my uterus removed. She’s the one who actually diagnosed my pain and together we set out on a course to try to fix it non-surgically. I really was desperately attached to my uterus.

None of what we tried worked and she spent one entire office visit talking me into the hysterectomy. That was unexpected. And eye-opening.

It’s taken a lot of coaching around my thoughts about not wanting to have surgery and about keeping my uterus (and let’s be real – a shit ton of pain) to get me to where I am today – The Eve of the Parting of the Ways. My uterus and I will be parting ways tomorrow. My friend Maya said it sounded like neighbors that just don't get along anymore when I phrased it that way. And that’s exactly how it feels. We co-existed and got along well enough for 46 years and now it's time to let her go.

I am so incredibly grateful that this chapter of pain and of losing so many days is finally coming to a close. I’m grateful to the people that have supported me through this. I’m grateful to the people that made this surgery happen tomorrow instead of months down the road. I’m grateful to be parting ways with my uterus.

AND

I’m scared.

Shitless. Surgery scares the crap out of me.

This isn’t a “but” situation, it’s an “and” situation. I am grateful and scared. I’m excited and afraid. I’m relieved and nervous. I’m sitting here with all of those emotions living side by side in my body. Grateful, excited, relieved. AND. Scared, afraid, nervous. I’m all of it. I’m both. I’m and.

Just Let Me Be Me

I’ve been TOO BIG my whole life. I’m not speaking of my physical size, but rather the magnitude of my personality; exuberant, happy, outgoing, love to laugh, emotional, excitable. Big. That is my Essential Self, the Who. I. Am. deep down without any influence from others.

Some people get really uncomfortable around BIG people. They begin to feel as though they are falling in someone’s shadow or being thrust into a limelight they aren't comfortable with. They feel jealous because they "aren’t big" themselves. Maybe you’ve experienced this. Has anyone ever said to you, “don’t be too big for your britches?” or shut you down when you're simply being yourself?

I can remember several instances over the course of my life of being shut down by people when I was in my full joy and being too big for someone else. One such instance happened when I was in high school and I was eating lunch with one of my best friends. We were outside, standing among 300 people, and I was laughing out loud and having a wonderful time. My friend got really upset and snarled at me under her breath, “Stop it, Laurie. People are looking.” I remember saying, “Who cares? Let them look.” But I received the message loud and clear. Be small. Blend in. Don’t be big. It’s not safe. You’ll just get shut down. 

Message received.

‘Blend in’ was the lesson I learned in my childhood home as well. Growing up in an alcoholic home I found that it felt safer to blend in and not make waves. After all, you never knew which version of dad was going to come walking through the front door at the end of the day. Perhaps this is why my Essential Self would cut loose when I was out of the house, and come bubbling forth right out of me. I needed to be seen. I needed to be heard.

Who is Driving the Bus?

We’ve all got an Essential Self, some of ours' are hidden more deeply than others’. We also have another part of us called the Social Self. This is the part of us that says we “have to” fit in socially. We have to be polite. We have to like our relatives (that we secretly hate). We have to be thin, drink green smoothies, be environmentally conscious, and on and on and on. We put other people's ideas of what's right in charge of our lives. Even if we hate those things. Even if they make our bodies cringe into a tight ball just thinking about them. (I’m looking at you ‘environmentally conscious.’)

So, I'm going to encourage you to find the things that light you up and give you that joyful feeling inside. Sometimes it can be like you're playing a game of “You’re getting warmer, you’re getting colder” until you figure out. Pay attention and notice when your Social Self is trying to run your life and see if you can find ways to put him/her in the back seat for a bit. Is there an Essential-Self-Way that could work as well (or better) than the Social-Self-Way? Or is there the possibility of an “and” solution?

I had a client recently that said that she likes to read in bed in the morning, but she also feels better if she gets up and walks. Most days the books in bed were winning and she was feeling bad about that. I suggested that there might be a way to combine those two things, perhaps with a book on tape during the walk. “I've never thought of that!” Right, because reading and walking at the same time seemed like mutually exclusive things. But because we found a way to combine them, her Essential Self is going to have a party in the mornings now, by nourishing her mind and body at the same time.

Let Your Essential Self Shine

Figuring out a way to let your Essential Self shine when others (or even ourselves) are trying to dull it is key. Noticing when it is happening is the first and most important step.  You can't do something about it if you don't notice it's happening. And then, instead of taking what “everyone” says and making it your truth, figure out what is really your truth and remind yourself that your Essential Self wants what it wants. It’s a way of living authentically. It’s a way of living in harmony with ourselves. If we are blending in and playing small, then we're doing a disservice to ourselves and others. We are negating the part of ourselves that IS TRUE. A piece of us breaks off and we have to work like hell to get it back.

So, I’ve decided that I want to spend time with people that allow me to be me, that allow me to shine and want me to be BIG. Those are my people. And the rest? Well, when they’re ready for BIG me, they know where to find me. This is my first step. Being around people with whom it's okay to be myself. In this safe environment I'm rediscovering that bit of me that has been hiding in the shadows all these years. It's a process and there may be setbacks, but it feels like it's time for me to be seen and share my gifts with the world.

Please feel free to share in the comments below any thoughts you have about the Essential Self. If you want to talk about the things that light up your Essential Self, I’d love to hear.

You Are Not Inferior

You Are Not Broken

Limiting Beliefs and Pay What You Can

After a conversation with a close friend about her new venture in life and hope, I've challenged myself to come up with 200 limiting beliefs/painful thoughts I currently have. 

Limiting beliefs can be any thought that is holding you back from living the life you love. It can be a REALLY painful thought (No one loves me), or something so ingrained that you believe about yourself that you don’t even notice it (I’ve always been clumsy). My therapist once said that anything negative you believe about yourself isn’t true. It’s been taught to you…someone said it or you made it up about yourself via the old “compare and despair” syndrome.

I have to admit, I'm kind of surprised at the ease with which I am able to come up with my own limiting beliefs. 

I'll share with you one of my more recent ones. I had this thought a couple of years ago, "I can't go to Hawaii until I can wear a bathing suit without cringing in the mirror." Yes, I actually thought and believed that. And of, course, saying it aloud now it seems so silly and obviously untrue, but these are the kinds of thoughts that regularly float through our heads and hold us back from living the life we desire. For example, if I hadn’t worked through that thought, the photo above would not have been possible. I also had it in my head that I had to wear a bikini or some such thing if I was ever going to learn to surf. Well, all evidence to the contrary, because here I am in board shorts and a rash guard learning to surf. One of the best things I’ve ever done for myself…in Hawaii.

Some other examples of limiting beliefs:

• I have to stay in this job. 
• I don't have enough money (time, energy, intelligence).
• I have to be small for others to like me/I can't be too big for my britches. 
• I don't know enough/I have to be an expert. 
• I can’t be self-indulgent/love myself too much.
• I don’t know how to take care of myself.
• I’m the only one who can…
• My spouse should be nicer to me.
• I’ll never get a rasie/They don’t appreciate me at work.

Find Your Limiting Beliefs

I am going to encourage you right now to take out some paper and a pencil and begin making your own list. See if you can find five of these kinds of thoughts. It’s important to notice when you’re having them. Shining a light on these beliefs and thoughts is the first step to getting them behind us. If you're feeling brave, I'd love it if you share one or two of them in the comments below.

The next steps have to do with working through the thoughts. You may or may not have heard of Byron Katie. She is the guru of working through painful thoughts with a process called “Inquiry” or “The Work.” If you’re interested in more information about her, she has a website and a book called, “Loving What Is” that is a total game-changer with respect to moving through painful thoughts and limiting beliefs.

Having said that, I have found that it is most effective to work through these thoughts with someone else because when we are in the middle of these thoughts it’s hard to see any other way to think. An objective third party to your thoughts can be just the ticket to opening up possibilities of thinking and believing a different way. A less painful way.

That’s where I come in. One of my favorite things to do as a coach is help people to “Inquire” into their thoughts and discover a less painful way to think and live.

Since we are done with all of the lovey-dovey of Valentine’s Day, I’ve decided to keep love going and offer a "Pay What You Can" for a single session. This is an $85 value that you can snap up today for whatever you can afford to pay. Please note this is for a single session only and does not apply to any of my coaching packages.

Once you’ve clicked on this Pay Now button, you’ll be taken to the PayPal website. You’ll see a field called “Item Price” and you’ll fill in your price. Continue through the payment process and I’ll email you within the next day or two to set up our appointment. Make sure you’ve entered the email address at which you want to receive my email.

I'm going to limit this offer to the first 5 people who pay simply because I need to fit them into my existing schedule.

Today I’m wishing you a day filled with Self Love!!!

Update: I've removed the Pay Now link as I've had 5 people sign up. Thank you!!!

My Story...with Food

We all have a lot of stories, don’t we? I have a few that have really played a large part in defining the person that I am today.

One of my stories is that I was raised by very loving parents in a pretty dysfunctional home. My dad seemed to think it was a great and helpful thing to share with me at an early age that he thought I was overweight and that no one in their right mind would love me unless I lost weight. It was a conversation that we had in our kitchen when I was a freshman in high school and I’ll never forget it as long as I live.

Probably not surprisingly, weight has been an issue of mine on and off for a lot of my life. I’m happy to say that over the last three years I’ve lost almost 50 pounds using all of the normal methods approved by healthy people everywhere; diet, exercise, I hired a personal trainer and visited him three times a week for a year, I eat a lot of organic food and am a green smoothie junkie, yadda, yadda, yadda. And some not-so-healthy ones too, like diet pills and the intense grief that came from the loss of my dog. I went whole days without eating then – not good.

But I have a secret to tell you and here it is. When you’re done needing the weight to do for you what’s it’s doing – you’ll let it go. Profound, right? Yes, it is. And so very true.

When I started life coach training, that’s when something really clicked. Once I started getting to the root of the reasons WHY I was eating too much and cleaning up those issues, then I didn’t NEED to eat too much any more. This was so profound to me and I can’t stress enough that no amount of dieting and exercise will work or be sustainable until you’ve figured out and put to rest the why of the weight. For me weight was a way of keeping people away and not being seen. If, according to my dad, no one would love me if I had weight on, then I could hide behind weight. That felt safe. Being seen didn't feel safe and hiding behind weight did.

My parents sent me to a fat farm as my high school graduation present. It was one of the best things they could have done for me. There I learned how to eat whatever I wanted – even junk food – as long as it added up to 1,200 calories per day, and how to move for 5 hours each and every day. That’s sustainable, right? Truly. Awful. But the takeaway was good – don’t deny yourself anything. We all have cravings and so, if you want a bite of something, have it. It’s when you find yourself NEEDING to eat a half a pie that you may want to examine the why of it. Because your body probably doesn’t ever need a half a pie.

Over Christmas we had family here and there were desserts with dinner every day, cookies and candy from Santa, etc. in the house all the time, and I managed to lose weight. Why? How? Because some days I said, "No" to dessert because I was satisfied from dinner, or some days I had a very small scoop of ice cream with strawberries, or a bite of chocolate. I no longer HAVE to have a whole dessert or eat too much, because now I live in a world where I eat to nourish my body and not to feed my wounds.

Does eating to feed your wounds sound familiar to you? 

Day One

2013 brought a lot with it. Sometimes years will go by and I don't really feel like much momentous happened at all, but 2013 was packed to the brim with momentous.

There were many new friendships made (four and five hour lunches!) with people from all over the world, which are connections that I'm hopeful will last years and years. There were relationships cemented, and one that was tested and has floundered a bit.

There was a new career path chosen, which brought intense study and immense personal and spiritual growth.

There was creativity found, which once was lost, and other life-changing online courses, which I was blessed to take.

There was adventurous travel with the love of my life.

There was a conference attended, where I met people I internet-knew and loved and got to hug and smile and share space with in real life. There were retreats attended and one retreat sadly, not attended.

There was a husband's birthday celebrated with a trip to family in Cali, which included a surprise visit from daughter number one.

There was Pismo. Magic.

There was a 21st birthday celebrated with a football game and midnight drink with a daughter that shines so bright.

And there was a dog that passed away one morning who took part of me with her.

There were pounds shed, which I'm happy to release and send on their way, blessing them for bringing me what I needed while they were here, now ready to need them no longer.

There was help received for the past, and the present, and the future by some incredible souls, some of them even human.

I bless 2013 for all of this and all of the rest. Thank you 2013.

Today is Day One of 2014 and I bless it for all it is about to bring. Thank You 2014.

Thank you.

Did anything momentous happen in your life in 2013? I'd love to hear about it in the comments below. 

Today I'm wishing you peace, love and infinite prosperity in 2014.