Tag: life coaching

What’s Your Emotional Life Actually Like?

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Here’s a question for you –  what’s your emotional landscape like?

 

Do your emotions come, have their say, and go away again, naturally, like the natural life-cycle of a flower? Blossoming and then receding? 

 

Do listen to each emotion and let them teach you exactly which action you need to take? For example, knowing that anger is there to right an injustice? And anxiety tells you something is not quite right and you might need to look into it? 

 

Do you experience the whole rich tapestry of all 80+ emotions, and can name them all when they arise? 

 

Do you experience both the joy AND the sadness?

 

Do you cultivate and enjoy pleasant emotions regularly? And teach this to your kids, too?

 

Are you feeling enough? Could you be a little on the numb side?! What are you missing out on?

 

Are you at the whim of your own reactions, getting triggered by others and outside things and then those feelings dictate the rest of your day/week?

 

Are you out of control with your anxiety or stress, or anger? Like literally feel like you have no control?

 

Do you dumb down your emotional experiences because you’re scared that feelings might overwhelm you? And then you’d never recover?

 

Are you frequently engaged in numbing behaviours to avoid your emotions? Scrolling for hours, drinking too much, over-eating, over-socialising, online shopping, etc. etc. etc.?

 

Without judging yourself, where are you actually at on the old emotional metre? What’s this part of your life like? What could be different?

 

When I had been a parent for about 2 years, I’d been working one-day a week in town with 1:1 clients. I got the opportunity to train in mBraining – or mBit (see previous blog for definition). I was having an issue. Due to my rough start with post-natal anxiety and depression, I was having difficulty FEELING those loving feelings towards my first child. Although I’d recovered and for all intents and purposes I was well, every time I held my child I’d experience a “loving feeling” coming up which I immediately pushed down again (not consciously). I was getting concerned! Needless to say my own personal development while doing this intense training was on the comfort of experiencing loving feelings, allowing them and enjoying them. It was a very worthwhile outcome!

 

It’s likely that you’d fall into one of the categories other than the first five, too. The first five are mostly what I’m coaching people towards and are not usually people’s default experience of the emotional landscape, for various reasons, upbringing, trauma, etc..

 

When you’re numbing or dumbing down and not allowing yourself to feel, remember you can’t selectively numb: numbing sadness or fear will numb joy and happiness. 

 

If you’re at the whim of, or mostly experiencing stressful emotions, then life is going to feel pretty tough. Perhaps you have tears that you can’t control, and this causes some secondary issues for you, like embarrassment.

 

Is it time for a change?

What if you could change just ONE aspect of your emotional life? What would you change? What would that be like?

In the Use Your Body To Solve A Problem workshop, we begin to connect into the body-brains in the heart and gut. One of the competencies of the heart-brain specifically is emoting. If we’re cut off from our hearts and are mostly head-brain dominant (see previous blog) we are not experiencing – or, importantly, regulating – the rich tapestry of our emotions. We aren’t living and experiencing fully.

We are aiming for both emotional literacy AND emotional regulation. This will take focus and work, and won’t be achieved in one workshop of course, but it is a start on the journey at least!  Would you like to start?

 

Want to go deeper and more personal? Fill in an application for therapeutic life coaching here.

 

I’m calling BS on the whole ‘peaceful parenting’ ideal!

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The last two mornings have been really tough, and I’ve shouted at my child.

I’m not proud of losing my temper, not at all. And if I’ve gone down in your estimation by admitting it, then so be it. Feel free to unsubscribe now. I gave up the belief that I had to be perfect in order to effectively help others some years ago (probably around the same time I became a parent!)

I share it with you however because it’s been a grave reminder to me how easy it is for parenting-guilt to arise. In my book The Imperfect Parent I call it the Shitty Guilt Fairy. And oh my, does the Shitty Guilt Fairy love it when I lose the plot! She kicks off her sparkly shoes and settles in, good and proper. And guess what comes with her? You’ve got it, the good old Inner Critic. This version is special however and probably hurts the most  – the Inner Parenting Critic.

The biggest pearl of wisdom I’ve ever learned from a parenting-psychologist (one which I drove 6 hours to go and train with for one day, and 6 hours back) was this:

“F#^k our kids. We give them everything we’ve got and they still demand three times as much!”

And isn’t that just the truth? The parenting equation isn’t one that is set up fairly, in my view. We do our best, we care, and we have the best of intentions to be the BEST parent we can be at any given time. We care for them, love them, teach them right from wrong and try hard to not give them labels that are hard to grow up with

And it’s when we’ve given everything and they still need more and push our buttons, that’s a recipe for losing it. For the last two mornings I’ve encountered nothing but obstacles and complaints one after the other, that have driven me to the end of my tether:

I can’t wear those leggings, the kids will laugh at me (dissolves into screaming fit)
I don’t want that toothbrush I want an electric toothbrush! (dissolves into screaming fit)
I don’t want to wear that because it’s been in the washing machine! (dissolves into screaming fit)
I wanted to sleep with my glo-ears on! I didn’t want you to take them off! (dissolves into screaming fit)
My socks are falling down! (dissolves into screaming fit)
My egg tastes like a vanilla tree and it’s making me really sick! (refuses to eat, dissolves into screaming fit)

Let me be really clear on my stance on parenting and why I wrote my book: I DO NOT BELIEVE in courses that claim to achieve “Peaceful Parenting”. If you’ve done them and they’ve worked for you, and you can remain 100% calm 100% of the time, then good for you! I’ve received criticism for this stance on social media and I’m fine with that. It doesn’t change my stance. I find the most effective way of living my life is to be a realist. For me, these so called ‘goals’ are lofty and unattainable and therefore extremity unhelpful to us as parents in the expectations they create. I don’t believe they are achievable, and when we fail to achieve them, as we inevitably will, it simply gives us another reason to beat ourselves up. In my view, even the Dalai Lama would struggle to keep his cool after 24 hours of parenting. And who knows how he’d do with a particular challenging child, or doing it solo, or doing it sleep-deprived, or a combination of all three?

Of course we all want to be calmer and not lose it quite so often. But because of the above – that we give them all we have and they still demand three times as much– losing it is inevitable. And what I DO NOT LIKE  is the cruel guilt-driven beat ups that parents give themselves about being “a bad mum” or “not cut out for this” or whatever. I’m calling BS on the whole thing!! 

Losing it is inevitable. How we treat ourselves in response to that is optional. 

I’m not going to lie. I’ve heard my Inner Parenting Critic the last few days. I’ve felt the guilt, and it’s hurt. I’ve been in floods of tears, completely undone by it all. And you know what? I’m so glad I know how to get myself out of that spiral these days. If I didn’t have an Inner Coach Practice (and let’s face it some really good friends) then I dread to think how far down the spiral I would actually go. Once again, if I go down in your estimations for admiring that, then so be it. But it’s the truth.

Self-compassion, self-empathy, forgiveness and kindness are the only ways to genuinely learn and move on. 

With love for all the parents out there. It’s the hardest job in the world, and because you care and are self-aware, you’re doing amazingly well.

Charlotte x

Video 8: Achieving Goals

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Welcome to Video 8 of my free 8-day Video Series leading up to the launch of my Inner Critic to Inner Coach eCourse. Every day I’ll be talking about an area of significance to your life, and how negative self-talk either causes or perpetuates that problem. And then importantly, a quick-and-dirty instant solution that you can use right away to make a difference to yourself. In this case how to set a goal and actually achieve it.

The secrets of achieving goals? Firstly, you need to have one. Do you have a goal you’re working towards? If not then get one! Goals are really important, your brain loves them. Working towards something in your life makes you feel happier and builds up self-confidence.

Secondly, you need to believe you can achieve it. This part is influenced by two things:

  1. the goal actually being achievable and possible. If you’re just 4 feet tall, you’re probably not going to make it as professional basketball player.
  2. your internal self-talk

The first one is fairly straight forward. Your goal needs to have the right amount of challenge and stretch for you, which is relative to the situation you’re currently in. When I was unwell with Post-natal Distress (PND) my goal was to get through the day having completed some very basic tasks, like feed baby, sleep baby. And, later on when I became slightly better, make dinner. Conversely when I was thriving as an employed Lead Coach in a large government department, my goals were very different!  Ask – is it realistic for me? Is it actually possible/achievable? Asking a third person for their opinion can be a great way to check.

In terms of #2, if you have crappy internal dialogue playing in your head, then you will be very unlikely to achieve your goal. It will erode your belief in yourself by telling you you can’t do it, you’re not good enough to have it, or, the old favourite – who do you think you are?  In other words, WHO ARE YOU TO HAVE THIS?

You will then either be afraid of failure, or success, because with a lack of an Inner Coach practice, you won’t have a plan to support yourself 100% no matter what happens. Yes fear of success is something that can happen!

This will lead to some of those very unhelpful patterns that we have all experienced at some stage – self-sabotage and procrastination to name a few.

The solution? A self-talk revolution will be extremely helpful to you, which is the point of the eCourse. And, in the meantime, try these two things:

  1. write down the very first, tiniest little step you can take towards this goal.  Just the very first one, and make it small.
  2. write down why it is possible for YOU to achieve it. What strength or past achievement or resource do you possess, that will help you?

I talk a lot about learning how to ‘have your own back’ and supporting yourself 100% no matter what, in the Inner Critic to Inner Coach eCourse. They are such essential stills to develop in order to achieve anything. Knowing you can manage potential ‘failure’ is everything.

Any questions, please get in touch!

Love, Charlotte x

Video 4: How To Improve Low Self-Esteem

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This is such an important topic!

The distinction between self-esteem and self-confidence (which I’ll be talking about in a few days) is this: self-confidence is how you feel about your abilities, your competencies and your capacity to do something.  Self-esteem is how you feel about YOURSELF – about who you are as a person.

How you feel about yourself as a person depends on what you believe. A belief isn’t objectively ‘correct’ or something ‘absolutely true’ – simply something that your brain holds as ‘absolutely true’. What you believe is fundamentally influenced by what you talk to yourself about inside your head. Your brain doesn’t know the difference between what’s real – what’s really happening out there in the real world – and your internal thoughts, images, words etc. It simply responds as if they were real. Of course, the logical part of you knows the difference, but not the unconscious part. So, what you’re telling yourself about yourself is crucial to what you believe about who you are, and therefore the sum of your self-esteem.

The beginning of a solution to start improving low self-esteem is to find something POSITIVE about yourself and who you are, and make it something you already BELIEVE is absolutely true.  And I advise going with the smallest possible thing – as long as you genuinely believe it about yourself. It’s much better to go small and believable, then go lofty and ideal, as these kinds of things will be rejected by your brain. And make it about YOU – even if it has to be about your appearance. If you have a poor body-image and each time you look in the mirror you’re telling yourself you’re fat and that no-one would want you, then find something about your body/appearance that you absolutely and positively like that’s already rooted in your belief system. It can be as small as “I really like the colour of my eyes”.  And then focus on that when you look in the mirror or think about your body.

There’s a neurological reason why finding an existing positive belief really works to turn this around, which I go into in much more detail in the upcoming eCourse – Inner Critic to Inner Coach.

For now – try this quick self-talk solution, and tell me how it works for you.  Any questions please get in touch!

Charlotte x