Excuse me? Can you change so I can like you?

What not to do: Let me tell you how to behave so I can like you better.

What (you CAN CHOOSE) to do: Accept them for who they are.

When you can accept someone without trying to change who they are, it is easier to allow space for them in your life.

Just know that 1/2 of the time, it will be a fucking mess & 1/2 of the time, it will be fucking awesome. And both are ok.

Happily ever after only exists in fairy tales & fairy tales are not real.

Also, just know, it’s always a choice.

To go. To stay.

To accept them. To not accept them.

Only YOU know what is best for you.

And whatever you decide is exactly the path you were meant to be on.

How do I know? Because you are always exactly where you are meant to be.

Make a decision. Love your reasons. And have your own back.

Daily Practice: Brain Dump!

6,000 thoughts run through your mind on the daily!

(It used to be 60,000 but new studies show 6,000.)

80% of them are likely negative.

And MANY of them are subconscious.

How can you become aware of what is going on up there when there are SO MANY thoughts?!

Well, here is my FAVORITE thing to do EVERY DAMN DAY!

Brain Dump! Sit down. Ask yourself, WHAT IS GOING ON?! Write. Don’t edit yourself. Just let it go!

Pro Tip: If you have something specific you want to write about, prompt yourself with questions: Why am I feeling anxious/stressed/angry? What am I currently thinking that has me wanting to punch my hubs in the face?

Look at all of it & decide, what are FACTS & what are thoughts.

Pro Tip: Facts are things that happened, words that someone said, stuff going on in the world, something everyone can agree IS, indeed a fact. The facts (aka circumstances) are shit you can’t change/control.

But the thoughts, those are optional. Sometimes our thoughts serve us & sometimes they don’t.

FYI: A lot of the time, we think our feelings are coming from the fact of the situation or the circumstance but it is really our thought about it!

Pick a few of your thoughts & ask yourself “how is this thought making me feel? When I am feeling that way because I am thinking that, how do I show up? For my biz? For my fam? For me?!”

That is when you can start to see the result those thoughts are creating for you.

The best part, you get to decide if you want to keep those thoughts or not.

Get curious! How else can you look at it? Is there a way that the thought MAY NOT even be true? Does it serve you to think it? Or not think it?

Last but not least, DO NOT JUDGE YOURSELF FOR YOUR THOUGHTS! You are learning to be more aware! Just be curious & compassionate.

Like I said, most of them aren’t conscious thoughts & they lean more towards the negative than the positive! BUT that means you are just a human with a human brain! There is NOTHING wrong with you!

The goal here is to:
-become more aware.
-start thinking more on purpose, less by default.
-create more of the results you WANT!

Unicorns & Rainbows...

Every single thing we DO or DON’T DO in our life is because of how we think it will make us feel. (Read that again.)

We want to dodge the negative emotions.

And we want to feel ALL of the positive emotions.

We are so used to thinking that life should be unicorns & rainbows so when negative emotions do pop up - many of us don’t want to allow it - so we push it away & try to pretend it doesn’t exist, we react to it (like losing our shit when we are angry) or we avoid it with food, booze, scrolling social media…

Basically, we find any way to feel better so we don’t have to feel like shit.

Lemme give you a PERFECT example.

How many times have you ended your work day & thought to yourself, “damn, that was a craptastic day, I deserve a drink.”

Welcome to being a human. You had a HUMAN day. Some days will be craptastic. And that is ok.

FEELING NEGATIVE EMOTION IS OKAY!

I know you are like, “what did that bitch just say?!”

And I said what I said.

If you didn’t feel like shit sometimes, you wouldn’t know what it was like to feel fucking amazing.

If you didn’t experience sadness, you would never know true happiness.

If there wasn’t hate…you wouldn’t know love.

If life was only unicorns & rainbows you wouldn’t even know what unicorns & rainbows are…there would be ZERO contrast.

It is fine to feel not so fine sometimes.

And if you allow the sadness, anger or fear or any other feeling you would normally push away to be there, eventually everything WILL be fine.

When you don’t try to stuff them in a teeny tiny closet, most feelings pass in 90 seconds. But when you freak the f out about it - that is going to make it worse & soon enough the closet door will bust open & ALL the shit will come pouring out. It’ll be a shit show. See what I did there...

What you resist will only persist.

What you allow, embrace & move towards will dissipate.

Lovability

Can I tell you something?

….I’ gonna tell you anyway.

You are 100% lovable. How do I know? Your lovability is based on someone else’s ability to LOVE, not on you. There isn’t a damn thing you can do to be more lovable that you already are, in this moment.

Think about it - say your best friend loves the shit out of you, obvi, you are besties, but her husband doesn’t love you. That has ZERO to do with you being lovable & everything to do with their capacity to love you. His lack of love for you is not a reflection of you. You are 100% lovable.

If you aren’t feeling the love for yourself…that is a choice you are making. It is NOT because you aren’t lovable. It is based on YOUR capacity & willingness to love yourself without any strings attached.

And how you treat yourself is a mirror image of how you think about yourself.

But here’s the kick in the nuts, our brains LOVE LOVE LOVE to find all the dirt on us & judge like it is their job…I mean, it is sorta conditioned that way, so I guess you could say it is like your brain is currently the VP of the “You Aren’t Enough” Department.

BUT here is the amazing thing….you get to step in & train your brain for a new position, The CEO of the “Loving Yourself On Purpose” Department. It is a hands on role & requires daily attention, some days more than others, but I hear the benefits of being the CEO of this particular department are...well, mind-blowing.

First place to start….
Awareness.
What are the mean things your brain tries to tell you about yourself? You will think they are FACTS. These are things you have probably thought for SO long that you BELIEVE them with every bone in your body but now is your chance to question that….
What are some ways those thoughts are NOT true? Your brain will WANT to find evidence for how it IS true but challenge it, with love. Get curious.

And you might just slowly start to recognize that there is more to you to love than you were able to acknowledge before.

Your spouse is NOT your golden ticket to happiness...

Meet the younger, less “aware” versions of us…

Veruca Salt (aka: the emotional child).
The people pleaser.

Guess who WAS who?!

I thought he had my golden ticket to happiness.
And at first, he genuinely wanted to do whatever it took to get me that ticket. He thought his main goal in life was to make me happy.

But EVERY TIME I relied on him to do something to make me happy…it was short lived.
I was never satisfied ENOUGH.
I expected more.

And if things didn’t go my way, I’d get all angry like Vercua. “I want it now!” (Hello unrealistic expectations.)

He kept saying yes, even when, deep down, it was NOT a genuine YES anymore.
Little by little without him realizing it, he was building up & holding in resentment for me in a way that led to him just being angry. A lot.

I thought, if I can change HIM, this can work. So I tried to control his behavior. I wanted him to be less angry. It was obviously “ruining” our relationship. (FYI folks, you can not, I repeat, can not change other people.)

We weren’t really aware that this is how we were showing up in our relationship.
We both blamed each other.
But we also didn’t REALLY talk about it.
If we did argue, it was a shit ton of blaming & yelling, with very little resolution.
Our favorite activity as a couple was to sweep problems under the rug.
It was a mountain of a fucking rug.

We were both miserable & neither one of us realized WE were both the problem.
He couldn’t figure out how to make me happy + he had anger issues.
And I never took responsibility for how I felt.

So what changed?

He realized he was done compromising what he wanted, ALL OF THE TIME, in order to try to make me happy.
And I started taking responsibility for my own damn emotions.
Then there was less tension. Less anger. Not perfect, but WAY better.
And from that place, we were able to be reasonable human beings & talk.

We both realized he wasn’t my golden ticket.
I had it all along.
And as much as I resented him for it at first, he had to stop doing every single thing for me, in order for me to figure that out for myself.

Long story short: Own your happiness. And don’t lose sight of who you are just to please those around you.