Care for the Caretakers

Hey there. It's been awhile, huh?

What a fitting blog post below to reflect on when we last left off here. Last December, I was truly doing just that - walking slowly into a mystery. I was in the exciting-yet-nerve-wracking first trimester of my pregnancy, quietly moving towards change that I couldn't even fathom. 

Our son was due in July and I spent the first half of the year focusing on preparing for his arrival and tying loose ends up at work. We moved apartments, traveled and entered the summer with a new nest to build.

Meanwhile, I rushed to finish up the transformative coaching program that I started in 2015 and was slowly completing on my own time. Doing this while pregnant was an interesting experience, and in a group coaching session, a deeply intuitive peer mentioned that she envisioned me working with and helping mothers. My heart and mind were not there yet, so when I finished the program in June, I knew that stepping away from that process made natural sense so that I could honor my path to motherhood.

My first lessons in parenting arrived even before he did - ten days late on a hot August day. Rule number one? You Can't Control Everything. The lessons that followed in the first weeks of his life read like chapters in a "How To" book: Some Babies Cry More Than Others, Sleep- Who Needs It? and How Stepping Away From Google Can Save Your Life.

There were so many things that I learned and even more that I wish I had known ahead of time - despite the amazing advice, support and love I had from family, friends and a life-saving girlfriend who responded to texts at all hours of the day and night. It was after I began to regather, start showering regularly and learn how to gently nurture myself again that I connected the dots in my mind for how I wanted to develop my coaching offerings.

Self-care, in today's world in particular, is critical, and I've found that learning how to do it is key for mothers. They are caretakers who give endlessly, balance constantly and don't always know what they need or how to ask for it. I know this from experience, from speaking with family, brainstorming with friends and from participating in several mothers groups in the past months.

I'm thrilled to begin this new chapter in my coaching experience and watch it grow and change. I look forward to the lessons it teaches me and will continue to share those in this space along with other musings on motherhood, self-care and building a healthy whole lifestyle. 

While you're here, look around and check out my updated site and offerings. Sign up for my monthly newsletter, or just reach out and say hi. As always, thanks for following along and being a part of what happens next. 

Jessica

Weekly Words: Rewriting the Story of Stress

'You’ve come home at the end of a long workweek. Your spouse, partner, or roommate poses the query: “How did work go?” If you’re anything like the writer of this blog post, you might tell your roommate, “Ugh, it was super stressful.” It makes sense – in our culture, work is thought of as stressful. But [Todd] Kashdan says that you should dig a little deeper, and examine how you really feel.

“Describe your emotional life with more precision, and say, ‘I’ve been a little bit anxious, excited, curious, and confused as I’m working on this presentation.’ People that can describe their emotional world with more precision, they end up less likely to have experiences of anger with their romantic partner turn into hateful comments… and they’re more likely to enjoy spending time with their kids.”

McGonigal adds that “as soon as you start to pay attention to what you’re feeling, you increase activation in parts of the brain that give you more control and flexibility over your behavior and responses.”'

-The Surprising Benefits of Stress

Feeding the Flower

One of my favorite parables is that of the tiny flower - a small bud that struggles to strive and grow amidst the opposite pulls of the sun and the earth. The tiny flower fights and fights, until it finally breaks free from the earth, only to lose all of it's petals and wilt back to the ground. You might think that the story ends there - a typical tragedy of sorts - but what happens next is beautiful. The petals around the base of the flower bring nutrients back to the earth and the sun cries tears, which water the plant back to health. The tiny flower grows tall and is happy. 

As I explore this new moon in my life, I continue to think about what new activities to add to my calendar. Besides re-immersing myself in my coaching certification, I want to add a few scheduled classes, and ensure that our weekly date night stays put. But I am reminded quickly that an overcrowded calendar can have an effect like the sun and the earth - they pull us in opposite directions and can leave us wilted and burnt out. And, more importantly, they leave little room for the activities that nurture and feed us, recharging our batteries so that we can continue to operate well.

Building a health routine is all about figuring out what feeds your flower, and making sure to incorporate this soul food on a regular basis. These acts of self-care can take many forms. It can be as simple as carving out an extra thirty minutes to consciously prepare a meal for yourself or as complicated as turning down a night out in lieu of a gym class or respite. Whatever it entails, the act of incorporating such tasks into your schedule should be a conscious and deliberate one. It is helpful to truly tap into what your body and mind are telling you, and pause to consider the space between what you want and what you need.  

Admittedly, it's not always easy to take the first step towards nurturing your roots when all you want to do is be out there in the world. Self-care can be a quiet and personal thing. But the most challenging part of building a new routine is just getting started. The tiny flower had to fight to get those first nutrients and to claim its space, but it eventually started to feel better. It grew, and it soared. Here are a few tips for finding what works for you.

Tips for Introducing a Health Routine

• Tap into your experiences to determine what you need. Sometimes it's as easy as intuitively knowing that your body needs a break or you want to shed a few pounds. But oftentimes, it can be difficult to truly listen and understand your needs. In this case, consider the ratios. What did you experience last time you did something, and how did it make you feel? If the bad outweighs the good, consider introducing nixing that activity for one that nourishes instead of stresses. 

• Start small. You can't run a marathon without a pair of shoes. Set S.M.A.R.T. goals for yourself when introducing a new activity. Make the goal Specific (like identifying where to buy shoes), Measurable (such as determining the key points in your process that you can track success against), Achievable (realistic steps in your plan), Reasonable (your expectations in being able to identify where to buy the shoes) and Time-Specific (the time you allot yourself to buy shoes). Being direct about your goals will help you take them down piece by piece and prevent you from making mountains out of molehills.

• Be flexible. Get creative. Some weeks my self-care looks a lot like a spa vacation. At other busy times it could look like a long walk and a podcast instead or an extra five minutes of washing my face. Be flexible in your routine, but don't let that become a detractor in your success. Be creative in thinking up contingency plans in advance each week. If you have to work late and can't go for a run, research a workout video ahead of time to do in your living room.

The key to building a successful health routine is investing the time and energy in making your well-being a priority.  A little can go a long way. So what is it that feeds your flower? 

Weekly Words: "Stop thinking in terms of work-life balance"

"Human beings are creatures of belonging, though they may come to that sense of belonging only through long periods of exile and loneliness. Interestingly, we belong to life as much through our sense that it is all impossible, as we do through the sense that we will accomplish everything we have set out to do. This sense of belonging and not belonging is lived out by most people through three principal dynamics: first, through relationship to other people and other living things (particularly and very personally, to one other living, breathing person in relationship or marriage); second, through work; and third, through an understanding of what it means to be themselves, discrete individuals alive and seemingly separate from everyone and everything else.

These are the three marriages, of Work, Self and Other...

...We can call these three separate commitments marriages because at their core they are usually lifelong commitments and … they involve vows made either consciously or unconsciously… To neglect any one of the three marriages is to impoverish them all, because they are not actually separate commitments but different expressions of the way each individual belongs to the world...

..We should stop thinking in terms of work-life balance. Work-life balance is a concept that has us simply lashing ourselves on the back and working too hard in each of the three commitments. In the ensuing exhaustion we ultimately give up on one or more of them to gain an easier life...

...I stop trying to work harder in each of the marriages and start to concentrate on the conversation that holds them together. Instead of asking myself what more I need to do, and killing myself and my creative powers in the process of attempting to carry it out, I ask myself: What is the courageous conversation I am not having?"

- David Whyte

Listening to Our Desires

A few years ago, a close friend was considering a big life change. She was miserable and in a funk. Her solution? Pack up her life and move a few thousand miles away.

I often think about what sets a person in motion to begin understanding what they want out of this life. For some, the trigger is a wake-up call - an experience, an event or emotion that triggers the sense of knowing that there might be another way beyond what we know. For others, it's a slow burn. A few bad relationships are like strikes to the matchbox of dissatisfaction. Regardless of the catalyst, there is one crucial thing that turns a so-called "turning point" into an action: desire.

During my years as a change management consultant, I saw a lot of companies on the verge of change. Whether they were facing a technology overhaul or responding to industry regulations, I met many stressed out, fatigued employees who were just looking to get this change going. They were ready to go through the motions and get to the other side.  For many people, their own life transitions are fraught with similar sentiments. They consider moves between cities, jobs, and relationships as an easy fix to unhappiness.

“What makes the engine go? Desire, desire, desire.”

— Stanley Kunitz

In a fantastic podcast with Jesuit priest James Martin, Krista Tippett explores the concept of desire as a sort of compass or calling around "your deepest identity, and as well, being called to married life, or being a lawyer, or...being a parent." Martin says that "St. Ignatius, in his classic text, "The Spiritual Exercises," talked about praying for what you desire. And also praying to understand your desires. What are your deepest desires that move you....the things that you're drawn to, the person you're called to be..."   

When we tap into our desire, and listen to what we're being called to do, it allows us to move more organically towards our purpose. So instead of just changing our location, career or partner and expecting to feel better, we actually listen to ourselves more deeply. We ask ourselves "why," and consider our truest path. This allows us to feel more energized by our changes, let go of judgement and fear and flow more freely.  

My dear friend ended up tapping into her desire, and understanding what it was that she truly wanted out of her life. It was actually not a location change, but the desire for a strong partner and new fulfilling career that aligned better with her skills and interests. In doing so, she was able to see that if she simply moved, the interpretations and beliefs that had been clouding her from seeing the truth would have also moved to the new city and manifested in a similar way. So instead she pushed forward in new directions, and allowed herself to feel her way through it. The changes eventually came in a way that felt more authentic and natural to her. 

What is it that you truly desire? What does it look like for you? 

I'd invite you to similarly explore this for yourself. Meditate on your desires for a bit. Let the engine go, and when it does, put yourself in gear and turn in the direction you want to go.

Weekly Words: "Capable of Becoming"

"I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element.  It is my personal approach that creates the climate.  It is my daily mood that makes the weather.  I possess tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous.  I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration.  I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal.  In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis is escalated or de-escalated, and a person humanized or de-humanized.  If we treat people as they are, we make them worse.  If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming."

-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Effecting Change in Our Lives

Last week, I spoke to a peer about how she was doing after a particularly busy period in her life. Her energy was low - I could hear it in every syllable as she managed to share a few matter-of-fact details about having a chocked full schedule and wanting to make changes. Even though we weren't face to face, I could feel a dark cloud hanging over her, bearing weight on her mood, motivation, and happiness.

Change doesn't happen over night - this is a phrase that has been engrained in many of our minds. And in many cases, it's true. Good, sustainable change, for communities, companies and sports teams, comes after deep evaluation, a well-defined approach, careful measurement and iteration after iteration. For people, this can be true as well. In many circumstances, the framework for building strategies and goals that I shared with Financial Services companies could work extremely well for an individual desiring the type of change that I was an expert on. But the thing is - it wouldn't be their change.

Much like selling a product, or getting buy-in from a leader, someone will not own the act of making change until it's theirs. In fact, the core difference in coaching versus consulting someone on something is that rather than sharing a plan and an approach to effect change, you guide someone to find their own desired destination, and empower them to build the map to lead themselves there. Empowerment is the key word here. One can only send all their good juju to another person so much - cheerleaders aren't the ones generally playing the game.

As I listened to my friend last week, I knew I needed to employ some key coaching tactics to elevate her energy, shift her focus, and help her start building waves to sea change. Below are a few quick tactics for doing the same when you find yourself with low energy around a decision or change: 

Quick Tips to Empower Towards Change

• Validation brings the party to the present. You are allowed to feel. Full stop. Acknowledge your emotions when they're low. I would even encourage you to sit with them for long enough for you to determine that they are separate from you. Then you can take the power back from them. As Michael A. Singer shares in Untethered Soul, "To attain true inner freedom, you must be able to objectively watch your problems instead of being lost in them." 
• Talk about what's going well. If you're in a crunch, overwhelmed or stuck, you're likely resonating at a very low frequency, which is the exact place you don't want to be in order to actually take action. Re-living your success stories or conjuring up a good moment has the effect of a smile for your inner self. After doing it for a short period of time, you may actually feel a shift in energy powerful enough to bring you to the present and help you begin to build a plan.
•  Switch on the magical thinking. What would life be like once you're living that change you so desire? How would you feel? What would be doing once you are there? Even though the focus is on the present, the same tactic you would use to help an executive take ownership of a strategy can work in your personal life. Thinking about how it would feel to actually be living the change can help raise your energy to doing, and help you buy in to your own plan for getting there. Sometimes the best way to make something happen is to sell to the most important customer: yourself.    

On Noticing

I've been living in overdrive mode for the past few weeks. Between planning a wedding, working on my coaching certification, traveling, and moving, it's a wonder I've even had time to come up for air. So nothing took me by surprise more when I had a chance to take a leisurely walk one afternoon and ran smack dab into a blooming magnolia tree. The first thing that crossed my mind was..."when did that happen?" The second was a strong reminder that while I was busy, life was still ticking along beside me. The only thing missing? My attention.

So often we get caught up within ourselves and life that we forget the simple act of noticing. Noticing in its simplest form is both a skill and an art. It involves maintaining a general awareness of what is going on around you and paying attention to details that you might otherwise miss if you were just going through your day on cruise control. Noticing, however, makes living proactive. It helps you take a step back, intuitively know where to probe deeper, and bring a greater consciousness to decision-making.

In the workplace, the practice of noticing is invaluable. It allows us to see the whole picture, stay attuned to dynamics, and question things that might be misaligned with strategy or direction. In an article for the Harvard Business Review, Max Bazerman notes that in the business world today, "failure to 'notice' and take action can mean losing an important customer, getting edged out of a market, or even going to jail."

In our personal lives, noticing plays a similar role. It allows us to look and listen to ourselves, seeing every experience as a data point and a lesson to draw from when considering future moves. In his piece for The New York Times, David Brooks highlighted Dwight Eisenhower's humble recognition of his own terrible temper as an example of this type of self-confrontation. He noted that Eisenhower "did silly things to tame his anger. He took the names of the people he hated, wrote them down on slips of paper and tore them up and threw them in the garbage. Over a lifetime of self-confrontation, he developed a mature temperament. He made himself strong in his weakest places."

This type of self-work elevates us to a higher level of extreme noticing. Truly being right-here-right now is the foundation for being self-aware. Want to practice becoming a better noticer? Here are a few things that you can do to bring a greater sense of conscious noticing to your daily life:

• Practice empathy. An excellent way to start becoming a better "noticer" is to mentally remove yourself from a situation, and think about what might be important or how something might affect the other person. Doing so will help you be more conscious of social cues, become a better communicator, and allow you to act with compassion.
• Be enlightened. When posed with a question or an idea, allow yourself to consider a solution from every angle, even those that may not be the final answer. Maintain a sense of intellectual curiosity and tap into lessons learned so that your final decision is a holistic view of the big picture.
• Look inward. Really check in with yourself, even if it's for a few minutes a day. Those moments that you spend considering your thoughts and actions adds up over time, and help you build a more natural sense of noticing. In an interview with Krista Tippett, Seth Godin said, "the only way you get that discernment is by practicing. Is by saying, when I pick this am I right? When I put this in the world, did it resonate with the people I was trying to reach? And then, so then we get to the 10,000 hours and the whole notion that if you practiced noticing enough, you'll get good at it."