Articles
It's all relative
It’s easy for him, he has a trust fund.
It’s easy for her, she doesn’t have a newborn.
It’s easy for her, she has a massive Twitter following.
It’s easy for him, he’s backed by the industry’s SUPERSTAR.
It’s easy for him, he has the Midas touch.
It’s easy for her, she has a perfect body.
It’s easy for him, he has the perfect marriage.
No. It’s not.
That trust fund may come with strings that feel like shackles. That childlessness may come with deep sadness. That marriage may be shrouded in mistrust. That backing may come with a sense of unworthiness. That Twitter following may come with years of hard work and untold costs. That perfect body may come with self-loathing. That “charmed life” may come with alcohol or drugs or insomnia.
Or not. You just don’t know.
Many years ago, I was sitting at the dining room table with my parents, unsuccessfully sniffing back the tears precipitated by an unrequited crush on a boy whose name I’ve long forgotten. They invited me to clear every last injustice bruising my teenaged heart. I remember their eyes brimming with compassion and understanding. When my tears resolved to sobs, I turned my thoughts to them. These two holding my sadness lightly and lovingly. And within an instant, every last trial that they’ve endured in their lives, too many and personal to share here, flooded into my heart.
How can I be so selfish? How can I be so insensitive? The boy will be meaningless in a matter of days. THEY are the ones who have endured real pain. Real loss. Real sadness. Mine is hormonally-derived horseshit.
Which is what I said. To which, my father reached across the table and took my hand in his large and calloused fingers and said: “Kid? It’s all relative.”
Impossible to wrap my head around at the time, but it was his enduring truth.
It’s all relative.
Yes.
Pain is relative. Ease is relative.
When next you meet someone and find yourself reciting the “it’s easy for them” story, take pause.
You don’t know what their fight has been. What demons they’ve wrestled to show up. Which parts have been shut down so that others may thrive.
No. You don’t know. No one really does.
Try this:
With your big beautiful brain and massive capacity for creativity, imagine that another’s apparent ease has come at a price. Will you dare to hold them with your infinite supply of kindness, empathy and compassion, diffusing the stifling toxicity that makes you feel so small?
And then will you trek down to your heart and listen from there? What is it that you are coveting in their story? That desire, right there, is your destination. Set your course for it. Make it happen, in gratitude for the clarity.
Remembering that everything is relative can keep smallness in check and give you a big liberating perspective. It can help you create a new story. A better story. YOUR story.
Check out my free training on the 5 Shifts Our Clients Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact
Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.
Relishing in the Known
It has been a gorgeous summer so far. One that’s been a sublime dance of work and junkets, art, popsicles, fresh basil, laughter, friends, and plans for more of the same in August. I hope that this has been your experience too.
On this sun-dappled water morning in cottage country, as the coffee brews and the kids across the lake lobby for an early morning tube ride, I’m relishing in what I know to be true.
When a toddler hands you a ringing toy phone, you answer it even though nine times out of ten the call’s for them.
No matter how much money you have in the bank, when you are about to pay with your debit card and you are waiting for authorization, you have a moment of worry.
Your very presence is making this world a better place.
A stubbed toe makes you want to punch someone…and curse in the most profane way. Paper cuts too.
No matter how clean you are, border guards make you nervous.
Generosity is the path to wealth.
Squirrels will always find their way to the birdseed.
“Don't take this the wrong way" will always backfire.
An airport pickup is a devotional act of love. So is having a sandwich made for you.
Saying “yes” to magic yields more magic.
We need each other. To share prayers. To show up. To help hold each other’s dreams and bolster one another’s hearts.
When you do something you’ve never done before, it is scary as hell. To wit: my first published poem is featured over at Bentlily this morning.
Hold me.
Above all, what I’m learning is that if it’s new and not at all scary, then maybe it doesn’t matter that much.
Here’s to hot days and cool nights, my friends. And to relishing in the known.
Yours in lemonade loving,
Check out my free training on the 5 Shifts Our Clients Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact
Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.
TGtv Episode 2 - Making the Ask
Okee dokee. Here's ONE THING I know about you: You don't like to ask for anything. You're the giver, right? Never the taker. And asking is so, well, gauche. Annnnnnnnd you know you need to start asking: for the business, for the support, for the meeting, for the chance, for the advice.
I've got you.
I'm not entirely sure why we do this, but we want to have it be a lot harder than it needs to be. We imagine the ridicule, we dress rehearse for disaster, and have the escape route mapped even before we know what we want. So we don't ask, and we don't get and we don't move forward. Rock solid, yes?
Making asks is actually really quite simple.
It starts, as ever, with clarity and preparation.
To recap:
In preparation for the ask, make sure you know:
Who: Who has what you need? Are they accessible to you? Are they amenable to you? And if you're not sure if they're amenable to you, do you reckon they'd be amenable to your REQUEST?
What: What's the scop of the request? Is it reasonable? What's the benefit to them?
Why: Why are you making this ask?
When: When do you need the request by? Make sure it's reasonable and PUH-LEEZE have the drop dead date actually matter. (I once - ONCE - sweated, moved mountains, paid for childcare and lost sleep over a deadline only to discover that my submission wasn't even glanced at until a month after delivery. Serious yuck.)
In making the ask, be sure it's:
reasonable
specific
brief
respectful
and that YOU are confident - if there is any wishy-washyness, you may need to revisit the who, what, when or why and retool.
And in the unlikely chance that they take a pass, please know that it likely has everything to do with what's going on for them and their schedule and precious little to do with their feelings or attitude towards you.
SAY THANK YOU!!!! YIKES. For someone with such a massive value of gratitude, it seems SHOCKING that I’d leave out saying THANK YOU in the video. Don't YOU leave it out though, please! Find the most appropriate way to thank the person for their time, energy and resources (though don’t be afraid to be extravagant).
Check out my free training on the 5 Shifts Our Clients Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact
Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.
Breathe into your Heartsong
Probably like you, I am feeling a bit yeeeeeeeks lately. At times gorgeous, at times complicated and at times scary things are happening in my life and business right about now. Some of these things I have chosen, some things I have not. Such is life. Beautiful, confounding, thrilling, expansive life.
So, I’ve been hanging out in my head a fair bit, breathing shallowly and TENDING to the challenges. To wit: I have a new routine of heading out the door in my running shoes at 5:45 am with an issue in my mind that I want to sort out. I can only return once it’s resolved (which seems to happen, as if by magic, at the one-hour mark).
This morning, I took my current “issue” on my walk/run: a pickle in my business that has been causing knots in my shoulders. There’s a decision that needs to be made and it’s hot ‘n bothered.
And. I. Just. Couldn’t. Focus. My heart kept wanting some air time. So I slowed my pace to a walk…and listened.
And this was the refrain I heard:
“Do not breathe simply to exist.”
I knew these weren’t my words. And while I was curious about who had penned them, (Deepak? Danielle?), I allowed that to dissolve as I spent the rest of the walk integrating their meaning in every step. In every breath.
The moment I got home, I googled the words. The author was Mattie J.T. Stepanek, the 14-year old philosopher, poet and advocate for peace who left us 8 years ago…on June 22nd.
Huh.
I know OF Mattie, or, the headlines at least: friend of Oprah’s, inspiring wee soul whose depth and wisdom impacted millions through his books of poetry. I knew that he had spent his short life in acute pain (due to a rare form of muscular dystrophy) AND in the decision to live life fully and joyfully.
I didn’t know that he began creating and sharing “Heartsongs” at the young age of 3 to process the grief he felt from losing his older brother to the disease that afflicted him (and his two other siblings who died as well). Or that Heartsongs are “gifts that reflect each person’s unique reason for being.” Or that each of his five books were NYT bestsellers (plus the 2 published posthumously). Or that countless programs, parks and foundations have been dedicated to his crusade for peace.
I didn’t know that he wrote:
We all have life storms. Times in our lives that are extremely sad, scary, angry. And instead of just suffering through them, and then afterwards just sitting, crying and waiting to be wiped out by the next one, we should celebrate together that we got through. And when the next one comes along, work through and pull through and celebrate again.
Or
Sad things happen. They do. But we don't need to live sad forever.
Or
Even though the future seems far away, it is actually beginning right now.
Or
Unity is strength... when there is teamwork and collaboration, wonderful things can be achieved.
Or
Peace is possible…it can begin simply over a game of chess and a cup of tea.
But I do now. And now you do too.
So now I’m thinking about my own Heartsong. And how it's rooted in joy. And I'm thinking about appreciating what I have. And I’m thinking about peace. And how much more I have to give. And what stands I need to take.
And from this place, guess what happened to that work decision that had my shoulder in knots? Part of it resolved and the other part dissolved. Turns out it wasn’t such a pickle after all.
Breathing deeper - the heart knows the way. It always does.
Check out my free training on the 5 Shifts Our Clients Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact
Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.
TGtv Episode 1 - Receiving and Giving Feedback
Yippee! My first ever TGtv episode!!! Huge love and props go to the fabulous Genna McWhinnie for producing the title slides and super spiffy bumper. And for everyone along the way who has continued to point me in this direction.
The intention behind TGtv is to tackle the issues that have been showing up in my clients’ lives and businesses (holding confidentiality sacrosanct, of course, and AND with their permission). My experience has been that if it shows up repeatedly with my clients, it’s likely showing up with my readers too, and so I wanted to have a place to share with you the tools, methods and ideas that we’ve used to help them move forward. In the hopes that it will do the same for you.
Episode 1: Feedback
Lately, the issue of feedback has been coming up, like, a LOT. So it was the natural first episode (I’m sure I’m going to get my share of feedback on this first attempt, so perhaps I’m just priming the pump, hmm?)
We all know that to get to the next level…whatever that level may be, that we are in a perpetual state of honing, trimming down and refining. And sure, we CAN do it on our own, but what a more efficient path is through feedback. I take a stand for feedback being an ESSENTIAL part of the process. And yet, it really can be a challenge to know how to be with it. And because it’s such a dicey thing, GIVING feedback can be equally uncomfortable. Yet again, an important gift we simply mustn’t hoard.
So, I give you, in the best way I know how, some easy and actionable steps for RECEIVING and GIVING feedback.
Check out my free training on the 5 Shifts Our Clients Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact
Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.
Taking Stock (#2)
Holy doodle. How I’ve missed pressing “publish” here. Thank you for sending out the search party. Wish I could say they found me on a sunny beach sipping Mai Tais. (Seriously…have you ever HAD a Mai Tai? Me neither.) Nope, the search party found me ensconced in Board of Your Life (as seen in Canadian Living…wheeeeee), happily coaching, visioning, writing and interviewing.
Most of the interviews I’ve done have been part of one series or another, featuring other writers whom I’d love for you to “meet”, and I know from my last round-up post that you appreciate me leaving a trail of bread crumbs, so here is the latest:
I talked about dreams coming true over at Jamie’s studio. And have found myself happily lost in reading the other contributors’ stories.
As part of Rachel’s BEAUTEOUS Well-Fed Women series, I shared my current addiction: my belief that I can have it exactly as I want it. (You too?)
At Sarah O’Leary’s Holistic Hot Sauce I (and 12 other women) talk about self-care. I share how support structures are actually an integral part for me (by keeping me focused…see how that works?)
I share a simple (and powerful, or so, I’ve been told) equation about prosperity as part of Bridget Pilloud’s GENIUS Peaces of Prosperity series.
I’ve also been interviewed as part of Jen Louden’s awesome course Creating Your Own Mastermind Group with MY own Mastermind group. It’s prompted an EPIC post that is taking me for freakin’ EVER to get to you, but it’s coming, it’s coming. (Did I mention it’s epic? Seriously epic…like, contemplating making it a PDF, epic.)
I spoke with Bec Robbins as part of her The Secrets to Lasting Happiness series with a whole host of other happy speakers. My interview is live (and FREE) today, then it will be bundled as part of a package she’s offering.
Gregory Berg of Radio Enso interviewed me and I revealed that (one of) my superpower(s) is hugging. (I would have loved to have seen his face when I said that.)
And super delightful Fiona Tuite asked me to share my thoughts on Stepping into Your Starring Role. I had many. Go figure.
Oh, and something new ‘round these parts coming next week? TGtv. First episode “airs” Tuesday June 12th. I intend it to be a bi-monthly-ish missive that covers issues/topics/concerns that show up in my coaching sessions. Experience has taught me that if it’s showing up for my clients, AND it’s showing up for me, then it’s PROBABLY showing up for you. Next week’s episode addresses Feedback: Giving AND Receiving.
Gratefully,
Check out my free training on the 5 Shifts Our Clients Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact
Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.