In My Experience…

Seeing it is the beginning of the end of it; freedom from self-sabotage

We are all truly doing the best that we can with what we have, but a lot of the time, the reasons we behave the way we do are a mystery to us. Why do we keep doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result? Why do we continue to engage in self-sabotage and unhealthy patterns? Why do we continue to go back, even when we don’t want to? In my experience, it is a lack of insight, and I believe that once developed, personal insight is one of the most powerful tools we have. Once we uncover and discover, we can begin to unlearn behaviors that keep us stuck and begin developing behaviors that will set us free and align us with our true values.

Just because it feels bad doesn’t mean it is bad; breaking through self-defeating patterns of behavior

For most of us, there is a knee jerk reaction to avoiding pain at all costs and indulging in the things that feel good. But, to what end and what does it truly cost us? In my experience, there are some things that only the pain in our lives can teach us. When we numb out the pain, we shut out the lesson. This keeps us stuck in self-defeating patterns of behavior and a disconnected life of chaos. Learning to lean into the pain, sets us free to learn the lesson and find our truth, creating the space we need to begin recognizing our own dream.

Our best teacher is our last mistake; how perfectionism keeps us from realizing our dreams

I am a card carrying ‘perfectionist’ and for most of my life this created more shame and insecurity than anything else. So, when my mentor told me, “We aren’t just making mistakes, we are getting wise,” I was both relieved and unsettled. That just wasn’t my experience, but I had never had a mentor to help me actually LEARN from my mistakes and use that knowledge to help me make positive changes. The pain of my perfectionism was beginning to outweigh the benefits, so I was ready to change. I am grateful everyday that this happened for me, because once the pain started to crush me, I was forced to admit I was not perfect and that I needed help. What I learned through this process is that my mistakes are my biggest learning curve – that we are all here just trying to figure out what works. And typically, figuring out what doesn’t work helps us define what does.

The darkest places have always produced the brightest light; leaning into our shadow

I am incredibly grateful for the dark places that I have been in the middle of. They have allowed me to discover more about my truth, my strength and my abilities than any other experience. Not only have the dark places helped me to foster more courage and faith, they have allowed me to tap into more love and compassion for the people I live this life with. The process of walking into and through the dark alone is scary and overwhelming. I will go into those dark places with you, helping you lean into the discomfort and we will find the light, and walk out together.

Peace is an inside job; shifting perspective from the outside in

Someone said, “We don’t always see the world as it is, we see it as we are.” In my experience, it is my internal landscape that creates my external experience. For most of my life, I believed it was the other way around – that my peace and happiness were contingent on the things outside of me. And I would spend all of my time focusing on external forces. It wasn’t until I was forced to reconcile the self-imposed crisis this had created, that I discovered I had it backwards my whole life. My perspective creates my reality. And when I am at peace on the inside, I can be at peace regardless of the outsides.