If you want to feel excited about life and feel like you have control over what your life looks like then you have to start with the internal work.
One of my clients had a huge a-ha moment when she started to dive into our work together. She said, ‘I didn’t realize how much I had resigned myself to a life of drudgery.’ Before our work, she hadn’t realized that she actually could change the way she felt, could change the way her life felt. She didn’t realize how much her own mindset and energy was impacting her life AND that she had the power to do something about it.
She believed that since she chose to be a wife and mom, and this is what her life looked like as a wife and mom (catering to her kids every need, not putting her husband out by asking for time for herself, having sex when she didn’t really want to, taking care of all the household responsibilities because he works and she doesn’t #raisingyourkidsisafulltimejob), that she just had to deal with it. She should be grateful for what she had and suck it up and make the best out of life that didn’t satisfy her, but wasn’t terrible.
Man, had I been there before. Pushing down my feelings of dissatisfaction, not feeling really seen or valued, hopelessness, helplessness, and resignation.
Thinking, “is this really as good as it’s going to get?”
Wishing for more, but not seeing anyway to get it.
But, through laser coaching and tapping we were able to really look at the underlying beliefs and shed light on a new perspective, reprogramming her mindset to work for her rather than hold her back any longer. And, by the end of our work together, she no longer felt like she had to settle for a life of drudgery. In fact, her life had become full of joy, fulfillment, and freedom.
She stopped waiting for her life to magically change for the better one day and started to take responsibility for making the changes she desired. She stopped feeling guilty and like a bad mom and wife if she took the time she needed to fill her own cup, she started doing things that brought her more joy and fulfillment, she stopped worrying that if she prioritized her own happiness that it would negatively impact her family, she felt comfortable asking for support.
She learned to honor herself and in doing so not only did her life go from drudgery to joyful, but the relationships she worried would suffer because of it, actually got closer.
Here are 3 key mindset shifts that will help you reclaim your power and take back your life.
1. I need something or someone to change in order for me to feel better
I spent a lot of my life believing this. If only my boss wasn’t awful then I would love my job. If only my daughter was easier then I wouldn’t feel so stressed out. If only my husband was more open and communicative then I would be happier in my marriage. If only my childhood hadn’t been crappy then I would feel better about myself. If only I had a bigger house then I would feel like I fit in with the other moms. If only something changed…
then I would feel better.
Do you see how this way of thinking keeps you stuck playing the victim? If you continue to wait for something or someone to change in order for you to love your life, mama, you’re going to be waiting a long time. The only thing you have power over is yourself, and if you need everything outside of you to change in order to feel good then you’ve just given away all of your power.
What I know to be true is that in order for your outside circumstances to change, you have to change, meaning you have to take radical responsibility for your life. You have a choice in how you feel. You have a choice on how you perceive your life and what you focus on.
And, when you choose to shift your focus, when you choose to embody love, appreciation, and joy instead of anger, blame, stress, and self judgment, then your circumstances will change.
Your current circumstances are a reflection of your current and past vibration (your thoughts and emotions).
So, let me give you an example...
I had a job that I really didn’t like. It checked all the right boxes of income, hours, location, etc, but the work did not excite me. Plus, to top it off, I ended up with a boss that seemed to make it her mission to point out all my flaws. Initially, I thought that it was all my bosses fault. If she wasn’t awful I would enjoy my job. I wouldn’t dread having to go there everyday. I would do better at my work. But, then I came to the realization that of course I would hate my job, and of course, my boss would continue to pick on me if I continue to stay in the frame of mind everyday that my job sucked, that my boss was awful.
I was coding in the same vibration, the same neural pathways to create the same reality everyday that I woke up. But, when I made the conscious choice to shift my thinking about my boss and my job something amazing happened. I started to wake up everyday and send my boss loving thoughts. I walked into my work everyday in appreciation, thankful to have a job, thankful for the coworkers I loved, thankful for everything I had learned on this job, thankful with all the little bits that I appreciated. Before I had to interact with my boss I would send her loving thoughts. And, you know what happened, she stopped paying much attention to me at all AND within a month I had been recruited to a different department with a new boss and I didn’t have to interact with my old boss at all.
When I chose to no longer focus on the problem, the problem was removed from my reality. It could not exist when I no longer was a vibrational match to it.
Key takeaway here, no one or no thing has the power to make you feel anything unless you let them. You always have a choice and when you take radical responsibility for your life you have great power to effect change. Start to focus on what you want. Start to focus on the areas of your life that you appreciate. Change your focus, change your life!
2. You believe everything you hear in your head
We all have a judge and a victim in our head. The victim is the voice that tells us we have no power over our lives and what happens. The judge is filling us in on all the reasons why we’re bad, not good enough, undeserving, and not worthy.
Our judge is loud, authoritative, and mean. And, it’s been around so long we often listen to it without question. We believe everything it says.
Here’s how the judge shows up… You’ve decided you’re going to take some time for yourself, do a little self-care because you’re exhausted. The judge isn’t having any of that, "who do you think you are?"
The judge says, “you can’t take time for yourself, your kids need you, remember they cried last time you left, only bad mom’s leave their kids upset just to go to a yoga class. How selfish. They're going to think you don’t love them, they're going to feel abandoned. You’re going to harm your children just to do what you want? Why did you even have kids in the first place? Oh, you want to ask your partner for help? Well, they work all week long, they're tired after work. They deserve some free time on the weekend. You don’t work as hard as them, they deserve it more than you. All the other moms seem to be handling it better than you. You should be able to handle this. You wanted kids right? Now, you’re saying it’s too much? Suck it up, this is the life you asked for!”
Sound familiar?
The goal is not to demonize our judge, but to start to get curious? Is what it’s saying really true? Who says? Does the judge sound eerily familiar to someone else from your past… maybe a parent, or some other influential adult when you were a child?
It’s important to start gaining awareness of the judge in your head and no longer blindly accepting it’s voice as truth. It’s time to cultivate a new internal voice. The voice of your highest soul self, your intuition, your inner knowing that will guide you to a more self loving, honoring, and compassionate part of yourself. She is in there, but she tends to be a bit quieter. She tends to need a litte bit more intention to hear her, to cypher through the judge in order to get to the heart of what’s really true. And, that comes from becoming aware of the judge’s voice in the first place, not accepting it as the truth, questioning it, and listening for your true voice underneath. The voice that feels loving, kind, soft, supportive.
The one that will tell you, “of course, you are worthy and deserving of taking some time for yourself. You’re not hurting or damaging your children by taking time away. In fact, the more you replenish yourself, the more you fill your own cup with what brings you joy, the more present, patient, and connected you will be able to be with your kids. Parenting is a BIG job, it takes an incredible amount of emotional energy, and so of course you would feel tired. You are doing a lot of hard work. And, just because you desire a break, just because you desire more for yourself then just your role as mother, does not make you a bad mother, it makes you a multidimensional human. You are so much more than just your role as a mother and it is totally normal and natural for you desire more for your life then parenting. You are not a bad mom, you are a beautiful, perfect, whole, and complete person. And you are worthy and deserving of a life that feels good, brings you joy, and fills your soul! You can have both an amazing relationship with your kiddos and a life outside your immediate family. It’s not one or the other.”
Listen for that voice. She is in there. You can be aware of the judge. Thank the judge for it’s perspective and attempts to protect you, and choose to not hold onto it’s perspective as your own. There is another voice in there, allow her to come through and support you. She's your heart’s voice.
3. You define who you are by what you have been told you’re supposed to be
As women, we’ve been conditioned since we were very young that our value comes from pleasing others. Good girls are quiet, polite, helpful, listen to what they’re told, don’t complain (to name just a few). When we didn’t follow these rules we got in trouble, when we did our parents were happy with us. We were taught that to be accepted, loved, and valued we had to make sure we didn’t do anything to upset anyone, we had to make our parents like us, our teachers, like us, our peers like us.
So we morphed, we pleased, we swallowed our truth.
And, we were accepted, we were given conditional love, AND our soul withered and suffered.
As a sovereign creator of your life, you get to now decide whether you will blindly hold fast to who you were taught to be or will you bravely uncover the truth of who you really are.Will you choose to prioritize loving and honoring yourself over seeking love and acceptance from others?
When you choose to love yourself rather than seek love from others then you get to create your own rules and definitions of who you are that are in alignment with your truth, the real you.
This is another way that we get to quiet the judge in our head. When being a “good mom” isn’t defined by society’s rules, the PTA moms at the school, or who your mother was, then you get the freedom to create your own definition of what being a good mom is. A good wife. A good person. A good friend. A good employee. A good daughter. A good human.
You no longer have to completely sacrifice yourself to make others happy in order to feel worthy and deserving of love. Instead you get to love yourself and create your own ideas of who you get to be based on what feels true and honoring to your Soul.
Now, that is freedom!!!
This has been a long one… As, you can see I have a lot to say about this. I believe wholeheartedly in the power of shifting these 3 beliefs to take your power back. Why? Because it massively changed my life and I’ve seen it change the lives of my clients.
p.s. I have an exciting FREE offer coming soon that will support you in shifting 7 of the biggest blocks to your freedom. Tapping into Freedom, is a FREE 7 day journey to radical self-love, acceptance, confidence, and your freedom. CLICK HERE NOW TO SIGN UP and I'll make sure you're the first to receive it when it's available!