bSmitten

Feeling a little anxious or stressed out about the upcoming holiday’s?

Join me, along with Lee Philbrook and Shauna Karine for an online gathering Dec 6th EST where we’ll be sharing some tips and tricks for dealing with social events and feeling more grounded during the holiday season.

RSVP at www.MidlifeWomenThriving.com

By donation with all proceeds going to charity.

NYC is looking a little rough around the edges these days, fingers crossed better days are in the not too distant future, but for now I’ll dream until it becomes a reality. It feels strange to sit here after all the months in isolation and watch the parade of memories float past. July 2nd marks the 15 year mark in my relationship with this city, and to be honest my heart breaks for the young woman that landed here so long ago. So many hopes and dreams and so much idealistic passion for the life she wanted to create. I want to scoop her up and warn her of all the adversity and the learning curve that is just around the corner, but I know that we all learn from our experiences and the journey. I don’t regret a minute of it, it’s been an adventure and I’m always grateful I was brave enough to step into my dreams one moment at a time.

Join me tomorrow as I share with how her 321Focus program helped me to get ‘unstuck’ which clearly I am as I’m actually doing an interview! Find and follow Maria’s page for more details and the live stream.

I’m about to do something Really Big. My heart is beating out of my chest and even creating this IG post on Canva has morphed in an epic procrastination. Font needs to be a little bit bigger here, pink isn’t quite right, look up HEX codes, try 15 of them until I have just the right shade, what is the history of HEX codes now that I think of it, let me google that ... you get the picture. Every fiber of my being is screaming to ABORT MISSION, that this big thing is a really really really Bad Idea. What is it you ask? What is this thing that has me so terrified I would rather call this whole bSmitten thing quits, pack up all my books and become a librarian in a small remote town? A live interview, tomorrow, on Facebook. Yep, there I said it, right here for all of you to see and I still don’t feel any better. But the fact is that I can no longer stand in my own way of getting really important information out to people who need it, who’s lives and happiness depend on it. But our digital social media driven world requires me to be seen and heard and that’s an incredibly uncomfortable feeling for me for a myriad of different reasons. I’m caught in a catch-22 that most of us face all the time ... I’m afraid to do something that isn’t familiar, but the only way for something to feel familiar is by doing it. I’m afraid of looking like a fool and saying something stupid that I can’t fix or hide. I’m afraid to expose my vulnerabilities for all the internet trolls to make fun of. The list goes on & I could spend weeks obsessing about the ways in which I can crash and burn with ever growing viral implications. But the truth is that fear is selfish, and it’s single handedly holding me back from expressing and sharing something I love and my true calling. It’s keeping me small, safe yes, but isolated and very small. Courage is living from your heart, vulnerable & persevering in spite of the terror. I deeply hope that by sharing my experience those who relate might feel a little braver facing the things in your life that are holding you back from expressing your authentic self, one moment at a time. Be brave enough to suck at something new!

I spent most of my life thinking that because my relationships weren’t working it was because there was something wrong with the other person, that they weren’t the ‘right one’ and that if I just found the ‘right one’ then everything would be all sunshine and rainbows and I would live happily ever after just like in all the movies I grew up watching. What I didn’t understand was that every single man I latched on to and attempted to attach to triggered every unresolved issue and wound I had deep inside myself. Were some of the men bad for me? Absolutely. The issues wasn’t that they weren’t good matches, the issue was that I let them stick around because I had people pleasing, avoidant attachment, I’m not worthy of love issues and a few more 🙄 but I don’t have enough space here to go into all of them! I kept thinking “well if he just didn’t do ‘X’ then I wouldn’t blow up and become overly emotional like I do.” The point is that if you’re reactive it’s because you haven’t dealt with your Ick, the oozy bits brewing below the surface that you’ve disowned, your wounds and your shadow. The number one factor in calling in your Forever Love is mining those forgotten and exiled aspects of yourself, healing them and making space to love yourself. Will relationships still be hard, absolutely, living with another person can be one of the most difficult challenges we ever take on, but it won’t be torture and that’s a huge difference.

Ritual is a beautiful way to practice intention, mindfulness and being present and aware in the moment. Rituals sooth anxiety as it signals the brain that you’re in a familiar and safe place, doing familiar and safe things. It’s simply the practice of doing something with reverence in an organized and habitual pattern. As a species we’ve included practices in our daily lives for millennia as they allow us to access a deeper level of being, shifting away from the thinking aspect of our frontal cortex and dropping into a deeper state of presence. Sadly many of these practices have fallen by the wayside or have been demonized by people who don’t understand what they’re really all about. Clearing my space, lighting a candle, drawing oracle cards, meditating and turning inward to listen for guidance from my highest self. These are the practices I’ve gravitated towards as they feel aligned with my heart and ‘right’ to me, I’ve curated them over time, watching parts of my practice ebb and flow. Sometimes I feel more drawn to a different deck of cards, or add coloring mandalas to engage my inner child, I’ll include aspects from nature or statues that represent the energies I want to include in my life or embody. Ritual is deeply personal, but may be influenced by your ancestral heritage and cultural experiences and it’s important to try different aspects to see if they feel right to you, not just because it’s what everyone else is doing. Try including pieces that stimulate each of your senses, you’ll know when it’s a good fit!

One of the tragedies of trauma and insecure attachment are that they can rob you of the capacity to feel safe and secure around people, and experiencing that connection is fundamental to personal growth and healing. In his book ‘The Body Keeps the Score’ Bessel Van Der Kolk explains that a simple and effective way to retrain your nervous system is to participate in group activities that encourage syncopation. Choir, team sports, drama, dancing and drumming all allow you to link up with other individuals in a positive and rewarding way and reinforce the message that there are safe people in the world who will love you and care for you.

Deeply tune into your heart, LISTEN with gentle soft ears for what it’s whispering to you in the silence. It’s mapping the path to your hearts desire and your destiny, to the love of your life and flame that reside inside of you. Because it’s only in that moment that you merge with yourself and take that first step to accepting yourself completely that your forever love will appear. You ARE brave enough, You ARE strong enough and I believe in YOU.

There has been a lot of talk about self care lately and posts about what this practice looks like. At the very root of this movement is a message to develop habits that nurture and support you where you’re currently at. This should not be yet one more thing on your never ending to-do list. It can be something as simple as choosing to sleep in, skipping your morning work-out or taking your dogs for a walk. If you’re in the throes of a super dark depression it can be choosing to not beat yourself up about where you’re at, if only for a brief moment. It can be about celebrating that you survived another day and almost managed to brush your teeth. As a trauma survivor I know that practices that force me back into in my body can be incredibly triggering so I need to move slowly and carefully when trying them out. If you’ve protected yourself for years by living in your head a full on yoga class is not self care, it can be absolute torture. Taking the time to be present and mindful while eating can make you feel incredibly sick and uncomfortable. It’s important to honor yourself and where you’re at in your and trust that you know what’s best for you regardless of the latest self care trend.

We all want to think that we’re the captain of our own ship and master of our own destiny, but a large part of your self love journey is tuning into the ways you’re influenced by your environment. These external influences (parents, peers, co-workers, society, culture) encourage or discourage you to behave in certain ways and observing them without judgement is wildly helpful in reclaiming your personal power. Many of the ways you’ve been conditioned to think, feel and behave were modeled for you when you were very young and impressionable and questioning them can be an invaluable aspect of your personal growth. Start to witness patterns in thought and mood and look for antecedents which are conversations or events that seem to frequently occur prior to the shift in your frame of mind. Ask yourself why you’re acting/reacting to the event the way you are. Brainstorm how other people you know might have responded to the same situation and consider what it is about each of you that prompted the differing reactions. It can be helpful to take these insights to a therapist or coach who can help you make sense of them. Introspection and becoming aware of your inner experience is one of the first steps on your

I used to think I had to follow instruction for self care practices exactly or they wouldn’t work. That meditation or yoga or therapy had to look a certain way or I wouldn’t get any benefit from it. Now I realize that I can learn the fundamentals about something that people find helpful and then tailor it to meet my needs and fit into my life.