Bloom Life Design

This week I had the pleasure of chatting with life coach Savannah Mayfield about self-care. In her work she talks a lot about the importance of “self-nurture” as opposed to simply self-care. I was really interested in getting her take on the difference between the two. Talking with her, I learned a lot about what self-care is not. I hope you enjoy the discussion. I have a lot of other great interviews planned so stay tuned.

More about Savannah:

Savannah partners with women in their personal growth and professional success.  Her focus on self-nurture and clarity inspires her clients to trust and care for themselves more deeply, positively impacting all their relationships and ventures!
http://www.nurturelifecoaching.com

The Universe forced me to learn some hard lessons about self-care. Shortly before my twins were born two and a half years ago, my mom died of heart failure. She had always been my number one fan. I don’t know how else to explain it, but losing her was like losing a huge chunk of my self-esteem.

A few months later, my twins came into the world. Having two newborns at the same time was hard. Really hard. I got little sleep, barely ate, showered or brushed my teeth.

A few months after the babies were born, I happened upon an article by Master Coach Susan Hyatt titled The Mother of All Mothers. In this post, Susan reminded me of how exhausting it can be to expect other people to give you what you need. We give away much of our own power to be happy, she explains, when we allow external circumstances to dictate our happiness.

The major “aha” was that I didn’t have to give anything up. Sure my circumstances had changed in a major way, but I could mother myself, so to speak. I could be my own number one fan. I could figure out how to get my basic needs met. The formula goes something like this:

Self Care = Self Care

Duh.

It seems obvious to me now but I don’t think I would have “gotten” this lesson if mom would have been around to provide emotional support or if there had only been one baby…

I notice that a lot of women, especially moms, equate “self-care” with “self-ish.” A commitment to self-care, according to this line of thinking, is selfish because it’s all about putting one’s needs over the needs of others.

But this is classic black or white thinking. Gretchen Rubin of The Happiness Project calls it making False Choices. In her post, Rubin shares some examples of false choices. When it comes to self-care, for example, a typical false choice might look something like:

“I think it’s more important to worry about other people’s happiness, instead of thinking only about myself and my own happiness.”

But why does it have to be either/or? Thinking it has to be one way or the other, tends to limit our ability to find creative ways to live life. I mean, think of all the options that would open up, if we didn’t always give ourselves two choices! In If I’m So Smart, Why Can’t I Lose Weight?, Brooke Castillo suggests asking a great question everyday. With high quality, empowering questions, she says, we get creative and inspiring answers. So when it comes to self-care, I started asking myself:

“How can I be an amazing mom and take ridiculously good care of myself?”

My world dramatically improved once I shifted my perspective about self-care. The unexpected benefit: I become a much better mom when a) I stopped feeling guilty for having my own needs and b) started figuring out how to get those needs met and (gasp) have a little fun.

As a result, I found I had a lot more energy and a much better attitude. This made me a lot more fun to be around (just ask my kids, my cats and my husband). I had more free time because I was saying no to things I didn’t want to do. I was learning, expanding and evolving because I was doing things that truly interested me. I lost weight because I was eating better and exercising. And I found new ways to involve my kids in the things I enjoyed.

Now that number three is on the way, I’m not ready to close the book on self-care. In fact, I suspect there is much more to self-care than I’ve laid out above. This is what I want to explore in more detail through my upcoming self-care series. In the meantime, I few questions:

• What is self-care to you?
• Do you think self-care is controversial?
• Do you know of any ways you fall into the habit of making false choices when it comes to self-care or anything else?
• What are some great questions you could be asking yourself?

Share your thoughts! I’d love to see your comments here!

In high school, I decided not to run for student body president because I was afraid of losing to the most popular guy in school. I didn’t read a single self-help book until two years ago because I was afraid other people would think I was “soft.” I once participated in a beauty pageant simply out of fear that if I didn’t my mother would be disappointed in me.

Fear can render us paralyzed – like a deer in headlights – or it can motivate us to act. But if the fear is not justified, our actions will often lead us in the opposite direction of our North Star.

Fear of failure. Fear of disapproval. Fear of losing money. Fear of putting yourself out there or being vulnerable in some way. Have you ever been rendered paralyzed or been motivated to act from a place of fear?

If yes, next time try my handy dandy strategy for defeating fear.

Step One: Make Friends with Your “Inner Lizard”

The most primitive part of the brain is called the reptilian brain or as Martha Beck likes to call it, “The Inner Lizard.” Its purpose? To continually broadcast fears of lack (you will never have enough time, money or love) and attack (something terrible is about to happen). There is really no way to stop the reptilian brain from broadcasting fears so don’t bother trying. A better strategy is to make friends with the lizard. You can do this by creating a vivid picture in your mind of your inner lizard and give it a name (my inner lizard is Lizzy). Whenever you start to get into a fearful state of mind, picture your lizard and notice what he’s saying to you.

Step Two: Listen to Your Inner Lizard

Your lizard loves to offer elaborate, and often very creative, worst-case scenarios about the future. Start to notice what he’s saying. When my father-in-law was in the ICU, for example, my husband was doing a lot of travel back in forth to see him. My lizard was telling me that, because hubby wasn’t able to work, we were going to go broke for sure. We would have to sell the house…. I would have to give up my career as a life coach. My family would be out in the streets in a matter of weeks!

The thing is, the lizard only tells worst-case scenarios. He thinks he’s helping you. In reality he’s just making you sick (fear puts the body into a hyper alert state that, if sustained, can lead to chronic disease), uptight and extremely unhappy.

Martha Beck puts it this way:

“Fear in the absence of an actual physical threat (such as say a grizzly bear) is always ridiculous because it’s not actionable – there’s nothing I can do about an imagined danger except develop ulcers and high blood pressure.”

Oh and, by the way, focusing on your worst fears does not make you safe! More often it brings about what you fear. Think about it. Have you ever been so anxious about getting a job that you went into the interview feeling desperate? I bet your potential employer could tell and I bet it’s why you didn’t get the gig. Or maybe you have a clingy friend who, out of fear of being alone, calls you everyday. All of which leads you to distance yourself from her.

Step Three: Offer Yourself Other Scenarios

After you’ve identified the very worst-case scenario courtesy of your Inner Lizard, see if you can come up with some other scenarios about the thing you fear. For example, I have a client who came to me very worried about her daughter moving away. Her lizard was telling her that the daughter would have no support, suffer financial setbacks, become isolated and depressed and perhaps do something harmful to herself. Or at the very least become a welfare mom. So I asked my client to come up with a neutral-case scenario. She said it was also possible the daughter might just be unhappy with the move but stick it out for a year to fulfill her lease. Then I asked my client to think of a positive-case scenario. My client eventually conceded that the move might actually benefit the daughter – the change might expand her horizons and encourage her to explore some new career directions. Finally I asked my client to think of a fabulous-case scenario. You get the idea.

Step Four: Do a Cost-Benefit Analysis of Each Version

Keep in mind that all these scenarios – worst, neutral, postive, fabulous – are all just stories we project onto the future. The positive-case scenario is just as likely to happen as the worst. So ask yourself, what’s the benefit of buying into the worst-case version? If you think there’s a benefit to holding on to the worst-case, I challenge you to question that belief. I have a hunch it’s only going to lead to more suffering for you. Now ask yourself, what are the costs of focusing on the worst-case? As I mentioned, it’s more than likely just making you sick, miserable and even more vulnerable to the thing you fear. Go through the other scenarios and do the same thing. Are there benefits to believing the fabulous-case scenario? What might they be?

Step Five: Notice that Even the Worst-Case Scenario Offers Opportunities

My client noticed that that even in the bad case version, there were opportunities for positive outcomes. Her daughter might learn from her setbacks to take more responsibility for her life and her own happiness…

As Martha Beck points out:

“You can create a post hoc interpretation of your life as a wonderful process where bad things are always meant to create good things. Please realize that this is no more arbitrary than creating a post hoc interpretation of your life as a meaningless parade of events that usually end badly. The personal story in your head is always a fictional story crafted to match your biases…”

So remember to ask yourself, even if the thing you fear comes true, how is it happening for you and not to you?

And by the way, remember my fear that we might go broke because my husband wasn’t able to work? Well, as soon as his clients found out that his father was sick, they generously sent him an avalanche of business that he was able to do when he was back in the office. He is now having one of the best months financially of his entire career.

Step Six: Act From a Place of Peace Not Fear

Armed with a picture of other potential scenarios and a respect for the opportunity that often comes with difficulty, you are much more able to act from a place of peace. When you are not acting on irrational fear or rendered paralyzed by worst-case scenarios, you are more likely to address challenges, act on your own behalf or on the behalf of other people much more effectively.

Pema Chodron, in When Things Fall Apart, tells the story of a young warrior who battled Fear.

The young warrior said, “How can I defeat you?” Fear replied, “My weapons are that I talk fast, and I get very close to your face. Then you get completely unnerved and do whatever I say. If you don’t do what I tell you, I have no power. You can listen to me, and you can have respect for me. You can even be convinced by me. But if you don’t do what I say, I have no power.” In that way, the warrior learned how to defeat fear.

Martha Beck likes to think of life as “a wonderful process where bad things are always meant to create good things.” And while it’s hard to see how this works while in the thick of it, I’ve come to believe her.

This month marks the anniversary of my mother’s birthday. She would have been 69 on July 12th. I read this at her funeral:

• She taught me to take one day at a time.
• She taught me to live and let live.
• She taught me to laugh really hard and really loudly, especially in restaurants or at doctor’s offices.
• She taught me to dance in department stores.
• She taught me that actions speak louder than words.
• She taught me that no matter how hard I try someone will always be better than me, and that’s okay.
• She taught me that no matter how nice I am, not everyone is going to like me, and that’s okay.
• She taught me that when I’m sad and I don’t think I can make it through the day, to always keep smiling even if it’s a fake smile and eventually I’ll forget about being sad. (And it really does work.)
• She taught me that every single human being has the capacity to change and to be great.
• She taught me to have an opinion.
• She taught me that it isn’t necessary to share the same opinion with the people you love.
• She taught me that being smart is cool.
• She taught me how to be ornery and to not let anyone push me around.
• She taught me to cheer really loud at sporting events.
• She taught me that there is always time to stop at Good Will.
• She taught me to always keep a promise.
• She taught me that life is fascinating.
• She taught me to do whatever is in my power to take care of and protect my family.
• She taught me that a marriage is filled with challenges but it can also be the greatest blessing life has to offer.
• She taught me that nothing is going to happen to me today that I cannot handle with the help of God.

The crazy part is, three years after her death, I’m still learning from her. Because she’s not around to do it anymore, I’ve learned how to be my own number one fan. Instead of looking for support and encouragement in the words of someone else, I now know how to give it to myself. Instead of basking in the pride of someone else to help me feel worth, I bask in the pride I feel in myself and feel worthy each day. Instead of looking for the answers externally, I’ve learned how to get in touch with my own truth. Since her death, my mother has given me the gifts of self-trust, intuition, confidence, and resilience to name a few. Because of her loss, I would not be the mother, the wife, the friend or the life coach I am today.

Thanks Mom.

What have you learned from loss or struggle?

Jean Paul Sartre once said that hell is other people. I agree with Jean Paul. Other people can, at times, be hell. But I like to think the “hell” we encounter  when someone “pushes our buttons” plays an absolutely critical role on the road to happy.

Byron Katie in Loving What Is explains: “Our parents, our children, our spouses, and our friends will continue to press every button we have, until we realize what it is that we don’t want to know about ourselves yet. They will point us to our freedom every time.”

(I also happen to think it can be the guy next in line at Starbucks or the woman scanning luggage at the airport but hey maybe I’m just easily annoyed.)

Debbie Ford in The Dark Side of the Light Chasers says we have to be on the lookout for those traits that most bother us about other people. The things about other people that annoy us, she argues, are the precise things within ourselves that we aren’t willing to accept.  Other people who annoy us hold up a mirror to ourselves showing us the parts that we keep hidden away. Whatever we don’t own about ourselves, she says, we project onto other people.

The problem, Ford says, is that “when you are internally driven by not wanting to be something, you often become the opposite. This robs you of your right to chose what you really want to do with your life.”

In my case, I spent most of my life trying to prove to the world that I was NOT stupid. I learned to speak a foreign language, got a masters degree, worked as a policy analyst, a computer programmer, etc. etc. But all that effort trying to prove to the world my competence, robbed me of the opportunity to find out what I really loved to do.

This is why I believe the people who push our buttons are truly our teachers. I’ve put together a list of ten things you can try when you encounter someone who annoys you. I’m pretty confident that trying one or two of them will help you be a happier, more compassionate person. So if you’re up to the challenge, go find yourself an annoying person and try one or two of these tips on for size.

1. 1. Remember You Are Not a Mind-Reader. I’m a huge fan of Allison Dubois and the TV show Medium, but let’s face it, most of us have no clue what other people are thinking. When someone annoys you, how often do you create your own story about what motivated this person? Remember, you are not omniscient. No matter how true you think your story is, it’s just a story. When I’m not reading into everything people say and do, I find I’m much less sensitive and hence, less annoyed.
2. 2. Stop and Breathe. Have you ever noticed yourself immediately reacting whenever you come across someone who annoys you? In the book Frequency, Penny Pierce says “we are just like tuning forks, copying the resonances we ‘touch’ energetically.” So when someone shoots angry at us, we sense it and instinctively throw it back at them. When this happens, we “hook” into their energy. Try to give yourself some space before reacting to someone else’s behavior. Most of the time your negative emotion will pass and you’ll be able to deal with the situation with much more composure and grace.
3. 3. Ask Yourself “How is This Person Reflecting my Shadow?” As I mentioned, Debbie Ford points out that people who get on our nerves are often simply reflecting a part of ourselves we don’t want to see. If someone annoys you, ask yourself: Have I ever demonstrated this annoying quality in the past? Do I demonstrate this quality in my life now? Am I capable of demonstrating this quality under different circumstances in the future? Chances are the answer is yes. If you can find a way to accept the annoying quality in yourself, you are much more likely to accept it in others.
4. 4. Take Your Own Advice! Byron Katie likes to say, whenever you feel the need to give someone else advice, keep your trap shut and give it to yourself instead (okay not in these exact words). Try it. Think of someone who currently bugs you. What is it they should be doing differently in your opinion? Now take whatever advice you came up with for them and turn it around on yourself. When you consider the turn-around, can you see where it might be true for you in your own life?  Sorry to burst your bubble but most of the time what you are telling others is what you most need to hear yourself.
5. 5. Stop Writing a Script for Other People. I learned this one from Byron Katie too. Many times I notice I get annoyed with other people when they don’t do what I expect. How often do you make your happiness dependent on the actions of others? It’s like you’re writing them a script and if they don’t follow it to the letter, you can’t be happy: my husband should remember to take out the trash every week; my kids should appreciate all that I do for them; my mother should call me more often. Stop giving your happiness away and just be happy.
6. 6. Realize When You’re Annoyed You’re Annoying. I have my very own husband to thank for this gem. I called him the other day to vent about someone who annoyed me. After my rant, he had the nerve to say to me, “Gee, you sound pretty annoying yourself.” When I stopped to consider my own behavior, I had to admit I could totally see how annoying I was acting. It wasn’t the person I wanted to be. Try “watching yourself” when you’re annoyed. How do you act? How are you annoying? Is this who you want to be? Probably not.
7. 7. Ask Yourself, “How do I Benefit by Continuing to be so Annoyed?” Isn’t it funny despite how bad it feels emotionally to be angry, mad, or annoyed, we often cling to the emotion? We hold grudges, become passive aggressive, get into arguments, or ruminate about a person for days in our own minds. For what? Eckhart Tolle in A New Earth, points out the ego just LOVES to be right. Ask yourself, “What do I gain by being right?” In the words of Byron Katie, “would your rather be right or would you rather be free?”
8. 8. Find Your Tribe – As my mother used to say, “Amy, no matter what you do there will always be people out there who won’t like you.” Are you spinning your wheels trying to “win over” the Entire Known Universe? If you find yourself hanging around with people who annoy you, maybe you need to invest more energy finding your tribe. Check out my youtube video for more on this.
9. 9. Say No When You Mean No – How often do you say yes when you really would rather have said no? When I commit to things I never really wanted to do in the first place, I find all kinds of reasons to be annoyed with other people, especially with the ones I said yes to. It’s ironic because I often say yes in order to avoid disappointing someone or to get approval from someone, but I only end up conducting myself like a tired, grumpy slog. Trust me, you’re much better off just saying no in the first place.
10. 10. Remember, Other People Cannot Read YOUR Mind. We have come full circle– you are not a mind reader nor can other people read your mind. If you find yourself getting annoyed when other people aren’t meeting your needs, let them off the hook and ask for what you want instead of resenting what you didn’t get because you didn’t ask.

Well there you have it. Did you ever guess annoying people could be so darn helpful?! When you come across that inevitable person who rubs you the wrong way, coach yourself! And be sure to let me know how it goes!

“You must give up the life you had planned in order to have the life that is waiting for you.” – Joseph Campbell

Today I wrote a letter to my fertility clients, letting them know that I decided to discontinue my fertility coaching program. Logically, it seems like a crazy thing to do. I have six years of infertility under my belt – experience I can use in my coaching. I have a wonderful network here in Portland that has been more than happy to send clients my way. It’s been a good source of income for me. I just finished a support group and received positive feedback from all participants. I even started a brand new newsletter titled Body + Mind Fertility Tips.

Why did I do it?

The North Star

Martha Beck, in Finding Your Own North Star uses the North Star as a metaphor for your right life. It’s a fixed point in the sky that can always be used to figure out which way you’re headed. Like the North Star, Martha argues: “the knowledge of your perfect life sits inside you just as the North Star sits in its unalterable spot.”

There are lots of things that can get us going in the opposite direction of our North Star. Approval addiction. Fear of failure. Too much reality TV. These are the obvious ones. But sometimes we get off track spending too much time doing what we do well.

Strengths and Weaknesses

In her new book, The Firestarter Sessions, Danielle LaPorte summarizes something Marcus Buckingham says in The Truth About You:

A strength is not necessarily something you do well, it’s something you do that makes you feel strengthened. By the same token, a weakness is something you do that makes you feel weakened.

When you’re heading in the direction of your “North Star,” there are signs. Ways the authentic self tells you you’re getting warmer. You experience crazy amounts of energy. Your mind is sharp. The hours seem to disappear. You’re in the best mood of your life. It’s the feeling you get when you’re so absorbed in what you’re doing that you lose track of time, when you feel so much creative energy you can hardly sleep. You are inspired. Exhilarated. The ideas keep coming faster than you can write them down. In a word, it’s passion.

Passion or Competence?

The truth is I’m a good fertility coach.

But I feel amazing when I do some things and simply competent when I do other things. I would much rather spend my very limited time in this world doing the things that make me feel amazing. And it is passion, as Danielle LaPorte argues that “will always move you in the direction of your authentic self” or your North Star.

I used to take pride in being the type of person who never quits. Giving up in my mind was failure. Now I realize that my essential self wants me to spend my limited time doing the things that will help me get to my North Star.

It was scary for me to tell my clients and supporters that I would no longer be offering fertility coaching. I felt a little ashamed. Would I be letting them down? Will they think I’m a flake? My inner lizard kicked in too: Why would you let go of a good thing? How are you going to make it as a coach without a niche? All coaches need a niche!

Passion!

But sometimes the road to happy doesn’t follow a logical or practical path. I’m getting better at recognizing my inner approval addict as the scaredy cat she is and my well-meaning inner lizard as the neurotic she is.

Since “giving up” this piece of my coaching work, I’ve written a ten part, 18 page e-course (and yes it felt like I did it in my sleep), created this awesome youTube video, launched a brand new website, and started two new coaching programs! Feeling pretty good about my decision.

I leave you with this from Danielle LaPorte’s The Firestarter Sessions:

So when do you feel amazing? What activities cause you to feel useful, vital, better-than-before? What lights your fire? When do you have that “there’s more where that came from” feeling? What feels so good and so easy to give that you give it generously? What do you do best–that gives you a rush while you’re doing it?

Happy trails.

“Excellence
 comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts,
 temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.” -
Aristotle

Courage
 is a muscle. Just as you wouldn’t go into the gym for the first time and
 lift a 100-pound dumb bell – you don’t have to begin building courage by 
running for President.

People often think that 
courage has to be big. Like sky-diving. Or giving a speech to a stadium.  Those
 things do require courage, yes. But in some ways, that’s baby courage.  
It’s obvious courage. I call it Bungee-Jumping Courage.

Bungee-Jumping 
Courage is convenient because it lets us define ourselves as “not
courageous.”  When you set the stakes that high, then you never have to
 approach it. You simply get to say, “Hmm, I must not have courage.”

I’m 
not letting you get off that easy.

Why?

Because there’s a deeper level of courage. It makes you strong. It makes you fall in love with yourself. It makes you fall in love with
 your life.

At its core, courage is about strengthening your relationship
with yourself.

Here are 52 ways -
little and big – to build your courage. Some of them seem completely
 foolish. But they’re not. They’re just uncomfortable. And that’s the
whole point! Success in life is directly related to how uncomfortable 
you’re willing get. Now, get uncomfortable and go be courageous!

————–

1 
- Paint your nails green. (Guys get extra credit for this one!)
2
 – Begin to live your life as an “experiment.”
3 -
 If you’re always spontaneous, plan something in advance and stick with
it. If you’re a meticulous planner, do something spontaneous.
4 
- Quit your job.
5 – Start a blog.
6 -
 Take a drawing class.
7 – Learn a new language.
8 – Begin
yoga.
9 – Do something tourist-y in your own town.
10 -
Get up in the morning after having a bad day yesterday. Encourage
 yourself to begin again.
11 – Give money away.
12
 – Look into people’s eyes when you’re in public – on the street, buying
groceries, etc.
13 – Hire someone to do a regular task you can’t
stand doing. (i.e., mowing the lawn.)
14 – Play 
music more. Watch TV less.
15 – Get rid of everything in your
home that’s not an Absolute Yes.
16 – Put on a
goofy smile and look at other drivers when you stop at lights.
17 
- Go vegan.
18 – If you never host parties or dinners – invite
friends over for dinner.
19 – Teach a workshop.
20 – Start 
a mastermind group.
21 – Be bad at 
something. Do it anyway.
22 – Make requests. Don’t complain.
23 
- Join a writer’s group.
24 – Hire a life coach.
25
 – In social situations, allow people to talk with you instead of
running around the room “networking.”
26 – Worry less. Act more.
27
 – Enter a writing contest.
28 – Start your
own business.
29 – Ask someone out on a date.
30 – Make a business
 card for yourself.
31 – Eat at an ethnic
restaurant you’ve never considered.
32 – Respond. Don’t react.
33
- Get some music from another culture. Sit down and really 
listen.
34 – Listen more. Talk less.  Especially to your kids.
35 – Take a swing dance
class.
36 – Hire a physical trainer.
37
 – Start a book club.
38 – Test-drive a luxury car.
39 
- End a relationship that drains you or hurts you.
40 
- Pray.
41 – Quit smoking.
42 – Take different routes to
work each day.
43 – Drive around and get lost on purpose.
44
- Wake up at 5am and write.
45 – Assumptions are the enemy of
success. Question them often.
46 – Excuses are the enemy of
action. Stop making them.
47 – Admit when you are wrong.
48
- Write a fan letter to someone who’s not famous – a teacher, a grocery
store clerk – anyone who delights you or touches you.
49 – Pick
one incomplete in your life. (A cluttered garage, for instance.) Tackle
it for 15 minutes a day.
50 – Do an open-mic night.
51 
- Pay the toll of the person behind you.
52 – Run
 for President.

Performer, songwriter, and
creativity consultant Christine Kane publishes her ‘Live Creative’ weekly
 ezine with more than 11,000 subscribers. If you want to be the artist
of your life and create authentic and lasting success, you can sign up
for a FRE*E subscription to Live Creative at http://www.christinekane.com/.

WANT TO SEE
HUNDREDS MORE ARTICLES LIKE THIS ONE?
See Christine’s blog – Be Creative.
Be Conscious. Be Courageous – at ChristineKane.com/blog.

The other day I got some not-so-positive feedback about a course I just finished teaching. I got some positive feedback too but the bad stuff is always easier to remember, right?

As a life coach, I’m a scientist of my own life and I’ll tell you, I’ve been a fascinating subject these past few weeks.  Being on the receiving end of this not-so-positive feedback sent me right down the approval addiction death spiral.

Here’s the pattern. I try something. It doesn’t go well. I receive what I interpret to be disapproval. My mind fills with crappy thoughts. A foul mood ensues spilling over into many other parts of my life. I decide to avoid the source of said disapproval and chalk it all up to my own incompetence.

I noticed a few differences this time. Although there was definitely a foul mood which pretty much made everyone in my household miserable for several days, I haven’t used the not-so-positive feedback as an excuse to hide from the original situation and I haven’t written myself off as hopelessly incompetent.

The difference? I now have a healthy respect for disapproval.

One irony I’ve noticed as I work through my own approval addiction, is that the less preoccupied I am about getting approval, the more vulnerable I am to receiving disapproval.

This has actually been a blessing in disguise because it has helped me to see that receiving disapproval and the not-so-positive feedback that often follows can actually be a good thing – that is, if you are acting from a place of authenticity. (So, no, I don’t mean the disapproval that comes after you drop a water balloon on someone’s head from four stories high.)

The truth is that sometimes your authentic self will piss people off, even when you say what you say and do what you do with love and respect.

As a life coach, for example, I have to be absolutely willing to accept disapproval from my clients.

When I’m busy worrying about what a client is thinking – do they like my coaching? Are they getting anything out of this? – I’m busy trying to read their minds, to extract approval from them. As a result, I loose sight of what they’re saying and how I can help them.

I have to say things to them, at times, they may not want to hear. As Dallas Cowboys Football coach Tom Landry (sorry honey) once said:

“A coach is someone who tells you what you don’t want to hear, who has you see what you don’t want to see, so you can be who you have always known you could be.”

That very same thing I said that pissed them off, though, might one day end up a source of some deep insight or inspiration. Who knows? When I cut off my authentic self by trying to gain approval, I miss that potential.

This is why I say it takes a lot of guts to “just be yourself.”  You have to be willing to put yourself out there, to say what you think and to try something new.  You have to be, as Brooke Castillo writes, willing to suck.  The other thing you have to be is resilient. Because sometimes when you’re willing to suck, you create something beautiful but other times you simply produce a mediocre product.

In my coaching program, we are trained to use the expression “tell me where I’m wrong” during coaching sessions. We do it after throwing out a hypothesis about what we think the client is experiencing. I used to think I was supposed to do this as a way to make sure my educated guesses were on target. But the wise Master Coach Jackie Gartman pointed out that we do this for feedback. We want our clients to tell us where we’re wrong, where we’re totally off base. Because every time they do, we learn a little more about them. The picture gets more and more clear and we understand the situation better.

This is why negative feedback is so helpful. If you are open to it, it helps you get closer to the truth. Closer to where you want to be. Closer to creating that beautiful thing.

I have to say, all of this respect for disapproval takes a lot of love. You have to love yourself enough to know you don’t need that approval and you have to love other people enough to tell the truth and you have to love what you do enough to accept the mediocre product and the not-so-positive feedback because you understand that in the end it’s not failure, it’s just feedback.

I occasionally enjoy reading trashy Hollywood weeklys. Part of me likes to live vicariously. I like to spy on these beautiful, well dressed people as they make their way to the gym or home from an evening at The Ivy.  I marvel at their perfect hair. The shoes. That handbag. The fun they must have flitting from one high priced restaurant to the next.

I must also tell you I find myself feeling relieved if not downright amused at the slip-ups of the powerful and beautiful. So Tiger isn’t a god afterall? Okay so maybe Demi looks 25 but do you know how much plastic surgery she’s had?
Envy is probably one of the least socially acceptable of all emotions. It’s defined as “spite and resentment at seeing the success of another.”

Some argue it’s not the same thing as jealousy. Jealousy, I’ve heard it said, is all about love and loss. It’s very romanticized.

Envy is something we prefer to hide. I’m fine admitting I was jealous that time I caught my husband oggling the sexy flat screen at Best Buy, but I would never want you to know I spend my free time browsing US Magazine in envy of the lifestyles of the rich and famous . . . Oh crap I just did.

Let’s take this up a notch. Shadenfreude, envy’s ugly counterpart and a very fun word to say, is the act of deriving pleasure from the misfortune of others. It’s an even uglier one to admit (especially if you are a life coach). Research shows that the more we envy someone, the happier we feel at the sight of his or her misfortune.

So let’s shift gears. I believe happiness has to do with how we think so in my typical life-coachy form, I would like to now take a closer look at some of my thoughts while reading trashy Hollywood weeklys.

Here are a few, served up for your reading pleasure:

• If I could look that good, dress that good, eat that good and afford all of the aforementioned, I would truly be happy.
• There’s not enough. They have it. They don’t deserve it. When they screw up it  proves they didn’t deserve it and now I am happy because there’s more for me.

Yuck!

Yucky thoughts are often lies we tell ourselves disguised at truths. When we question them to get to the real truth, we can act in the world from a place of power, authenticity and joy.

So let’s take a look at the first thought:

If I could look that good, dress that good, eat that good and afford all of the aforementioned, I would truly be happy.

The truth is that many people who look good, dress well and eat at fancy restaurants are happy but I would be willing to bet there are just as many out there who look good, dress well and eat at fancy restaurants who are truly miserable.

I can be happy right now. Come to think of it, I’m pretty darn happy sitting here in my sweats, eating a wiener wrap looking slightly crazed without a stitch of make-up because I’m doing something I love which is writing this article.

On to the second cluster of thoughts:

There’s not enough. They have it. They don’t deserve it. When they screw up it proves they didn’t deserve it and now I am happy because there’s more for me.

This is good old scarcity thinking. The belief underlying this thought is that there is never enough. When someone else has something you want and you envy them, you’re basically telling yourself that you can’t have what they have.

Chris Anderson, in Free, the Future of a Radical Price says: “Humans are wired to understand scarcity better than abundance. Just as we’ve evolved to overreact to threats and danger, one of our survival tactics is to focus on the risk that supplies are going to run out.”

The fear center in our brain was quite helpful when we needed to avoid saber tooth tigers or starvation but we no longer need to live in perpetual fear of scarcity and attack. The difference between envy and admiration, after all, is scarcity thinking. When we tell ourselves we can’t have what other people have, we feel envy which often disintegrates into shadenfreaude. When we tell ourselves we can have what other people have, we feel admiration instead.

There is a Buddhist concept called mudita that is the opposite of schadenfreude. It means sympathetic joy or happiness in another’s good fortune.

When I’m not holding on to the fear of never enough and I’m not buying into the belief that I have to be ridiculously wealthy and attractive to be fulfilled, I can be happy reading my trashy magazine. Admiring the hair. The shoes. The handbags. All the while knowing there is a great hairdo out there for me, some lovely shoes in my future, and a nice supply of handbags already in my closet. I can read about the misfortunes of the rich and famous and know that they are human like me. I can be much closer to mudita while reading my trashy magazine when I’m not lying to myself.

Or I could just put the damn magazine down and do something else.

The other day a friend reminded me of that scene in the
 movie Pretty Woman when Vivian and Edward are lying in bed and Edward says to
 Vivian “I think you are a very bright special woman,” and she responds “the bad 
stuff is easier to believe, you ever notice that?”

I have.

You may already know, from a previous post, that I spent an
 alarming number of years trying to prove to the world my intelligence. I read
 things like Foreign Policy Journal, learned
 how to speak Japanese, figured out computer programming, got a Masters degree 
and even considered a career in policy analysis.

Despite the awards, the compliments, the looks of bewildered 
surprise (my  favorite), all of which would satisfy me momentarily, I 
still doubted myself.

I can’t pinpoint how I came to the conclusion I
 was such a dummie… But as the saying goes, it doesn’t matter where the belief 
comes from, it just matters where it takes you.

It’s not only me and Vivian who believe the bad stuff. Psychologists
 call it negativity bias. It’s our tendency give more weight to the negative and
less weight to the positive. Wikipedia says, for example, that “when given a
piece of positive information and a piece of negative information about a
stranger, people’s judgment of the stranger will be negative, rather than
neutral.” I think we do this to ourselves as well. If you hear three
compliments and a criticism today, which do you think you’ll remember? Negative
information just has more impact on us. As Martha Beck likes to say, “you 
throw ten puppies and a cobra in the room, what are you going to notice?”

The problem is, quoting Brooke Castillo, “we have many
illogical beliefs that drive us.” She says, “If you want to know what your 
beliefs are, take a look at your life. Your life is your beliefs manifested.  
Our beliefs encompass what we do, what we say and how we act.” It’s not logical 
to believe the bad stuff over the good, but we do it anyway. And then these 
beliefs shape our lives.

Sometimes we give up and resign ourselves to a life of 
prostitution. Other times, we decide to go with the opposite strategy – we 
fight like hell to prove the thing we want everyone to believe about us so
that we might be able to
 believe it about ourselves.

A  couple of
 examples of how negativity bias can get the better of us…

I know an incredibly charming, funny, and charismatic person
 who has adopted the belief that she is fundamentally unlovable, that basically
 something is really, really wrong with her. Because she believes this crappy 
thought, she finds herself in one toxic relationship after another because she
doesn’t think she can get any better.

I know another person who just cannot bring herself to believe she’s attractive,
 despite all evidence to the contrary (trust me she’s a fox). She spends much of her time obsessed with the next best diet, a
great deal of money on the latest and greatest beauty product and is 
considering plastic surgery, all because, we came to discover, some kid on the 
playground years ago told her she was ugly.

One way to figure out if negativity bias is mucking up your
life is to ask yourself “what am I trying to prove?” I know, for example, when
I’m feeling the need to prove myself, it’s usually because
  there’s a little voice inside my head whispering, “Amy, you’re not worthy,
you’re not smart enough, you’ll never be able to do it” or something along these lines.

Quoting Brooke again, “anything you want to change in your life must be changed from the belief level if you want the change to be permanent … you must dig deep and
get to the belief that caused you to get there in the first place.”

In
 my case, I am a much happier person, free from the 
compulsion to prove my intelligence. Ironically, although I managed to
churn
out some pretty good grades in grad school, I was pretty mediocre at
 all of the
things I did to prove my smarts, which just served to prove the crappy
 belief
 that I wasn’t smart enough. Now that I have changed my thinking, I get
to do
 what I want and I’ve discovered that when I believe the good stuff
 about myself, I am the amazing person I always wanted to be. Funny how 
that works.

Negativity bias turning up in your life? Tell us!