Tag Archives: #empowerment

Practice Excellent Self-Care

27 Tuesday Dec 2016

Posted by in Emotional Intelligence, Leadership, Thriving Through the Holidays, Uncategorized

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inner-child

Series: Thriving Through the Holidays

Skill 5: Practice excellent self-care.

Self-care is not selfishness. We need put the oxygen mask on ourselves before we can help others. We also need to recharge to avoid burn out. Self-care is a necessary piece of dealing with the stresses of life.

Self-care looks different for different people. For some it’s a massage or a pedicure. For other people, it is curling up for an hour with a good book. Self-care also can be meditation or exercise. Maybe a long, hot bath is what self-care looks like for you. Self-care is time spent with yourself that feels rejuvenating.

Of course, the other skills that we’ve discussed are also part of self-care. The goal is to reduce the number of things that are stressful and minimize our stressful reactions to everything. Being mindful, listening without judgment, visualizing our bubbles, and saying no are all things that can help us reduce stress and increase joy.

Many of us put the needs of everyone else ahead of our own. Let’s give ourselves permission to take care of us, too! I ask coaching clients to find a picture of themselves as a child, and to remember that the child is still there inside of them. I tell them to look at the picture of their young selves and ask questions like:

  • Would I let her stay up late all the time and eat bad food?
  • Would I say harsh things to him?
  • Would I not allow some time for this child to run and play?

We would all protect a child and do what is best for him or her. We need to feel comfortable doing the same for ourselves. Each of us has our childhood self inside who is depending on us!

For a little bit of fun leadership development, join 53 Leadership Challenges at KathyStoddardTorrey.com.

Want to go further with your professional development? Check out the courses offered at PositiveEffectLeadership.com.

If you are interested in taking your career to the next level quickly, contact me for a sample coaching session at KSTorrey@tapferconsulting.com.

Get Stingy With Your Emotional Pennies

11 Wednesday Feb 2015

Posted by in Emotional Intelligence, Leadership

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emotional penny meme

We usually think about time as the limiting resource each day. We never seem to have enough time! However, we can use the time that we have more effectively if we learn to manage another valuable and limited resource – emotional energy. How many times do you fall into the over-stuffed chair at the end of the day and spend precious moments watching whatever is on TV because you feel too tired to do anything else?

We only have so much of ourselves to give each day. Think of the emotional energy that you spend each day as Emotional Pennies. Imagine that you start each day with 100 Emotional Pennies. You can’t carry any over to the next day and the goal is to end up with as many Emotional Pennies as possible at the end of each day. The more pennies you have at the end of the day, the more energy you will have to enjoy your evenings.

Some common things that we all spend emotional energy on are: work, family, health, other people’s problems, spirituality, friends, and things over which we have no control. Your list may not have all of these items and probably has quite a few more. Which of these are wise investments and which are wastes of our Emotional Pennies?

A totally silly way to spend Emotional Pennies is on things over which we have no control. My personal pet peeve is when someone gets angry and cross when his or her favorite professional team loses. Tying your sense of well-being and happiness to a group of people you do not know and over whom you have no control seems about as absurd a being angry over which direction the wind is coming from.

The first step in limiting our unnecessary expenditures of emotional energy is to pay attention to how we are spending our Emotional Pennies. In everyday life, we want to invest our emotional energy in things we enjoy, people we love, and situations that we can change for the better. A good test question to ask is: “If I face this situation and invest some emotional energy into it, can I resolve it so I never have to put another Emotional Penny into it again?” If the answer is yes, go for it! Break off the relationship, improve the situation and/or release that old resentment!

As a general rule, you want to avoid any situation that constantly drains your emotional energy with no hope of the situation improving or resolving. However, sometimes you have to invest a bit before you figure out that you are facing a lost cause.

For example, we tried to work with the school to make it a safe and healthy environment for our youngest son, Andrew, when he was in 7th grade. He had asthma at that time and was allergic to dogs. There was a helping animal in the school for one of the other students. I spent tons of emotional pennies at the school talking to the principal, guidance counselor, assistant principal, and teachers. I could not get them to keep the dog and Andrew apart.

It took me awhile, but I finally realized that I couldn’t change the situation. My options were to continue spending almost all of my 100 pennies at the school each day or to get us all out of that particular situation. In the end, I homeschooled Andrew for the rest of that school year and none of us ever regretted leaving that penny-sucking, black hole behind.

Emotional pennies are a great tool to help us put the moments of our day to best use. We can dramatically improve the quality of our lives by spending our Emotional Pennies with intention. By spending on things that give us a return investment in love, support, and satisfaction, we can create a life that doesn’t exhaust us.

Create More Space in Life’s Garden

02 Monday Feb 2015

Posted by in Emotional Intelligence, Leadership, Positivity

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We are shaped in many ways by our childhood experiences because we interpret them from a child’s perspective – they were a big deal to our Little Self. Once we interpret the experience, we often establish a belief around it that we carry with us for the rest of our lives. Not all of those beliefs serve us in adulthood.

It’s easiest to explain with an example. Let’s say that when you were young, you loved to draw, but one day someone told you that your elephant looked like a rock with a garden hose attached to it. First, it hurt your feelings. Then you internalized the event by thinking that you were not a good artist and that you couldn’t draw. We don’t like having our feelings hurt so you decided to avoid being hurt by not drawing ever again.

Lack of drawing skill is a common childhood belief brought into adulthood as is “I can’t dance, sing, and/or write.” It takes time to learn those skills. We know that as adults, but as kids we just decide we are not talented after our first attempts and it’s better not to try.

Comments made to us in childhood can also affect our self-image for good or for bad. My Mom was usually very kind about my looks so I have a good self-image around my appearance. When she brushed my hair she said that it looked like spun gold. As a consequence, I like my hair and resist all of my hair stylist’s attempts to get me to color it. It’s great to hold on to the childhood beliefs that serve us in adulthood. If you decided back then that you were smart, handsome, creative, tenacious, determined or lovable, keep those!

However, my Mom also once made a passing comment about my having big ears. If you’ve watched my video on this topic (link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3-c3fZdAL4), you have seen that my ears aren’t huge, but I was self-conscious about them for a very long time. It wasn’t until high school that someone else told me emphatically that I did not have big ears. I was close enough to adult status to take in the comment with a little maturity and realize that Mom may have been kidding or just having a bad day. I am now at peace with my ears.

The beliefs can be big or small – anything from your ability to dance to your ability to have successful relationships. Your Little Self inside still feels the emotions attached to the experience strongly so take your Little Self by the hand and walk up to the belief and look at it from an adult perspective. Decide that you can learn to draw and that you are not doomed to failed relationships. Analyze what happened through the lens of adult maturity. It often doesn’t look near as big, scary, intimidating or meaningful.

Clearing out those unhelpful childhood beliefs can be very freeing. If we think of our lives as a garden, when we are born it is open with lots of space. We start having some negative experiences and fence off parts of our garden and declare them off-limits. “I’m not going to draw anymore,” “I will wear my hair over my ears always,” and “I can’t dance” become things we say to ourselves over and over again. We believe them without conscious thought or question. By stepping up to the fenced-off area and peering into it as an adult, we can see the experience from a different perspective and decide not to let it limit us anymore. We take down the fence and free up that space! We can try to draw and see if we like it. We can wear our hair short and show off our ears. We can dance to our heart’s content.

The more fenced-off areas we clear, the more room we have to live and play! So grab your Little Self by the hand, clear some fences, and dance together – you’ll have lots of space.

The Power of Choice: It’s Time to Wave Around the Magic Wand of Destiny

26 Monday Jan 2015

Posted by in Emotional Intelligence, Leadership

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The power of choice is one of my favorite topics because it has the potential to dramatically change people’s lives. Choosing on purpose is the theme of my leadership series. Many of us, myself included, have a tendency to fall into a victim mentality.  We say, “Oh, I have to do this” and “I have to do that.” In reality, most of the things that we do are choices.

I use an exercise in my communication workshops that creates a huge perspective shift for people. I have them complete the sentence “I have to…” with as many things as they can think of in about three minutes. If someone writes, “I have to eat, sleep, and breathe,” that is correct! We do “have” to do those things in order to keep living. However, most everything else is a choice.

Often someone will say, “But we have to pay taxes.” The answer is, “No, not really.” Generally we choose to pay taxes because we don’t want to risk penalties and jail, but we could choose to live as a hermit off the grid or risk not paying taxes in the hope that we wouldn’t get caught.

Life right now, for the most part, is the result of the choices we’ve made up to this point. People in my workshops usually groan at that statement. It is true and it hits home. We have made some really good choices in our lives and some not so great choices that have led us to our current situation.

I know that we don’t choose everything that happens to us. I am a woman who has had brain surgery on very short notice. However, we do get to choose how we react to what happens to us.

What’s important to note is that our future is determined by the choices that we make now. We make choices all the time without thinking about how those choices will affect the future. The key is to make choices intentionally. We must decide where we want to go, what we want to accomplish, and who we want to be. Using those decisions as a guide, we intentionally choose actions, attitudes, and perspectives that will move us closer to those goals.

I call choosing with intention “waving around the Magic Wand of Destiny.” I have a Magic Wand of Destiny that I use in my leadership seminars. (You can see it in the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZaiN1wnj6s) Choosing on purpose creates a completely different way of looking at the world. It can change what you do, and it can also change how you think about what you do.

When I first did the exercise of completing the sentence “I have too…” I wrote that I had to make my sons’ breakfast and lunch every morning. I didn’t really like making breakfast and lunch and I would lie in bed in the morning groaning about it. After the exercise, I realized that I was choosing to get up and prepare meals. The kids were middle school age and capable of fixing their own food.

However, I thought it was important to spend time with them in the morning and to ensure that they had good food to eat. Getting up and fixing meals were actions that were in alignment with my values. That realization didn’t change what I did, but it changed how I felt about doing it. When I woke up and thought, “I have to…” I stopped myself and started waving around the Magic Wand of Destiny. I told myself to either get up and cheerfully fix food or stay in bed.

In life you have three choices in most situations. If you don’t like what’s going on, the first option is to try and change it. If you control the situation, it’s easy to change. If you have no control, then changing it isn’t an option. In most situations, we have some influence that we can try to exert.

In workshops I use a personal example. We moved to a new place and were only going to be there one year. My youngest son, Andrew, had asthma and was allergic to dogs. There was a helping dog in the school and Andrew found himself with the dog often and we were having to increase his asthma medication as a result.

We didn’t completely control the situation, but we did have some influence. We met with teachers and the principal. I sent them information on asthma and allergies. It was all to no avail. They did not cooperate. We were unable to change the situation.

The second choice is to accept the situation. I do mean to truly accept the situation, not grit your teeth and endure it.  Accepting mean making a mental or physical adjustment that you can live with and that won’t stress you out. In our case, we were up to quadrupling Andrew’s asthma medicine so we couldn’t really accept the situation.

The third and final option is to flee. Fleeing doesn’t have to be a negative event. You can plan ahead and leave a situation on good terms. For example, if I’m volunteering on a board and want to leave the situation, I can just make it clear that I won’t return when my term is up. In my example with Andrew, we did flee. We pulled Andrew out of school and I homeschooled him that year. He decreased to minimal amount of medication and we had great year together.

The bottom line is if you don’t realize that you have the power of choice, you can become a victim. You can live in a constant victim mentality which is very unhealthy. It’s more useful to look at each situation and ask what you can intentionally do to improve it. Decide who you want to be and where you want to go. Then start waving around the Magic Wand of Destiny.