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The Challenge of Change

27/11/2015

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I recently went way out of my comfort zone to market my business. You will be hearing (seeing) all about it very soon. I’m going to be transparent with you. I lost sleep over this project. It brought up all of my ‘who do you think you are?’ insecurities and challenges. But, now that I did it, I feel euphoric.

When I work with people, we at some point face a challenge that is essential for them to grow and move forward. It is in our nature to keep things safe and predictable, but too much of that and we become stagnant. Like all living things, we need fresh stimulus to thrive. If life is not handing you enough challenges, then I recommend looking for some.

Here’s Why:

Opportunity to Release Old Stuff

If you think that you don’t have ‘issues,’ then I challenge you to sign up for something that is just outside your comfort zone. When my old insecurities and fears came up, I viewed them as opportunities to confront them. Yes, in past challenging times I failed, was hurt and I have been embarrassed. But, that is in the past. I am not back there. With this new challenge, I chose to love, encourage, support and praise myself before, during and after.

Expansion and Growth

Any new challenge hones the skills you already possess or it helps you develop new ones. Everything I learned during painful piano recital performances, while public speaking and working in customer service I instinctively drew upon. The new challenge awoke resources in me that I had forgotten about. I was able to add some new skills to my repertoire.

Altered View and New Possibilities

My perspective about myself has changed because of this particular challenge. As a result, I see everything and everyone else around me differently. This has given me the ability to see possibility where I thought none existed. Creativity has bubbled up from nowhere. I’ve become more excited about my life. I faced my fears and came away stronger, braver and filled with more compassion for myself and everyone else going through challenges.

If the very thought of doing something outside of your comfort zone causes you anxiety or if you instantly dismiss the thought, you are most likely suffering from past hurts and memories of failure and or rejection. In order to keep you from experiencing pain again, the mind protects you from any experiences that risk failure or rejection and tells you ‘don’t go there.’ Part of you has been frozen or stuck where you last failed or were hurt.  It is vital that you get all parts of yourself operational. When you consciously face the fears that rise up when you are challenged, you can actively overwrite the old wounds. Maybe, your life has enough challenges without you having to go looking for them.  Hopefully, reframing them as opportunities to overcome the past, expand, and be strengthened can help you through them.

Care to share how your challenge changed you? I’d love to hear it!
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Is your challenge overwhelming? Email: coachjenniferwashington@gmail.com

 
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The Grace of Anxiety

18/11/2015

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I wake up with my fists tightly curled, my jaw clenched and all my muscles tensed. I know what disordered anxiety feels like and I know I am not in that state. I am in an abundant first-world, perfectly safe place physically and emotionally. I practice all of the right things like yoga, meditation and body/mind connecting, but when I wake up all tightly curled like this, it makes me wonder about my overall state of being.

I would say most, if not all of us are in a constant state of flight, fight or freeze most of the day. We are a people of productivity and achievement. In order to constantly produce and achieve we operate from this lack and or attack state. There is not enough—Buy Now! Sale ends today! Someone has what you want—Sadie in the next office got the promotion you wanted. Someone is trying to take what’s yours—the mechanic, the repairman, the taxman. Then, there is the news about the world. Add to all that a crisis of any kind—relationship, career, health—and you are full out on high alert.

Now when I’m told, “Relax.” “Just breathe.” “Chill out.” It makes me want to punch somebody. What helps me is understanding. This flight/fight/freeze response is our sympathetic nervous system kicking in to alert us to any threat to our life. Its sole job is to keep us alive. It does this beautifully and should be appreciated and congratulated. But, if our life is not in imminent danger, then being in this state 24/7 has lasting negative effects.

Given our current conditions and situations, it may be impossible to switch out of this on-alert state without considerable effort and practice, but it can be temporarily interrupted and thereby give us some respite, if not some restoration. We can practice what religious cultures have been doing for eons; Take time to say grace. This very practical ritual of pausing and giving thanks before we eat is a precise trigger to switch us from our sympathetic state to our parasympathetic state—also known as rest and digest. By acknowledging the provision of food, the brain is signalled that there is enough and sends out the ‘stand down’ signal to the rest of our systems. By practicing gratitude, even for a minute, our brain gets the message that we are safe and sends out the appropriate information and we reap recovery benefits. If we eat a minimum of three times a day, then we have three opportunities for our parasympathetic nervous system to help us.

Anxiety is a actually our friend. It is calling us to the awareness of our obsession with lack and attack. It is asking us to turn our attention to and express gratitude for our safety and abundance. Isn’t that graceful?
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Dying, Grief & Depression

11/11/2015

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Dying, Grieving & Depression
 
Because I’ve recently been acquainted with grieving, through the recent loss of both, my father-in-law and my mother-in-law and because I am in relationships with people who are experiencing separation and divorce, I just sat in on a class about the process of grief. 
 
The facilitator of this class, referenced the often quoted “5 Stages of Grief” by Elisabeth Kubler Ross.  She, the class facilitator, pointed out that these 5 Stages; denial, anger, depression, bargaining and acceptance are actually about the 5 (of many possible) stages of the dying. They have been adopted as the 5 stages of grief.
 
We have lost much of the ceremony and memorializing around death.  I don’t know many who are schooled in the process of grieving.  There used to be, in our culture, time set aside for the grief sufferers. We are now very quick to pull up our socks and get back to being productive.  There is too little grace around this basic fact of life.  It makes me feel sad.  When there was someone there and now they are gone it has profound repercussions.  We are now expected to deal with the absence--to live alongside a void.  It is very disconcerting.  Adjustment, re-alignment takes time.
 
Which brought me to the question, what’s the difference between grieving and depression?  Grieving can lead to depression, but it doesn’t have to.  They are very distinct conditions. 
 
Grief is a natural consequence of loss, whether actual physical death, the end of a love relationship and or the absence of something expected that didn’t occur.  Grief affects us physically, emotionally and mentally.  It comes and goes in waves.  It’s also been described as contractions.  Which is the way in which the griever births a new way of being—a bit at a time. There’s no time limit on grief, but its intensity subsides, if it isn’t suppressed or denied.
 
Depression, on the other hand, is an overall, all pervading physical, mental and emotional heaviness with no real movement.  Like a cloud that doesn’t lift. There are innumerable causes/reasons for depression.
 
The grief class introduced William Worden’s “4 Tasks of Mourning,” which are all about the process of grieving.  In his work, Worden lists the 4 tasks as:
 
1) Accepting the reality of the loss.
2) Working through the pain of grief.
3) Adjusting to the new environment in which the deceased is missing.
4) Finding an enduring connection with the deceased while embarking on a new life.
 
Grief and Depression are opportunities to tune into the need of the body, mind and spirit.  They are calling attention to self-care. To nurturing. To comfort. To realignment. These are necessary requirements of being a human experiencing loss. There is no formula for accepting what is, but that is what grief and depression are asking us to do—accept.  Memorializing and honouring ceremonies for things lost are important behaviours to help one move through the processes of grief as well as depression. 
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The ‘goal’ is not, contrary to popular behaviour, to get over grief and/or depression and get on with a productive life.  We are being asked to integrate our experience with our body, mind and emotions in order to make new connections with ourselves, with others and with the new normal.
 

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Shame & Blame

4/11/2015

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I spent the summer interviewing people I know who have suffered or are suffering from depression.  The most common reason cited for not seeking help with their often chronic depression was shame. I remember exactly what that feels like. I believed wholeheartedly that there was obviously something wrong with me because I was not able to handle ‘normal’ life.  Shame on me. On top of already feeling emotional pain, I added condemnation—blame in the form of shoulds; I should know better, I should do better, I should feel better, I should feel grateful—look at all my stuff, look how successful I am.  ‘followed closely by shouldn’ts; I shouldn’t be feeling this way, I shouldn’t be upset, life shouldn’t be such a struggle. I shouldn’t need help.
 
Who would want to sit and listen to all that, even if you paid them? But, that is exactly the road I had to travel in order to get on the other side of depression. I could not validate myself. I could not give myself a break. I could not give myself compassion and understanding. It turned out that I needed someone to do all of those things for me, until I could do it myself. Was it easy? Not at all.  Did it instantly ‘cure’ my depression? Nope.  It was the necessary first step on the road to living free of depression.

It’s difficult to tell if our repetitive thoughts of shame and blame cause depression over time but shame and blame unexpressed certainly deepens depression.  Many I know are trapped in their depression because they can’t allow their deep shame to be exposed.  I totally understand.  It does feel like you might die when you expose the thoughts that are torturing you. 

But, as I mentioned earlier, until you can show compassion and understanding for yourself—until you can validate your own existence for yourself, it is vital to talk to someone who can do it for you.
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I remember crying every time I had a talk session, for about a year, because the relief was so overwhelming.  I had no idea how heavy shame and blame were until I was able to put them down.
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    On my journey back to wholeness I have explored many modalities and can honestly say the What Now Life Coaching session was one of the most illuminating (yet non-invasive) interactions I've had.

    Jennifer used an interesting variety of tools to further guide me towards my "North Star" (soul's calling) and I walked away feeling grounded, comforted, validated and inspired.
    ​
    -Angela, Shaman.

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