​Let’s jump into a normal day in our lives.  We’re doing one thing while thinking about another thing and scrolling through our social media accounts at the same time.  Our attention is constantly being pulled in different directions.  We’re sort of being dragged through our days in a way that makes everything seem like it needs urgent attention.  Look at me right now, Mom!  Answer that text immediately!  Keep mulling over that weird conversation that you had yesterday.  Do all the things NOW!
 
Yikes!  I’m stressed out just by typing all of that out.  If you’re feeling overwhelmed regularly stay with me here.  We need to look at why we’re so stressed out.
 
Our culture has become quite immediate.  Is your boss looking for you?  She can get to you through a simple text and you can respond within minutes.  Is your partner wanting to know where you’re at?  They just locate you on Find My Friends and boom you’re close enough to the grocery store to grab a dinner ingredient.  Is your friend upset?  Well you better contact her like yesterday to sort it out.  People need you to get with the program, Girl!  So get on it or maybe don’t.
 
Busy has literally reprogrammed our brains.  How many of you get a little jolt when your phone buzzes?  I do.  It’s like I have to see who messaged me…it could be important.  What if it’s the kids’ school?  Maybe it’s an important reminder.  Maybe it’s just noise.  I don’t know.  What I do know is that my anxiety peaks until I set my eyes on my phone. 
​ 

​An article in the Washington Post by Brigid Schulte reads, “Somewhere around the end of the 20th century, busyness became not just a way of life but a badge of honor.  And life, sociologists say, became an exhausting everydayathon.  People now tell pollsters that they’re too busy to register to vote, too busy to date, to make friends outside the office, to take a vacation, to sleep, to have sex.”  Oh geez, we’ve lost our joy.
 
We are social creatures so we’re often watching what everyone else is doing.  When everyone else is running from thing to thing and scanning their phones during their downtime it seems normal.  We’re now confusing relaxing and self-care with numbing out.  When we reach for something outside of us to quiet our inner life then we’re numbing.  We do this by overworking, drinking, online shopping, and checking-out through social media. 
 
You might be thinking, “What’s the difference between numbing and self-care?  I look forward to sipping my glass of wine while I check up on my Instagram friends.”  Okay, maybe you do look forward to it.  I wonder what your intention is around your routine?  Are you looking to connect?  Are you able to stay present with your own feelings and the events of your day?  If that’s the case then maybe it could be a version of self-care.  But I wonder if your thought is, “Today has been so hard!  I can’t wait to pour that glass of wine and zone out.  It’s my me-time.”  If that’s the case then it’s probably numbing.
 
Self-care is the process of going inward to nurture yourself.  It’s consciously slowing down to soothe our systems and acknowledge what’s happening in our lives.  When I enter the world of “too busy” my self-care seems incredibly hard.  Meditate for 10 minutes?  Sure!  (Then I open my eyes every minute to see if I’m done yet).  Sit outside in silence?  Great.  (Followed by needing to look at my phone to check that thing or searching for a book or starting the laundry).  Can you relate?  Doing is the default.  Being is both the sweet spot and the challenge. 
 

Though my body sometimes resists slowing down, I always receive the greatest benefits when I fold into the practice.  I can’t tell you how many times an amazing idea has come to me after a yoga class.  I tend to write blog posts and record podcasts on days that I have no structured schedule to follow.  Freedom in my day often leads to increased creativity and openness. 
 
Not to mention that I’m softer and kinder when I slow down.  Let’s face it, being busy is not our best look.  Frazzled entries and departures, distracted conversations, and half-in relationships are not creating our best lives.  Not even close.
 
So maybe you’re wondering how to get un-busy?  Maybe you’ve slowed down and you don’t like the feelings that live there.  Yes, it’s hard.  But you don’t have to do it perfectly, Love.  You can set your own pace in this process of slowing down.
 
Here are some ideas for you to try:

• Put your phone to bed.  Yes, seriously.  Give it a bedtime.  9 p.m. lights out.  We need time to let our brains prepare for beauty sleep.

 

• Plan for 10 minutes of nothing.  Hmmmhmmm.  Nothing.  Just you sitting and breathing.  Notice what your eyes see.  Listen with your ears.  Do nothing but breathe.  How do you feel?

 

• When you’re driving see what it’s like to turn off the music/podcast and simply drive.  Pay attention to where your mind goes and what starts to bubble up for you.  Stay with it.

 

• After dinner go outside and look around.  What color is the sky?  What is around you?  Enjoy it.

 
 Now I want to come to my final point:  our relationships.  How does busy affect our people?  The other night I was trying to create a post for Nice Girl Uprising on Instagram.  I wanted to get the words just right.  It was sucking all of my attention.  My daughter came along and she was all smiles.  She wanted to sing songs to me that she had learned in school.  I was totally listening while just doing ONE MORE THING on my phone.  Ugh!  I feel sad just writing that out, but it’s true.  One of my very favorite people was trying to connect with me and I was distracted.  I was too busy.
 
We can say it was just that one time, but the truth is that it happens more than we’d like to admit.  We’re busy and we’re distracted.  Connecting with other people is nearly impossible when we can’t be fully present.  I sometimes wonder why we’re living our lives for the people way out there that we can’t see on social media and texts and phone calls.  How did those people and activities win out over the very people in our own homes?
 
Life is already too short, Girls.  A life well-lived is defined by memories with our favorite people.  We remember the moments that require our attention and energy.  If we’re only halfway-in all of the time then that is the legacy that we will leave.  If I know you well enough at this point, I know that you want to be fully IN.  We are women that want to be engaged with our people and to be mindful of our experiences.  The good.  The hard.  The sweet moments.  We want it all.  Fully present, paying attention, and wholehearted.  Set your phone down and move inward.  Connect with your people.  Pay attention.  We’ve got this.
 
With Love & Backbone,
 
Jen
 
Here’s a link to a short 3-minute meditation.  Enjoy this easy self-care practice!
 
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​If you’re breathing then you have a whole lot of stories bumping around inside of you.  When hard things happen some of us deal with them by shoving them down and ignoring them until we think they’ve gone away.  Other times we work through them by talking about what happened, thinking each step through, and developing some sort of understanding about the whole thing.  In either case we think we’re done.  Like, “Nothing to see here, Folks!  I’m perfectly okay.”  Then a new person scratches at the old wound and you realize you’re not.  You are SO not okay.
 
The earliest memories that you have are filled with stories.  These stories influence how you think about the world and how you think the world feels about you.  To be completely general, if you grew up in a safe, loving, supportive home you’re more apt to think that the world seeks to guide you.  If, however, the opposite is true then you’re likely to think that you’ll survive a cruel world by being suspicious, guarded, and mistrustful.  These early formed beliefs will become our filter for how we experience other people.  The people that we’ve chosen will have their own preformed stories and we’ll keep bumping up against them until we learn how to untie the words with our own hands.

Story is very important for us.  We are hardwired to survive by making up stories about people and situations.  In Rising Strong, Brené Brown writes, “We make up hidden stories that tell us who is against us and who is with us.  Whom we can trust and who is not to be trusted.  Conspiracy thinking is all about fear-based self-protection and our intolerance for uncertainty.  When we depend on self-protecting narratives often enough, they become our default stories.  And we must not forget that storytelling is a powerful integration tool.  We start weaving these hidden, false stories into our lives and they eventually distort who we are and how we relate to others.”  Well, if that’s not enough to freak you out then I don’t know what will!
 
So let’s get to the juicy part.  We’ve all experienced conflict with our friends.  To be in a relationship is a set up for potential rumbles and disagreements.  We’re all built differently (and have our own stories) so a flare up is bound to occur at some point.  I’ve had conflict with girlfriends that was upsetting, but not earth shattering.  I’ve also had conflict with girlfriends that resulted in the relationship ending.  Each time I have chosen to end a friendship it was because the situation poked at an old wound.  A wound that I thought I had cared for, bandaged up, and healed.  My friend would repeat a triggering behavior and I would screech in horror at the wound being ripped open again.  Oh gawd, someone call a doctor because it’s about to go down.
 
Part of the healing process is being our own detective.  Holding the wound with both of our hands and asking, “What happened here?  How are you feeling?  Is this situation bumping up against an old memory?”  To look at what happened, we need to write out the facts.  Remember, these are just facts (not well she must have thought…so I figured…and she probably feels like – nope, just facts).
 
What are the facts?
 
Example:
 
5:55 p.m.:  I was sitting at the restaurant waiting for my friend.
6:05 p.m.:  Friend has not arrived at the restaurant.
6:07 p.m.:  I check my phone to review the texts and to make sure that I have the correct date and place.
6:08 p.m.:  I confirm I’m at the right place at the right time.
6:10 p.m.:  I text my friend and ask if everything is alright.
6:16 p.m.:  Friend calls and says that she can’t make it.  She states that she’s sorry.  She says that she had a fight with her husband and one of her kids has a cold. 
6:20 p.m.:  I leave the restaurant.
 
Next, we need to examine how we’re feeling without censoring ourselves.
 
Example:
 
I feel unimportant, annoyed, angry, disappointed, mad, betrayed, small, abandoned, discarded.
 
Next, is this experience bumping up against an old story?
 
Example:
 
Uh totally…like that time in college when everyone cancelled one-by-one for my birthday celebration.  My brother and my best friend took me out to dinner at the designated birthday restaurant to find one of the invitees already there with her friends and boyfriend (for her own personal get-together) and her telling me that she was sure that my birthday celebration had been scheduled for the following day!  Whoops!  (Sadly, this is a true story and I had to convince my bestie not to tell her off!).
 
Okay, so that birthday experience got to me way more than I let on.  I felt humiliated and abandoned on a day that I had been really looking forward to.  It dug into my body in a way that only a wound can.  I knew that I had amazing people in my life.  Cognitively, I knew that my life mattered and that I was worthy of attention.  But my heart learned to avoid birthday celebrations and planning events that focused on me.  I absolutely didn’t want to ever experience that memory again so I avoided it.  However, some friends have a way of reminding you of previous heartbreak.  Sometimes it’s in how they speak to you.  Sometimes they trigger you with their actions.  All at once it’s there.  Suddenly you are feeling:  unimportant, annoyed, angry, disappointed, mad, betrayed, small, abandoned, discarded AGAIN.  The old story has made its way into your new relationship.
 
“Oh for the Love!  I graduated college with that girl four years ago (plus or minus ten years)!  It’s such an old and done story, right?”  Well, apparently not.  Look at your last major conflict with a girlfriend.  What were the facts?  How did you feel?  What did it remind you of?  If you spend enough time on it you’ll be able to recall a person or situation that influenced the belief that lives inside the wound.  If we go back to the original scenario about the friend standing you up at the restaurant we all know that it was a crappy thing for her to do, but what we believe about the situation will influence what happens next.
 
Imagine that you’re collecting all of your memories in this one moment:  your relationship with your mama, each girlfriend you’ve had from preschool on, all of the heartache that’s ever happened to you.  Your brain is doing all of this work in less than the time it can take you to say the word, “story”.  Just like that your brain gets a dopamine hit for figuring out the mess and how your friend really feels about you and actually (not actually) what happened that day.  In a flash you choose to lash out, to shut-down, to talk about her to the rest of your people, to ignore her at future get-togethers, or some other unhelpful tactic to create disconnection between you and her. 

We’re just trying to survive, Girls, really.  We don’t mean to be hurtful or calculating.  We truly don’t.  We’re just trying to protect ourselves.  That’s why we have to do the hard work of heartwork.  We need to be brave enough to peer under the bandages and ask, “Hey, Love, what happened here?  Let’s take a closer look and try to understand.  Let’s heal this wound again.”  This way is much harder.  I won’t create an illusion that it’s all peace, love, and butterflies.  Looking back at difficult memories is hard.  Allowing the old feelings to surface and connect with the new feelings is even harder.  It’s challenging, but I encourage you to do the work. 
 
When we choose to avoid this part of the healing we’ll often re-wound someone else.  We will repeat the old story and reinforce it.  New situations that closely resemble it will be categorized and locked down.  No questions asked.  The old story wins and we lose the opportunity to really look at our own hearts.
 
If you’re brave enough to hold your wound up and ask the 3 questions, you’ll know yourself more deeply.  You’ll be closer to understanding the layers of your heart and the type of people that it needs to feel safe.  Maybe at the end of it you’ll choose to let go of that friend who stood you up at the restaurant.  Maybe you’ll choose to talk it out and set new boundaries.  The gift of heartwork is that you’ll be responding from a place of clarity, not bouncing off of the hurt from an old memory.  We’re made for this.  We will heal ourselves first and then share that healing with the people that mean the most to us.  Wholeheartedly.
 
With Love & Backbone,
 
Jen
 
Did you catch my blog post about breaking up with a friend?  Read it here.
 
Join the Nice Girl Uprising Tribe email list here.

​I was thirty-one years old and standing in my kitchen when I got the zingy text from a close friend.  Just the day before I had spoken with her for over an hour (which was really like four hours in mom-with-little-babies time).  We had discussed work stuff and life stuff, but there were still words to be said.  I told her that I would call the next day.  But the thing is, I didn’t.
 
Every hour had been filled up and I didn’t have the time or the energy to be fully present for another adult phone call.  Though I thought my friend and I were on the same page, I soon found out that we weren’t.  She was upset with me.  Furious.
 
When I read the zingy text I felt it in my gut.  The experience was hollering a big “NO!” to me.  We had been friends for several years.  We had shared life events and cheered each other on through moves, jobs, and marriages.  We were going to be those friends who stayed connected through every season.
 
That’s why I was shocked when things deteriorated so quickly.  It was like watching a war between the Starks and the Lannisters.  It was bad.  Reading her texts and emails literally made me shaky.  I kept asking myself, “What is happening?”  I invited a close girlfriend over to help me check my crazy meter.  I let her read the exchange between us and she confirmed:  The situation was crazy.
 
I began to feel extremely stressed out.  The timing was terrible.  It was right before the holidays and there had been some intense family and worldly events that happened at the time.  I was totally wide eyed and depleted.  It was like drinking too much coffee and feeling keyed up yet drained at the same time.  I knew that I needed to implement a pause button.
 
We agreed on a cease fire. 
​

​​I looked inward.  I tried to dig into what in the world happened.  The answers weren’t simple and they didn’t stack nicely in order.  My feelings zigzagged as I waded through the history of our friendship.  We had been good friends and I really loved her.  But as I picked these layers up and looked at them closely, I saw what had been missing all along:  my voice.
 
I could vividly remember experiences when my values were squished and I chose to stay close to her rather than ask, “Is this right for me?” I could see myself getting smaller and smaller like Russian dolls closing in on me.  Somewhere down the path her feelings became more important than my own.  I wanted to make sure that she felt seen and accepted at all times.  I needed to be open and available.  I needed to be perfect.  This perfect, however, meant that I needed to be quiet and bendy.
 
Part of my work in The Daring Way™ is helping people to identify their core values.  Knowing what is important to us helps us to stay on our path.  When we’re living with our values at the forefront we feel good.  When we don’t honor our values, things get dark.  By staying true to ourselves we get to live wholeheartedly.  Our chosen values, our priorities, our real selves showing up every day.
 
When I got the zingy text I understood on a deeper level that things were going to be different.  It took weeks to understand that things would never be the same again.  The old friendship had to go.  My hope was that a new friendship could be born.  My fear was that it would end.
 
In those weeks alone, I began to understand a little bit more about who I was.  My priorities moved from awareness to something that I lived out loud.  Here’s what mattered to me:
 
My family
The wellbeing of my people
My work
 
And something new…myself.
 
Look, I was never actually bad to myself.  That wasn’t the thing.  What I noticed was that I tended to put the needs of others before my own.  I didn’t say anything when I had questions or feelings about certain situations.  I was often silent when I should have shown that I was outraged.  I never was my whole self.
 
Maybe it comes with age or perhaps it was the season that I was in, but it was clear that I could not go on this way.  I could not continue to show up for someone in the same way, because I wasn’t the same person. 
 
Everything would need to shift in a new direction.
 
You see, my life looked much differently than it had nine years before when I met my dear friend.  Of course, that makes sense right?  We understand that we change, but we’re quick to ignore how this change alters a friendship.  When we’re not who we were originally, we have to figure out how to move forward.  Do we grow together and adjust?  Ebbing and flowing until the rough edges run smooth again?  Maybe there’s a wedge that stays in place and diverts the flow until the streams move farther and farther away from one another?
 
I think the latter is what happened all those years ago.  Our lives had both changed us, but we tried to use the same dynamics and roles.  We held tightly to what had always been because that seemed like an easy option.
 
It wasn’t working.
 
Every time I would get my feelings hurt, I would tuck it away.  When situations that were about me suddenly became about her I was shocked and upset, but I said nothing.  I was becoming resentful, because I had been silent for too long.
 
When I took that pause to look inward, I saw that a major new line of communication needed to be established.  I had to tell her how I felt and how I was different.
 
In the middle of winter, I sat huddled in my car gripping my cell phone.  I was shivering more because I was nervous than from the cold.  I dialed her number.  The conversation was short.
 
She said who she was and what she expected from me.
 
I said who I was and how everything would be different, because I was different.
​

​Like lines drawn in the sand we concluded that we were no longer a match.  I couldn’t be who I was before and the new me didn’t have a place in the old friendship.  We said goodbye.  We haven’t spoken since that day.
 
But it wasn’t the ending that I had feared.  It was the beginning of a new era in friendships.  I began to pay close attention to the women around me.  I slowly grew friendships like seedlings in miniature pots.  In time they that got transferred to larger containers, then gardens, then in the earth itself.  These new friends learned who I was.  They were keen on what I loved and also what upset me.  I learned to say how I felt when it mattered.  I understood that I had to be fully myself or the connection wouldn’t last.  It would fade with the season if I stayed silent.
 
Though the healing has taken years, I am filled with gratitude for my former friend.  The old friendship is still thought of with love, but now there’s awareness as well.  When we shrink ourselves there’s no way to bring our whole selves to the relationship.  That isn’t fair to us nor is it best for the friendship.  For this, I am sorry.  It’s a pattern I don’t want to repeat again.
 
This is my plan from this day forward: 
 
I will show up with my whole heart. 
When it is hard I will use my voice. 
When I stay silent, I will circle back and open the conversation again. 
I promise to honor who I am. 
Wholeheartedly, truly, me.
 
With Love and Backbone,
 
Jen

Do you need some self-care?  Read this blog post.
Join our Nice Girl Uprising tribe:  Yes, please!

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​The next layer of self-care is nurturance.  This layer takes us back to ourselves by following practices that feel good.  It’s preparing healthy or comforting foods.  It’s slowing down to light a candle and soak in the bath.  It could be buying yourself flowers simply to have beautiful things around you.  This type of self-care is soothing.  It reminds us that we’re loved and gives us the idea that we’re going to be okay.
 
The nurturance also translates to how we speak to ourselves.  When we’re hurrying we’re often harsh and impatient.  Our inner voice tends to follow that energy and all of a sudden we’re mean.  The expectations are high and our level of grace is low.  However, when we use the self-care of nurturance we’re slower with ourselves.  We soften our voices and trust that we’re doing the best we can.  We learn to believe there is enough time and that it’s all going to work out.
 
Now for the next layer:  rest.  There are two parts to rest, namely how much rest you’re getting and how much rest is built into your day.  Most of us need 7-8 hours of sleep.  When we get far less than that our weight, metabolism, health (diabetes, hypertension, mental health), and mortality are impacted.  When we don’t get enough rest it’s like walking around with our mask off.  If anything tips the scales we’re likely to pass out.  This is not good for us or our people.
 
Now consider how much rest is built into your day.  Are you rushing from thing to thing or do you have some pause built into your day?  When we’re zooming around our stress levels sky rocket.  For me, I start thinking, “There’s not enough time!  I have to hurry!”  Every thought has an exclamation point.  Everything must happen, “NOW!!!!!”  When I think in exclamation points I act with exclamation points (this isn’t pretty).  It’s like I’ve taken a deep breath and I’m waiting to burst.
 
However, when I build rest into my day I feel differently.  My schedule doesn’t change, but my perspective does.  Resting throughout the day for me looks like taking short walks, pausing to breathe, writing myself love notes, eating slowly.  Some of the activities might include active rest while others utilize stillness.  In your current schedule where might you build in some rest periods into your day?  As a bonus to you, here’s a short 7-minute meditation for you to practice.
 

​Sometimes we just can’t get into our groove.  Nothing sounds good.  We can’t get ourselves going.  More often than not we know what we’d like to be doing, but we just can’t seem to get there.  All of these should-be-doings add to the overwhelming heaviness.  We’re stuck.
 
Simple conversations can turn into an eye-rolling irritating mess.  Like are you seriously asking me where I want to eat at?  I need food…but I don’t want that…or that…and definitely not that.  Sheesh.
 
Normal tasks make you want to scream and write essays about using blinkers to turn and following state driving laws.  Every little thing makes you want to blow your car horn.  And your lid.
 
But really, why would any of these experiences upset you?  It’s probably a layer deeper (isn’t it always about something much bigger?).  In my experience this answer is always a big YES.

​​Step 1:  Examine your surroundings.
 
When we feel overwhelmed and we’re dragging our feet we need to examine our surroundings.  What exactly do you do from sun up to sun down?  Close your eyes and visualize a typical day from the moment you rouse yourself from your beauty sleep to when you go back to sleep that night.  Think about the places you go.  Who do you see?  How does each environment feel?
 
Step 2:  Look at your insides.
 
When you visualized your day did you notice any bodily sensations or emotions?  For example, if you pictured yourself driving to work did you notice that your jaw was clenched and your stomach felt tight?  When you arrived home and noticed the clutter in your living room did your shoulders become tense and your mood become irritable?  Close your eyes and walk through your day again.  Pay special attention to how your body responds to each experience.  Consider the various emotions that you feel throughout the day.  Are any of these emotions heavy?  Are they contributing to you feeling stuck?
 
Step 3:  Pay attention.
 
Now in your real day-to-day life give yourself permission to stay present.  Instead of silencing your feelings or engaging in distracting activities, allow yourself to notice your experiences.  Good indicators that this is a challenging practice:  you find yourself reaching for your phone, you reach out to connect by gossiping, you gulp down coffee or wine as a must-do activity.  Not all of these things are bad (most are them are normal activities that most of us do).  However, they get in our way when they keep us from paying attention to what’s really going on.  They’re activities that help us shush our internal discomfort.  Rather than feel what is happening, we often reach for activities or substances that mute our feelings. 

​Paying attention is the hard part, but this practice is often the very thing that will point us home again.  Instead of asking ourselves, “Gosh, what is wrong with me?”  We start saying, “Wow, when I’m around this person I feel threatened which makes me feel nervous.  I notice that my body wants to shrink and my stomach hurts.  When I get home, I’m so tense that I start snapping at the people I love.”  We’re moving from going-through-the-motions to self-awareness.
 
Step 4:  Remove the bad vibes from your life.
 
Okay, so you’ve ran through your typical day and started noticing how certain experiences make you feel.  That information is gold on your journey to getting yourself unstuck.  As a little girl I can remember telling my dad, “Hey, it hurts when I do this (in which I demonstrated twisting my hand at an awkward angle).”  My dad’s sage advice?  “Then don’t do that.”  Hahaha!  Such simple advice, but it’s exactly how we design a life that feels good.  If you have people in your life that don’t make you feel good, then learn to minimize your time with them.  Say no to invitations and gracefully exit out of conversations with them.  If you have to be around this person due to work or family structure, find ways to protect yourself.  Don’t engage in questioning that stresses you out and set some clear boundaries around your time and space.  Imagine that these bad vibes are sticky.  If you don’t protect yourself you’ll carry the stickiness with you and likely get it on other people.  The stickier you are the more stuck you’ll feel.  Cut the bad vibes out!
 
Step 5:  Do what you love.
 
My guess if that if you’re feeling stuck you probably aren’t doing things in your day that you love.  When we stop doing simple things that remind us of who we are we begin to feel disconnected.  This sense of disconnection can often be felt within our relationships, our jobs, and our daily rhythms.  It often grows until we feel stuck.  This experience makes it impossible to move forward, because we don’t know which direction to go.  So if you’re at this particular place of stuck then take an assessment of your self-care.  What things make you feel good?  What do you love to do?  These activities can be as simple as exercising, making nourishing food, or calling a good friend.  Blend these self-care activities into your daily routine.  Re-connect to YOU so that you can get back into alignment with yourself.

​Alignment brings clarity, creativity, and direction.   Outside influence has a great impact on our outlook.  When we go to places that feel good and interact with people that are positive, we often absorb this energy.  Inner self-work or self-care can shift our whole perspective about our experiences.  By engaging in daily self-care we feel connected and centered.  A feel good outer experience paired with a loving inner experience often leads to a sense of flow.  When the inner world meets the outer world in a synchronized way we enter alignment.  Being in alignment will directly influence how we show up in our relationships, with our friends, and our work.
 
When we learn to pay attention, we are better able to notice what pulls us out of alignment.  Is it that person in your social media feed?  Unfollow.  Is it the negative person at carpool pick-up?  Engage someone else in conversation and keep it light.  When you tune-in to your intuition you will be able to discern whether something is for you or whether you need to keep on going.  Paying attention is the best getting unstuck tool you have.  Use it again and again like a muscle that will build up and protect you from getting stuck in the future. 
 
You have all of the tools already within you.  Listen to your body and heart.  Together they’ll aim to keep you aligned with your true purpose.
 
With Love & Backbone,
 
Jen

Here’s another blog post about perfectionism that you may want to read:  The Path Home From Perfect:  Letting "Busy" Go In Order to Return to Myself
 
Are you ready to join the Nice Girl Uprising Tribe?  Sign-up to watch this 5-minute video about How to Say NO Without Being Mean
 

I am just trying to do everything and I want to do it all perfectly.  ​

This means my plate is often too full.  When people ask me how I’ve been, I’ll likely use the word “busy” as a response.  "Busy" seems like an answer that captures the endless to-do lists, the places to be, and the many people that need attending to.  It's the answer that shows how I give and give and give until even the snooze button can't rouse me out of the fog that has surrounded my inner life.  Suddenly I’m so exhausted that I can't get out of bed in the morning.  I am, in fact, perfectly tired.


I wrote these words above about a year ago.  Seeing the words on the page showed me that I was in the big race to be "good enough".  (This is a race that no one actually signs up for on purpose, by the way).  Your non-friendly coach is shame who yells at you from the sidelines about your failings, making fun of your audacity to try, and reminding you about your deep fear of not belonging.  This race will not deliver you to the life you want at the finish line.  This race will run you right into a wall.

Our culture feeds us messages about how we should look, the things we should have, and ultimately how we should feel about the lives we have built.  The expectations are so high.  The message is to do everything, be good at all of it, and don't let your guard down because you're FINE.  But what if you look around at the life you have created and see that it looks good on the outside, but it doesn't feel so good on the inside?  

This idea of being FINE is a warning call.  It's your way of knowing that despite all appearances, you are out of balance.  You're truly not okay. You are depleted.  Spent.  Done.

A life packed with image and business can lead to aching dissatisfaction.  When we jam our lives so full that there is no longer room for creativity, self-care, and space we undoubtedly will suffer.  So how do we get back to center? How do we undo what we have built so that we can return to ourselves and begin again?

This is where our journey starts.  Together we will look inward to decide how to show up in this world with our whole hearts.  Navigating how to be both soft and fierce at the same time. Stop watches and unattainable to-do lists have no place here.  We now look inward for direction and guidance.  We choose our own way.

My new way has been to move slower.  Pausing regularly to get clear about my intentions and carefully choosing how to spend my time.  This has meant that I've had to learn to say NO to many things.  Though my desire to people please is still present, the process of choosing myself again and again has been rewarding.  It's deepened my relationships and reinforced my work life.  The connection to myself opens space for everything else in my heart.  I'm learning that busy doesn't feel like love (it never has), it feels like tension. 
 
The path home has been a re-introduction to myself.  I'm reflecting on who I have become or perhaps who I've always been before "busy" got a hold of me.  There is no more perfect.  In its place there is a well worn path back home to myself.  I'm settling in and rising up all at the same time.  I hope that you'll join me in this movement.  Truly, it feels like home.
 
For a Free 5-minute video, click this link:  How to Say NO Without Being Mean
​How to Say NO Without Being Mean