Author Archives: Amy Beilharz

What is “normal?”

I am often struck by the choices mothers have to make in other parts of the world, when compared to the dilemmas I faced raising my own children and what I dealt with as normal.

Choices such as should I send my child to school so they can have a better chance to escape the poverty we face, or keep her home in hopes of earning a few pennies more or harvesting a little more food to keep our entire family fed are far from the reality I faced. The normal these mothers face leaves my heart aching for these mothers. Often my sense of connection with them leaves an unmet yearning to help, and so often a feeling of helplessness to do so.

Do you, too, wish you could somehow offer solace, support and a hand up to your sisters in other parts of the world?

Every once in awhile I find people who are making a difference and are creating avenues for you and I to satisfy our yearning to help. One of my favorite businesses, Raven + Lily, understands that it does not help to make people in 1st world countries feel guilty for the plight of others without giving them sustainable ways to contribute to the betterment of the lives of these mothers in impoverished conditions.  Owner, Kirsten Dickerson, puts it this way, “People want to know how they’re being a part of the solution otherwise they feel paralyzed and overwhelmed by the problems.”

Donna Berber and Cynthia Kersey both run amazing organizations with the goal of empowering whole communities helping them lift themselves out of poverty in Africa. Their models look at education, health, and long-term income for the women, families and communities they help and there are many ways for you to get involved with their organizations–Glimmer of Hope and The Unstoppable Foundation.

Today, as the Syrian refugee crisis mounts we are faced with real time images of families suffering.  Mothers choosing between dodging bombs to get children to schools or facing incredible suffering to get their family hopefully to safety. Questions I never had to face and probably ones you never did either.

Fortunately, the growing technologies of social media and crowd funding are making your and my ability to contribute directly to causes we believe in very accessible. The U.N. Refugee Agency has a Kickstarter campaign where you can learn more about the refugee situation and contribute if you are called to do so, right there.

Whether it is down the street or across the world, the more women unite to create safety, security and opportunity for each other, the kinder our world will become. Together half of the population is a force to be reckoned. Find your way to join hands with other women, whether you support another woman who is creating change or you find your own passion for action.

Happiness 101

Do you long to be happier?  Maybe you are content with your life; yet, feel your day to day mood rarely swings into full gear on the happiness throttle.  What can you do?

I recently saw a social media post about neuroscience research on happiness that intrigued me so much I followed it all the way to the various source articles that it referenced to learn more. The Business Insider article by Eric Barker that summed it all up offered four keys to becoming more happy.

Although you may have heard it all before, it is important to understand that neuroscientists are studying human brains and finding confirmation that these steps truly change the chemical make up in your body and the activity in your brain.  If you are not actively doing all four regularly, you might want to ask yourself, “Why not?”

The four things you can start doing today and feel real results do not take a lot of time, are fairly simple to do, and are in your control.

  1. Find what you are grateful for.

    There are lots of reasons to look on the bright side of life; and we often feel shame when we don’t. But now the research shows that even looking for something to be grateful for on the days when it feels like your whole world is upside down can increase your levels of dopamine and seratonin–both of which help you feel better. Researchers even found that gratitude and searching for things to be grateful for increased you neuron density creating greater emotional intelligence, which makes finding things to be grateful for easier. So the more often you do it the easier gratitude becomes. I use a gratitude journal as one of the key antidotes for feeling stressed and unhappy. 

  2. Give your negative feelings a label.

    This is an interesting tactic you might remember from parenting classes. Parenting classes always include the advice to help your child identify their feelings and put a name to them. The mere act of labeling your feelings disipates their power over you. This is not going into the story and justifying how terrible things are; it is simply a word or phrase that describes how you feel. Researchers have now studied people’s brains using MRI technology while they are upset and find that labeling how you feel reduces the activity in your amygdala–you know the place in your brain that makes you overreact and go into fight or flight. How simple, yet powerful!

  3. Make decisions.

    Decision making is often stressful and you might think putting this on a list of ways to become happier is non-sense. But don’t rule this gem out so quickly because making decisions reestablishes your feeling of being in control, and we all know that is a whole lot less stressful than feeling out-of-control. Apparently our friends in neuroscience have found that making decisions engages the pre-frontal cortex and reduces anxiety and worry. But not all choices are easy and you can read more about ways to help you make even the toughest choices in my blog.

  4. Hug someone.

    Scientists have confirmed that human touch is good for us.  Whether you hug everyone you see today, shake people’s hands, or go get a massage, you will be releasing oxytocin–the feel good hormone. Here is a challenge.  Apparently, research shows that 5 hugs a day for four weeks increases your happiness quotient big time. Want to try it with me?

I love the idea that things we intrinsicly know about life are starting to be proven with science. Hopefully, knowing the science behind the advice will encourage you to take action and live happier, starting today!

For more ideas about increasing your feeling happiness each day read 5 Easy Steps to Increase Your Happiness.

Are you avoiding sorrow?

This week I lost a dear companion, Chico, my horse of 13 years. I want desperately to stuff the deep feeling of sadness away and put my attention on something else. But, the weight in my heart remains. As I let myself feel my sorrow I realize it holds many other losses—losses that never were fully felt and so need attention, too. I feel the grief of loosing my Mom and brother in the same year as my business burned leaving me little time to really grieve either of them. Other losses come up as well, some with names others just shadows.

Grief work is deep work and we are not taught how to do it. In fact, if you have experienced significant loss you were probably given subtle (and perhaps not so subtle) cues that everyone around you hoped you’d get over it soon.

My previous efforts to “get over” my other losses prompted me to pretend I didn’t feel what I was feeling. It is a loosing game. Rather, when I have led grief groups in the past, I encourage people to recognize the wave of grief when it hits, feel it, and know that it will pass. Another wave will come, and another; but, sooner, or later, the waves get further apart and one day you realize they have even gotten smaller.

So today it is time to heed my own advice and feel what I feel and know that the wave—even if it knocks me over and I come up spitting sand—will pass.

I encourage you to look at any experiences you have not quite let go of and ask if you have avoided really feeling how you feel about what happened. If so, sometimes taking time to feel your feelings is the salve that helps you move forward to create a more joyful future. In order to fully experience joy you also must be open to experiencing sorrow. Your heart is open to the extent you are willing to feel; it does not open and close depending on the situation, but is expanded by these situations if you feel them.

Wishing you (and me) the courage to feel your feelings and live life fully. I hope the bumps and bruises you experience in life are small and may you be held in love when they are not.

Follow your intuition

How many times have you heard me say, “Follow your heart?”

It is because our intuition is so much wiser than our day to day mental processes.  We know more, see more, and understand more than we give ourselves credit for when we fret and worry over decisions–looking at the pros and cons of each option as if we could measure things like enjoyment, happiness, connection to those we love, and fulfillment.  These intangibles make up a great deal of the final result of whether a decision was “right” for you.

When you learn to follow your intuition and feel how different choices make you feel, you will start to live a life worth living.  The rest is just biding time, filling voids, and keeping busy.

Amazing things await you when you follow your heart.  Steve Jobs, founder of Apple Computer, put it like this:

Much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on.

Are you the Queen of “What if?”

Have you ever noticed that when you become anxious about something your internal voice that asks “what if?” goes into overdrive?

Questions that start with these two words actual do not improve your ability to assess a situation and make sound decisions.  No, these two words just add fuel to your stress and worry. According to Travis Bradberry, coauthor of Emotional Intelligence 2.0:

The more time you spend worrying about the possibilities, the less time you’ll spend focusing on taking action.

So rather than fret and worry about what might happen here are some tips to get you into a mindset that will support your success in the next stressful circumstance (let’s face it, another one will come sooner or later).

  • Breathe!

    • This is always my first and formost recommendation when anxiety mounts. Take at least two minutes (excuse yourself to the bathroom if needed) to just breathe deeply. Oxygenating your brain will improve your thought process.  Slowing down to breath will calm your nervous system.  And lastly, deep breathing for two minutes will allow you to respond, not react, to whatever troubles you.

  • Think outside the box!

    • When faced with a crisis of sorts you might tend to resort to restrictive thinking. “This is how it always is.” “This will never work.” Sometimes you need to imagine how another person would see and handle this situation, rather than yourself, to start to expand your possible solutions.

  • Imagine the outcome you desire in detail.

    • Unfortunately, if you are like most people you problem are great at imagining the details of what can go wrong but spend little time imagining things going exactly how you would want them.  Put time into creatively imagining how you want things to go and put your focus on the postitive possibilities.

  • Create a plan of action for achieving what you want.

    • Sometimes a list of what I need to do, broken down into small steps is extremely soothing to me.  It helps take me out of crisis mode and into planning mode. It also helps me see things from the smaller details that look managable rather than the overwhelming problem where I started.
    • You can even add in contingency plans to settle your “What if” queen, as long as they focus on how you can overcome possible obstacles and do not start a list of reasons it won’t work.

  • Ask will this matter next month, next year, in five years, or when I am old.

    • This is one of my favorite exercises and one that has saved me from spiraling into uncontrolled anguish that my first boss gave me. It will help you put things in perspective quickly when your fight or flight system has been triggered.

Time-off will improve your time on!

Did you know that 9 out of 10 Americans say their happiest moments came from vacations, yet according to Horizon Workforce Consulting two-thirds of Americans do not use all their paid vacation days?

It is a contradiction that the majority of people value their family over work, remember vacations more vividly than other weeks of the year, and yet often avoid actually taking these coveted vacations.

How many of the weeks you can remember over the past 10 years were during a vacation?

Do any of these reasons keep you from taking time off from work?

  • You fear asking your boss for the time off?
  • You feel guilty taking time off because it will put a burden on other people you work with?
  • You dread having to orchestrate everything to accommodate you being gone–who will handle some of your responsibilities, what needs to be rescheduled, what will you miss, and how will you get other things done before you go?
  • You dread even more the pile of work that will await you when you get back?
  • You don’t want people to see they can get along just fine without you?

Other countries with long-standing minimum vacation requirements don’t seem to have the level of vacation phobia that Americans struggle with.  Taking time off from work (whether you work at home caring for others, have a full-time job, or something in between) is good for you and for the work you do.  Let’s look more closely to relieve you of participating in what TakeBackYourTime.org calls the epidemic of overwork.

  1. By taking a vacation you will actually improve your work because time-off:
    1. Increases productivity
    2. Sparks creativity
    3. Improves problem-solving
  2. According to a 9-year study by Brooks Gump, PhD, MPH, and Karen Mathews, PhD more frequent vacations are good for your health and may even reduce your chance of stress-related deaths from things like heart attacks.

One of the first things you are instructed to do if your computer is having trouble is to turn it off and then re-start it.  You, too, need time to reboot.

Everyone needs unstructured time to explore their creative nature, experience joy, and reconnect to loved ones.  This time does not mean leaving your work and using the time to care for an elderly relative or fix up your house. This is time where your responsibilities are lessoned and your playfulness is increased.  It can be across the ocean, down the street, or in your own backyard–as long as you get to genuinely let go.

When is your next vacation?  If you don’t have any time-off planned, why not sit down tonight and start day-dreaming!

 

Do you love yourself?

“I’m selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can’t handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best.”

~Marilyn Monroe

One of the hardest and best books I ever read was Brene Brown’s The Gifts of Imperfection. I had spent my whole life trying to be perfect for other people so they:

  • Wouldn’t leave me.
  • Would accept me into their circle.
  • Would admire me.
  • But most importantly would love me!

Brene’s book rocked my very soul.  It then took years for me to embrace it’s wisdom–and really I am still learning.

Do you love yourself just the way you are?  Are you ready to be as bold as Marilyn and tell someone if they cannot handle you at your worst they don’t deserve you at your best?

I am!

Taming Your Inner Critic

Have you noticed how often your inner critic sabatoges your relationships, your confidence, and your life?

Becoming aware of the subtle whispers she is putting in your thought process, not to mention the down right abusive yelling, all takes a willingness to listen.  All too often you try to ignore and push these voices down in order to overcome them. However, like almost everything in life the more we ignore or deny it, the worse it gets.

Your inner critic causes you to react, rather than respond, to your environment more than you can imagine.  She makes you feel small, uncomfortable, and incompetant. She compares you to others, points out your flaws and makes your entry into an important event much more difficult than necessary.

My inner critic not only criticizes me, she also starts to attack someone outside when their look on their face or tone of voice makes her feel criticized. Although the queen of criticizing me, she cannot stand to feel criticized and will put me on the defensive faster than I can blink, unless I am listening for her.

Stop and listen when you notice this inner dialogue, rather than allowing it to egg you into reactions you will later regret the affects of.  Just pausing rather than reacting will give you the space you need to make conscious choices of how to handle a situation.

I love the advice of Dorie Clark and Susan Brady around the inner critic.  They say to listen with compassion and curiosity because awareness is the first step to changing a behavor. They also state that studies show people who practice self-compassion are happier, more optimistic, less anxious and less depressed.

For those types of gains, I am going to start practicing more self-compassion starting now.  How about you?

The first step in self-compassion is listening to your inner critic with curiosity for what she might really be trying to tell you.  Learn from it and thank her for trying to help.  Like most of us, when she feels heard her need to increase the volume goes down.  And a decrease of inner criticism will go a long way to improving how you feel, how you relate to others, and how well you perform at what you do.

 

 

“Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional”

As the United States remembered 9/11 last week,  I was reminded that none of us are immune from grief.

You have no doubt experienced sorrow and loss.

Perhaps your life looks nothing like what you had hoped for at one point.  Maybe you have lost someone important to your heart through death, divorce or other circumstances. Deep loss is felt by our bodies, minds, and souls. It is not a trivial experience. No matter what the cause, you have probably grieved deeply, and most likely you will again.

Over the years, I have facilitated various grief workshops for people who have recently lost a loved one–husband, child, sibling or parent.  The most profound of those workshops was a group of teens who had all recently lost a parent.

What was different about my group of teens?  Once they crossed over the barrier of being vulnerable with the group, they did things that helped their process that so many adults refuse to do:

  • They felt their grief as a real-time, present moment experience.  (My adult groups spent considerably more time focused on re-living moments of past grief, rather than identifying how they felt at the current moment.)
  • They had no goal to achieve in the process, they simply processed what they were feeling. (My adults participants usually measured and re-measured their progress by random, unconscious beliefs about where they should be in their process. This often colored what they shared with judgment about themselves, or pretense about where they were–rather than open, really vulnerable sharing.)
  • They knew they spent most of their time running from their pain and were honest about it. (Participants in other groups often took weeks or months to acknowledge their coping mechanisms so they could assess what was working and what was making things worse.)

These are gifts given unknowingly from my group of teens that anyone can embody.  What things still bring up feelings of grief for you?

Use the following steps based on the wisdom from my teens to help you move from feeling stuck in this grief to finding your inner transformation and resilliance.  You might want to journal your answers.

  1. Do you re-live this event in your mind frequently? Can you identify the difference between how you initially felt about this situation and how you feel NOW? Take a moment to describe this situation from your perspective today.  Anytime you notice your story going into how it felt “then,” cross it off and resume writing from the perspective of how it feels today. It is a good idea to do things that ground you in the current moment while doing this exercise. You might write for awhile, then go for a walk outside before continuing.  Other things that can help keep you grounded in today are exercising, contact with water (washing your hands or feet, swimming, taking a shower, foot bath in epsom salts), walking barefoot on the earth, and digging in the earth (weeding, planting).
  2. What judgments do you have about how you have handled grieving this situation, especially verses other people? Write them down.  Be specific.  You might start with sentences like, “I should have…,” “By now…,” “Other people…” Once you have exhuasted your litany of self-condemnations, rewrite each one beginning with the statement, “It’s OK that I…” Then find a nice place to walk where you can have a destination goal of at least 100 feet.  As you walk that distance take each step deliberately and state “It is OK that I…”  Do this as many times as you need to until you feel a release of judgment from each item.
  3. Identify (with scathing honesty!) all the ways you have ignored and run from feeling your feelings around this situation.  Write them down. Which ones of these are serving you and which ones are just keeping you tied to your grief? Make conscious choices as to which behaviors and actions you plan to continue and which you want to cease.  Call your best friend and tell her what you have discovered and ask her to help keep you accountable to your new goals. Create new behaviors that help you feel your feelings and release them, rather than cover over them. Here are a few suggestions:
    • Commit to feeling fully the grief when it comes.  If it is convenient, go into the shower and cry until you feel complete, go into a private room and turn on music loud to cover your sobs, or climb into bed and rock yourself in a fetal position.
    • Take long walks in nature regularly to reconnect to yourself and let go of the outside world
    • Journal everytime your emotions get triggered.  Give all your feelings voice–whether good, bad, or ugly–not just the socially acceptable ones.  Let your hurting inner-self really express the depth of how she feels. By ackowledging, not hiding, how you feel you take away these emotions power over you sand they can no longer control you.
    • Forgive yourself. You are usually encouraged to forgive others who have hurt you in order to heal from grief.  While that is an important element, the more often ignored and more important step is to forgive yourself.  Forgive yourself for the choices you made that helped create this circumstance, or for not taking care of yourself sooner, or for handling your grief in a way that has kept you stuck.  Whatever it is, forgive yourself over and over for it until you have set yourself free.

No one is immune from painful experiences that trigger feelings of sorrow and grief.  It is part of our human condition.  Yet, how we approach our grief can determine how long we carry its weight around our necks.

As the Buddha is oft-quoted as saying,

“Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional.”

 

What are you passionate about?

What things get your juices flowing?  Are there topics you find yourself talking about socially that you could go on and on about?

It is important to know what really makes you excited, and then make sure you are including those things in a big way in your life.

Enthusiasm is contagious.  It makes life lighter. It fuels your energy tank in ways that nothing else can.

So why is it that so many women live lives that lack pizzaz?  Do any of these hold you in a place of hum-drum daily existance?

  • Prior commitments.
  • Responsibilities.
  • Bills need to be paid.
  • No time for anything else.
  • Don’t want to hurt anyone.

Too often, women assume that their needs have to be met AFTER everyone and everything else is taken care of.  This tactic results in slow simmering anger and resentment or subtly growing depression for many.  How do you avoid this slippery slope?

You must make it a priority to feed your soul. This is not another to-do to add to your already overflowing list of obligations.  Rather, this is what will give you the energy to complete those things with a smile on your face.

I help women find their passion and incorporate it fully into their professional life, usually by creating a company that embodies their values, has a mission they are passionate about, and surrounds them with people and events that they would enjoy–whether it was work or not. You can learn more about my Wealth Development Program here.

Having your work life BE your passion is one way to ensure you include what you are enthusiastic about in your daily world.  But their are other ways, too. Here are just a few:

  • Volunteer with an organization that is doing what you believe in. By actively helping in an area you care about you will start to feed your belief you can make a difference.
  • Dedicate Saturday mornings doing something you love (painting, dancing, kayaking…) before you venture into chores or other activities. If Saturday mornings don’t work, find a day you can commit to. Time spent cultivating enjoyment will help you re-ignite your life and your belief things can be fun.
  • Spend time regularly with someone who is doing what they are passionate about and support their efforts. As you see how someone else incorporates their passion into their life; you will begin to see opportunities for your own life to change.
  • Regularly go outside your comfort zone.  Too often, the biggest challenge to improving your life is your habits–the way you always do things. If you want things to change you are going to have to change things in your life.  If you want more of the same, continue doing what you always do.

Don’t let your life and the weight of it control you.  You control your life.  Most women avoid this because they think it means throwing away their career, their marraige, or some other important element of their current life.  Maybe it does.  But most likely, once you embark on waking up your passion the changes will look much different than they do today.

Take a small step. Today. And then another step, tomorrow. Move in the direction of living fully. You will be amazed at the joy you bring back into ALL aspects of your life as YOU become more fully alive.