Month: November 2019

I Wish Things Were Different

Here in the United States, we are officially in holiday season.  We just had Thanksgiving and Christmas is a few weeks away.  I love the festive nature of this time of year.  I have always loved driving at night and seeing Christmas lights decorating people’s homes.  There is hope held in those lights.  Hope that things can change. 

Are there also stresses?  Absolutely!  But many of those stresses appear because we’re trying to be someone we’re not.  We’re trying to buy more than we can afford.  We’re visiting with family and friends that have differing opinions.  We want people to think the same way we do.  But that isn’t possible.  The people in our lives don’t have our life experiences.  Therefore, they can’t see things the same way.  These stresses in our lives can become a little easier if we accept things for how they are. 

Don’t get me wrong there is always hope in life, but there so many times that we wish someone else was different.  The problem is that we can’t change other people we can only change ourselves. 

There have been more times than I can count that I wanted someone or something to be different.  I wanted the situation to magically change without having to do things differently.  I’m sure you’ve been there.  My life began to shift when I started to change me.  The biggest thing that I had to do was accept me as I am.  I spent most of my life comparing myself to other people.  I didn’t look like they did.  I acted differently than they did.  I wasn’t in the same place in my life.

I spent so long focusing on how I was different not realizing those differences made me who I am.  I had to accept myself as the unique person I am.  Those differences made me special and eventually started me on to a new path.  There’s a flip side as well.  I had to accept others as they were and not who I thought they should be.  I could either ask why someone didn’t like me or ask why does it bother me that they don’t?  I had to accept that their opinions were as valid as my own.

What do you need to accept in your life?  Let me know.  Do you want to know more, click here to book a discovery session or an appointment.

I Don’t Want to Hear It . . .

Denial.  We’ve all had a case of denial, I can guarantee there is something in your life that you haven’t wanted to see, hear or admit to.  I’ve certainly been there.

In my life there have been things that I couldn’t see or didn’t want to see.  Things that I didn’t want to hear.  We know when our life isn’t going the way we wanted or expected it to, but denial can also be a way of making it through the day.

When I was about to turn 30, I knew my life wasn’t as I wanted it to be.  The things that I dreamed of hadn’t happened yet.  The reality was that it wasn’t someone else’s fault.  It was mine.  I wanted to blame someone else, but there wasn’t anyone else responsible for my choices.  I wanted someone else to come and save me, but I didn’t even want to save myself.  I didn’t want that to be the truth.  I wanted the truth to be that the timing was off or people couldn’t see who I truly was.  The truth was that I didn’t allow them to see me.  I didn’t let people close enough to see through the mask that I was wearing.  There are reasons why, but my past was impacting my present and my future.  I had to be willing to see the truth.  That was step 1.  Step 2 was more complicated, I had to look at it, examine it, and see it for what it truly was.  A clue.  That clue would lead me to change, but I had to be willing to act and do something different.  Is it easy?  No!  But it is worth it when you can see how your life has shifted.

I’m still a work in progress.  That’s part of life.  The challenges don’t stop because we want them to, but we can learn to adjust and face them head on.  We can examine them and let them go.

 What are you denying in your life right now?  What have you denied in the past?  Let me know.  Do you want to know more, click here to book a discovery session or an appointment.

I Am Addicted To. . .

Addictions can be many things, but I tend to see them as coping mechanisms.  Most of us can see people becoming addicted to drugs or alcohol, but you can become addicted to almost anything that numbs you from an experience.

Growing up I knew that a lot of adults in our family had battled an addiction with alcohol so I knew that I should stay clear.  Plus, I didn’t care for the feeling of being drunk.  I grew up in the 80’s when the “Just Say No” campaign was in full swing, so I didn’t try drugs.  My maternal grandfather was diagnosed with emphysema, so I had no desire to even smoke.  So, what is my addiction of choice, do you say?  I have a sugar addiction.  I use sugar to numb the pain of life.  I have used it to boost my energy levels or just get through the day.  The issue with this type of addiction is that sugar is in almost every food that we eat.  I have no desire at this stage in my life to make everything from scratch, I have to learn to work around it.  Some days are better than others.

Think about it.  I’m sure that you can tell me one thing that you’re addicted to.  It may be coffee.  And why do you drink coffee every day?  It gives you the energy you need to make it through the day.

When we aren’t carrying around our past baggage, our energy levels naturally increase, and we can make it through the day without our vice of choice.  The addition may even naturally disappear.  But, if the addiction re-presents itself, your energy levels have most likely dropped.  The drop in energy levels can mean that you’re avoiding something.  The only way to truly change your life is to experience the pain.  When sugar comes back into my life, I know that I’m avoiding something.  It doesn’t necessarily make it easier to tackle, but it’s time to start peeling away the layers and begin the feeling process.

What emotions don’t you want to experience?  Why don’t you want to confront them?  Let me know.  Do you want to know more, click here to book a discovery session or an appointment.

Fear of Change

Transitions are hard.  You know it and I know it.  We know life shouldn’t be this way, but it has been like this for so long we don’t know any other way.  Having the courage to make a change, can be a challenging first step to make, even when we know it is the right one.

I have spent most of my life living in fear.  Fear was an emotion that had a certain amount of comfort to it.  I had my first seizure before the age of 1.  We learned as I was growing up that they acted as a circuit breaker.  When I had a rapid temperature change, I would have a seizure.  Many people that I have spent time around have never seen a seizure.  My grandmother once handed me back to my mom when I started to have one.  For a small child, it seemed that people were fearful of me.

As I grew up, I felt a responsibility to show people that a person can live with seizures.  Wherever I worked, people knew about my disorder, but I also wanted to keep that part of my life separate.  I never wanted them to see me have a seizure and I didn’t want them to be afraid of that part of me.  Members of my immediate family had seen me have them and still loved me for me, but could other people?

One Friday morning I forgot to take my pills.  I remember making it into the office and most of the rest of the day is gone.  I have only a few memories and those that I do have are spotty.

I went back to work that Monday.  Whether my co-workers felt this or not, I’m not entirely sure, but it felt like they were afraid of me.  I tried to be the person that I was before, but they had seen a part of me they couldn’t unsee.  At that moment my work life started to unravel.

The fear of that moment led to other decisions.  Fear had taken hold a part of my life, the part that I felt I had under control.  I knew that things were different for so many reasons.  But I couldn’t figure a way out.  It took another 18 months for things to end and for a new opportunity to begin.

Deep down I knew that I didn’t belong there anymore.  So many signs presented themselves to me, but I couldn’t pull the trigger and take the necessary steps.  I reverted to my coping mechanism of choice.  I withdrew.  I kept to myself and put one foot in front of the other, but my heart wasn’t there, and those around me knew it.

For many of us we need help making this change.  In my case, I needed to be let go from my job.  Then another fear of what am I going to do now sets in?  I was fortunate.  I was able to put the pieces together relatively quickly.  I learned from my coaching calls that there is only way to get over fear and that is to move through it.   I have taken more chances in the last 11 months, then I did in the preceding 37 years.

This doesn’t mean that fear isn’t present in my life, but I have learned there is more to life than fear.  It can be used to guide us on to new and better things.  Sometimes we need to see our own lives from a different perspective.  My life now is all about helping people to see their lives with fresh eyes.  We can’t change our past, but we change the story we tell ourselves.  Every day is a new opportunity.  You may need to make a conscious choice to take that first step, but it gets easier over time.

What story in your life do you want to shift?  Let me know.  Do you want to know more, click here to book a discovery session or an appointment.

Moving On


Moving on to another phase of life can be challenging.  It may mean giving up a long help dream or a hope for things to come.  There is also a transition period between the old life and the new life that can seem uncomfortable.  There is concern about things not working out the way you want them to, but you know what?  Sometimes you must take the leap.

I have dreams that I still feel like I should fight for, and others I know I need to move on from.  My business feels like one that I’m still fighting for.  I’m starting to see small shifts happen, and I celebrate each victory.  My personal life has more of a gray area coloring it.  There are times that I feel I should be ready to step into a new chapter and others where I slide back into the past.  There are still wounds I need to move on from and release.  Each day I let go of another piece.  2019 has been a huge transitional year.  I had to move from a career path that had defined me from more than 10 years.  I had to step into who I am called to be.  I had to rethink my dreams and release what no longer serves me.

But all the letting go and moving on have brought new adventures.  I am doing something for a living that I enjoy and doesn’t feel like work.  I am at a part-time job where I can be myself and be appreciated.  We recently had a staff meeting and I had the opportunity to hear what my co-workers (and now friends) thought of me.  I was blown away by the comments.  As a society we gravitate more towards the negative side of life instead of the positive.  Sometimes it is easier to hear the negative.  We rarely have the chance to hear what people love about us.  We typically express what drives us crazy about someone that we know.

I had to release my story this year as to why would people like me for me.  If I hadn’t been working on releasing that story and moving to a new way of thinking, I couldn’t have been in the space to hear that I am appreciated for being me.  It wasn’t easy to get to this spot.  It has involved a lot of work and tears, but I am moving into the next phase of my life with anticipation.

I could have wallowed and thrown myself a long-term pity party after being let go from my job in January, but there were other plans for me, and I knew it.  I was living small.  I put everyone else’s needs before my own.  I was trying to be who everyone else needed instead of who I truly was.  The “real” Sarah would emerge on occasion, but most of the time she was in hiding.  She wasn’t allowed to come out, it wasn’t safe.

That story had to go before I could step into my new life.  The path is still coming into focus for me.  We all have something glorious waiting for us, but we need to move on from the old and release it.  What story do you need to release?  Let me know.  Do you want to know more, click here to book a discovery session or an appointment.

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