Empowerment

I looked up the definition of empowerment on the internet today. It says, to make (someone) stronger and more confident, especially in controlling their life and claiming their rights. I love this definition! So many of us are walking around giving our power away! Maybe it’s to our kids thinking thoughts like, “I can make it through today as long as nobody fights.” Or maybe we hand it over to our husband, “if he would just tell me I’m doing a good job once in a while, then I’d feel like enough.” Or maybe it’s the weather, or the number in the scale, or a relationship that’s not perfect, the list goes on and on. We look outside of ourself so often for that validation and love we all crave. The only problem is we usually end up waiting on someone else to change before we can feel better. But what if you could be empowered? What if instead of falling victim to your own life you chose to have your own back? How would things be different? Better? Coaching shows you that all of that’s available to you right now without anything changing at all. Also, this doesn’t mean the end goal is to be happy robot all the time, it just means to be deliberate and intentional with your thinking all while being human and experiencing all of it! The good, the bad, and the ugly. 

Italy

Tonight I was supposed to be on a plane flying over the ocean to Italy. I’ve never been outside the country before. It was a trip we had planned for nearly a year. We had everything figured out. We were pumped and ready until this virus hit and changed everything. Pretty sad story right?  life is just plain disappointing! Or is it? The truth is it’s entirely up to us how we want to feel and even the story we choose to tell about our life. Sometimes in life we want to feel disappointed, sad, angry, or frustrated, and that’s totally fine!  But if we don’t want to feel that way, it’s totally up to us to change the story. Which is the best news ever! I mean maybe instead of being disappointed I could decide to be grateful. Grateful that we didn’t get stuck over there for months without a way to come home. Grateful that we are all healthy. And so grateful we were able to get our money back and reschedule. I know we will make it to Italy someday and that life will get back to normal for all of us eventually. It’s my opinion that the universe has our back. Things always pan out the way they’re supposed to and for our personal benefit. We just need to hang on for the ride!

Coronavirus

 Tonight we drove around our small town to grab a treat since it’s Friday and it’s tradition. It was a ghost town you guys! Normally restaurants and businesses are busy on the weekends. Instead there were little to no cars in parking lots, and lots of businesses closed early in order to slow the curve on the Coronavirus. People are staying home. Life is completely different. No more church, home school for kids, and little to no social interaction. Meanwhile the news is literally talking about nothing else except this novel virus. How are you feeling about all of this? Most friends and neighbors I’ve talked to are scared. I’m scared too. I think that’s completely normal. You see, our brains are always on the look out for a problem to solve. And the worst kind of problem for the brain is one that isn’t able to be solved. Which is what we’re all dealing with right now. No one actually knows what the future holds for us. They can predict. But no one really knows. So we go to the news and any other source we can to try to solve this problem. We think that if we just gather enough information we will figure out a way to move on and feel better. The issue here is that all of the news being thrown at us is only causing us to feel more and more negative emotion. But what if instead we all tried to look at today. What if we gave our brain a problem that it actually could solve? Instead of focusing so much on the news and fear, let’s limit our exposure and only listen to the experts, follow what they say, and then move on. I believe things will get better. I don’t know how or when so for now I’m doing my best to focus my brain on problems it can solve. It’s not easy but it feels a lot better than fear.

Emotions are nothing to fear

I’m currently enrolled in the Life Coach School and classes start in t-minus two weeks! This has been something I’ve wanted to do for a long time but now that just happening my brain has been straight trippin boo! I’ve been feeling a lot of different emotions, both positive and negative. But here’s the thing about emotions. They really aren’t anything to fear. They are just vibrations in your body created by your thoughts. They can come and go if we allow them instead of pushing them away. And trust me! I’m the queen of resisting emotion. I’ve gotten better now that I know it’s my thoughts that are the cause of everything but I can think of plenty of times when I’ve made things so much worse than they needed to be simply by not being willing to relax and be present with a negative emotion. Here’s an example: I’m someone who really really hates needles. Every time I’ve had to have a shot I tell the person giving it that I’m just going to look away until it’s over. I close my eyes super tight like a 3 year old. Palms sweaty, mouth dry, all of it. What’s funny is the actual prick of the needle is usually a lot less intense than what I make it out to be in my head. I think it’s the same with our emotions. We want so badly to feel good and happy and peaceful in our lives and anytime that feels threatened by a negative emotion we do one of 4 things: we either resist, react, avoid, or accept what we’re feeling. The first 3 options get us nowhere and usually even make the emotion stronger and more uncomfortable. The best possible thing we can do is relax and allow ourselves to feel whatever we are feeling. While also recognizing that the feeling is always coming from a thought. The reason this is all the best news is that when you’re feeling negative emotion it doesn’t mean something is wrong with you or your life. It really just means that you’re human.

Keeping commitments

I want to talk for a minute about the power of keeping commitments to yourself. Recently I’ve decided to change up my morning routine. For the longest time I would wake up and grab my phone and jump right back into social media. I’d spend a good chunk of my day scrolling between taking care of my kids. But for the past couple weeks I’ve decided I’m done with that. Instead I get up and I read my scriptures, write a little in my journal, and exercise. It’s made the biggest difference in my day. I get so much more done and I’m able to focus so much more on my family and much less on what doesn’t matter. But here’s the thing, I don’t say any of this to make anyone feel like they’re doing it wrong. I want you to know that there have been several days where I haven’t wanted to follow through with this new routine. I’ve wanted to just tune everything out and go back to my old “comfortable” ways. But instead of doing that I chose to keep the commitment I’ve made to myself. I remind myself how much better I feel when I take care of me first. When I do the necessary things on purpose. Even when I don’t want to. Even as I type this post my main objective is fulfilling a commitment I made to myself to post at least once a week. It’s now 10:30 at night and we lose an hour tomorrow for day light savings. Most of you who know me know that I don’t go to bed late. Ever. But I made the commitment so I’m trying my best to follow through because it’s an important skill that I’m trying to develop. So next time you say you’ll do something and it turns out you really don’t want to... do it anyway. You’ll be glad you did.

The Manual

I used to think about the relationships in my life very differently than I do now. I used to think that something had gone majorly wrong because the people in my life weren’t acting the way I thought they should be. I would ask questions in my head like “Why don’t my kids just listen the first time when I ask them to do something?? They SHOULD totally do that right??” Or “Why doesn’t my husband naturally buy me the perfect thoughtful gift that I always wanted for my birthday?” That’s what happens in all the movies right? Good husbands should totally do that! But you know what all that drama created for me? Disconnection. When we try to control the people in our lives instead of letting them just be themselves it creates tension and resentment and a whole lot of other negative emotions. Most of the time the person that we’re trying to change has no idea what our expectations even are. When we act this way it’s as if we have a manual for the people around us. A way that we believe they should act and be in order to be acceptable for us. The major problem is that people are going to do whatever the heck they want to! And the only real person you have control over is YOU! So how do you want to feel about your life? Did you know it’s entirely up to you to decide? 

I’ve found that it feels SO much better to allow my husband and children to simply behave the way husbands and children behave naturally. So when my kids don’t come running the first or second or tenth time I call them I can realize that they’re just kids being totally 100% normal! They’re really not supposed to just be weird robot kids that do whatever I ask whenever I ask it. And when my husband does his best to show me he cares in his own way I can just be SO grateful he’s mine! Instead of wondering if something has gone wrong. It truly is up to me! 

What are you making it mean?

For the past two weeks my husband has been doing a job in Bear Lake, about an hour from where we live. He gets home about the time I put the kids to bed. Needless to say it’s been rough. I’ve had a lot on my plate and not a lot of time for myself. Which is totally okay! Just hard. The real reason I want to share this story is that the other night I totally 100% lost my SHIZZ! My basement had been a total mess for days and earlier that day my kiddos were not helping me clean it up at ALL! Then later my oldest got himself stuck nearly to his knees in thick, soupy, MUD! Just the thought of cleaning any of it was just too much. So I yelled and I screamed and said a bunch of things I’m not proud of. I also slammed our pantry door shut at one point which accidentally cracked a freaking hole in the door! No joke! Not at all my finest hour. But here’s the real question. What am I making ALL of that mean?? On the one hand I could decide I’m the worst mother in the world. Some of you might even be thinking that as you read. I could tell myself my kids will never turn out, that they’re going to become criminals, and worst of all it’s all my fault! This is the easy route that my brain naturally wants to take because it’s a human brain that’s super good at pointing out things that are wrong. But what’s the upside to thinking all of that? Those thoughts just leave me feeling sad, defeated, and in a huge pit of self loathing. But what if instead I decided to make all of that drama mean that I’m HUMAN. That I make mistakes but that I totally love myself anyway. What if instead I used it as an opportunity to teach my kids about forgiveness and what it means to be sorry? That’s an option too right? And I’m telling you my friends! It’s a much BETTER option! So next time some drama goes down for you, be careful what you make it all mean.

Valentine’s Day

Hey people! Happy love week! So I’m a huge fan of chic flicks. I love watching love stories unfold and have the guy always know EXACTLY what to say, and do, and be! It’s MAGICAL! Unfortunately life, at least for me, has been FAR from a movie style love story. Don’t get me wrong I love my husband. But he doesn’t usually know exactly what I need at the EXACT right time. He’s human and I love him for it. But for reals, it’s rough in the real world of love. This is why what I want to share is SO important!

So many of us women wait around for our husbands to fulfill our needs. But half the time we don’t even know what those needs are. Example- has your husband ever asked what you wanted for Christmas or Valentine’s Day? And you don’t even have a response? How are they supposed to know what to do for us if we don’t even know ourselves? This is why it’s so much better to take matters into your OWN hands and just take care of you! This year I decided I wanted to get my nails done. So I did. And I told my husband thanks for working hard so I could. The end. No drama, no worries, no expectations. Just me takin care of me. Give it a try! Tomorrow is a big day for either a whole lot of disappointment, or a whole lot of you loving YOU! Happy Valentine’s Day!

Xoxo,

Corey

A compassionate observer

I’ve been encouraging you all since I started this blog to notice your thoughts and try to be more aware of them. But I want you to know that when I first started working on managing my brain it wasn’t easy. I started to notice that I didn’t like a lot of the thoughts I was thinking. I would feel guilty or ashamed, and all of that drama only made me feel more trapped! I realize now that I was missing a very important element. You guys, we have got to be more compassionate with ourselves. I swear most of us are so critical of ourselves all the time it’s like we’re our own worst enemy. We are constantly beating ourselves up over things that in the end really don’t matter. So today I’d like to challenge you to notice your thoughts. Take some time to write whatever you’re thinking. Don’t make it pretty and fluffy for your posterity, just write. And then stop yourself when the judgements come. Just continue as a compassionate observer of yourself. Be your own best friend. Remind yourself that you are complete, whole, and totally worthy just the way you are! Nothing is wrong with you!

Processing Negative Emotion

My little boy Tate is obsessed with Frozen. We literally watch it every day, sometimes twice a day. He never gets tired of it. As annoying as this is, I've noticed that I can totally relate to Elsa before she knows how to control her powers. She's afraid but then she lets her fear grow by adding more fear on top of her initial fear. At first she's afraid of hurting her sister, but then the fear grows stronger when she believes she can't escape.

As humans we operate in a similar way. Have you ever been mad, angry, frustrated about something small that just seems to grow stronger and stronger throughout the day? It's like you're mind is just festering on that one moment or event until it's power is so strong that you just explode. I have. In fact this exact thing happened just this morning. I was asking my kids to get in the van for school. They were watching TV downstairs and they wouldn't listen. I asked again, and again, and again. Still nothing. Finally I just lost it! I yelled all the way to the school about how we were going to throw the TV away and that they were all grounded for life. Sheesh! Where did all of that come from? I realize that I'm the cause of all of this. Me and my thoughts. Instead of just allowing myself to feel and process my frustration. I let it build and build to the point of explosion. This was me resisting my emotions. We don't want to just sit with whatever negative emotion we're feeling so we resist it instead. The problem is that just like Elsa, when we resist it, it only grows stronger.


So what can we do instead? It starts with realizing that half of the time we are going to feel negative emotion. And that's totally okay. Nothing has gone wrong. What if instead of blowing up at my kids I just allowed myself to be a frustrated mom? Instead I resisted it and found more evidence that my life should be different. For example: My kids should listen the first time I call them.We should never be late to school. The TV is ruining our lives! Do you see how all of these additional thoughts only make everything worse? What if instead I told myself that this was the part of the day where I feel frustrated. And just leave it at that. I promise it's so much better this way. So next time you feel a negative emotion I want you to try something crazy. I want you to process it. Relax into it and really feel what it feels like in your body. Notice where you feel it most. Is it in your head, your stomach, your fingertips? Then describe it to yourself as if you've never felt it before. What color is it? Is it big or small? Sharp or smooth? I know it sounds insane, but all of these things allow you to get out of your brain and into your body. This is SO  helpful because when you can get out of your head you realize that negative emotions are nothing to fear. They're simply vibrations in your body that come and go.

Souvenirs and Suitcases

Okay people, raise your hand if you’ve ever compared yourself to another person. Ever wished you had certain qualities they possess that maybe just don’t come very easily for you? We all have right? It’s such a natural human thing to do, but it also keeps us stuck! Today I want to share something that has really helped me overcome the comparison trap. It’s a little gem from the one and only Jody Moore. If you haven’t heard of her you need to check out her podcast Better Than Happy right now! You will love it! 

 The truth is we are all came here with different talents, abilities, and gifts (things in our suitcase). These were all given to us by God. But He also expected us to develop into our best self. He wants us to bring things back home (souvenirs). He wants us to use this life as an opportunity to develop the things that don’t just come naturally. The problem is that we waste so much time trying to check out what the next person got in their suitcase that we rarely take the time to look inside our own! We compare. We feel jealous. And we don’t do a dang thing. Instead we need to take a minute and see what God has given us. How can we fully use our gifts and talents if we don’t even know what they are? Once we know we need be bold and not afraid to use what we’ve been given. So let’s stop checking out what everyone else has that we don’t and start appreciating the gifts and talents we’ve been given. Then go out and get some souvenirs! 

Even Beyoncé has bad days

Anyone else ever get sick of social media? It’s just such a false perception of reality. No one ever posts about the bad which makes us all believe that something has gone wrong when our own life isn’t picture perfect. But the truth is we all experience ups and downs in life. Even Beyoncé. There will be times you won’t show up the way you hoped. You might yell at your kids or get mad at your spouse. Getting along with certain people will be difficult. Loving yourself won’t come easy. And life will just be plain HARD! But don’t you worry because it’s supposed to be that way. Absolutely nothing has gone wrong. And nothing is wrong with you.

Let me tell you why this is true. Your human brain is wired to look for things that have, can, or will go wrong. It’s constantly looking out for things that may be harmful as well as things that just aren’t quite right. Example, have you ever been on vacation at the beach on a warm sunny day when your brain says something like, “this is great but I would be perfect if the weather was just a little bit cooler.” Or maybe your might think “If only I had an ice cold Swig in my hand right now.” What the?! I mean really?! It seems like your brain can always find something that isn’t quite right. It’s for reals good at it! Which is so helpful to know when it comes to thoughts about yourself. For example, if you believe when your brain tells you for whatever reason that you’re not enough, you will start to notice all of the reasons why this is true. Your brain is very good at gathering more and more and more evidence to prove a belief. It really loves to be right... but did you know that you can outsmart your brain just by simply questioning whatever thought isn’t serving you. So if you decide to question the thought “I’m not enough” you might say “In what ways is this untrue? Is it possible that I’m worthy and whole just as I am? Faults and shortcomings included??” What if you could accept and be at peace with all of it? The good and the not so good parts of you. I think it would allow you to decide instead what you wanted to believe on purpose. Which might be that you’re human and your make mistakes but you still love you even when you don’t show up in the best way. You could decide that no matter what you’re ENOUGH. Even when you don’t have the perfect hair, clothes, job, family life, marriage, home, etc. You’re still enough! And don’t forget, even Beyoncé has bad days.

Thoughts and goals

Okay it’s time for some real talk. This last week I started a 90 day fitness challenge. It’s been a mix of good and hard. One of my goals is to eat less sugar. And I really love me some sugar! It’s definitely not easy to resist, but today I want to show you that it’s totally possible! It’s just a matter of training your brain. 

 It’s so funny to me to watch how my brain reacts to new and seemingly hard things. It’s like a toddler! Anytime it notices a treat that I’m now trying harder to avoid it thinks it’s going to DIE if it can’t have said treat. Like for reals die. Or if a workout goes a little bit longer than planned it wants me to give up. Because it’s just too hard. Have you ever had these moments? The ones where your brain try’s to sabotage anything good you’re trying to do for yourself? Well, if you have and you’re feeling stuck I have good news for you! You don’t have to believe what your silly brain is feeding you. For example, it’s okay to want something sweet but decide with your higher brain that you’re going to pass in order to keep commitments to yourself. And do you know what happens over time the more you ignore that crazy side of your brain? Those feelings get less and less intense. I promise it’s true because I’ve done it! Eventually the treats just aren’t as tempting. And when you do have them on purpose, you enjoy that SO much more! You also want to look at what’s really bothering you. Example: have you ever found yourself in the pantry with your hand in the bag of chocolate chips right after a particularly frustrating parenting moment? What if it’s totally normal and totally okay to just relax into the frustration? Of course it doesn’t feel good, but it’s also not going to kill you. These negative feelings are just vibrations in your body. And the more you allow them, the less power they have over you and your decisions. When you’re eating those chocolate chips you might actually be trying to avoid a negative emotion. Which is totally fine by the way, unless it’s getting in the way of some bigger goal and keeping you stuck.  So next time you find yourself trying to reach for a greater version of yourself don’t listen to your brain when it tells you this adventure will kill you. It won’t. And you can walk away from the cookies and feel frustrated, angry, etc because It will pass. Especially if you don’t try to resist it. 

Thoughts on Confidence

Okay people, lets talk confidence for a minute. When we really zoom in confidence is an emotion we get to feel when we think about ourselves in a certain way. So first I want to ask you, how are you thinking about yourself? Do you know? Are you paying attention to the thoughts that your brain feeds you as truth? Are those thoughts really true? Let's break it down. 

First, there's the shame side of the spectrum. This is where you're super critical of yourself and worried about every little thing you did or didn't do right. You're more focused on getting validation from others than giving it yourself. You tell yourself all the things you should be doing but aren't. That you'll never add up. Never be good enough, and on and on. You keep finding more and more evidence for why you're just not measuring up so all of this feels very real and true to you.

On the other side of things there's pride. If you fall on this end you believe that people are ranked based on the level of goodness they posses, the amount of money they have, how attractive or unattractive they are and on and on. You do things in order to keep your value fixed. You feel that in some way your accomplishments/qualities make you better than the people around you. This is also not a good place to be because in order to stay on top you have to keep winning. You believe your value is earned.

The fact is that both of these ideas are LIES my friends. When we fall into shame or pride we are not showing up with confidence, instead we are just lying to ourselves and keeping ourselves from showing up as the best version of ourselves. The good news is that ALL of what I just told you goes on in our brains. As I said in the beginning, confidence is a feeling we get to feel when we CHOOSE to think of ourselves in a certain way. It also lies smack dab in the middle of shame and pride. When we are confident we know the truth! Which is that every single one of us is amazing and valuable regardless of literally anything else! There's nothing wrong with us, (as shame would say), and we also aren't any better or less than anyone else,(as pride would say). We are who we are and our value is fixed. It doesn't change. 

So take a look at how you're thinking about yourself. Where do you fall on the spectrum? What thoughts are holding you back? What can you chose to think on purpose to get yourself to confidence and owning who you are? I personally choose to love all of me even when it's hard. The good and the bad. I constantly need to remind myself that my value is set and does NOT change. When I choose to do this on purpose it's easier to show up as the person I was meant to be. 

What they think is none of your business

One thing I love to do is share things with my friends and family. I'm that person who finds something new and cannot wait to tell everyone! It really doesn't matter what it is. If I love it, you better believe I'm gonna share it! So let's just say this blog is going to become a place of sharing ideas I've found that help build confidence and empowerment to help you become the best version of you!

Tonight I watched Ralph Wrecks the Internet with my family. Have you seen it? Anyway, there’s a part towards the end of the movie where Ralph goes into a room and sees all of the comments that are on the Internet about him. Some are really positive and others are very negative. Naturally Ralph fixates on the negative and you can see him start to question himself. When he walked into the room he was confident without a care in the world. But after knowing what others thought of him it made him question himself too.

 Do you ever question yourself because of another persons opinion of you? I know I’ve been there. It’s like the opinions of others give power to that mean girl in your head. But what if you asked yourself why you care so much? The truth is that other people’s opinions are none of your business. The only opinion that really matters is your own! And trust me I get it. It’s hard to be misunderstood. But what if you just let people be wrong about you? I swear you guys it’s the best feeling in the world to just be unapologetically YOU. And I don’t mean going around doing anything you want without regard to anyone else, I just mean focusing in on being your best self without being distracted by what someone else may or may not be thinking about you. So give it a try! Let them all be wrong about you!