Fear not

My house this morning is the exact opposite as it was yesterday at this time.  Today everyone is still asleep.  Yesterday there was light and excitement, this morning it is dark and quiet.  Yesterday there was anticipation, happiness and joy.  This morning there is calm, contentment and peacefulness.  The craziness of the holiday season is over and we have all survived.

As we sat in our Christmas Eve service, the pastor delivered his sermon entitled “Fear Not”.  There are multiple references in the Christmas story where someone, usually an angel, begins by saying “Fear not”.  I’ve heard the story many times and have never really given much thought to those two words, we usually focus on what is said after those words as the core of the story.  What struck me was two things.  First the reassurance to fear not, do not be afraid, that without those words the listeners could have focused on the fear to the point where they didn’t even listen to anything else that was said.  The second thing that struck me was what would have happened if fear had overtaken them?  It wouldn’t have been a very good story if the recipients of the messages were paralyzed by fear and stayed right where they were. 

Fear is a common thing, we’re all afraid of something, but is it holding us back?  Is there a message that you are missing because you’re stuck thinking about how scary it might be?  Is there something that you avoid doing because it makes your heart beat a little faster?  What is that one thing you really want to do but……….  Success Coach Kelly Atwood recently said “Feel the fear and do it anyway.”  This has become a personal mantra for me.  Whenever I start to feel that little twinge of nervousness, I imagine Kelly standing beside me saying “do it anyway!”  In order to grow and keep moving forward, we need to face our fears or at least face the things that make us feel uncomfortable and push through them. 

This next week is typically one where we reflect on the past year and get ready for the year to come.  Whether you formally set resolutions or not, think about what you want to accomplish in 2016.  It could be big or small, just try to be specific.  Write it down or type it out, somewhere that you can refer to it.  Even better, tell someone else and keep them posted on your progress.  Whatever you do, fear not and do it anyway!   

Heart-FULLy Yours,    

Kacey

Sometimes there is a bit of a letdown after the holidays are over - two years ago I referred to it as the Holiday Hangover.  If you are feeling the “holiday hangover” or feeling a bit stuck when it comes to your fears holding you back, you are not alone!  Let’s talk through it and set up a plan that will work for you.  

Pictures

Capturing a moment in a picture has become so easy and accessible.  It takes seconds to grab your phone, snap a few pictures and capture a moment forever.  Add in a few more seconds and your picture can be shared with hundreds of your closest friends and family.  Film cameras seem like something from the ancient past.  You’d selectively take your pictures, not wanting to have too many of the same shot because you “only” had 12 pictures on the roll.  You had no idea if everyone was smiling or not or if your finger was over the lens.  You took the shot and hoped for the best.  I remember going with my mom to drop off the rolls film at the tiny little photo hut in the middle of a random parking lot on Robertson.  We’d return a couple days later, eagerly anticipating the photos that were waiting for us in the envelope.  If you wanted to share the pictures with your friends and family, you looked at the negatives, selected the number and then went back to the photo hut to have copies made.  When describing this to my kids, they can’t even imagine what it would be like not to be able to instantly view your pictures.

Technology is amazing.  When we took picture with film cameras we used them to capture only special events, holidays and vacations.  Now, we use pictures to capture any moment, meal or image that moves us.  Earlier this week as I was driving home I saw the most amazing sunset.  The sun was setting behind a mountain, which gave the mountain a purple hue.  The yellow and orange made it look as it the top of the mountain was on fire, and for some strange reason reminded me of a scene from Finding Nemo.  The colors across the sky were amazing and my first thought was, I have to take a picture.  I knew I should pull over to get the perfect shot, but then worried that it would delay me in picking up the kids.  Thankfully the next light turned red and I was able to quickly snap a picture (above).  When I looked at the picture later though I realized that it didn’t even do justice to the sunset itself.  Sure you could get an idea of the spectrum of colors, but the real thing was so much more beautiful.  Maybe it’s only me because I’m not a professional photographer, but rarely do my pictures capture the full beauty of the moment.  It got me thinking our first instinct now is to grab our phone and start snapping pictures, but what are we missing in the process?  Are we taking the time to really look at the sunset, appreciate the colors and admire the beauty for what it is?  Over the next week, there will be many opportunities to take pictures and document the holidays in great detail.  Fortunately you can take pictures to your heart’s content and don’t have to wonder if the film is going to turn out or not but keep in mind, the picture will rarely capture the full beauty of the moment.

Heart-FULLy Yours,    

Kacey

Less Stress, More JOY

This is my favorite time of the year.  Starting with Thanksgiving all the way through to New Year’s there is a special feeling in the air.  There is excitement and anticipation.  There is a feeling of kind heartedness, generosity and gratitude.  And then about this time every year, less than two weeks before Christmas, there is a feeling of stress that starts to creep in.  The days are ticking down and the to-do list is getting longer.  The burden of the “perfect” outdoor lights, indoor tree, Christmas card, wrapped gifts, table scape and gourmet meal start to weigh down on you.  A few years ago as I hurriedly rushed around the mall, weaving in and out of people, impatiently waiting my turn in line, it hit me – this is supposed to be fun.  What happened to the joy of the holidays?

Over the last few weeks, I had the opportunity to lead two journal workshops on this exact topic.  I knew I was not alone in my feelings of getting so “wrapped up” (pun intended) in the day to day tasks of holiday preparation that it stopped being fun.  Ever since my moment in the mall, I’ve made a conscious effort to remember joy throughout the holiday season and I wanted to share some ideas that have worked for me over the last couple years.  One of our exercises was to write down what we think of when we think of the holidays.  In one column we listed all the emotions that we associate with the holidays and in the other column all the physical things, like the tree, gifts, etc.  After writing down everything we could think of, we looked at how the emotions aligned, or did not align, with the things that were on the list.  We discussed traditions that we were maintaining that we really didn’t even enjoy.  We discussed things that were on the list just because everyone else is doing them.  We then prioritized the emotions and the things, which ones meant the most to us and which ones should we try to eliminate.  Emotions like stress and family drama were definitely on the elimination list, but how to eliminate led to a great conversation.  We talked about the work that Shawn Achor has done studying happiness.  His research has shown that happiness and negativity are contagious.  We have far more influence on those around us than we might realize.   Our mirror neurons instinctively reflect the happiness, someone smiling at you, or the negativity, someone impatiently waiting for a plane, around you.  (You can watch the talk here.)  We concluded that family drama may be inevitable, but that we all have a choice on how we are going to approach it and what we are going to do.

At the end of the workshop I left the group with a challenge and now I'm challenging you too.  Whenever you see the word "joy", pause for a minute and check in with yourself.  If you are feeling stressed, take a deep breath and reset.  Let joy bring a smile to your face and use it as a reminder as a reason for the season.  Yesterday a co-worker came back from lunch with a "joy" decoration for her desk (picture above).  As I was driving home from work listening to a local pop station, the name of the song I had heard dozens of times, had the word joy in it and I never realized it.  Joy is all around you, all you have to do is look for it.

Joy-FULLy Yours,
Kacey   

    

Not Flexible

On Wednesday morning, I read an article in the November issue of O Magazine about flexibility.  The author had never been a flexible person and went to see a physical trainer whose specialty was stretching to achieve greater flexibility.  He explained to her (I’m paraphrasing) that most people’s muscles are imbalanced, as a result groups of muscles over compensate for other muscle groups.  When this happens you overuse certain muscles, which leads to tightness and imbalance.  The trainer put her through a series of stretches and exercises to help release the tightened muscles and her flexibility instantly improved.  My thoughts in reading the article were #1 releasing those tensed up muscles must feel so amazing and #2 I wish it were only as easy as a few deep stretches.

Later that afternoon, I was invited to a work dinner with a client.  I was given about an hour’s notice and my boss encouraged me to go.  Jokingly I said to her “When in 11 years have I ever been able to do anything with only an hour’s notice?”  The answer is….never.  I am fortunate that she completely understands, being a working mom herself, as did the client (who ended up cancelling at the last minute anyway).  Little did they know how full my night already was with softball practice, homework, dinner (somewhere in there) and a last minute run to Target for supplies for the science project.

The very next night, I stopped by a going away happy hour for one of my team members.  I knew it would be a quick stop, but it was important to me to stop by and wish her well.  I was envious of everyone’s frosty drinks but knew that I had to be getting home.  I picked up the kids, everyone had a great day and homework was done – hooray!  As I waited for the dinner to cook, I caught up on Facebook.  A friend was tagged in a picture of a list of the 5^th & 6^th grade Spelling Bee participants (of which her daughter was representing one of the 5^th grade classrooms).  I looked at the rest of the list to see if there was anyone else’s name I recognized……..when all of a sudden I saw my daughter’s name next to her class.  How exciting!  I rushed into the other room to ask her about it and her face lit up with a big smile.  Yes, she had forgotten to tell me but it was true, she was in the Spelling Bee!  We celebrated, this was so exciting.  A couple minutes later I asked the telltale question -when is it?  It’s tomorrow.  At 8:45am.  My heart sank.  What?  (My first reaction is always panic, like that feeling when your alarm doesn’t go off and you wake up late.)  I have meetings in the morning and it’s really late for me to try to change them now.  She started to cry and I wanted to cry.  Thoughts of frustration, anger, sadness and hopelessness ran through my head.  How could she have forgotten?  What am I supposed to do?  I can’t possibly miss this, can I?  I took a deep breath, apologized and told her I would do everything I could to make it.  In my head I knew it all came down to a choice.

My life is not flexible.  My life works like the body works, each muscle playing it’s part and compensating for the ones that can’t do it on their own.  It’s not easy and though I may write this blog every week, I still struggle to find my own balance.  The key for me is that it is all about choices.  In every situation you have a choice.  Every day you get to decide what is important to you for that day.  What is important to you in the morning may shift and change in the afternoon.  Those shifts and changes are ok as long as you are the one making the choice, rather than letting another person or situation make the choice for you.  The thing about choices is that there are consequences.  The consequences are inevitable.  Whenever you have to choose one thing over another you risk disappointing someone or making them angry with you or putting yourself at a disadvantage.  When you weigh the options and make a choice own it, the good and the bad and be unapologetic.  Don’t commiserate over what could have been or replay it over and over in your head.  Don’t judge yourself for the choice that you make.  Make the choice that is right for you.

The choice I made was to email my coworker, explain my situation and ask if there was a way she could cover me in the meeting we had at 9am.  I knew that if she said no, then I would go to the meeting and miss that part of the spelling bee.  I knew that if she said yes, it could mean losing credibility with the client or more work for me, but this was my choice, I had to own it either way.  Fortunately for me, she emailed me back about an hour later confirming she’d be at the meeting.  In the end it all worked out.

The moral of my story today - you can’t do it all.  It’s physically impossible.  Instead you have to make choices.  Before you make those choices you have to dig really deep within yourself and decide what is important to you, you and only you.  Only when you are clear on your own intentions, your own flexibility, will you be able to make the choices that are best for you.   

Heart-FULLy Yours,    

Kacey

One more thought – working on your “flexibility” is hard!  As you can see, even after working on it for a couple years I still have moments of struggle.  But the good news is that along the way I’ve found tools that really help and I’d love to share them with you.  Email me at balancedheartcoaching@gmail.com and we can chat more about how you can find your flexibility.

Road Trip

Like many people, our Thanksgiving tradition includes a road trip.  The drive from Phoenix to Los Angeles is between six and seven hours, depending on how often you stop and how fast you drive.  The beginning of the trip always starts out with a lot of excitement.  Eager for the journey ahead, spirits are high and there is constant chatter over what awaits us at our destination.  Batteries are fully charged, bags are filled with fun stuff to do and snacks are plentiful.  The trip has begun.

An hour into the trip, we get our first “how many more hours?”  The answer isn’t a popular one, but it’s accepted and they easily go back to their movie or game of the moment.  During the middle of the road trip we are surrounded by open roads and desert for as far as the eye can see.  There are few places to stop which makes it easy to keep going, moving forward and all the while getting closer to our ultimate destination.

The last two hours are always the hardest.  Surrounded again by the comforts of a city, there’s an anticipation that any of the exits could be “the one”.  Legs are starting to cramp and tempers are starting to flare.  Snacks are no longer a special treat and everything to do has turned boring.  Inevitably we get stuck in traffic, which slows the trip down even more.  ‘Are we there yet’ becomes a banned phrase that can no longer be uttered by any human within the confines of the vehicle. 

When we finally arrive, all the excitement and energy from the beginning of the trip returns.  Hugs from family members erase any tension that built up over the miles.  You can finally take a deep breath, there is comfort simply in the fact that you have arrived.

As we were driving, I couldn’t help but think about how the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas are also like a road trip.  You start off excited and happy.  Somewhere in the middle, it gets harder and you wonder if you are going to make it.  You want to pull off the road.  Obstacles get in your way that you down.  You may have to take an unexpected detour.  When you are in the middle of the trip it’s easy to feel like you are never going to get there but through it all, but your destination remains the same.

I hope you are packed and ready to go.  Set your GPS and if you have to decide between two routes, let your heart be your guide.  The road trip to the holidays starts today. 

Heart-FULLy Yours,    

Kacey

p.s. You may be thinking, the blog is great, but I could never do that!  I disagree and am here to help!  Let’s schedule a 30 minute consultation to define what matters most to you right now and create a plan on how to spend more of your time doing that.  Email me at balancedheartcoaching@gmail.com and we’ll work out the details. 

What's this about?

Over the last couple weeks I’ve had a couple people ask me “What’s your blog about?”  Oddly enough the question catches me off guard and I struggle to answer because to me the blog is about so many different things it’s hard to narrow it down.  I usually end up responding that it’s about parenting and work life balance.  That it often includes funny stories about my kids going through various situations where someone always responds, “my kids do that too”.  Even though I think that was a pretty good answer, the question is still nagging me.

The blog is also my chance to share quotes, ideas and concepts that I’ve read about that make me stop and think.  This week I read a quote from the book “The Upside of Stress” by Kelly McGonigal:

Stress caused by the news, as opposed to stress caused by your life, is unique in its ability to trigger a sense of hopelessness. Watching TV news after a natural disaster or terrorist attack has consistently been shown to increase the risk of developing depression or post-traumatic stress disorder. One shocking study found that people who watched six or more hours of news about the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing were more likely to develop post-traumatic stress symptoms than people who were actually at the bombing and personally affected by it.

Can you believe that?  People who watched over 6 hours of news on the bombing had more symptoms than the people who were actually there!  That is crazy!  What a vivid reminder that what we choose to pay attention to matters. 

This week on Facebook millions of people created word clouds showing their most used words in their posts over the last year.  I’m not typically one to participate in all the Facebook quizzes but this one intrigued me.  My word cloud looked like this:

There are many words that stand out at first glance: time, day, love, beautiful, happy, one, think, kids and weekend.  But as I looked at it again, the words that really stood out were time, day, love and one.  Shuffling them around they make the phrase “Love one day (at a) time” which is another accurate description of what this blog is about.  It’s about giving yourself a break, not being consumed by the to-do list and taking time to enjoy each day as it comes.

The blog is also my opportunity to share with you some of my favorite things.  This week we will all celebrate Thanksgiving, one of my favorite holidays of the year.  I love the outpouring of gratitude that is not only expressed but also felt during Thanksgiving.  In one of my favorite quotes, Marie Forleo says it best:

Gratitude is simply a deep and genuine sense of appreciation for what you have in your life. For things big and small. For the air you breathe; the unconditional love of your pet; for blessing of someone who loves you.And this shouldn’t just be an intellectual or mental exercise, it should touch you and fill you up emotionally.Because when you genuinely fill yourself up with the emotion of appreciation, it changes how you feel and it completely alters the actions you take and, therefore, the results you’ll create.

Happy Thanksgiving!      

Heart-FULLy Yours,    

Kacey

p.s. You may be thinking, the blog is great, but I could never do that!  I disagree and am here to help!  Let’s schedule a 30 minute consultation to define what matters most to you right now and create a plan on how to spend more of your time doing that.  Email me at balancedheartcoaching@gmail.com and we’ll work out the details. 

Focus

Have you ever noticed that when you focus on something you start seeing it everywhere?  For example at the end of a recent workshop, I encouraged the participants to look for the word “joy” and when they saw it to post a picture in the event group.  In just a few short days there were pictures of joy in all shapes and sizes.  Given the time of year, “joy” is pretty easy to find if you are looking for it.

Focusing on specific things always brings them to the forefront of what we pay attention to.  If you are looking for a new car, you will see the car you are interested in all over.  If you are thinking about planning a vacation to a special destination, you may start to see articles and references to that place more often than usual.  Have a new baby?  Babies are everywhere.  Your kids are interested in something new?  All of a sudden that new character, toy, video game or sport appears whenever you turn around.  I suppose it makes sense – we are exposed to thousands of messages and images on a daily basis.  Most of these messages remain in the background because we simply cannot process them all.  However when we are focused on something, that specific item or idea breaks through the noise and grabs our attention.

Of course it works the opposite way as well.  Does your child/spouse/co-worker/friend do something that drives you crazy?  Chances are you are going to notice every single time they start doing it.  Are you worried about health/finances/job?  Every sniffle/dollar/project will be placed under a microscope, reviewed, analyzed, criticized and second guessed.  It’s easy to focus on the negative.  Somewhere we started to think that if we worried about it, it would somehow get better.  It’s unrealistic to think we can ignore negative things but what we can do is decide how much of our attention we give to each situation/feeling/person currently in our lives.        

Author Mike Dooley says “Thoughts become things.”  What are your thoughts?  Where is your focus?  Pick something and see how often it crosses your path this week.

Heart-FULLy Yours,    

Kacey

p.s. You may be thinking, the blog is great, but I could never do that!  I disagree and am here to help!  Let’s schedule a 30 minute consultation to define what matters most to you right now and create a plan on how to spend more of your time doing that.  Email me at balancedheartcoaching@gmail.com and we’ll work out the details.

What's our secret?

This week my husband and I celebrated our 15^th wedding anniversary.  Because I am a numbers girl I had to do the math - fifteen years is about 35% of my life!  No wonder I have been feeling like it is such a big number, I’ve almost been married longer than I was in school.  I know that there are plenty of other couples out there that have our 15 years beat by a mile, but unfortunately these days, we are not in the majority.

I often talk to new moms and while I expect to talk about their babies and motherhood, many of their struggles are about the changes they feel in their relationships.  When you are pregnant you focus a lot on how your life will change with the baby in the house, but it’s rare to think about how your life as a couple will also change.  It’s hard enough figuring out what all the baby stuff is about, add to that exhaustion and a changing dynamic in your relationship…..it’s enough to turn your whole world upside down, flip it around and back again.

So what’s our secret?  Here are a couple of the biggest lessons we’ve learned:

·       Be willing to have an open and honest discussion about how you are going to manage your money.  We decided early on that we were going to combine our accounts and have never looked back.  That choice is certainly not for everyone, but for us it worked.  If you choose a different arrangement, discuss what will happen if one of you lost their job, had to take a pay cut or wanted to stay home with the kids.  Talking about money is never easy and is always an emotional discussion.  It’s important to keep an open mind and be able to talk honestly.

·       Have a discussion and divide up the household chores.  Sure, you naturally fall into different roles and each of you begins to do certain things around the house but there are always those things that are no one’s favorites.  This really comes to light when babies come into the mix.  The dishes start piling up, the laundry is never ending and even the vacuum starts to gather dust.  You must talk about who is going to do what, when and how frequently.  If you don’t have the discussion, chances are the other doesn’t know they are waiting for you to take care of something.

·       Be open to change.  My husband and I are not the same people that we were when we got married.  We didn’t enter into this marriage expecting to change something about the other, it just naturally happened.  We are all constantly having new experiences. From those experiences you learn new things and grow.  You must be open to that evolution.  Chances are in the early days of your relationship you were willing to change to be a better person for the other, that drive to keep improving should never stop.

·       Don’t keep score.  Those of you who’ve been reading the blog for a while know this is a big one for me.  You can’t say “You went out with your friends two nights this week, I went for a mani-pedi which counts for half, so now I get 1.5 nights out.”  If you keep score you make things infinitely more difficult for yourself and your spouse.  If you want to plan a girl’s night out, then plan a girl’s night out.  If you want to sleep in on Saturday, then talk to each other about trading off weekend mornings that you get to sleep in.  We live in a busy time and days get filled up quickly.  If you need a break, an afternoon or night out, ask for it.

Did you catch the common theme?  It’s communication.  Communication goes beyond just talking.  In order to communicate, you often have to take a really good look at yourself.  Why is this so important to me?  Why do I feel this way?  Is there something more that I’m not considering?  In order to communicate you have to listen.  What are they trying to say?  Is it possible that I could see it differently?  In order to communicate you have to set the emotion aside to truly get to the center of it all.  It’s not always easy.  There’s no point when you get to set the cruise control and everything just takes care of itself, unless maybe that happens at 30 years?  All I know today is that I wouldn’t have it any other way.  

      

Heart-FULLy Yours,    

Kacey

p.s. You may be thinking, the blog is great, but I could never do that!  I disagree and am here to help!  Let’s schedule a 30 minute consultation to define what matters most to you right now and create a plan on how to spend more of your time doing that.  Email me at balancedheartcoaching@gmail.com and we’ll work out the details. 

Boo!

Today is Halloween, time for costumes and candy.  For some kids it’s all about the costume.  For others it’s the candy or the fact that you get to be out in the neighborhood after dark.  And for others it’s about the scare factor.  It’s the one day of the year where we look forward to being afraid to the point that we seek it out.  Where being afraid is part of the holiday tradition.  (It’s a little weird when you put it that way, because most other days we avoid being afraid and if we are afraid of something, we would certainly never admit it.)

Kids, like all people, have varied tolerances of being scared.  A game of hide-and-seek is an acceptable, mild scare level for all kids of all ages.  There’s the anticipation of the seeker not knowing who they will see when they turn the corner.  It’s not scary per se, but it will make your heart beat a little faster in anticipation.  Then there is the opposite end of the spectrum, the extreme scare that haunted houses thrive on.  Scary music, black lights, frightening costumes jumping out at you triggering the fight-or-flight animal instinct that lives within all of us.  Older kids love this extreme scare, while others want to prove how grown up they are by making it through such a scary experience.

Somewhere in the middle of the scare scale is being afraid of the dark.  On Halloween it’s fun to be outside in the dark walking from house to house, making up stories of what might be lurking in the shadows.  In costume the kids feel invincible, but once you get home, the shadows of the dark rooms can be too much to overcome.  My kids do not like to go upstairs alone.  In fact they will pull out every stall tactic in the book to not have to go upstairs by themselves.  If they go together then it is moderately better, but they really prefer to have an adult up there with them.  No matter how much we try to rationalize with them and explain that there is nothing to be afraid of, the fear is still there.  At the end of a long day it can be very frustrating.  It’s hard when you know for a fact there is nothing to fear but you can’t get them to believe it.  Who knows what is running through their brains?  Who knows why they feel this fear?  They may never be able to explain it in words, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not real.  So for now that means we go upstairs with them.  It means there’s always a light on in their room while they sleep in case they wake up in the middle of the night.  If that’s what it takes, then we’ll do it.  Growing up is scary enough, home should be the one place where they don’t have to worry about being scared.

Have a happy and safe Halloween! 

Frightfully Yours, 

Kacey

Asking Questions

Today is a special day.  It is the day my life changed forever.  I knew at the time it was going to change my life as I knew it, but I had no idea the extent.  It is the reason you are reading these words.  Today, October 10^th, is the day I first became a Mom.

I could recount for you all the obvious ways that my life changed – the lack of sleep, the increased laundry, the irrational worries and the indescribable feelings of love.  I could talk about how my relationships and responsibilities changed in one way or another, but those are all blogs for another day.  Today I can’t help but think about how much I’ve changed. 

There was not one situation that started the ball rolling.  Instead it was a series of small things that all started to add up for me.  If I had to summarize it into one thing, I started asking more questions.  The first and most common question seemed to fit every scenario - what should I do?  I turned to parenting magazines, which led me to online articles and books.  I shared stories with select close friends, guarding myself from moms I didn’t know well out of fear of judgement and criticism.

What turned to why?  Why did I feel so strongly about a good night’s sleep or a solid routine or a way of disciplining?  There were certainly other ways of doing things that other people believed in and saw results in, why was what we chose the “right” one?  A few years later, I read The Conscious Parent, where Dr. Shefali says it best:

“We each enter the parenting journey with visions of what it will be.  For the most part these visions are fantasies.  We hold beliefs, values, and assumptions we have never examined.  Many of us don’t even see a reason to question our ideas because we believe we are “right” and have nothing to rethink.”    

I had questioned few of these beliefs, values and assumptions, just accepting them as truth.  These “why” questions started out as parenting questions, but very quickly led to internal questions that only I could answer for myself.  I started to realize that to be the best Mom I could be was less about the best way to handle the behavior of my children and more about handling my own behavior, mindset and perspective.

The why questions led to how.  The most powerful question for me came from author and motivational speaker, Gabrielle Bernstein.  During an online webinar she asked “How do you want to feel?”  I knew I didn’t want to feel tired and stressed out, but how did I really want to feel?  This question became a both long term and a daily question I asked myself.  When how I wanted to feel didn’t match what I was actually feeling, I went back to why.

The thing about questions is that there is always another one waiting to be asked.  Eleven years ago I knew I would be watching my child grow, I just never imagined how much I would be growing right along with her.    

Heart-FULLy Yours, 

Kacey

p.s. You may be thinking, the blog is great, but I could never do that!  I disagree and am here to help!  Let’s schedule a 30 minute consultation to define what matters most to you right now and create a plan on how to spend more of your time doing that.  Email me at balancedheartcoaching@gmail.com and we’ll work out the details. 

Low Battery

Beep.  What was that?  You listen for a while and don’t hear it again so you figure it was nothing.  Fast forward 40 minutes and the beeping is now happening every 5 minutes.  You know exactly what it is - the smoke detector battery is running low.  It does you a “favor” by beeping every few minutes so that you can replace it.  However it is 10 pm.  Everyone is asleep except for you.  And you know that there is no way you will sleep listening to that beeping (which always seems to echo throughout the house no matter where the actual detector is located).  And to boot you know that you don’t have any 9v batteries (who keeps stock of 9v?  AA, AAA, C, D, you name it, but 9v is never in the junk drawer.)  Some detectors will give you a break if you don’t happen to have a 9v and will stop their chirping if you remove the battery.  It allows you to ignore for a little while until you can make it to the store. 

In contrast, we are all acutely aware of the battery on our phone.  We know exactly how long we can go without plugging in.  We take steps to make sure that it is fully charged before we head out the door.  If we forget, we have a backup plan in the form of a car charger or portable charger that can fit in your purse.  Charging stations are popping up everywhere, in the mall and in stadiums to help people recharge when they are on the go.  Letting your phone battery run out is unthinkable and for some may cause a minor anxiety attack.

Why the contrast?  Why are there some batteries that we diligently check, while others are so easy to ignore?  I equate the phone battery to your immediate needs.  It is your to do list.  Every day you expend most of your energy running from place to place, checking items off the list and moving on to the next one.  You take time to recharge this battery so that you can check more things off the list.  The smoke detector battery is more like your personal needs.  It is the battery you need to recharge in order to feel your best physically and emotionally.  It is a battery that is easier to ignore, but if you ignore it for too long the consequences could be costly.    

  

Which low battery will you recharge today?

Heart-FULLy Yours, 

Kacey

p.s. You may be thinking, the blog is great, but I could never do that!  I disagree and am here to help!  Let’s schedule a 30 minute consultation to define what matters most to you right now and create a plan on how to spend more of your time doing that.  Email me at balancedheartcoaching@gmail.com and we’ll work out the details.

I'm not ready

The first ten years of being a parent is about figuring it out as you go along.  There is a lot of trial and error.  You figure out what works and what doesn’t when it comes to bedtime, school and what they’ll eat.  School, friends and activities introduce some new situations where you might need to make adjustments but you still keep chugging along.  You start to draw from your experiences, you get advice from those around you and maybe read books or articles to learn more about being a parent.  At the same time you are also relearning what it is like to be a kid.  Few of us remember what it was like to be a baby or a toddler.  We may have scattered memories of pre-school or a first dance recital or favorite toy, but the details of our everyday lives are long forgotten.  We start to remember more as the elementary school years begin, specific events and friends are remembered in detail but overall there are only a few memories from each year.

Then, with two words, it all changes – Junior High.  All of a sudden our memories are much better.  We remember vivid details from Junior High, not only the significant events but the emotions that go along with those events.  We remember how we felt and why we felt that way and what we did or didn’t do about it.  This is a game changer.  For the first time in our parental lives we remember what it was like to be the age of our children and as a result it starts to influence how we parent. 

Two conversations this week really brought this idea to light for me.  The first was with my husband.  My daughter, almost eleven, spent most of the week trying to convince us that she is old enough to stay home alone during school holidays.  My husband was not having any of this discussion and shut it down immediately.  After the kids were in bed we talked about it in more detail, including a couple stories that started with “when I was that age….”.  At the end of our conversation he said “I’m not ready for all this.”   The next day I talked to a friend who also has a daughter in sixth grade.  Over the last couple weeks her daughter has been calling and texting a lot with a new friend, who happens to be a boy.  Their conversations mostly about homework, but nonetheless she is finding it a little uncomfortable that her daughter is now at an age she remembers so well.  She said “I’m not ready for this.”  I said “We better get used to it because it’s going to start happening a lot more.” I didn’t realize how true that statement was until I really started thinking about it later the next day.  Our children have caught up to our memories. 

From here on out we will always have a parallel story to theirs.  Subconsciously we use our childhood experiences as a basis for our decisions as parents.  It’s easy to replace our trial and error methods of the early years with the idea that we now know what to do because we’ve lived it.  We have to be very aware of our stories to make sure we don’t project them on our children.  Just because it happened to us, doesn’t mean it will or won’t happen to them.   Just because we handled a situation one way, doesn’t mean that they will handle it the same way.  This is going to be a tough one. (But what part has ever really been easy?)  Ready or not, here it comes.  

    

Heart-FULLy Yours, 

Kacey

p.s. You may be thinking, the blog is great, but I could never do that!  I disagree and am here to help!  Let’s schedule a 30 minute consultation to define what matters most to you right now and create a plan on how to spend more of your time doing that.  Email me at balancedheartcoaching@gmail.com and we’ll work out the details. 

Traffic Jam

My coworkers and I were sharing traffic horror stories this week.  It seemed like if any of us were in a time crunch to get somewhere, we hit every red light or got stuck in a sea of cars.  We all had differing, yet similar, experiences watching the drivers in the cars around us.  There are some drivers that are convinced there is another better, faster route that they can find, so they weave in and out of the cars around them.  There are others that accept the traffic and start multi-tasking by putting on make-up or playing on their phone.  And then there are those that follow so closely behind you that you are convinced they are going to end up hitting you.  We use the phrase “stuck in traffic”, but few people accept the fact that they are literally stuck.  Instead they believe if they do more there is a way to get out of it faster.

This discussion made me think about a book I’ve been reading by Esther and Jerry Hicks.  In this book they talk about your thoughts and actions either going upstream or going downstream.  If we use the example of traffic, upstream thoughts include worrying about being late to an appointment, getting angry with the drivers around you or letting frustration get the best of you as you sit and stew about being stuck.  On the other hand downstream thoughts include accepting the fact that you are moving as fast as you can, realizing you are powerless in the situation and that stressing out about it will not do you any good.  The authors give multiple examples to explain that the upstream/downstream concept relates to every life situation we face.  If we feel like we are struggling, whether at work, at home, with a friend, spouse, family member or child, we are paddling upstream.  Sometimes we believe that fighting our way through is the only way to get what we want, but they disagree.  They explain the only way to move forward is to reframe the situation and start moving downstream.  This does not mean that you have to just blindly accept the situation by giving in.  It means you take the struggle out of the equation.  The smallest shift in perspective can make a big difference.  Using the traffic example, instead of being frustrated about how long it is taking, you use the time to enjoy listening to music or a book or catching up with a friend you haven’t talked to in a while.  You’ll arrive at your destination with a much different attitude than if you sat in traffic worrying the entire time.  

When we start riding downstream we’re happier, more relaxed, less stressed and have more energy to spend on things that we enjoy.  Is there something in your life right now where you feel like you are trying to paddle upstream?  What would it take for you to start turning that boat around?         

        

Heart-FULLy Yours, 

Kacey

p.s. You may be thinking, the blog is great, but I could never do that!  I disagree and am here to help!  Let’s schedule a 30 minute consultation to define what matters most to you right now and create a plan on how to spend more of your time doing that.  Email me at balancedheartcoaching@gmail.com and we’ll work out the details. 

Independence

Admit it, we all have those nights when we count down to bedtime just waiting for those eyes to close so that we can have a few moments to sit and relax.  Some nights the countdown is “one more hour!”  Other nights the countdown starts earlier, “is it 8:00 yet?”  These thoughts are usually followed by a level of guilt for even having the thought, “I love my children and I should love spending every minute I can with them.”  And so the cycle goes.

Then an interesting thing starts to happen.  The kids start to become more social.  Their friends invite them over for the afternoon or to spend the night.  All of a sudden the house is a little quieter.  Without your child around to ask you endless questions, you may even have the thought, “what should I do now?”  (Shocking I know but it has happened on rare occasions.)

Last night I dropped my almost eleven year old off at a church event exclusively for 5^th and 6^th graders.  The promoters of the event had been at the local schools and did a great job in making this the “must do” social event.  So there I was, on a Friday evening, watching my super excited daughter run off with her friend to find the others and have a great night.  I had mixed emotions.  I was excited for her remembering how much fun it is at that age to spend time with your friends and the rush of independence that comes with it.  I also felt a little uncertain, what was I doing dropping her off?  Shouldn’t I stay to keep an eye out like always?  I knew the answer was no.  They were in a safe environment and are old enough to know how to behave on their own for a couple hours.  Then came the twinge of sadness.  She’s growing up.  She’s going to start spending more time outside of our house away from us.  It’s bittersweet.

In his book about “lighthouse parenting”, Kenneth Ginsburg writes:

You are better prepared than you think.  You have been practicing the balancing act between safety and allowing healthy, creative development from the moment your infant began creeping on the floor.  You know the only way children learn is to test and manipulate their environment…..You were a lighthouse even then – the stable, solid presence that allowed her to measure her own security.  You kept an eye on the waves to make sure they were safe to venture into.”

I have a feeling I’m going to be coming back to that quote again and again.  Whether we realize it or not, we have been preparing them for these moments of independence from the very start.  It just feels different now as they start to move a little farther away from the shore.  Later that night I picked up her and a friend (oh by the way our other friend needs a ride home too).  Can we stop and get some food, we are starving.  Followed by who was there and who said what and can you believe that?  And so it begins, just a small glimpse of what the next few years are going to bring.  Maybe I shouldn’t be so quick to start those countdowns…… 

Heart-FULLy Yours, 

Kacey

p.s. You may be thinking, the blog is great, but I could never do that!  I disagree and am here to help!  Let’s schedule a 30 minute consultation to define what matters most to you right now and create a plan on how to spend more of your time doing that.  Email me at balancedheartcoaching@gmail.com and we’ll work out the details. 

Melt down, down, down

I was having lunch with a friend a few weeks ago and she started tell me about how her son had recently started having these epic melt downs at home.  Her son, like mine, is 7 and recently started 2^nd grade.  He likes school and has never had behavioral problems, which made these outbursts surprising.   She explained that the melt down usually came on the heels of something that was either disappointing (he didn’t get his way) or something that made him angry (an argument with his sister).  My friend tried to let him cry it out, sit with him or talk him through it, but that didn’t work.  As he cried, he started to bring up other things that were completely unrelated to the current situation and not to mention untrue.  For example, between sobs he would say (or yell) “I’m stupid” or “Nobody likes me” which would then add fuel to the melt down fire spiraling down deeper into despair.  He would start to calm down, she would be hopeful that it was over, but then he would say something that would get him crying/yelling all over again.  After fifteen, twenty, sometimes even thirty minutes, he would still be crying and at this point saying, “I don’t know how to stop”.  She had tried everything in the book – staying with him, leaving him alone, trying to be close to him, letting him cry it out, distracting him and she didn’t know what else to do.  She believed him when he said that he didn’t know how to stop.  He had worked himself into such a state and became so exhausted in the process, that he could no longer help himself.  Eventually she was able to change the subject and get him thinking/doing something else. 

Retelling these stories to me, she was at her wit’s end and felt helpless.  She didn’t know what to do.  Her son was normally a sweet boy who was happy, active and had a positive attitude most of the time.  These melt downs and the negative things he said were totally uncharacteristic of him.  Did he real feel this way?  Was he doing this for attention?  What should she be doing to help him through this?  I could see how worried and upset she was over this.  We talked through the basics making sure he was getting enough sleep and eating the right foods.  We talked about positive reinforcement for things out of the ordinary, not just around grades and behavior at school.  It’s unclear whether his insecurities are real, if they are a way to get attention or if this is just a phase that he is going through.  Either way, by continuing to be the consistent, loving and attentive mom that I know she is, they will get through this. 

At a very basic level, this behavior is something all of us face every day.  An event occurs that causes us to become upset, which then triggers us to remember a time when we felt the same way.  Before you know it, one story leads to another, piling on more and more to the original situation.  The stories keep repeating over and over in our head, each time dragging us a little lower, each time making it a little harder to make the stories stop.  My friend’s son, in his 7 year old innocence, said “I don’t know how to stop”.  He realized he had reached a point of no return and didn’t have the ability to help himself out.  How many of us have been in that same situation without the presence of mind to realize that we needed help?  It’s hard but I’ve found the easiest solution is to try to stop before you even get to that point.  Allow yourself to feel the emotion of the exact moment, but when the stories start to pile on, stop them immediately.  You can even say to yourself, I don’t want to think about this or I don’t want to feel this way, and try to get busy doing something else.  It may sound like avoidance, but it’s not.

This is a difficult practice for adults, much less children.  We must introduce these concepts to our children.  Start the conversation, see where it goes.  If you can start to establish the concept with your children, you will then be able to approach these situations from a whole different level.  Let’s be honest, melt downs are going to happen regardless, it’s just nice to know that you have another tool in your toolbox to use when the time comes.           

Heart-FULLy Yours, 

Kacey

Confessions of a Multi-Tasker

“Knock Knock”

“Who’s there?”

“Interrupting dog.”

“Interrupting do..”

”Ruff ruff ruff ruff.”

Ah they got me again.  Of course I’ve heard this one before, but it had been a while and I walked right into it.  It was interesting timing because earlier in the week I had been reading a few different articles about everyday interruptions and multi-tasking.  Multi-tasking has become the new, and expected, normal and it goes to a whole different level if you are a mom.  I have been a proud multi-tasker for many years.  Make the lunches, empty the dishwasher, fire off spelling words, put cereal in a bowl and find whatever is “missing” all at once – that’s not multi-tasking, that’s Wednesday morning at my house.  But recent studies show that multi-tasking may not be something to brag about after all.

We have become an “always on” society.  We expect to be able to find anything at anytime from anywhere and it is evident in all areas of our lives.  At work, even though I am in a meeting, it is perfectly acceptable for someone to “ask a quick question” via instant messenger.  I have been known to finish typing an email on one subject and carry on a conversation regarding another subject at the same time.  In fact, if I didn’t multi-task at work, I would probably add 2-3 hours of work to my day just to get everything done.  At home it’s very, very rare that you can do any one thing without being interrupted and/or having to do something else at the same time.  I don’t have to list any examples, I’m sure that you have plenty you can think of from your own lives. 

The problem is that no matter how good I might think I am at multi-tasking, science says otherwise.  Studies have shown that multi-tasking can actually increase the amount of time it takes to complete a task, sometimes as much as 25% more.  In other words all the time that I think I am saving by doing multiple things at once, I may actually be extending the amount of time it takes to work on them.  That’s a valid point.  No one multi-tasks with the intention of taking longer to complete something. Ever since I read that I’ve been trying to re-evaluate the tasks that I do at the same time and try to stop myself in situations where I could possibly be adding more time.  It’s not easy, but even if I can “single task” one time during the day, I count that as a win.

There’s another element of multi-tasking that we haven’t really touched on.  When you are doing multiple things at once, you are dividing your attention among those things as well.  When we are talking about tasks (laundry, dishes, making dinner, cleaning) dividing your attention is difficult, but possible.  When we add people into the mix of multi-tasking, things change exponentially.  If I am making dinner and helping with homework, am I really helping my child in the best possible way?  Or when you are with a friend, you think nothing of checking your phone (even if it is just a quick glance).  We are so used to multi-tasking, that when we try to single task it is uncomfortable.  We are so used to multi-tasking, that we no longer see it as an interruption.  Our relationships with each other deserve our full, undivided attention and we can’t do that if we are constantly distracted by interrupting dogs.      

Heart-FULLy Yours, 

Kacey

p.s. You may be thinking, the blog is great, but I could never do that!  I disagree and am here to help!  Let’s schedule a 30 minute consultation to define what matters most to you right now and create a plan on how to spend more of your time doing that.  Email me at balancedheartcoaching@gmail.com and we’ll work out the details.

Little White Fence

When my daughter was a few months old, my husband built a little white fence around our back patio.  It had a little gate to keep her from the pool and a built in bench for us to sit on.  We spent many mornings and afternoon on the patio.  The little white fence created the perfect area for us to play and spend time outside.  Last week, almost ten years later, my daughter and I were back on the patio.  This time we had paint brushes in our hands, ready to give the little white fence and bench a fresh coat of paint.  We haven’t lived in this house for seven years, but there are reminders of our time here all around.  The lemon tree we planted never produced one lemon in three years, but now the branches are dripping with lemons waiting to ripen.  Our next door neighbor is still as sweet as can be and welcomes us as if she just saw us yesterday.  The mesquite tree I trimmed when I was eight months pregnant (I think I was nesting, literally) is now taller than I can reach.   The pedestal sink brought with us from California, is still the perfect finishing touch in the downstairs bathroom.

We picked up our paint rollers and put a fresh coat of white paint over the bench and the top of the fence.  It looked better, fresher and hopefully just the right touch for a prospective buyer.  Tired of painting, my daughter retreated back into the house. I looked closer and saw that the job was really not done.  By painting only the top, the slats now looked a dirty and the chips more pronounced.  I took my roller and added a fresh coat of paint to each of the slats.  Pressed for time, I painted over the chips and cracks, knowing that the fresh paint would help them blend in.  The paint covered them but if you looked close enough you could see them beneath the surface.  It made me think about how easy it is to paint over our feelings.  Instead of taking the time to look at the crack, figure out what caused it and fix the source, it’s much easier to keep on going, gloss over it and pretend it’s not there.  Eventually the sun, rain and wind will cause the paint on the fence to fade.  The chips and cracks will surface again, more pronounced this time and a little harder to cover up.  How many of us go through our days/weeks/months putting on fresh coats of paint, but never really fixing the source of the chip or crack?

After I finish, I look around once again. This house is still full of wonderful memories, but there is also a piece of me that feels like it was a long time ago.  Though it’s still ours in name, it’s no longer ours in spirit.  I think about how much we love our new neighborhood, our new neighbors and all the hours I’ve saved not having to commute eighty miles a day.  When we moved it was hard.  We had so many firsts in this house, so many memories.  It would have been easy to hold back and stay in our comfort zone, but we knew deep down that moving was the right thing to do. Even when there were signs telling us to stay, the real estate market shifted and instead of selling we became landlords, we stuck with our gut and took a leap of faith.  What is your gut telling you - is it time to take a leap?

Heart-FULLy Yours, 

Kacey

p.s. You may be thinking, the blog is great, but I could never do that!  I disagree and am here to help!  Let’s schedule a 30 minute consultation to define what matters most to you right now and create a plan on how to spend more of your time doing that.  Email me at balancedheartcoaching@gmail.com and we’ll work out the details.