emily downward – Page 7 – Emily Downward

What Now?

November 21, 2012emilydownward

There are times when life throws you a curve ball. You’re going along, everything’s going great, and suddenly Wham! You get the wind knocked out of you with something that totally throws you for a loop. It could be a layoff, a death in the family, a break up, a diagnosis. Or sometimes it’s an opportunity, a promotion, a new relationship, the birth of a child. These are all catalytic events, and they throw you into what we Martha Beck coaches call Square One, where the way you defined yourself before no longer works now. It causes an internal identity crisis (the motto for Square One is “I don’t know what the hell is going on, and that’s okay.”), and we go through this many times in our lives. It’s not exactly pleasant, but it is survivable.

I’ve been going through some of my own Square One stuff in my life lately, and I thought it might be helpful to share a few things that help me survive the chaos.

1. Don’t make any major decisions or life changes. Wait a bit, until things settle — and they will settle. Square One doesn’t last forever, if you allow yourself to work through the emotions, which leads to…

2. Allow your emotions space to be. I’ve written before (and it’s still true) that I don’t always (ever?) find it easy to allow my emotions to be present, particularly those which feel unpleasant to me, like anger or sadness. But emotions are “energy in motion,” and as Jill Bolte Taylor describes in her book My Stroke of Insight, if we allow them to flow through our system, they course through our body in 90 seconds. It’s when we stuff them and resist them that they linger. 90 seconds seems doable to me, and I have found that it’s true: I feel better and get through the muck faster when I can allow these emotions space. (Note: it took me quite a bit of coaching and personal work to get reconnected to my emotions after stuffing and numbing them for years. I highly recommend getting help if you are feeling stuck in this area.)

3. Question everything. With your new perspective on how things are in your life now, you may realize that the assumptions you had before no longer apply. Take this opportunity to question your assumptions and create better thoughts and beliefs that work for you. For instance, when I got divorced, I came smack up against the idea I’d always held in my mind that divorced people didn’t really try hard enough to make it work. I hadn’t realized I had this judgment in my head, until of course I was in that situation myself. That judging thought made me feel awful about myself, and so I revised that belief. Coaching has given me great tools to identify and change my thoughts, and I believe it’s the ability to choose our thoughts that brings us the most internal peace and happiness.

4. Give yourself permission to ask for help. I’m fiercely independent and often have the can-do-it-myself attitude that is often demonstrated by young children. But when things get messy, when everything feels like it’s falling apart, it feels so good to know I’m not alone and that there is help out there. We aren’t meant to be solitary beings — the human experience is all about interconnectedness and relationships. Find someone who can give you some support and help you through your Square One mess.

5. Focus on gratitude. While it may seem counter intuitive when things are crappy, focusing on what you have instead of what you don’t will help shift your energy to a more positive place. You also may notice some really good things that come out of a Square One identity crisis. Perhaps in some ways you were ready to shed that old identity, and the catalytic event was a blessing in a strange way. Find the good things, even if they’re small, to be grateful for.

And as it’s Thanksgiving week here in the U.S., I am so very grateful for you, my readers and my clients, and for being able to serve as a life coach in this world. Wishing you all a good week and hoping you have some quiet time to reflect on your gratitude list.

Opportunities for Growth

November 7, 2012emilydownward

I used to dread that time of year. You know the one, annual performance review time. Of course, it’s nice to think you might get a raise or a promotion you’ve been eyeing, but even with those potential silver linings, you still have to sit through about an hour of listening to someone point out your shortcomings and provide you with a list of things to improve. (And if you’re a manager, in addition to looking forward to your own review, you have one or several reviews to put together yourself!) We all know we have shortcomings, but it’s more painful to have someone else point them out to you then realizing it yourself, isn’t it?

Oh sure, they call them things like “opportunities for growth.” Positive sounding stuff, but you know it’s really “What You Don’t Do Well.”

And we always focus more on the bad stuff than the good stuff, don’t we? There can be 12 things you excel at and you’ll focus on the one that receives an Unsatisfactory score. (Or as Julia Robert’s character in Pretty Woman said, “The bad stuff is easier to believe.”)

Our culture is geared toward improving weaknesses to improve performance. Watching out for the negative is a natural human tendency, created out of a survival habit where looking out for danger kept us alive. But constantly looking for what’s wrong takes the focus off of What’s Right. And What’s Right is what makes you special. What can you do that no one else does as well? Or what combination of skills makes you unique?

Marcus Buckingham has written several fantastic books on focusing on your strengths. He defines strengths as things that you do well that also give you energy. We all have things we can do well that drain us – that’s not what we should focus on. Instead, ask yourself, When am I doing great work that energizes me?

Focusing on and enhancing your strengths not only leads to more personal satisfaction in your job, it also positively impacts company performance. The Gallup Organization has conducted ongoing surveys of workers in companies around the world to explore what makes companies and teams great. One question showed the greatest correlation to the most business outcomes:

At work, do you have the chance to do what you do best every day?

Teams whose members strongly agree that they have the chance to play to their strengths every day are:

38% more likely to be high-productivity teams
44% more likely to earn high customer satisfaction scores
50% more likely to have high employee retention rates

Do you know your strengths? How can you spend more of your time (at work and outside of work) utilizing and focusing on those?

Knowing Your Why

October 24, 2012emilydownward

One of the tools in my coach tool belt actually comes from Toyota. The Japanese automobile manufacturers came up with a simple but highly effective way of determining the root cause of an issue by asking a series of “Why” questions. As a coach, I often use this with my clients to help them understand their motivation behind their actions, thoughts or fears. You can also use this on your own through journaling.

Understanding why you do what you do is critical if you want to change a behavior. For example, if you notice that you tend to hit the break room and gorge on junk food when you’re under a lot of stress at work, digging into the Why can help you find more healthy and effective ways of handling your emotions.

Understanding your Why is also important to realizing your goals and feeling fulfillment. We all need to have a sense of purpose, to feel like what we’re doing matters, whether that’s on a small or large scale. When I was in a job that felt like it was sucking the life out of me, big shifts internally – which preceded the external shifts – happened when I started asking myself why I was doing the job. The title did fluff my feathers a bit, I’ll admit. And the money was really good and made obtaining material things fun for a while. At first, I also enjoyed the challenge of the work. But when those things became less important to me, I realized I needed to find another way to make a living that was more in line with my values.

Why do I coach people on career issues and challenges? The tools and training I’ve received have given me so much freedom and peace from the limiting and painful thoughts (that I didn’t realize I was creating), and I want to give others that same freedom to allow them to fulfill their own goals. I have experienced time and again that coaching works, both personally by getting coached and with my own clients, and I love being in the position to help others find their purpose and joy in their work.

So what’s your why? I’d love to hear in the comments below!

Embracing Anger

October 17, 2012emilydownward

Anger is a tricky emotion for me, not one I generally enjoy. For years, I pushed it away, buried it inside or just avoided it altogether. Of course, this doesn’t work. Stuffing any emotion causes a negative reaction in the body. I’ve heard “Emotion” defined as “energy in motion,” and when we dam it inside, stifle it, it’s similar to shaking up a soda can just before you open it. The energy builds up, ready to blow.
I still don’t enjoy all my emotions, like anger, but I’ve become a student of them. I see them as teachers, as feedback, trying to tell me something. Feeling them also allows them to pass, where stuffing them keeps them around for a lot longer.
If you – like me for many years – have a difficult time feeling your emotions, I highly recommend breathwork, yoga or a similar form of exercise. I was recently in a challenging yoga class and while trying to keep up with the instructor’s series of poses (and not doing too well), I suddenly was FILLED with anger. Anger at myself, anger at my current situation, even a little anger at the teacher for expecting too much of me. Fortunately, I was with a group of people I trust and can be vulnerable around. While still uncomfortable for me, I allowed the tears to come and sank into child’s pose to let it all out. I became the “watcher of my thoughts,” as Eckhart Tolle calls it, and noticed all the dirty-pain thoughts that were coming up. As I described in this video, our thoughts precede our feelings, so finding the thoughts provides me with the map to where to follow up with some coaching at a later time. In the moment, though, I just felt the anger.
Anger is often an emotion that spurs us to action. Anger can inspire someone to fight for justice, search for answers, or create a new solution to a problem. And what I’ve learned is letting them course through my body and truly feeling them allows me to get to a clearer state of mind where I can make decisions from a place of peace.
Wishing you a peace-filled week.

I Don’t Know! (Or Do I?)

October 10, 2012emilydownward

I struggled for many years not knowing what I wanted to be doing, just knowing it wasn’t what I was doing. I was good at my job and had gotten promotions, moving my way up to additional responsibilities and larger salaries. I enjoyed having people report to me and mentoring them, but most of my responsibilities, which had at one time seemed like interesting challenges, had become uninteresting and incredibly stressful to me. In addition, I was overwhelmed with a never-ending amount of work, unrealistic deadlines and intense pressure from all sides. It took a huge toll on me, and my body was screaming for my attention. I knew I had to make a change.

And yet, I didn’t know what else to do. I figured I might as well keep doing what I was doing until I figured it out.

Now, I realize that when I was telling myself I didn’t know what to do, it was kind of a lie. Now, I know that our brains can spin incredibly believable stories, and most of them aren’t true.

Sometimes, when faced with making a big change, we get freaked out. Change can be scary. Even known terrible conditions and situations are sometimes chosen over the unknown, as depicted in the movie Shawshank Redemption. When faced with release from prison, long-time inmates struggle with their newfound freedom, preferring to stay in the known and confined community they’ve become a part of. While it’s inconceivable to think any of us would choose prison over freedom, I wonder, how many of us are living in a prison of our own making?

When you’re not sure what to do – ask yourself, “What DO I know?” Like a game of Hot and Cold, keep following what feels hotter, and take steps towards what feels better. You don’t have to have the whole plan figured out. (In fact, it may be better if you don’t: life may throw new opportunities or challenges at you that you can’t imagine now.) As I once heard Martha Beck say, when you’re driving from New York to Los Angeles, you don’t have to see the whole road. You only need to see as far as your headlights shine in front of you.

For me, when I was struggling several years ago, while not yet knowing what I wanted to do for a career, I knew I wanted to return to living close to my family. I craved those social connections and support.

Also ask yourself, “What do I know that I am pretending not to know?” I find that meditation and journaling help me when I’m trying to figure this out. I’ve also gotten help answering this question working with my own coach.

In my situation several years ago, I realized that I no longer valued things the same. While I had once felt pride in my title, I had come to see that a title didn’t make the person. While I still enjoyed my salary, I realized that for me, the price I was paying emotionally, physically and spiritually wasn’t worth the reward. And I realized my desire to do something to help people was growing, and what I was doing wasn’t in line with that.

As I recently wrote, sometimes change is forced upon us, and sometimes we choose it. And sometimes it creeps up on us and we wake up one day and realize that while the situation around us hasn’t changed, we’ve changed internally – our values, our preferences, our goals. I believe that we’re each here in human form to learn how to be happy. We have different missions to achieve that, and we each are given different struggles to overcome. And as we grow and learn, sometimes we find that we’ve outgrown jobs, relationships or situations, and it’s time to move on. Follow what makes you happy.

Hurry Up, Already!

October 3, 2012emilydownward

I don’t know about you, but I am, at times, very impatient. Take, for instance, the Internet. When I click on something, I want (expect) it to immediately appear. Don’t make me wait, Internet. Give me what I want when I want it.

This impatience extends to other areas of my life, too. I get an idea for a new program, I want to make it happen. I have an idea for what I want in my life – whether that’s a relationship or attaining a particular weight or reaching a certain level of fitness – and I want to have it NOW. I don’t want a long “process of becoming,” thank you very much. I want to be there already!

Naturally, this leads to much frustration, as very little in life comes to us instantaneously. (Sometimes the Internet obliges. I appreciate that tremendously…actually, I end up taking it for granted and then expecting it all the time so when it doesn’t instantaneously work, I curse it.)

Of course, I know that “it’s the journey, not the destination.” I’ve read Tolle’s The Power of Now and know that all we have is the present moment. I endeavor to stay present, in the Now, and appreciate what is. I light candles and incense and ring my meditation bell and try to channel my inner peace.

But sometimes, you just have to scream. Rage in frustration. Feel the icky feelings. Because pushing them away doesn’t work – what we resist persists – the only way out is through. As Winston Churchill said, “If you’re going through hell, keep going.”

No, it’s not pretty. But it is survivable. And once you get through the muck, it’s like the calm after a storm. In the calm, you can explore what these feelings are trying to tell you. Your feelings are part of your guidance system. To ignore them or not leverage them is like navigating without instruments. So I ask myself, “What is my anger/frustration/fear trying to tell me?” To me, it’s a bit like a game of Hot-and-Cold. More of this, less of that, steering me closer and closer to what’s right for me.

I’m sure I will still get impatient, still want things to happen already, still wish I was “there,” wherever there may be. I also know that I don’t know everything, and that there is a reason – even if I can’t figure it out – for why I’m where I am right now. When I look back on how I achieved other goals, I can see the reason and the value of the process. And I honestly don’t know if I’d appreciate things as much if they came instantaneously.

Except the Internet. Please continue to work instantaneously. Thanks.

To Change or Not to Change

September 26, 2012emilydownward

I’ve always been fascinated by the interplay between change and resistance to change. Our lives, as humans, are constantly changing, and yet, we often resist this inevitability and try to cling to things, whether it’s relationships, jobs, our youth, children, pets, or even our favorite pair of jeans.

Our bodies are built for homeostasis – the state of maintaining or remaining the same. Our biological systems work to maintain our temperature, heart rate, blood pressure. We are geared for “stasis” – the same – and yet we are constantly evolving, physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually.

Sometimes we are forced to change by events and circumstances outside of ourselves. We get dumped, fired, reassigned, and lose people we love. Massive changes cause us to work through our emotions and re-evaluate our position.

And then there are the times when we initiate change. We decide to make a move, change the way we’ve been doing things, or start a new routine. Generally, there’s a lot that happens “behind the scenes” before the change becomes apparent to the outside. I work with a lot of clients who are contemplating change or who recognize that what they’ve been doing isn’t working for them anymore, so they are open to doing things differently. I help them explore their feelings and thoughts about what’s going on and invite them to create a dream of what they really want, and then a plan to achieve it.

To make a change takes courage. Willingness to try and willingness to take a risk. Facing the idea that you might not succeed on the first attempt. I see clients with amazing courage and resilience and applaud them as they make positive changes for themselves and start to realize they can create the life they want. And as they see the positive changes for themselves, they gain confidence and empowerment and more joy.

And then they get hit with the Change-Back Attacks. Martha Beck coined the phrase to describe how those closest to you – your friends, family, coworkers – react to your new changes. Generally, as I mentioned, we humans resist change, and when one person makes some big changes, it upsets the homeostasis of the group. Others who are perfectly happy with the way things have been may try to cajole, force, manipulate or chide you back into familiar behaviors.

The best way to handle Change-Back Attacks is with love and compassion. Listen and understand that they are coming from a place of resistance, and if possible, calmly state your intentions. You can love and accept them for how they are without agreeing with them. Continue to follow your truth, your passion, and your capacity for love increases.

Love, Birds & Happiness

September 18, 2012emilydownward

When you’re in love, everything seems special: the birds sing so sweetly, there is beauty all around you, and you can’t stop smiling. If only there was a way to bottle this feeling and pull it out on days when you don’t feel so good!

Maybe we can…

Scientists have discovered we have mirror neurons in our brain, which enable us to feel what another is feeling. This allows us to empathize with others, and it also comes into play when we are reading a great novel or watching a play or a movie and feel the emotions of the character within our own bodies. Have you ever identified with a character so much you laughed out loud? (I’ve done this before reading a great book by myself in a restaurant. Who cares if I got crazy looks? Laughter is good!) Or found yourself crying during a touching scene in a movie? (Steel Magnolias or Terms of Endearment are sure tear-jerkers for me.)

Mirror neurons make it possible to feel something even if you’re not experiencing it yourself.

Knowing that our brains control what we feel, we can leverage it in our favor: saturate our minds with treasured memories and flood our brains with the feel good emotions and chemicals.

Martha Beck describes the technique of Sense-Drenching in her latest book, Finding Your Way in a Wild New World, as one of the techniques to get to Wordlessness, a state of being where you shift your consciousness out of the verbal processing and into the more creative, intuitive and sensory brain regions. To try it, you simply come up specific sensory experiences or memories for each of the five senses. Start with your favorite tastes, imagining experiencing them in detail. Add in memories of your favorite scents, unrelated to the taste memory. Next, add in tactile sensations, like touching a kitten or holding a newborn. Then, call to mind the memory of sounds you love, like birds singing, wind chimes or the ocean. Finally, remember your favorite sights: a scenic overlook, a beautiful painting, or a loved one’s face. Try holding all these sense memories in your mind at the same time – this shifts your brain from thinking verbally to the peaceful state of Wordlessness.

In the field of Positive Psychology, researchers have determined to maintain a more positive outlook, you need to have 3 positive experiences for every 1 negative one, and interestingly, they found that the frequency is more important that the severity. You can leverage this, especially on tough days, by increasing the positive experiences in your day. Listen to your favorite music, take a favored snack with you to work, or wear your favorite color. Gratitude helps me, too, by keeping my focus on what I have rather than what I don’t have or don’t want.

Wishing you all a little extra happiness this week!

Getting Comfortable with Being Uncomfortable

September 12, 2012emilydownward

As I write this week’s blog post, I’m sitting in an airport. I’m freezing, and I’m so cold I’m actually considering putting on all the clothes in my suitcase. I’ve had a job assignment the past couple days that has kept me on my feet for hours at a time. While I wore comfortable shoes, the long amounts of standing triggered the scoliosis in my back, and my lower back and right hip are painful. Sometimes I can ignore it, but the pain is at the point at which it will not be ignored any longer. The scoliosis (curvature of the spine) usually acts up during PMS each month, and oh, yeah, I might be experiencing that fun, too.* I’m tired – having spent a couple nights in a noisy hotel, just down the street from a busy firehouse and across the street from an active, early-starting construction crew – and being sleep deprived never helps anything.

All of this “background” helps explain (at least to me) why I’m having such difficulty writing a decent blog post this week. Usually, writing for the blog comes easy to me, and I find it enjoyable. But today, I’ve gone through three different topics, none of which turned into anything worth sharing, and the last one, which I thought maybe was good enough, disappeared when I unexpectedly and inexplicably lost my Internet connection. (F*&K! Saving ridiculously often now.)

So I realized all of this Uncomfortableness is actually a pretty decent topic. My mentor, Martha Beck, talks about the Cycle of Change in her book Finding Your Own North Star. In it, she describes four squares we go through during any major change in our life. Square 1 is known as “Death and Rebirth,” and this is the stage at which we feel the most confusion (“I don’t know what the hell is going on”) as the way we had defined ourselves has changed, and we haven’t yet figured out who we are without the old role or title. Square 2, “Dreaming & Scheming,” is when we begin to create concepts of a new future, and Square 3, “the Hero’s Saga,” is where we test out those schemes and figure out what really works for us. Square 4 is “the Promised Land,” where things smooth out, but the mantra is “Everything’s changing, and that’s okay” because everything always does change. I love sharing the Cycle of Change with my clients because it provides people with a sense of understanding and community (“Oh, so that’s what’s happening to me! And everyone feels this at some point”) and also a sense of hope (Square 2 and 4 are the most-looked-forward to).

Martha’s been saying lately that with the rapid pace of change in our world, we are pretty much in Square 1 nearly all the time. (So much for my hope idea.) So to survive, to not drive ourselves insane, we have to get more comfortable with being a little uncomfortable. We have to learn to roll with the punches, surf the chaotic waters, and maintain our equilibrium.

How do we do this? By going within. Peace cannot be found outside of ourselves; it must be found within. And when there is peace within, then we can take that peace out into the world.

As I play out the role of airport hobo today and stop fighting the Uncomfortableness, I let myself sink into feeling grumpy, tired and in pain, and I actually find a little relief. I don’t have to be anything more than what I am in this moment, and there’s some peace in that. Struggling against it all, wishing it wasn’t happening or thinking it should be better just prolongs the suffering. Accepting the present moment, just as it is, not trying to MAKE it be better than it is, actually feels better.

Or maybe the ibuprofen I took is finally kicking in. Peace out!

* If you want (or need) a really funny (and accurate) Life Coach’s Guide to PMS, go visit Bridgette Boudreau’s site. Hilarious and some great advice for getting through it!