In Case You’re Wondering What to do Next

When everything around me seems swirling and chaotic, I always return to the basics: what I know to be true.

I remember as a kid, when I’d get super discouraged, dramatic, or disappointed, my sweet Dad would take me on a date (which normally revolved around food, ice cream, and the like), and remind me of who I was. Not in a pep-talky kind of way—more of a recalibrating kind of way. My highly sensitive self would get lost in the clouds of great expectations and that harsh inner critic, and what I needed more than anything was to feel my feet on the ground.

My Dad knew that. Perhaps someone had done that for him somewhere along the way.

While I was clueless/terrified as to how to respond to my cancer diagnosis four years ago (this month) and the mash-up of emotions sheltering inside me as a result, I kept coming back to this: when in doubt, do the next best thing. Okay, okay, so I got a little inspiration from Anna in Frozen 2. I guess it’s proof that the kid inside you and me is, indeed, a truth-teller.

Though we may not be able to control our circumstances or the world spinning out around us, we can take responsibility for how we respond and choose to grow forward. In doing so, we directly impact our sphere of influence, big or small. By becoming better humans, we build a better world. By taking care of you, you create a greater opportunity for impact as you engage your family, friends, co-workers, and tribe.

I believe the first step to becoming better humans is to wake up to what’s happening inside. To develop greater self-awareness and self-knowledge. There’s a difference, after all! Self-awareness is being conscious of how you feel, think, and act. Self-knowledge takes it a step further and unpacks the “why” behind that awareness.

The Enneagram gives us nine (or 27, if you factor in subtypes) lanes that map out how we get lost in our ego, or false self. It carves out the self-knowledge as well, providing us with the “why” behind our often exhausting pursuits.

Painful experiences in life wake us up from life’s unconscious slumber. They invite us to quit pressing the snooze button and start living in wakeful presence. It’s an opportunity to change the world around us by doing the next best thing—whether that is reaching out to a friend in need, speaking kindly to yourself, donating to a worthy cause, responding instead of reacting out of fiery emotion, practicing self-care, or hugging your child a little longer at bedtime.

It’s about revisiting the classics we may have skimmed through in human school.

Let’s get back to the truth of what we know, my friend. By taking care of you, you’re focusing on what you can control. When we build on a firm foundation, we can create a beautiful, soulful tomorrow.

Love & Gratitude,

Katie

P.S. Need a guide and a roadmap? Join The Practice, my online Enneagram group coaching program!

People Pleasers Anonymous

Are you a people pleaser?  

I know I am.  But I’m working on it. 

And you know what?  I think this whole topic of being one gets a bad wrap.  We beat ourselves up for trying to shape-shift and accommodate, yet oftentimes, we never really had the chance to choose something different.  

It’s rewarded culturally, relationally, and emotionally as the pay off is so  BIG.  We get to be liked.  That’s a huge hit of dopamine to the system right there.  

So why wouldn’t you be one? 

Being a people pleaser is a learned skill, really.  It can be baked into our personality type as well, so the skill forms unconsciously by learning what behaviors are praised by others around us growing up.  

Some personality types have more of this tendency than others.  For example, 2’s, 3’s, and 4’s are close to, if not at, the top as the heart types tend to be the most image conscious on the Enneagram.  They depend on the opinion of others to give them information about how to be in the world.  So they have to work a bit harder in order to balance out this tendency.  

I believe any personality type can struggle with pleasing people to some degree, though.  Beyond a type, we are humans and humans are in the big business of survival.  I like how Lynda Roberts explains the ego.  She says, “The ego is our survival strategy for planet earth.”  Simply put, our ego helps us survive in a scary world.  

If something has worked for you for a long time, it’s tough to suddenly shift gears.  That positive feedback becomes so ingrained, it’s almost undetectable.  

So what do we do?

I love what an old therapist of mine used to say,  “People pleasing is really just lying.”

Ouch!

I’d never really thought of it that way before, but it makes sense.   After reading Martha Beck’s latest book, The Way of Integrity, (which I HIGHLY recommend), I became so aware of how unhappy we are in life when we are not in integrity with our truth.  Essentially, when we aren’t telling the truth, we suffer.  

So, as I’ve started to become aware of my own subtle tendency to people-please, I now see it as not telling the truth, and as a result, damaging my life and the person I’m lying to in the name of being sweet.  

I’ve become more comfortable with saying “no” as a complete sentence as well as using responses such as, “I don’t know,” and “Let me think about  that,” or “That doesn’t feel true for me.”  

If you’re a people pleaser, I challenge you to adopt these small movements, because over time, I believe they get us closer to where we ultimately want to be…home to the truth of who we are.

The Art of Unbecoming

What if the real way of personal transformation is more about subtraction than addition?  

What if,  instead of white-knuckling our way through life, straining to gain more and more self-worth, meaning, and fulfillment, we could find a release in letting go?

When we use the Enneagram for deepening self-awareness and understanding, part of the special sauce includes unlearning—unbecoming the conditioned self or ego.   

Sounds a bit wacky, right?  I know...but doesn’t it also bring a bit of relief?   

Part of the reason we get stuck in the first place is by living out of old, broken narratives that don’t fit and aren’t true for us anymore.  Sure, they may have made sense to us early on in life when we were trying to navigate how to show up and be accepted in this world.   Yet, as we mature and become adults, life becomes more complex—more nuanced.  

The black and white stories of our youth won’t suffice in a world full of grey.  

Consider this, the Greek word for “personality” is persona, meaning “mask.”  Isn’t that interesting?  This helps me understand just how much we wear our masks of personality in order to protect our true identity, or the more vulnerable parts of ourselves we aren’t too sure about.  

I mean, what if I were to truly be seen for who I am?  I could be rejected, found out, for the fraud I really am?  

As an Enneagram four, I’ve had that thought more times than I care to count.  

The great news is our Enneagram type actually helps us identify the personality story we’ve been living out of for better or for worse.  By learning and understanding what that is, we bring more self-awareness into our moment by moment experience, allowing us to slow down our process and respond to life’s curve balls rather than reacting to them.  

As we slow that process down, we can choose something novel, something different—and better.  We can un-become the limiting parts of our stories that were written a long time ago and desperately need editing by our adult selves.  

What parts of your personality story keep you stuck?  What areas in your life do you long to unlearn—to release?  

Simply start there.  And ask yourself,  “What would my life look like right now if I didn’t believe this story?” 

Want to dig a bit further?  I’d love to be your guide….

Tiny Changes, Big Results

You’ve heard the saying, “Rome wasn’t built in a day.”

So why have these crazy unrealistic expectations of ourselves?

I have thoughts on this.

For most people, extremes are easier than balance. Unless we’ve arrived in the vibrant land of Growth Mindset, we tend to get stuck in the purgatory of all or nothing.

Black and white, dualistic belief systems keep us stuck in the rigidity of a fixed mindset.

Here’s an example most of us can relate to. You’ve indulged in way too much of Jeni’s Salted Caramel ice cream. I mean holy dairy that stuff is like crack. You’re feeling the sugar coma set in along with a delayed wave of shame and a stomach ache.

So you beat yourself up and swear you won’t touch it again for the foreseeable future. In fact, you’ve been flirting with the idea of going Keto so this is your shining opportunity.

Sound familiar? Or am I the only one who loses all self-control in the face of temptation?

That type of all-or-nothing behavior is baked into our DNA as humans. Opening up to a growth, or responsive mindset rather than a reactionary one typically must be learned.

And yet when do we actually learn this mature approach to self-development? It’s something that has been a powerful exploration in my life as I’m a total perfectionist in recovery.

A growth mindset is all about both/and.

A fixed mindset is all about either/or.

A growth mindset says, "I ate too much ice cream, I’ll choose something healthy for dinner.”

A fixed mindset says, “I ate too much ice cream. I’m going to go run six miles to burn it off.”

One feels kinder, more spacious…and more balanced. Unless you really just love running 6 miles with a belly ache.

A growth mindset also is built on the firm foundation of consistent, small changes over time. It allows for doable goal setting and implementation rather than extreme makeovers in less than a week. Why? Because that kind of hustle can’t ultimately be sustained. It will likely throw us back into a yo-yo approach to relationship with self and others.

Just like when you board a plane to LA, if the pilot is just two degrees off in navigation, you’ll likely end up in Seattle. Tiny shifts, over time, create big results.

What are some desired outcomes you’d like to see in your life right now? Give yourself plenty of time to get there and break it down into bite-size changes that will help you get there.

As always, I’m here for you if you need a little extra support on the journey.

Practice: Your Ritual for Transformation

I remember watching the Grammy’s on TV one year.  Gosh, it must have been over a decade ago. I’d always had this magical view of artists who’d “made it” and somehow found themselves on stage at the Staples Center performing at music’s biggest night.  That year, for whatever reason, this delusional veil lifted as I realized these superstars weren’t born overnight—they worked their asses off to get there.  

I think it was an interview I read with John Mayer, who won Best Pop Vocal Album for Continuum that year.  He described basically locking himself up with his guitar for an entire year in order to master the instrument and craft that gave him entry into such grand rooms throughout his impressive career.  

His charge to aspiring musicians was simple: practice and then practice some more. Become so good they can’t ignore you.

With these trying times, responsibilities seem endless, and taking care of yourself may seem like a thing of the past. But incorporating a ritual of daily practices to calm anxiety and build healthy coping skills is preventative care we can’t afford to ignore.

As a follow up to last week’s blog post, So You Think You Should Talk to Someone? Let's Find the Right Therapist, I want to explore the power of ritual, or practice, as a way to tangibly see the desired outcomes you’ve dreamed of for a while now.  

Just like physical fitness, creative mastery, financial success, and other goals you’ve set your sight on, emotionally thriving takes practice.  We don’t show up to the gym twice a month and expect to see dramatic results.  There are several variables to consider: diet, metabolism, sleep, hydration, mindset, and most of all, consistency.  

So why do we expect to show up to therapy a couple times a month and see transformation take place?  Not to be a buzz kill, but we simply won’t.  If we want results, sure, talking about what’s not working is a good place to start.  Yet we must also start practicing a new way of living in order to experience a new way of being.  

Again, the operative word here being “practice.”  

I like to use the word ritual because it’s prettier and has this spiritual sheen to it.  In many spiritual traditions, rituals are used to create order and accentuate the sacred nature of that which is worshiped.  

Not to get too woo woo, but we are in fact soulful creatures with unique callings to inhabit while here on the planet.  That said, I believe we must treat each day as sacred, intentionally creating structure and reminders around the things that help us thrive.  

The first step in personal transformation is simple: wake up!  We must consciously show up each day in our lives and challenge the sleepy trance of forgetfulness.  After all, we make really bad decisions when we forget the truth of who we are.   

I want to support you as you create rituals in your daily experience that will help you unearth your deepest desires.  However first, you must know where you’re going. 

I’ll leave you with this simple question as a navigation tool: what do you want?  

That’s your ticket, my friend.  The answer to this question determines where you spend your precious time and energy.  It also gives you a prescription for what and how to practice.

So go dream—big and wild.  Give your fear a well-deserved day off.  You can have her back tomorrow.  For now though, sky’s the limit.

Love & Gratitude,

Katie