Let's Finish Strong

Last week, a dear friend said something so profound in conversation. I’ve been marinating in it since. She said, “I’m struggling to find my now. I’m either stuck in the past or out somewhere in the future. I desperately want to find my now.”

Can you relate to this? I sure can—especially in this eleventh hour of 2019. It’s tempting to camp out in what “could have been”: more productivity, success, health, passion, what have you. This temptation is then compounded by the seductive tendency to run tactics on a fresh new start right around the proverbial bend.

You know the drill. The diet and exercise folks join forces and broker a zillion dollar deal every fourth quarter counting on you and I to wake up January 1 after sipping on the stiff and steady cocktail of two parts bloated, one part foggy, and a heavy shake of shame. We buy in to the ultimate extreme makeover our resolution(s) of choice promises only to throw in the towel a week later hangry, and with the selfless support of your dearest pint: Ben & Jerry, or Stella Artois.

It’s so predictable, right?

I believe it’s high-time we outgrow this brand of insanity. Thankfully, there is another way. Conscious living invites us into self-awareness. If we accept this invitation, we immediately enter a room full of freedom—and responsibility.

Viktor Frankl, Austrian psychiatrist, Logotherapy creator, and Holocaust survivor, said it best, “Between the stimulus and the response, there is a space. In that space, there lies your freedom and power.”

These Holiday months present us with a vital passageway—a sacred space. Incidentally, it’s one of the tightest spaces in which to remain present and self-aware. If we consciously choose presence (that powerful space of the here and now), as opposed to the sugar-laced trance of consumerism, I believe we will finish strong.

“Buzz-kill much?” you ask.

Fair enough. However, I wholeheartedly believe our most powerful, abundant lives are built with consistency, brick by brick, and experienced moment to moment. Why? Because if I am present in each moment, I hold the keys to reality and connection. By this I mean, I live in wakeful presence and respond truthfully to my desires, needs, and those of others. I also forgo the trap of extreme, reactionary living.

Speaking of the needs of others, the Holiday season is often one of deep pain and loneliness in the hearts of many. I’ve known this pain well. Yet at the same time, there is this massive expectation to shine up the shell of appearance and ignore the voice of pain that hums a haunting cry for help.

When you and I narc-out in an unconscious trance, we are unavailable to those needs all around us. Likewise, we silence our own. Needs such as connection, compassion, and rest get overrun by the loud liturgy of commerce and consumption.

These next several weeks, give yourself and others this gift of presence. Enjoy the heck out of them, consciously choosing to come back to the moment, no matter how often the drone of chaos calls. Each time you make this choice, you step into your freedom...your power. Don’t bother eliminating the noise. That’s an isolating crap-shoot. Simply cultivate an inner peace amidst the noise as you loosen the grip of control and soften the lens of extremes.

Finishing strong looks more like staying soft than hustling hard.

Stay tuned next week on the blog for some practical tools to support you in this generous pursuit.

Love & Gratitude,

Katie

P.S. If you haven't signed up for my monthly EnneaGroup, it's not too late. To sign up for next week's in-person group or for the remote option starting later this month, click here.

Why Meditation Matters...and you should be doing it

Meditation is a game-changer.  There are volumes of scientific research boasting all the reasons.  I’m sure they are quite thorough and convincing, too. 

However, today, I want to share from my heart and experience how meditation has and continues to change my life for the better.

This post is for all you fellow perfectionists, control freaks, planners, cardio-lovers, results-oriented, make-it-happen folks who feel 20 minutes of meditation sounds like a large helping of time-suck. 

Oh, I know you…

About five years ago, I began noticing an overarching intense physical discomfort out of nowhere (or so I thought.) My throat and jaw locked up.  My mid-back twisted in a knot.  It became difficult to sing and speak, even in sessions with clients.  Sleep became a distant wish. 

As a health-conscious, avid exerciser who’d done her fair share of work in therapy throughout the years, I felt discouraged—and powerless. 

After seeking out every alternative healing modality I could find, I noticed a subtle common theme emerge from acupuncturist, chiropractor, voice coach, energy healer, and therapist alike.  Quite simply, their sage voices all harmonized in a singular chord.  It was in the key of: RELAX.

I wasn’t depressed or anything.  In fact, I was quite content.  Yet I’d been running so hard on a treadmill of survival mode that had become my norm.  My body, brain, and emotions formed a strike, actively rebelling against the grueling pace I’d had them on for decades. 

Meditation has been my vehicle into this new world of rest, yet interestingly enough, it has also opened up my life in a new way, allowing for increased willingness and opportunities.  Funny how that works. 

Here are the three big reasons I think we should all be meditating:

1)     We build more self-awareness and self-acceptance.   Self-awareness is the biggest indicator of success in life, relationships, and work.  However, we’re so busy (and often stressed) we don’t carve out the time to practice the stillness required to grow that necessary muscle of self-awareness.   In my experience, I’d over-developed the muscle of self-criticism and judgment instead.  Practicing meditation or other mindfulness exercises allows space to unlearn that harsh inner critic and grow the safe, neutral observer needed to bake in healthy self-awareness, compassion, and positive sustained change.

2)    We release tension and toxins in our bodies that create long-term negative health effects. It was a lightbulb moment the day I made the connection between disease in our minds and bodies with literal “dis-ease” and tension we hold tightly within.  This stress, or contraction, will eventually exacerbate, causing much bigger health concerns down the road unless we learn how to release it.  Practicing meditation trains our bodies and minds to slow down and release that arthritic grip we unconsciously develop over time.  Added bonuses include better sleep, mood, energy, and creativity that crop up as a result. 

3)    We begin to connect to our essence, or true self, as we become aware of unconscious habits.  As we move from the false self (ego) to the true self (essence), we experience deep spiritual transformation.  It’s letting go of fear in order to embrace openness to something greater than ourselves.  We simply can’t do that if we are living out of our blind spots on autopilot.  Over time, as we commit to a meditation practice, a natural byproduct becomes this relaxation of old programming and an exploration of the love and curiosity that’s been there from day one.  We were born loving, open beings.  We learned fear to help us survive.  Yet, lasting positive change is rarely built on fear.  We must create the precious space in our days to excavate that little person inside that desperately longs to be seen and known.  She’s honest and wise beyond her years, too.  Some people swear practicing meditation over time slows down aging.  I can’t speak to that; however, I do believe connecting to the most loving and true parts of us inevitably lends a softer lens to whatever we may be facing in life.  In this sense, we do recover that childlike part of us that sees more beauty in everything. 

 This fall, I can’t wait to embark on an 8-week meditation journey with you!  Stay tuned for more on that and a deeper dive into the life-giving world of mindfulness. 

Love & Gratitude,

Katie

Restoration Hardware: Thoughts on Healing from a Sleepy Mom

How do you recover from painful experiences or seasons of struggle?  Do you get lost in the hustle of “doing?” Do you get anxious and overwhelmed by the narrow path forward? Do you ever feel like the setback you now face will wreak havoc on the long game of your life and you’ll never be able to make up for lost time? 

I do.  One hundred percent.

Writing and exercise have been the two most important tools in my tool belt throughout my journey of recovery.  They’ve been my pocket of hope and sanity to snugly retreat to when life feels out of control. 

Today, at exactly five weeks postpartum, they seem like a far off luxury.  My whole world turned upside down in the most delightful way with the birth of my son, and yet, I’m not sure who feels more like the infant, he or I.  My existence has been boiled down to the primal steps, breaths, and sleeps of a new creature in a distant land. My identity—undoubtedly shifted from therapist-writer-coach to Executive Milk Factory Manager. 

I am cranking out words on my laptop for the first time in over a month while the house is somewhat quiet—during his piecemealed nap—hoping they make a teaspoon of sense. 

All of my go-to coping strategies and self-care rituals have temporarily vacated the building, just like the 12 pacifiers I seemed to misplace in the last week. 

In fact, alone time is more valuable than a clever blog post, so we’ll keep this short. 

In my lucid, highly-caffeinated moments, I’m struck with two opposing words: restoration & disease.  

Call me dense, but I’ve never stopped to entertain the roots of those words.  “Rest” for restoration and “dis-ease” for disease.  

In order to experience true restoration, we must soften into rest. I’m not talking about lying down for 15 minutes checking emails and making to-do lists for the afternoon.  I’m talking the deep, agenda-less, squishy kind.  For all you type A personality people out there, this might sound like a living hell. I get it.

Yet, if we swing over to this opposing word: “disease,” we find a rather scary predicament.  The lack of ease and rest in our bodies will actually create sickness if we don’t open windows of rest for our weary bones. 

I’ve been guilty of striving my way through self-care and recovery.  The temporary high of this activating energy feels good but doesn’t do the deep work that only true rest creates long term. 

I’m learning to let go of the normal demands I put on myself in these young days of motherhood: the cleaning, planning, working, creating, and doing (even good doing) are on the back burner.  The holy spaces of rest and odd stretches of sleep—my healing balm during this transition time—are everything.  

In the long run, learning how to rest well, moment to moment, combats disease in our lives, both physically and emotionally. 

Perhaps the first step is to reframe how we think of rest. It’s not lazy, a waste of time, or selfish. It's at the heart of wholehearted living. It's what allows us to approach each day from a place of worthiness.

Food for thought: what does deep, healing rest look like for you right now? 

(Spoiler alert: it doesn’t have to be napping!  Although it’s 9am and I’m already jonesing for one.)

Alright, my short window of productivity is over…I hear a tiny human crying in the next room.

Until next week, rest well my Dear Friend…

Love & Gratitude,

Katie

So You Think You're a Writer? (I couldn't agree more)

You are creative.

I’ll take that one step further and deem you a writer…if you want to be, that is. Sure, some of us live out of that space more than others, but we’re all born with this glorious capacity to make up stories. It’s what sets us apart from animals.

Creativity, namely writing, has been a huge part of my healing journey along the way. It’s helped me step into my truest self, slowly chipping away bits of the imposter that tends to hold me back from wholehearted living.

I stole that phrase, “wholehearted living,” from Brené Brown. She defines it this way:

“Wholehearted living is about engaging in our lives from a place of worthiness. It means cultivating the courage, compassion, and connection to wake up in the morning and think, no matter what gets done and how much is left undone, I am enough. It’s going to bed at night thinking, Yes, I am imperfect and vulnerable and sometimes afraid but that doesn’t change the truth that I am worthy of love and belonging.” (p. 10, Daring Greatly).

Technicalities aside, let’s look at this invitation to live from a place of worthiness and how it ties into your destiny as a writer. (Yes, I just dropped the “d” word”).

If we are called to live beyond fear—beyond scarcity—and truly thrive, guess what? We’ve got to get creative! We get to wake up to our desires and intentionally cultivate them each day out of a place of worthiness and courage. How do we do this? I believe we do this through writing.

There is a mysterious and powerful exchange—a contract if you will—that happens between having a desire or thought and writing it down on paper that is inexplicable, yet necessary. By writing down your desires and all that surrounds them, you send a message to the universe that you are, indeed, awake and paying attention. Perhaps you are even ready to receive.

Don’t worry, there’s no pressure to get published or share it with another eyeball. This is about you and your process…not a hunt for approval.

In fact, go ahead and forget about any preconceived notions you have about being a writer. Moody, quirky, good at grammar, hangs out with deep thinkers who wear black all day at coffee shops, drinks more whiskey than Hemingway, is unstable, and makes very little money but doesn’t care.

Hogwash.

Instead, qualify the writing process two ways: imperfect and vulnerable.

Courage requires both.

Living your life fully alive does too.

I believe we actually must write. Why? Because our life and deep joy depend on it. You and I have the agency to change and write a new story about who we are and what the world is all about. We don’t have to stay in victimhood. We are called to write a new chapter constantly. This, my dear friend, is very good news.

Need a stronger nudge? Check out The War of Art, by Steven Pressfield. It’s the Holy Grail of all the books I’ve read on the creative process. I discovered this book on a visit to NYC back in 2005. Despite being a slow reader and met by all the zippy distractions of the city, I managed to devour the bulk of this book on a park bench somewhere in the West Village one highly-caffeinated afternoon. Thank me later…

Okay, I’ll leave you with a journaling prompt:

If failure was not an option, one thing I’d love to do is .


Love & Gratitude,

Katie

P.S. Stay tuned for a very special Writing, Enneagram, and Yoga event coming in Feb. 2020! Details on that dropping any day now.

How to (really) know your Enneagram type

Do you go back and forth between Enneagram types?  Perhaps you’ve taken a few online tests and they’ve given you different results.   The first one pegged you a seven.  But it was neck and neck with type two.  You waited a couple months and took another one only to learn you’re now a nine?  Wha?  You’re confused and little pissed off because you had to pay for that last version. 

HELP!?

First off, don’t be discouraged! This is totally normal and you’re not alone! 

The human personality is not static.  It’s constantly vacillating between healthy, average, and unhealthy levels (hopefully not too unhealthy the more self-aware we are!) throughout our days, weeks, and months.

Online assessments can’t measure how tired, stressed, or emotionally aware you are.  They also can’t determine mood or how many cups of coffee (or glasses of wine) you’ve downed before taking them. 

Sure, they’re a helpful jumping off point.  (Some more than others!)  Yet fully knowing and Understanding your Enneagram type requires a bit more digging.  In fact, I believe it’s part of its effectiveness. 

There are dozens of personality tests out there:  MBTI, StrengthsFinder, DISC, to name a few.  I love them all, too!  However, the Enneagram is unique in that it goes deeper than surface, personality-driven behavior.  Sure, that’s part of it, but the Enneagram also helps us understand the “why,” or story, behind our thoughts, feelings, and resulting behaviors.   

Online tests simply can’t explain the sacred nuance of your story. 

However, doing the deeper self-study required to fully know your Enneagram type can. 

After all, we make choices, big and small, based on the story we’re living out of.  If we’re suffering, we must change more than surface tactics or behaviors.   In order to heal and transform, we’ve got to get to the root of the problem—we’ve got to understand our story. 

Self-discovery is a winding journey, not a mere moment in time.  It’s about deepening knowledge and understanding.  In fact, it’s really about self-befriending. 

If you’re on the fence about your type, good!  I believe it’s an invitation (and excuse) to deepen this beautiful self-friendship you’ve already started.  

So how?

You’re already further along than you think!

I’ve got a helpful next step for you.  Scheduling a typing interview is incredibly helpful in fully unpacking your story and discovering your type. It’s some of my favorite work to do with clients. Basically, it’s a detailed inquiry process steeped in the Narrative Enneagram tradition that provides your top 2-3 probable types.  This allows some direction and margin for clients to then read up on those possibilities and live with them a bit before making a hard decision.  

We do this in a creative, collaborative way with clear next steps mapped out.   Best part? It’s really fun!  

Spoiler alert: you are not a pure type.  No one is!  You lead with a primary type, yet you have a bit of all nine in you.  We are complex and glorious creatures, remember?  The Enneagram has the dynamic infrastructure to meet and guide this complexity into greater understanding and opportunity.

I’m convinced your story is far too stunning to be put in a box.  Perhaps it’s time to take it out?

Curious about an Enneagram typing interview?   Sweet! Let’s talk. 

Love & Gratitude,

Katie