Picture This...Why Visualization Works

By the time we turn 35 years old, 95% of who we are is a set of memorized behaviors, attitudes, beliefs, perceptions, and preferences.  Yowza.  This means, you and I, as clever as we are, will walk through life unconsciously programmed to behave a certain way every single day. 

That is unless we decide to wake up and choose what it is we really want for our lives.  Something I’ve learned as a therapist and serial self-improvement advocate, is the biggest obstacle in this process isn’t the actual change in behavior, it’s knowing and crystalizing what we want and why. 

When asked, “what do you really want for your life?” do you have a precise, accessible answer?

I’m not talking generalized ideas here.  I’m talking the full play-by-play, detailed description of the day including what you’ll eat for breakfast kind of answer. 

Why bother?  Great question. 

Getting clear on our daily and long-term intentions matters.  Research shows that our brains don’t know the difference between imagination and reality.  Meaning, we can rehearse mental pictures of ourselves achieving a certain goal, receiving an award, having a loving relationship, etc., and the neurons in our brains will fire in the same way they would if these outcomes were taking place in reality.  

As a big-picture thinker, I’m becoming convinced details matter. 

So how do we gain clarity on our own intentions?  One of the best practices around is visualization.  It’s not a woo woo, baseless tactic, either.  It’s supported by substantial scientific evidence and practiced by successful people everywhere from professional athletes, musicians, actors, and thought leaders.  

Visualization is simply a technique for creating a mental image of a future event.  It primes our brain and overall biology to behave in the necessary ways that match our desired outcome.  In the same way practice makes us better, visualization, or mental practice, gets us closer to the goals and desires we hold for ourselves. 

The older I get, the more wakeful I want to be in my own experience.  I don’t want to live out of old programming.  I want to create the most beautiful, vibrant, inspired life possible.  I believe one of the most powerful ways to do this is through preparation and practice.  Visualization provides the perfect platform for which to do both. 

My favorite part about visualization is it’s a powerful tool in making the unconscious conscious.   Remember that 95% statistic earlier? In order to wake up and choose something different, we must get crystal clear on what it is we want to create.

Here are a few other reasons this stuff works:

1)    It jumpstarts your creative subconscious which alerts you to otherwise unforeseen creative ideas needed to achieve your desired outcome.

2)    It programs and provides infrastructure for your brain to identify what it needs in order to achieve this goal.

3)    It creates and sustains motivation over time in order to take consistent action in achieving your desired outcome.

4)    It activates intention and focus which attracts the resources needed in order to complete the goal. 

Rest assured.  Your desires are vitally important, especially as they pertain to finding purpose and creating the life you want.  The science behind visualization encourages me in that half the work involved in creating beautiful change in our lives is indeed, an inside job.  We don’t have to wait for the stars to align in order to start.  Today, it begins, on your watch and the canvas of your imagination. 

Love & Gratitude,

Katie     

3 Tips for Loving Detachment

At the heart of co-dependency, or any addictive behavior, is the need to control.  In fact, co-dependency and control go together like peanut butter and jelly, turkey and dressing, or cake and ice cream.  (Pregnant? Who me??)

Last week we touched on this idea of detachment, or letting go of our need to control people, in order to enhance our relationships. 

At first glance, detachment sounds negative—uncaring.  After all, we talk in circles here on the blog about how vital connection and community are.  Isn’t detachment a slap in the face to such wholehearted pursuits? 

Well, no. Quite the contrary.  Detachment is actually incredibly loving, especially if you’re a recovering co-dependent like me.  I think of loving detachment in relationships as an integral way to set healthy boundaries and remain open to something greater than myself and my control.  To keep things simple, I’ve got three tips for you that may help you deepen your meaningful relationships and let go of the ones that feel chaotic—toxic even. 

1)    Fools Rush In

We’re all guilty of making hasty decisions, especially in relationships.  However, one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned as of late is to let my yes be a hell yes.  In other words, we don’t have to have an immediate answer to another’s question or need right away.  Novel idea, right?  Have you ever found yourself habitually agreeing to take on responsibilities for another out of the goodness of your heart, yet became resentful towards them because you actually didn’t want to do it deep down inside?  Even though we want to blame them for the extra load, that’s on us! 

A good reminder here: give yourself plenty of time to respond to someone’s ask.  There’s no rule requiring us to respond right away.  “Let me think about it,” or “I’ll get back to you on that," are perfectly good options. 

2) Bring me a Higher Love

I love flying, and not just because I love travel.  I actually love the luxurious perspective we gain by getting 30,000 feet up.  Above the traffic, speed limits, and sleepy stretches of driving, we gain generous insight only distance can lend.  You know where you came from and where you’re going.  There’s a skilled pilot in the cockpit doing all the heavy lifting, navigating, and planning.  He’s even going to land that plane.  You’re the traveler. He’s the guide. 

One of the flimsy narratives we buy into when operating in co-dependent behavior in relationships is, “If I don’t intervene, or fix the situation, it will crash and burn.  I might be abandoned, rejected, or both.”  In doing so, we play God.  Detaching in love not only allows our Higher Power to be in control, it creates an opportunity for you and I to practice receptivity as opposed to manipulation.  Essentially, we are only able to truly receive with open hands—not clinched fists. 

3) Fix You 

Compassion doesn’t mean fixing.  In fact, fixing others is fear-based and flimsy. It doesn’t stick.  Instead, loving detachment allows us to see the truth of the situation and live in reality knowing each of us is responsible to and for ourselves.  Sure, we can ask for help with that which becomes too heavy yet trying to fix another person or their problems is essentially taking away their opportunity for personal empowerment and growth.  Some say people don’t change.  I heartily disagree.  I believe people do change, however, not without burning desire.  If I’m trying to fix you, how does your desire ever take flight?  It’s weighted down by my agenda.  Detachment, letting go of the controlling death grip on others, gives our relationships a chance to bleed desire and grow in the petri dish of honesty and reality.

What do you need in order to practice more loving detachment in relationships? Pray tell…

Love & Gratitude,

Katie     

Talk to the Hand: Detaching in Love

Co-dependency.  We’ve all slung that word around a time or two.  Lord knows it gets a really bad rap, too.  Truth be told, I struggle with the word and overall label.  Why?  Because I believe humans, by nature, are needy creatures.  Straight out of the womb, we wouldn’t make it very long without the nourishment and care of parents, guardians, and loving community.  I don’t think this is an accident.  I think it’s a beautiful model for the primal humility baked into our human expression.  It’s the purest version of vulnerability in my mind.  Survival requires connectedness in relationship.

And yet growth, maturity, and adulthood require a measure of responsibility and individuation in order to balance this developmental process, continue parenting ourselves and truly thrive.  This process is based on loving trust built with ourselves and others.

Sounds so easy, right?

In my experience, not so much.  It's a bit more complicated than earning a college degree, reading a flow chart, or getting a driver’s license.  This new-found responsibility of adulting—in essence, freedom—comes with all sorts of complicated emotions.  At the center of them is a deep, loud longing for acceptance—for love. 

Many of us learned early on exactly how to get this need for acceptance met by shape-shifting in order to please others.  If I do or say what makes you feel good, this in turn will give me entrance into that grand room of belonging.  Call it people-pleasing, call it co-dependency, call it whatever you want.  At its core, it’s really just dishonesty and manipulation.

I suppose here’s where I draw the line: we all have the God-given birthright to have needs and wants and get them met by asking for help.  When I feel lonely, I need to reach out and connect with safe people.  Again, being needy is a human thing not a weak thing.  However, when our internal well-being and sense of belonging is propped up by external circumstances, especially the agenda or approval of others, that line gets blurred real fast. 

When I’m feeling insecure, I tend to slip into this brand of co-dependency.  For example, I’ll do unnecessary damage control after having a difficult conversation or interaction with a friend.  Or there’s the classic over-explaining after I’ve set a healthy boundary for myself in order to soften the blow to someone else or bypass any possible friction.    

We tend to mistake this controlling behavior for care and kindness.  No dice.  Why?  Because it’s based in fear and scarcity.  Worrying, manipulating, and controlling behavior only hijacks another’s process, and in doing so, steals their opportunity for emotional exploration and growth.  Not only that, we basically assume a "God" role.  We buy into thinking, "It's all up to me to move the needle forward."  Last time I checked, God doesn’t need my expertise, no matter how well-intentioned. 

As we grow in self-awareness and compassion, letting go and detaching in love is crucial.  Though it seems counterintuitive and heartless, detachment is a deeply loving practice.   

How do we practice this?  What does that look like?  Yes, it’s coming.  

Stay tuned for next week’s installment.  We’re going to practically explore healthy detachment step by step.   

(See what I did there? 😉)

Love & Gratitude,

Katie     

More Than a Number

I first learned of the Enneagram in 2006. My boss at the time kept talking in numbers and I felt incredibly curious if not left out of some grand, who’s who party. She was convinced I was a two. What does that even mean? What’s a two? And why not a seven? Even numbers are boring! (Or so I thought.)

Whereas I had great respect and trust for this woman, deep down, I simply couldn’t
stomach the idea that I could be reduced to a number. This felt far too pedestrian,
or boxy for the likes of me. I didn’t know it then, but I soon learned, this was the first clue I was not in fact a two, but a four, the Romantic.

I left work that day and ordered the only book I knew on the subject, The Enneagram: A Christian Perspective, by Richard Rohr and Andreas Ebert. I devoured it like a marathon runner carb-loading before race day. It became something of a Bible and an oxygen tank for me.

I won’t lie. For the first couple of years, I was “that girl” who’d try to type you in the Starbucks line. I’m pretty sure my friends and family were ready to issue a restraining order if I mentioned those damn numbers one more time. For this dogmatic behavior, I do apologize.

Here’s the thing though. We are all zealots in love during the honeymoon phase. All we want to do is talk about this flawless person (or system in my case) that can do no wrong and smells amazing. However, I believe true love far outlasts the honeymoon phase, deepening and morphing into what comes to feel like home.

Fast forward 13 years. I’m still in love with the Enneagram. As a wife, mom-to-be, psychotherapist, writer, teacher, and dreamer, I can honestly say it’s the baseline I come back to for grounding and refreshment amidst a world spinning on its head. It reminds me who I really am before I put on all those other hats. It continuously, graciously, calls me home to the truth of who I am.

Here’s the catch though: If we stay fixated on the optics of our type—all those behavioral characteristics that name and explain us—and fail to apply it’s practical wisdom to our daily experience and relationships, we miss out on the transformational aspects of the Enneagram. It’s like saying “Sure, I’ve been to Paris!” When you’ve really only had a four-hour layover at Charles de Gaulle en route to Frankfurt. Sure, you saw the Eiffel Tower from your window seat coming in and scarfed down a day-old croissant at the gate, but you never truly got to savor the magic of the city. What a tease!

Are you looking to deepen your understanding of the Enneagram? Perhaps you know your type and want to put this new-found knowledge into practice. Good news, my friend, you’re in the right place.

This fall, I’m inviting you into some exciting experiences to do just that. In the meantime, I’d love to hear where you are on your Enneagram journey. Please feel free to hit reply to this email and share!


Love & Gratitude,

Katie

Great Expectations (or not)

Here we are.

This is not a throw away sentence. It’s perhaps the most profound reminder we’ve got.

We will never ever experience the present moment ever again. It’s gone in a heartbeat and yet is the only sure thing we ever really touch—presence, being, the here and now.

If you’re like me, presence becomes harder and harder to fully grasp in seasons of waiting and anticipation. At nearly eight months pregnant, I’m struggling to stay in the moment and soak up these final days of life as a non-parent (read: sleep).

I’ve always felt summer can be a bit like the Holidays as it kicks up a whole host of unique demands and expectations, leaving me often anxious if not resentful. It’s tempting to compare my life to others I see magically splattered all over social media cavorting around far away places by fake looking bodies of water with glamorous wardrobes to boot. Hell, I haven’t even gotten in a pool all year long and feel more like a weary beached whale than an energetic summer explorer.

Where do these expectations even come from? My hunch is, they come from the stories we make up in our heads. Ah, those glorious narratives of certainty, guarantees, entitlement, essentially—suffering.

Last week we unpacked this idea that pain is inevitable while suffering is optional.

Why? Because suffering is the story we make up about our pain. “I should have a better job that lets me travel more.” “I should have a partner that enjoys doing the same things I do.” “I shouldn’t have to work so hard. After all, it’s summer and I deserve to relax and enjoy my time.”

Whereas these may be true, I don’t know how much progress we make changing our reality by playing the victim. In fact, there are no guarantees in this life. That said, keeping unrealistic expectations flush in our back pocket is a fast way to prevent abundance in our everyday experience.

As an Enneagram type four, I often struggle with this pervasive longing for what’s missing in the moment. For example, “Ah, the sunset is beautiful, but I wish it were a bit cooler so I could really enjoy it more.” I know. Gross.

This dangerous habit creates a crusty resentment which in turn drives away joy.

Because the struggle is so real for me, I created a little Expectation Inventory to keep me in check a few years back. I’ve come to wholeheartedly believe the pivotal moment in every unrealistic expectation is simple: gratitude. It tethers us in the here and now. It gently leads us back home to presence. Gratitude changes everything in an instant.

Today, I’m sharing my inventory with you. Keep it close and use like guard rails when you start to slip into resentment. Maybe, like me, they will keep you on track and reminded of what you do have as opposed to what you lack.

Expectation Inventory:

1. How do I feel right now?

2. What unrealistic expectations am I feeding into?

3. What is the payoff for having these expectations of myself or others?

4. What would it feel like if I were able to let go of these?

5. What do I need in order to let these expectations go?

6. What am I grateful for?

Enjoy…truly!

Love & Gratitude,
Katie