My dog Ruffus continues to teach me every day. Last evening we heard a short, clear “ruff’ out of him. Ruffus doesn’t bark, I mean to say he barks about once a month. So when we heard a “ruff” from the kitchen we knew it meant something. Someone he didn’t know very well had walked passed his food bowl. Ruffus, a former abandoned beach dog is protective of his food. He has a boundary about it. Being a dog he has no words so he communicates with a “ruff”. Short, clear. concise. He happens to be textbook perfect about setting a boundary.
When we set a boundary we need to be short, clear, and concise. A lot of us are not comfortable setting boundaries, because they were not modeled for us as kids and we haven’t had much practice doing it. That can lead to long drawn out confusing communications about boundaries rather than our equivalent of “ruff”.
Let me give you an example. In my household, I need the kitchen to be clean after anyone uses it. EVERYONE in the house knows this. Why? It is because I say ” the kitchen needs to be cleaned up right after you use it”. I don’t say,” If you don’t mind could you clean it or I am sorry to ask, but could you clean it? or I hate to bother you, I am just picky but could you clean it?,” No, No. No. I say it as Ruffus does with his “ruff”.
Do you have a boundary that you need/want to set? This week, pick one. Keep your communication, short and concise like your own version of “ruff”
Next time we will look at Step 2 of boundary setting. Our actions.
I learn a lot about a lot of things in life from my dog. his name is Ruffus and we rescued each other. he was abandoned on the beach in the Dominican Republic and needed a family and a home and well I didn’t know it but I needed a dog.
At this time of year, lots of folks, including me have high hopes for the New Year. we make resolutions, set goals, and see a better life in the coming year. Whether it is losing weight, getting fit, writing a book, decluttering the house, whatever it is, change is involved. We are either going to start doing something we haven’t been doing or stop doing something we have been doing or both. we are going to change our behavior.
Along the way to changing and getting the lives we want, we are going to run into obstacles. We need to recognize and acknowledge the obstacles in order to continue on our path to change. One of the biggest obstacles that I encounter both in my own life and in the lives of my clients is boundaries. Setting up strong boundaries protects our time, energy, space, and money when others try to step over them. I am thinking of one of my clients who wants to grow her own business but a neighbor would drop in each evening to chat, for hours, and finally bleary eyed my client would head to bed exhausted, frustrated, and no further ahead with her business building.
This is where what I learn from my dog starts to come in. I have observed that he is not a fan of being sniffed in certain ways by some dogs. So when a dog steps over this boundary Ruffus signals, this is not OK. He does it by standing perfectly still and not engaging with the offending sniffer. I’d say 9.5 times out of ten the other dog gets the message and moves on. Ruffus has protected his boundary.
So how do we protect our time, energy, space, and money when others knowingly or unknowingly try to step into our time, energy, space, or money?
Ruffus knows he doesn’t like to be sniffed a certain way. So the first step to protecting your time, space, energy, and money is to know what you want and need. Listen, if you say want to write a book, sit and figure out what gets in your way. Is it being interrupted? Is it doing for others? Be honest with yourself. Is it your phone or Social Media? Just sit and become very clear on what is it that you want and need.
Next time we will look into what boundaries need to be set and how to do it.
Until then,
Coach Susy
PS. Coaching can help with boundaries Here is a link to my Coaching Packages
Up until a couple of years ago, I was very attached to my habit of nightly glasses of wine with my husband. It dawned on me one day that I was asking those glasses of wine to do a lot for me. To entertain, to relax, to unwind to help manage uncomfortable feelings like many, many people in this world.
One day I decided to change my relationship with wine. So the first thing I did was take a four-day break from it. I wanted to get perspective. That break was more than two years ago now. What I committed to is not drinking wine to manage feeling either to celebrate or commiserate and then I just came to not want to have any wine.
I recently traveled to my childhood home. The home that I grew up in with two alcoholic parents, with a huge wine cellar. I was there to help my Mum who is in rehab recovering or maybe not from Congestive heart failure. I noticed that I was feeling overwhelmed with uncomfortable emotions. Grief, loneliness, memories from days gone by and so much more. my brain said, “Hmm, a glass of wine would be nice wouldn’t it”? Sitting on my bed in the bedroom that I shared with my baby sister I was kind of surprised. My next thought was ” We don’t drink wine anymore I know this is hard but we handle icky emotions another way. And I called my daughter and cried and settled into Season 2 of Fireside lane.
The point is our brains offer up all kinds of suggestions. Kind of like when we are clothes shopping. How about this you might say, or what about that skirt, not this shirt. But we get to choose, don’t we? If we get to choose our clothes we sure get to choose which thoughts serve us and which thoughts do not. In my case, I really don’t want to drink wine from a place of numbing. So I get to choose how I will handle the thoughts that suggest it.
This is how the work of change works. it really, really works.
I hope as always this has served anyone who needs to hear this today.
Imagine standing at the start of a Marathon race. It means you are about to take 63,000 steps in order to cover the 26 miles 385 yards over the course of several hours. It is a crazy feeling, let me tell you. Each time I have done it I think to myself, ” What was I thinking?” or “I’ve changed my mind” or other absurd thoughts that don’t help me get the job done. And each time I cross the finish line 63,000 steps later, I am filled with the deepest possible sense of knowing. What do I mean by knowing you may be wondering. Running a marathon teaches me that I can do anything. I just have to take all the steps, one foot in front of the other, the next step, and the next and the next. It teaches me to ignore the thoughts that say “I can’t” and do it anyway and it teaches me to be in the present moment and a whole lot of other things.
I take those lessons with me each and every day. I carry them with me in my heart, my body, and my spirit. They are a part of me. That is what happens when a person is a marathoner.
As I sit here at Gate 12 in the airport, waiting for the plane which will take me to see my Mom, 90 years old, nearly, lying in a bed with Congestive Heart Failure, in diapers and unable to walk, I carry this knowing with me. I know that to make this trip, it is going to require something like 63,000 steps. The travel, the rental car, seeing my mama bear in this condition, navigating the health care system and advocating for her. And navigating sibling and legal matters and money matters is not a trip I want to take but a journey I must make.
I am just so glad that I have this knowing with me. This is some of what I know.
Belief, gives me the knowledge that I can do this. I think believing is critical to success at anything, be it a marathon, or a bereavement trip. or starting a business, starting a fitness plan whatever we take on in life.
2. Identifying the steps needed, otherwise known as a plan. By knowing the steps, we can see where we need to go.
3. Identify obstacles. By knowing what can get in the way, and knowing there will be obstacles, we can prepare for them and bust them up.
4. Support. Getting the support needed. In my first Marathon, my daughters handed me, life savers, literally those little candies with holes in them. During this trip my support team is out in full force, with phone calls and listening and whatever it takes.
4. Take one step at a time. Literally, just keep doing the next thing, the next thing, and the next thing.
5. Stay in the present moment. Fear lives in the future, doesn’t it? Fear tells us ” Oh you can’t finish a marathon, it is too hard”. Sometimes fear shows up as ” not today, tomorrow, I don’t feel well today” Fear doesn’t live in the present moment. Fear is about something that might happen in the future, not in this moment.
Every single one of us has challenges in life. sometimes they are challenges of choice like a marathon or a tough project. Many times they are challenges imposed upon us like illnesses, accidents, or recessions. Whether by choice or not the way through the challenge is one step at a time.
And so, I am not at Gate 12 anymore. I am here with my Mom. I am cheering her on as they pick her up and put her in a wheel chair, I am wheeling her around the facility, we even went shopping in the gift shop. I am brushing her hair. As I tucked her into her bed, pulling the covers up to her chin, I looked own at her with love. ” Think how many times I tucked you in bed” she said smiling. And that is my finish line, that is why I came, to tuck my Mother in bed and maybe just maybe to sing her the Three Little Kittens one more time.
I hope that this is helpful to anyone who needs to hear this today.
I mean Tis the Season to be Jolly and Hohohos. Yet….. If that is true then why do so many of us find the season to be stressful, some of us dare to say “we hate” the holiday season, while others grin and bear it. I mean it appears that for many of us, Tis the season to overspend, overeat, over-drink, and over-stress, almost the Polar Opposite of a Christmas Card Christmas.
So I learned a new word this morning from one of my Life Coaching clients. Clusterfuck. My client used that word to describe her experience of Decembers. Man oh man I said what a word. I mean doesn’t it just describe her feeling of stress, overwhelm, and exhaustion perfectly? As the session went on we found out that she wants her Decembers to be full of joy and harmony. So we set to work uncovering what the obstacles are for her between clusterfuck and harmony.
I love Christmas, actually love it. Everything from the Christmas Parade, to cutting our tree down to, the annual watching of a Christmas Carol. Last year on January 2, I said to my husband I don’t even feel like we had Christmas. No cutting the tree down, no Christmas Carol, no carol sings nothing omicron put an end to all that. So this year I am seeking doing. Doing all the fun things that bring me joy.
So here is the thing if we keep doing the same thing we get the same results. The funny thing is, for a lot of us we keep doing the same thing during the holidays, getting the same results and hoping for the best next year. Sorry to say hope is not a plan.
You know how they always say you need a map to go on a car trip or I guess now you need a GPS? Well, it is kind of like that Creating the Holidays of Your Dreams. You need to know where you want to go, that is to say, what does the holiday of your dreams look like, feel like smell like?
Create Your Dream Holidays
Step 1. Imagine it is January 2 and you are telling your friend about the Holidays of Your Dreams. This is called Precapping. Talking about the future as if it has already occurred. this helps you become more aware of what you want and allows your mind to start working on getting it for you. Is there a word that describes how you want your holidays to be?
Let me give you an example. One of my clients wants to have Christmas and not overspend on her daughter. So she wants to get to January 2 with her budget honored and the daughter happy. That is the holidays of her Dreams
Step 2. So when we go on a car trip we plan routes to get where we want to go, right? We avoid obstacles. Traffic, bridges, icy roads that kind of thing. Same thing with Creating the Holidays of Your Dreams. Plan your route.What do you need to do or not do or how do you need to be to get you where you want to go to Your Holidays of Your Dreams.
My client is going to establish her budget, communicate with the daughter the parameters of gift-giving this year, and ask for a wish list from the daughter. This is how my client is going to achieve her goal of giving a beautiful gift giving to her daughter while honoring her budget.
Step 3 Identify the obstacles. What is going to get in the way of you experiencing the Holidays of Your Dreams.? Write them down.
So my client believes that her daughter has to have all the things on her list. My client believes that her daughter has to receive as much as her friends receive, my client believes that it is her job and in fact, her responsibility to ensure that her daughter has the best Christmas ever. My client believes that this is part of what makes her a good Mom. These are her obstacles
Step 4 The Obstacle Buster! The Magic in Creating Your Holidays of Your dreams. So much of what we think is an obstacle is our thoughts. Just our thoughts. We think our thoughts are facts but they are just thoughts, in fact, we have upwards of 60, 000 thoughts a day, and we don’t notice most of them. When we find ourselves living less than we want to be, we absolutely need to check in with our thoughts because thoughts drive feelings, which drive emotions which drive actions and results. So pick an obstacle that you have to getting the Holidays of your Dreams and complete the first Thought model. It is called the unintentional model. Now complete the Intentional model. this is how we bust up models. Here is what I mean.
Thought models
Circumstance The facts of the situation
Thought The thoughts you have about the situation
Feeling/emotion The feelings you have about the situation
Action(s) The actions you take or don’t take
Results The results
There are two models. The first is called the Unintentional Model. This is the one that we just think without well thinking about it. The second is the Intentional Model, the one that we do the work to get the one that serves us well
Client Example
Circumstance Gifts for Daughter
Thought I have to buy her everything she want for her to have a good Christmas
Feeling Pressure, Stress, Panic
Action Over spends and buys
Result Financial stress and less than a happy holiday
Intentional Model
Circumstance Gifts for Daughter
Thought I am going to choose what I want to give her from her wish list within my budget.
Feeling Excited, Content, and Curious
Action Shops for gifts within budget
Result Client honors budget and Daughter receives gifts
So this is how we Create The Holidays of Your Dreams. To recap. We identify what we want, figure out the route or path to get it, identify the obstacle, and remove the obstacles using the Thought Models.
It is my heartfelt wish that this serves you to Create the Holidays of Your Dreams!
You were born for greatness and you know what greatness is, it is inside of you. My teacher Blair Abbass said these words in the Mindfulness course I am taking. I don’t know if I have ever heard words that ring more true to me. We were born for greatness, we have greatness inside of us. Each and everyone one of us was born for greatness. I let that sink in as he continued to talk.
As a Life Coach each and every day my clients come to me and they no longer believe that they were born for greatness, something has happened to them, the same something that happens to all of us, humans. We are born knowing we are born for greatness, I mean we have no other belief or reason to believe otherwise. We giggle, we smile at all faces, and we play with wondrous delight with our fascinating toes. We know that we are born for greatness!
Along the way in life, we start to hear things about ourselves whether by word, action, or deed and as time goes on our belief in being born for greatness, fades and we start to believe what others think of us. And it goes something like this.
I am thinking of myself, I was born a coach, born to be a coach. It is in every fiber of my being every cell of my body. Yet, when I wanted to study PhysEd and Recreation at University, my parents literally said ” Oh, you are too smart for that, study something real like French or History or Chemistry.” So I did because I didn’t want to be seen and viewed as a dumb jock! I got two degrees in something” real”. One day, when I was on my own with two young girls to raise, this voice inside me said, “go get your degree in PhysEd and Recreation.” The next day I went to School, and the Dean of the School greeted me, and I told him my tale “Welcome home”, he said, “welcome home.” That little voice inside me knew I was born for greatness.
I am thinking of the little boy who sat in school observing everything outside the classroom because he had the great curiosity to know how things work, how leaves blow when the wind rustles through them, how the light lands on the sidewalk, and what noises mean! The little boy did not know the answers to the questions going on in class, and his teachers and parents labeled him as stupid. He believed his teachers and all his life believed he was stupid. One day that little boy found out about The School of Architecture and he just knew that he was born to be an architect. That little boy grew up to be a brilliant architect and partly because he knew how things work. The little voice inside him just knew he was born for greatness.
I am thinking of the little girl who grew up thinking she did not deserve a good life. Her parents were busy and getting a divorce and she thought it was her fault. Each time something good could happen in her life she made sure it didn’t because she believed she didn’t deserve a good life. She is a client of mine. There is a voice inside her that told her to go for a promotion, to write a book, and to follow her passion. So now she has learned to listen to that little voice, and yesterday she received a huge promotion, she knows she was born for greatness.
We are born knowing greatness. We know nothing else. And as time goes on we hear things, lies really, because anything said about us that does not support our greatness is in fact a lie. I am not saying that the lies are necessarily meant to be mean, just that they are untrue if they do not fit our own vision of greatness.
When my client rang to say she was feeling undeserving of her new job Here was my message to her.”You were born for greatness. The greatness is inside you. Now go for it girl. Go for the greatness that is already there.”
And as I sit here writing, I think to myself ” What would the world be like, if we all knew of our own greatness? I wonder if that would create space for everyone to live in their own greatness?”
I am a Life Coach, and a big part of my work is helping clients rediscover that they too are born for greatness.
I am here if you need help finding that greatness!
Warmly,
Coach Susy
A special thanks to my teachers Blair Abbass and to Jenny Kierstead for their love and wisdom.
When I was in the 12th grade, I returned home one Saturday morning in January to find out that my little brother, a pesky 14-year-old had died. He died of autoerotic asphixiation. I know, what is that? It means he hung himself while self-pleasuring, it was supposed to make the sexual climax, be out of this world, instead, it sent him out of this world by hanging himself. And it changed my life and world forever.
It threw my parents into an alcoholic stupor more than ever before and began what would be decades to grieve, find my way, and to come home to myself.
The death of my baby brother might have been the first of the heartbreaking challenges I have faced, but sadly it is not the last. My highschool sweet heart was a violent man and I fled from Domestic Abuse. I spent some years raising my adorable daughters on my own, working and literally scraping money together to provide for them. If I were to continue on the list of hard things, it includes surving a near fatal car accident one which fractured my husband’s neck. Losing our son to brain cancer and learning to live with my husband’s cancer.
In equal measure I have had such great joy. I earned the degree of Phyical Education and Recreation which is what I always watned to do. I met and married the great love of my life! I found a way to buy an Indoor Tennis Club, I had the honour of providing Indoor fun, exercise and joy for a decade. My husband and I fell in love with the Dominican Republic and moved there, as was our dream. We lived by the ocean for ten years until it was time to follow another dream and that was moving to a Skii Hill, where each day we could ski at our favorite hill.And then we came home to our beautiful 1770s home.
I will return back to that school this weekend, for my reunion and I will be coming with bells on, whistles blowing and pom poms shaking. I did it, I want to shout. I found my way out of the darkness over and over again, out of the chaos and abuse. I found my way.
I found my way to a beautiful life, I have created a beautiful life. I did it. I worked hard and continue to work hard facing the challenges that come my way, and finding strength when it appears there is none to be had.
Until yesterday, I thought it was a miracle, my life. And you know what? It is a miracle. I could have stayed stuck in a cycle of addiction like my parents, or I could have not dared to follow my dreams, I could have settled for the darkness and not found the light. What I understood yesterday is that I created this miracle called my life. I did it by believing, by believing in joy and goodness. I did by working really, really hard to make my life be what it is. I work hard to become and to continue to become the best version of me. I created the miracle. And you too can create your own miracle. It just takes Belief and Hard work.
I want to say to anyone in the darkness. Believe. Believe in the light. Believe that you will find your way. And one day your story will be the story that inspires others, just like mine and so many others. One day you will say I did it, I found the light.
Whatever the source of darkness for you. I am here to help.
I am a Life Coach, I help people get their best lives. Whatever that is for them. Coaching gets results quickly. I am often asked to give examples of how coaching helps people and the answer is Life Coaching helps any and all parts of life.
One way that coaching helps is by identifying and unwinding our stories. We all have stories that we tell ourselves. When these stories do not serve us in living our best lives we need to have a look and change the story. What do I mean by stories?
I have two examples for you. When I was little, I got 25 cents a week for allowance which I received in exchange for cleaning the bathrooms. I loved reading Nancy Drew books. At that rate, it took five weeks for me to save up enough money to buy a book. Five weeks is a long time to save for a 10-year-old. My takeaway was that I had to work very hard for very little in life in order to get what I want. My story became just that and so in my adult life with this story of having to work very hard for very little, I did just that. I undercharged, overworked, and got less than I wanted. I worked with a coach and uncovered it as just a story. So I changed my story to a new one. My story now is, I love earning money, I love helping others and I get paid well for what I do and I have the money to Create the Life I Crave.
My other example is from a client. She had an experience as a child in which she desperately wanted a special toy, when she received the toy it coincided with when one of her parents had left home to go to work away from their hometown. So the little girl concluded that it was her fault for wanting the special toy. Her story became that money is bad, and it is best not to want things. This story was not helpful in running a small business, it was hard for her to charge what her products were worth, and put stress on every area of her life.
In my work with my client and with myself, it is a matter of changing the story. My client understood for the first time it is just a story she was telling herself and believing and once that awareness was there for her she could begin to change the story to something more helpful to her, others, and her life. I am very happy to tell you that her revenue greatly increased, her stress reduced and her life greatly improved.
So next time you feel stuck or have that same old same old feeling maybe have a look to see if it is a story you are telling yourself. Coaching can help you rewrite the story and get the life You Crave.
” Madam, you have such lovely, beautiful fine hair,” said the massage therapist, a lady from Germany who speaks like a fraulein. I mean I honestly thought she was talking about someone else, except well I was the only one on the massage table and in the room for that matter.
Little did she know that she had just unlocked a story I had been telling myself all my life about my hair. I got the idea early on that my hair was supposed to look like the Breck Shampoo Commercials and since my hair is fine and straight I concluded I did not have pretty hair. It was a story that I was telling myself that happens to not be true. I do have pretty hair and what is more important is, it is my hair.
And all of this got me thinking about the stories we tell ourselves. I did not realize that I was telling myself a story about my hair. I just thought I didn’t have pretty hair cuz it doesn’t look like the Breck Lady’s hair! So if I am going to believe a story about my hair, why don’t I just decide to believe the German massage lady’s version?
I mean hair is one thing, and it is another thing when we believe stories about ourselves. These stories come from many places. Our families of origin, ads like the Breck Ads, school yards, and so on. The stories are varied and different, but a lot of the time they don’t serve us very well. So we absorb the stories and unless challenged we can tend to live our lives believing them as I did with my hair. Often my clients discover that they are believing stories that they grew up believing, things like not deserving, being a second-class citizen, or not measuring up in some way. In fact, a lot of the work of coaching is uncovering these stories and writing new ones.
What stories do you tell yourself? Do they serve you? What is the story about you that you want to tell?
I would like to share this with you.
The Eagle
There is an old fable about a farmer who discovered an eagle’s nest in his field one day. He placed the egg in his chicken coup where it eventually hatched with a brood of chicks. The only reality the eagle had was his community of chickens, so he grew up clucking and cackling and digging in the soil for worms and insects like all the other chickens.
One day, the eagle noticed several large and glorious birds soaring overhead. He asked his chicken friends,” Who are they?”
The chicken replied, ” Those are eagles, the most magnificent of all birds.”The landbound eagle said dreamily, ” Wouldn’t it be wonderful to fly like that?” The chicken quickly replied, “It’s pointless to dream like that, you and I are farm chickens, and this is where we belong.”
So, the eagle put his dream of soaring high in the sky out of his head and lived out his days as a well-behaved barnyard chicken.
So my question for each of us, is what story are we telling ourselves? What stories will help us to soar like an eagle?
Coaching helps you create and live your best life. Check out my six week program Create What You Crave.
As I write this I am preparing to make a farewell journey. Next week I will travel to my childhood home to say, most likely farewell to my Mother. At nearly 90 years old my Mother has lived a full life, one filled with children and passion and interests and it seems that her time here on earth is drawing to a close. One of my first thoughts as I realized that my Mother is dying was ” But I want more time with her”. More time. More time having my Mother alive and more time to talk to her and just more time.
When my 20-year-old kitty cat died I felt the same way, I wanted more time with the gray fur ball. And with all the people that I have loved and lost it was the same way I just wanted more time. I know someone whose spouse died at 107 when she is 103 and she said the same thing, she just wanted more time. This leads me to believe that maybe no amount of time with those we love on this earth would ever be enough. If that is true which I believe it to be, is there a solution to this question of wanting more time?
My answer is Mindfulness. No doubt you have heard that word, I sure have. I have studied Mindfulness Practice for more than two decades and am Certified In Trauma and Mindfulness but mostly I practice Mindfulness each and every day in every way that I can. Mindfulness really is about being present in each moment. The truth is we only have this moment right now. And yet so much of the time that we want so much more of, is squandered by not living in each moment, do you know what I mean? We spend time ruminating about yesterday and worrying about tomorrow but not living each moment. And then we say we want more time.
I have come to understand that for me this is the way we get more time. We get it by showing up in each moment, all in. When I take my beloved dog Ruffus for a walk I do not go on my phone, I want to walk with him and be present with him. I want to see his cute head and his wiggly bum and his nose sniffing. When I eat, I eat mindfully, I focus on each bite, each taste. each texture. when I talk to people I sit down and look at them and listen. I even practice mindfulness when doing my beauty routine like washing my face, I focus on my face and the way the cool cream feels as I apply it. I also allow myself, the best I can to feel the hard emotions, the ones we want to shove away, like grief and loss, because that is part of being present.
The formal part of my mindfulness practice comes each Morning with a Yoga Nidra Meditation and each Evening with a Yoga Practice, together they form a foundation of mindfulness that allows me to show up as present in my daily life. These formal practices give my brain a chance to settle down, they give my body a chance to move energy and they give my heart a chance to come home to me.
And this is how I get more time. I get it by truly being present with those I love and with each moment of life. And being present is how I will say goodbye to my Mother.
