When we think of fitness and wellbeing, many, if not all of us think of taking care of our bodies, right? What we eat, drink, and how much we move our bodies. We go to gyms, count calories, and drink water to stay hydrated, we pay attention to our bodies and strive to be fit.
On the whole we don’t pay as much attention to our brains, our minds our thoughts.
So much of what makes us be us, is our thoughts. They say we have upwards of 60,000 thoughts a day! That is a lot of thoughts. Most of them come and go like waves breaking on the shore, hardly noticed. However, some thoughts keep us stuck, in places we don’t want to be, they old us back. Some thoughts inspire us to achieve great things, to be happy, to Start Living the lives we want to have.
Thoughts are just thoughts. They are not facts. We tend to believe our thoughts and think they are facts.
Last week, I was scared to try a new fitness place My thought was ” I am too old”. It felt like that thought was a fact. If I had believed that thought, I would not have gone. As a coach, I recognized that my thought was not serving me, so I changed my thought to” I will go and try it out”! I went and had a ball and joined. It is because I believed my thought, that it “was Ok to go and try”. If I had believed my thought that I was too old I would not have gone.
So Thought Fitness is about watching what we think, changing thoughts that don’t serve our best interests. The thing is, even though it is easy, lots of us don’t do it. Here are three tips to get you started.
Tip # 1
Notice yor thoughts. What is your thought saying?
Tip #2
Is your thought serving you?
Tip # 3
Change your thought.
So in my example of wanting to go to Orange Theory. I wanted to go to Orange Theory. I noticed my thought. ” I am too old”, I checked to see if my thought was serving my desire to go to Orange Theory, it was not. So I changed my thought to ” I will go and try”. This thought served me. It served what I want to be doing which is trying new things.
So, taking care of our thoughts is taking care of ourselves and is a big part of Start Living.
“Whose dumb idea was this anyway”?, I grumble to myself as I head out the door to my first Orange Theory Fitness Class! I briefly considered blaming it on my baby sister who had suggested it, but even in my nervous state, I laughed at myself at the absurdity of such a notion. After all, I am the one who wants to up my fitness and to try new things and commit to taking care of myself. I love adventure and resist it simultaneously which makes for an interesting inner dialogue.
I get dressed…..I notice I am saying such ridiculous things to myself, like oh you can’t do this, you are too old, everyone else will be so much faster, stronger, higher, and on and on and on……
I go up to the gym, wondering if at any moment I will bail out on this crazy idea….. go in and I LOVED it.
Freakin loved it. I was fine, just fine on my own little rowing machine, on my own little treadmill with my own little weights and heartbeat monitor, just fine.
So the two things I want to share about this are Commitment and Thoughts! Both are big parts of Life Coaching.
The first thing is I have a Commitment to myself to take care of myself. I have two family members who have serious health issues right now and I have been so focused on taking care of them that I have neglected taking care of myself. So I have committed to taking care of myself. Part of honoring a commitment is becoming aware of the obstacles and getting around them.
So part two is thoughts! Any obstacles I had about going to Orange Theory were my thoughts. It is super important for us to understand our thoughts are just thoughts NOT facts. Thoughts are NOT facts. So my thoughts, Like I am too old, were an obstacle, I had to get around that obstacle to honor my commitment to take care of myself. So I changed my thoughts. The thought that got me out the door and into the gym was ” I am going to go try this”. And I really loved it.
So much of this is what we do in coaching. We identify what you want, identify any obstacles, change our thoughts and off you go.
Once upon a time a long time ago, I was a young, young Mom with two little girls and far away from home in a foreign country and married to a beast of a man. He had a terribly violent temper and was abusive in every way imaginable, he controlled all the money, the car, was cruelly abusive verbally and physically. After smashing my head against a wall and hitting me in front of my two little girls, I knew I had to leave. I had no money, no job, no plan but I knew I had to go and I did.
Christmas was coming. We lived in an elegant neighborhood and no one would have known that I scraped together coins to put food on the table for the girls or that I was selling household items to keep the lights on. No one knew. I was scared but less scared than within the marriage and just knew I would find my way.
One day a couple of weeks before Christmas the doorbell rang, there stood a woman, a single Mom, someone who had less than I did, normally. “Here”. she said “is 200.00 so you can buy heating oil and stay warm.” ” And here” she continued “is my Zeller’s Card( at the time like Walmart) I think there is 300.00 left on it ” she said, ” take it and make Christmas for the girls.” Tears still spring to my eyes all these years later at the kindness from someone who had so little and gave so much. She gave us Christmas and Santa came and my little girls’ eyes sparkled in the magic of the gifts and my heart glowed.
And now many, many years have passed. Those little girls are grown women now, making Christmases of their own. I went back to school and earned the degree I had always wanted. I met and married the great love of my life, I bought and owned my own Indoor Tennis Club, I moved to a tropical island, and have lived at my favorite ski hill. I have known both the greatest joys and sorrows in all these decades of life. I have the great honor of coaching others. I have never once again experienced domestic violence again.
And so at this time of year, I remember with such gratitude, the day such an angel appeared at my doorstep. And I remember to help those in need, knowing that this is the way of the world.
In the middle of a lake, in the middle of Nova Scotia stands an Island, and you know what? She is our Island! Yep, my husband and I own an island and I have to say she is spectacular. Majestic, beautiful, soft, light, gentle, and innocent. She sits there, day in and day out, all year and forever. She has never been hurt by human hands, she offers refuge to loons, and a bald eagle sits atop one of her trees watching over all the lake and all of us in his powerful glory.
To walk on our island is to experience something almost undescribable for it is unlike anything else I know of. The floor is moss-covered and so soft and spongy, underfoot, the trees are serene, the water all around sparkles creating diamonds in the sunlight. We walk until we come to a little clearing, right in the middle of the island, and from that spot, we see all of her sweetness and in that spot lies the ashes of our son and from that spot seems to lie something else and I don’t know what that is.
Something like love and truth and something sacred like being in the arms of Mother Earth.
And we walk to the little peninsula on our island where the loons hang out and mate and take care of their baby loons and make their loon sounds and make us proud and feel like loon grandparents.
And we hear the chatter of little animals who mostly have the island to themselves, wondering it seems why we are intruding on their space and they chirp goodbye when the canoe pushes off… or it could be they don’t quite know what Ruffus our dog is….. and by the way, Ruffus walks around the Island in a similar state of wonder as if he too is experiencing her magic.
And when I am not on our Island which is most of the time, she waits for us and she lives in my heart, and I know that she is always there, into eternity she will stand, in the middle of Nova Scotia, in the middle of the lake.
Gratitude. What does that mean to you? It is not a platitude of giving thanks at Thanksgiving, with the turkey and cranberries, or saying thanks for a lovely gift at least for me that is not gratitude. For me, it is an attitude of gratitude it is a practice of feeling grateful for all that we have, even in a pandemic, even during challenging times maybe especially during challenging times!
One place this lesson was shown to me was five years ago. My husband and I had miraculously survived what seemed like a fatal car crash, he broke his neck and I well survived! The next day as I went to get the personal effects from our totaled beloved RAV 4 at the junk lot, I was sobbing. The big burly, junk lot attendant, with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth wearing a lumberjack coat and long beard, approached me. ” Lady,” he said, “You are one of the lucky ones”! ” What the blazes are you talking about I said” My car is totaled, my husband has a broken neck and our life feels in shatters”. “Yes Mam,” he said through his cigarette,” You are lucky, every day I see families come here, they have lost their loved ones in car accidents, or they are brain dead or quads or way worse…..”
Well, I wanted to slap the guy, truth be told. I did not feel lucky, to say the least. And as his words sunk into my thick head, I felt something else. I understood what GRATITUDE feels like. My burly pal was 100 percent right. We were lucky, we were very lucky.
And so I learned at that moment and would practice it over and over again in the long months of rehab that my husband had, to be grateful, to hold it in my heart and my body so that I could feel it and know it.
And I now believe that Gratitude is the most important ingredient to being Resilient. To hold the blessings of your life, and of this moment close is how we live our best lives and that is how any challenge big or small helps us Stop Worrying and Start Living.
So try it on! Each day write down three things you are truly grateful for and watch your attitude of GRATITUDE grow.
” It’s too much of a load,” said my client. ” I have too much on my plate,” said another client. ” It feels really heavy,” said yet another client. All around me with my clients, others, and myself things feel heavy. The Pandemic lingers on, comes back, never leaves, life is far from normal, many months have gone by and we still have no reassurance that an end is in sight. Add to the pandemic that the attempt at returning to a post-pandemic era is fraught with its own special brand of stress! Delays caused by the pandemic are now bringing out for many backlogs, health concerns, financial strains caused by lockdowns, In other words, it seems that many if not all of us are carrying a pretty heavy load right now.
As my client was telling me that her load feels too heavy, it came to me to share a little experience I had just had with her to see if we could uncover ways to lighten her load. Here it is. Yesterday, in the heat, I was carrying a paper bag full of groceries! My car was in the shop and my ankle was recovering from rolling it last week. I had to go about a mile. uphill, the watermelon was sweating through the bag, the Perrier was bumping along, and the blueberries were jiggling dangerously close to falling out. It was quite a load. So about halfway home, I stopped! I sat down on a park bench, Ruffus went in the lake, Martin, who had been coaxing a pulling hot dog, ate the watermelon, I drank some Perrier, I rearranged the groceries, and then climbed the rest of the way uphill to home with less effort. So by taking a break and rearranging the groceries I was able to make it home groceries and I intact. No broken bag with Perrier splat on the street and no me fainting in the heat,
As I told this story to my client, I asked her to think about ways she can put her load down, even just for a little while. I challenged her belief that carrying a heavy load is accomplished by non-stop pushing. What can she take off her plate? How can she change her thoughts about her load? How can she take the load off even if just for a little while to rest to find peace and to find the strength to continue.
And as so often happens with stories I learn so much about myself and others! This story reminds me of why I used to “OVER” I used to drink a bit too much wine and eat chips mindlessly both of what I call “overing” ! I did not know then that I could stop! So I pushed and pushed all day long until at I night the stress had accumulated so much that to find relief I overed! But now I know to stop on the park bench and rest. Now I know that the way to carry a heavy load no matter if it is groceries or pandemic blues or any other challenge in life is step by step, in the present moment. But the most important lesson for me is that by resting we become stronger!
WELCOME To Start Living Coaching with Coach Susy Giddy!
YOU ARE A HIGH ACHIEVING PERSON You are a high-achieving, hard-working, motivated compassionate, caring person. Maybe you are a professional, a lawyer, a professor, a business owner, an executive…You are passionate about what you do and yet something isn’t quite right in your life is it?
The OVERING PROBLEM You overdrink or overeat or both! You overspend, over shop, over scroll! I call this overing. It is a reaction to something not being right in your life. Maybe each morning you promise yourself you will stop “overing” and by evening you are reaching for chips or wine or Facebook or Amazon. You wake up mad at yourself for eating the bag of chips, or box of cookies or peanut butter or bottle or two of wine.
THE SOLUTION to STOP OVERING and START LIVING WITH EASE What if I told you this can all STOP! What if I told you it is NOT about the wine, the chips, the cookies, the scrolling, the whatever! It is true. All this overing is about what is going on inside us! Our thoughts, beliefs, feelings drive our actions! The spectacular news is when we change our thoughts, we change our actions. And we stop overing!
Imagine creating the life you want and living it Imagine living the life of your Dreams. Imagine waking up each day excited for the new day and going to bed each night content and looking forward to the next day. 1-1 life Coaching does just that, together we Create the Life You Want so you can Start Living.
CLEAR IT OUT! How do we do that? I think of it in a way like cleaning out a closet or clutter! We go into a closet and take out the things that we don’t need, want, or like and we make room for new things that make our hearts sing. The same thing with coaching, we go in during our sessions and get rid of what you don’t want, maybe habits, thoughts, beliefs. By doing this, we create room for new habits, thoughts, and beliefs that lets you Start Living the Life You Want. With a clean closet, you get more time, more energy, more money, better relationships, more JOY, and satisfaction in life. You Stop Over drinking Overeating, Over Spending, over anything-ing!
You change your relationships with those things and more by changing your thoughts, and beliefs about yourself, coming to understand and appreciate yourself with loveand compassion creates space for Living the life you want. So you have healthy relationships with food, alcohol, others, social media money and so much more. When thishappens, space is created for truly creating the life you want, whatever that is.
Imagine creating the life you want and living it Imagine living the life of your Dreams. Imagine waking up each day excited for the new day and going to bed each night content and looking forward to the next day. 1-1 life Coaching does just that, together we Create the Life You Want so you can Start Living.
I STOPPED OVERING AND CAN HELP YOU Imagine having a Coach with you to support whatever it is you want to achieve. ell that is what working with me is like. I am at your side, with weekly sessions, homework, support in between. Together we will Create the Life You Want.
I know all this because I have walked the walk of overing! I used to drink too much wine, raid the chip and peanut butter jar at 2:00 AM. Stuff popcorn down my throat. I tried and tried to change my overing. I hired a Life Coach and we found out what was driving those behaviors. And I changed my thoughts, which changed my feelings which changed my actions. I no longer drink wine, I no longer snack mindlessly, I no longer scroll or shop. I have more money, time, energy and joy in my life. And I help others do the same.
I would love to help you Stop Overing and Start Living. Apply here to see how we can work together
Coaching Packages:
Six Weeks – 6 sessions (45-60 minutes) – Homework, review of homework, & support between sessions – Price $700.00 USD
Three Months – 12 sessions (45-60 minutes) – Homework, review of homework, & support between sessions – Price 2000.00USD
Six Months – 25 sessions (45-60 minutes) – Homework, review of homework, & support between sessions – Price $4000.00 USD
“Come on Deputy”, I say to my beloved dog Ruffus, ” Please Don’t Eat the Daisies”. This sends me bursting into giggles, all alone on the top of our mountain, because after all who would want to eat daisies and who calls their dog “Deputy” when their dog’s name is Ruffus? So along we go me whistling and singing and smiling and Ruffus eating and sniffing.
Ruffus and I love adventures. When I think of the way it feels to me, it is like a combo of Andy Griffith of Mayberry (thus the Deputy) Tom Sawyer, and Nancy Drew, so a sense of adventure, mystery, and play all mixed up into a ridiculous pleasure.
I call Ruffus, Deputy because he has discovered all manner of things on our adventures. Let me tell you the highlights. A newborn calf on the beach in Cabarete ( stuck in the dunes), a lost dog named Bobby( we found the owner), a dying dog named Rose( we nursed her back to health), a baby bear climbing a tree( we ran for our lives) a baby raccoon hiding under rubble, a gopher hole ( yes the gopher appeared) But wait, I forgot to tell you an amazing one! One day a large mother pig and nine of her babies waddled down the beach, Ruffus looked shocked that day! When Ruffus first came to Canada from being abandoned on the beach in Cabarete, he made lots of discoveries. Two that really impressed him were the large green bins collecting organic waste ( he barked at them within an inch of their lives) and balloons, yep balloons were a real mystery to Deputy.
So as we go along our daisy and raspberry-strewn path, Deputy suddenly slows down and starts growling at a lump in the path 40 feet ahead of us. Lord only knows what he has found now, I think to myself. He slows down and walks right next to me, I like to think he is protecting me, but it could easily be that he wants protection. I quickly rule out a dead deer ( we have done that before), my mind goes to a curled up boa constrictor, seconds before panic sets in on that one, I remember we don’t actually have boa constrictors here in Quebec ( in Malls in Louisiana but not here in the Laurentians.) So with Ruffus/ Deputy glued to my hip growling at the lump we proceed cautiously. Finally, the discovery is made, a makeshift fire pit!!!! “Well, that was much to do about nothing Deputy,” as I check that the fire is out as Smoky Bear taught me, and wondering about the placement of the firepit in the middle of the path!
Deputy was by now off to the look-off tower, to see what else he could see. I was back to my whistling and singing a little song that I made up when one…. two… three wild turkeys shoot off ahead of me, making a noise that in fact did not sound like gobble gobble to me. Close behind was my whitish-furred Deputy, on the turkey case or chase. I briefly wondered what a close encounter could mean for the turkeys or Ruffus, but determined that was not a high-quality thought at that particular moment. So I settled into the clearing, wondering about how many raspberries it would take to make jam and so darn happy to be enjoying the afternoon with the Deputy.
The swishing in the forest told me Deputy was done with the turkey chase and so as he appeared in the clearing we headed back to the path. Ruffus sniffing, me whistling and both of us smiling.
And I thought to myself, man oh man do I ever love my dog.
You may well be wondering what this has to do with Life Coaching??? It is about pleasure. When we Start Living our lives the way we want them to be, PLEASURE becomes such an important part of each day. When I say pleasure I mean the feeling of it! I am not necessarily talking about spending lots of time or money either. ( I am not against spending lots of time or money on pleasure BTW, I am just sayin doesn’t have to cost a lot)I am talking about what makes your heart sing? What makes you smile? What makes you giggle? If you don’t know, have fun looking for pleasure. What gave you pleasure when you were a kid, that can give you hints for the present moment.
What I can tell you for sure, is that when we put pleasure into our lives intentionally, whatever that is for you, we stop engaging in behaviors that hurt us. Like over drinking, overeating, oversleeping, over scrolling, or over anythinging if that is a word. By putting real pleasure into our lives we stop depending on other habits as a source of pleasure and get our pleasure in a more balanced way.
So if you have thoughts like ” I deserve this…… let’s say an extra piece of cake… try asking yourself what are you thinking you deserve? Is it pleasure? What else could give you pleasure? It might not be hunting for mysterious lumps in the forest with your dog, but what could it be for you?
Here is a little Pleasure challenge
1. Make a list of five things that bring you true pleasure.
Mine would look something like this:
Play with Ruffus
Play with Corey( our one year old kitten)
Talk to a friend, daughter, Mom on the phone)
Read an awesome book
Watch tennis
2. Put at least one in your day for one week. Put it in your calendar, like anything else that is important. And do it! Consider it on ” your to-do list” Do not skip it. Nothing is more important!
3. Notice when you reach for a drink, food, a FB scroll, an Amazon shopping and ask yourself. Are you looking for pleasure? If yes refer to your Pleasure list. and do it!!!!!
I promise you a little pleasure goes a long way to creating the life you want!
Susy Giddy is a Certified Life Coach. She is devoted to helping people live their best lives. She can be reached at susy@cabaretelifecoaching for questions, or to book Life Coaching sessions
Hi….. I need some help! I have decided to really, really go big with my Life Coaching Practice. I want for as many people as possible to get coaching!
One of my first steps on my biggy up journey is to gather information from you! You have been a perfect client either now or in the past.
I have a few questions that will help me understand more about you and also understand more about what you get from me as your coach. I think this will only take 5 minutes to fill out.
About YOU
Where do you get your groceries?__________________________________________
What is your favorite store?_________________________________________________
What is your favorite magazine?___________________________________________
What is your favorite food? _________________________________________________
What would you be most likely to google at 2:00 A.M. if something was bothering you? ___________________________________
What are your three top loves in life?
About Me.
What do you think are my top 3 qualities as a Coach?
1.______________________________________________
2._______________________________________________
3________________________________________________
What do you think are my top 3 Skills?
1.______________________________________________
2.______________________________________________
3.______________________________________________
That’s it! Thank you so, so much! I so appreciate you taking the time to do this.
One of the things I find so amazing about life is, you just can’t make up some of the most remarkable experiences, do you know what I mean? That is what happened to me last week when I experienced The Marvelous Case of the Flip Flops and how this led me to “no longer being the kind of person who takes what she can get, and finally becoming the kind of person who creates exactly what she wants” as Jen Sincero says.
You may want to sit back and be patient while I get to the main point, cuz there is a main part of the story, ok? Ever since I was a little girl, I have been a big fan of Nancy Drew. From curling up with a flashlight reading, way after bedtime, to pretending to be the slender sleuth, to current day devouring Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her, not to mention curling up with my kitten and watching Nancy Drew movies, I am all in. When I was little I imagined myself on sleuth-like adventures and loved solving mysteries even if I had to make them up to do so.
With this Nancy Drew-like sense of adventure, I set off with my dog Ruffus, who thankfully shares my love of adventure to walk around our lake! When I say walk around the lake I mean walk around the lake in the water, as it was 30 degrees Celsius and felt very hot that day. So we entered the lake and turned left! My flip-flops splashed and splished through the icy lake water! Ruffus’ four paws also splashed as we walked companionably along the water’s edge. I was chirping away at Ruffus about how much I love him and how he is the best dog on the planet ever when suddenly my foot hit the mud, quicksand-like mud, and soon I was up to my thighs in muddy, sandy muck. Ruffus a mere two feet shoreside of me escaped this plight which is a good thing, trust me. After managing to free my foot and now broken flip flop from the muck and avoid scaring myself silly about what kind of creatures were swimming around, I took another step, and poof went down even farther, so now my white skirt and yellow polka dot shirt are well let’s just say no longer recognizable. I certainly had more important things to consider, like how to navigate around the beaver huts, get past private property, and find a safe place to exit, not even mentioning how I was going to get home from the lake without any shoes. I had left my phone at home so it would not fall in the lake meaning no calling home for a rescue. So at any rate the relative muddiness of my clothing was not my first concern.
Sometime later, flip flopless and mud from head to toe, and Ruffus looking like a spotted brown and white dog, we arrived home breathlessly, feeling rather like heroes returning from overseas if I do say so myself. Martin, my beloved husband did not actually bat an eye at our appearance although an eyebrow did go up when he noticed the one broken flip flop in my hand and of course the missing one he could not see as it is presumably at the bottom of the lake. He has become somewhat used to Ruffus and I returning from adventures and as long as it doesn’t involve falling through the ice he is pretty good with whatever.
“Jump in the car and I will tell you all about it”, I said.” We have to go to St Jovite to get Flip Flops”. Meaning, we would travel 10 k or so to our ” big” village in the Laurentians, even with a lockdown and hope that flip flops were on the essential item list. It wasn’t too long ago, I kid you not, that buying underwear was not considered essential but buying wine was, so I wasn’t too sure about flip flops.
We drove up to the discount store and I ran in. I quickly chose the 5.00 pair like I have my entire life. I got back to the car. Some little thought was burbling up and I was pushing it down. The thought was something like “you deserve better, you deserve better” So, not knowing what that was all about I drove to the fancy sports store. I ran in and found Reefs, a luxury version of a flip flop. Shyly I tried them on, good Godfrey they were comfortable, kind of a Mercedes of flip flops. Breathlessly, I bought them. Fifty-dollar flip-flops! I wore them all the rest of the day. I talked about them to Martin, all the rest of the day. I could just not believe how comfortable they felt. I could not believe that I had 50.00 flip-flops.
So it was the next day that I realized the lesson of The Marvelous Case of the Flip Flops. I understood what had happened. At that moment I had become the kind of person who no longer takes what she can get and instead I create what I want. I am going for it all the way.
I hope my little story gets you thinking about where in your own life you are settling for what you can get instead of creating what you want. What would you need to think and believe in order to create what you want? What keeps you in your own version of 5.00 flip-flops? Remember my friends, you create the life you want.
Susy Giddy is a Certified Life Coach. She helps clients Start Living their best lives. She can be reached at susy@cabaretelifecoaching.com
