What shifts when you stop fighting your feelings?

July 7, 2019July 6, 2019 / Jill Winski

The other day I was on the phone with a friend, explaining how I felt about something that had happened recently in a rather heated way. When I finally paused, my friend said, “It makes total sense that you feel that way.”

After I hung up with her, I went out for a quick walk, and as I passed my neighbor and his two adorable dogs (I’m always instantly happy when I see them!) it occurred to me that something had deeply relaxed in me since I got off the phone with my friend.

It had relaxed because she had validated my feelings. She had pointed out that the way I felt totally made sense. For me. In this situation.

And the reason I’d felt so worked up when I’d begun telling her my tale was because I’d felt I needed to argue my point — a part of me was believing I shouldn’t feel the way I felt about the situation.

When my friend pointed out that how I felt made sense, something clicked.

When I relaxed and allowed and validated my feelings (thanks to my friend “lending” me her validation), I knew exactly what I needed to do to take care of myself in the situation.

When I was wondering if my feelings were “okay,” I was judging myself for having them and then believing I couldn’t take care of myself. Because “maybe I shouldn’t feel this way in the first place? Maybe I’m selfish? Maybe I need too much? Maybe my feelings are just too much?”

One of the coaches who trained me back when I went through life coach training in 2010 said that a lot of times when she asked a client to describe what they were feeling, they ended up describing fighting a feeling, rather than the feeling itself.

For some of us, fighting a feeling is all we actually know. We’ve never gotten beneath the feeling of resisting a feeling to the core feeling.

Does this sound familiar? If you grew up in, or currently work or live in, an environment where authentic emotion was or is not encouraged (and I think this applies to, oh, 99% of humans?!), chances are you know exactly what I’m talking about.

If you could believe that how you feel makes total sense for who you are and the situation you’re in, what might be possible?

Could you relax more? Could you, as I did after talking to my friend, connect more easily and quickly with what you need to do to take care of yourself? Could you view yourself, your life, and the people around you more clearly (because your vision is not clouded by fighting so hard against a feeling, or arguing so hard for your right to it)?

When we’re not fighting our feelings, or our right to our feelings, they come up, move through us, and find resolution. (Karla McLaren writes in depth about this process in her incredibly helpful books and on her website).

And we have far more access to our inner guidance when we’re not fighting or suppressing our feelings. It’s from that more relaxed place of accepting the feelings that we can see what their message for us may be. (It’s also from that place of acceptance, I’ve found, that my clients find themselves shifting out of “creative blocks.”)

Signs you may be fighting a feeling:

• You keep venting about something and it feels unresolved

• You catch yourself channeling Spock, saying things like “It’s not logical to feel, think or do this”

• You insist that the only thing you feel is boredom or apathy

• You’re easily irritated, angered, or feel ready to cry (but you don’t)

• You’re convinced that you “should” or you “have to” do something, but you’re not doing it

If this is the space you’re in, it’s time to create safety for yourself. My friend’s kind and patient presence and her validation of what I felt did that for me. On some days, though, I need to find other ways. I love the audios on self-compassion expert Kristin Neff’s site, particularly the one called “Soften, soothe, allow,” for this purpose.

The key word here is permission. If you had permission to feel just how you feel, if you could give that to yourself (because ultimately, we do have to give it to ourselves), what might you notice? What would be possible? These are (some of) the questions to ask. You can probably come up with new ones!

What do you notice about this process for you? What shifts for you when you allow yourself to feel whatever you feel? I’d love to hear from you.

Want to stay connected? You can sign up for more articles and updates on my coaching offerings (including occasional specials for newsletter subscribers!) here.

If you need support in practicing excellent self-care while making your creative work a priority, I’d love to help! You can find out more about working with me, here.

Above blue jay images by Steve Douglas and Erin Wilson on Unsplash, respectively

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Calling in what you need (+ a summer writing opportunity!)

May 27, 2019May 27, 2019 / Jill Winski

As I was doing some journaling before bed last night (you can read about this ritual of mine here), I realized I felt frustrated and at loose ends. I glanced over at my cat, who lay stretched full-length on the bed next to me. And a question popped into my mind:

What qualities are needed here?

Peace and ease, came the reply.

I wrote this in my journal, put it on the floor and called it a night. I didn’t sleep well, and when I woke up my first thought was, you didn’t get enough sleep, great. But I also noticed that, despite this, I felt basically rested (a glass-half-full recognition that is unusual for me!).

Even though I had a lot on my plate that needed to be attended to early in the day, I gave myself permission to take the length of walk that felt right, rather than just darting down the street for coffee and coming back home to get stuff done.

It was a warm and windy day — I’m not a hot-weather person but it was still early enough that it felt pleasant — and as I moved my body and felt the ground under my feet, my energy shifted. Except I didn’t fully notice it until I returned home, sat down at my desk, and started in on the things that needed to get done.

It all felt purposeful and relatively effortless, and I felt present and connected for all of it. The air-conditioned alcove of my work space felt pleasant and soothing, and my cat puttered around as I worked, offering me meows here and there but not getting oppressive as she often does when I work at my laptop. (Laptop is, for mysterious reasons, her nemesis!).

At some point, I realized I was truly inhabiting the morning. In fact, my entire home felt open, somehow, imbued with a curious spaciousness.

And then I remembered what I’d scribbled in my journal the night before: What qualities are needed here? Peace and ease.

That is exactly what the morning felt like for me, even though I’d forgotten I’d asked for it.

And from that place of peace and ease, the day moved so much more simply. My choices were clearer, my energy was used more wisely. I already had what I wanted to get when everything was done: a feeling of peace and ease.

***

When I work with clients who want to let go of overwhelm, we take an in-depth look at what caring for ourselves — that ubiquitous and broad term “self-care” — actually feels like for us. And what actions come from feelings of wanting to care for ourselves.

Often, it comes down to seemingly “small” and subtle —- but ultimately powerful — questions like the one I asked myself in my journal. What is needed here? What energies can I call in? What happens when I call in those energies?

When we ask helpful, supportive questions and call on the energies we need, we can let go of the struggle, the striving, the efforting.

It’s not “magic” — but there can sometimes be a magical quality to this kind of caring for ourselves. With practice, it can become a positive habit for us to ask these helpful questions even though we presently feel mired in the muck (as I did before bed last night).

I’m going to add the question “what qualities are needed here?” to my regular evening ritual for the next month or so, and see what happens.

And, at any time during the day (or night!), we always have the option to ask ourselves helpful questions, and to call in energies that can support us. When we do this, we remind ourselves that we have a choice as to how we respond to what we’re going through, what we make it mean, and what we intend for ourselves moving forward.

This also underlined for me that I do not have to force myself to try to feel certain things — I can instead choose to call on those qualities. When I simply call on them, I recognize that they’re already within me, I don’t have to create them out of thin air. (I often hear people talking about “working up their courage” — what if you didn’t have to work it up? What if you could simply call on it, because it’s already a part of you?)

What happens for you when you set an intention to call in what you need? I’d love to hear how this works for you.

***

Write with us this summer! I’ll be leading an eight-week summer writing group over at Called to Write — it starts in just one week, on June 3. If you have a writing project you’d like to get going on (or continue) with compassionate group support this summer, feel free to send an email to support[at]calledtowrite[dot]com to get all the details! We’d love to have you. The group will be kept to eight participants (at this writing, it’s about half full.)

Want to stay connected? You can sign up for my monthly-ish Artist’s Nest Newsletter, here.

Above images by Solaiman Hossen, Aaron Burden, and Hannah Jacobson on Unsplash

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Finding a creative routine that works for you

January 22, 2019January 21, 2019 / Jill Winski / 2 Comments

Many years ago, I had a full-time job that drained my energy and I really wanted to write a novel. But it wasn’t happening. Every time I got home from work, I felt brain-dead, turned on the TV, watched two episodes of Sabrina the Teenage Witch (which happened to be on right when I got home), and kept the TV on for the entire evening.

I finally resolved to get up an hour early each morning and work on my novel before I went to work. I did that for exactly one day. I felt so sleep-deprived at work due to cutting off my last hour of sleep that the entire day was a slog.

The next thing I tried was writing during my lunch hour. Typically, I didn’t take lunch, because if I skipped lunch and ate at my desk while I worked, I could leave earlier.

Writing during lunch proved challenging. I felt distracted (my mind on the afternoon work I had to get back to), and extending my work day by an hour drained my energy (too overstimulating for this introvert).

The next thing I tried was writing after I got home. I resolved to not turn on Sabrina the Teenage Witch (no Salem for me!), go right to my desk, and work for an hour.

This failed miserably. Once I walked through my door, my system set itself to “relaxation mode” and the hour of writing felt like a climb up a mountainside with a boulder strapped to my back.

Now, you may be thinking at this point, Well, yeah! It’s hard. You have to force yourself to do it!

Except I didn’t want my writing to be constantly tied up with the feeling of forcing myself. The whole reason I wanted to write a novel in the first place was because writing brought me joy and purpose, and because reading novels had felt so joyful and purposeful to me. Forcing myself to write was not going to work for me for the long haul.

So I started looking at the elements that seemed important here.

• It was important to me that I was able to sleep as late as possible in the morning — that worked best for my body.

• It was important to me that I could leave work as early as possible — that created the most hopeful and positive feeling for me in my work day.

• Writing at home at the end of the day didn’t work because it was too tempting for me to succumb to TV at that time — I had to rely far too much on willpower at that time of day in that setting.

But then I thought — hmm. What about a different setting? What about writing after work, but not at home?

So the next thing I tried was heading to the coffee place that was next door to my workplace, right after work. I brought a spiral notebook with me, ordered coffee, and started writing. About forty-five minutes in, it felt right to call it a day.

I went home, turned on the TV, and did my usual nighttime routine — except my writing was done. I hadn’t had to cut off my sleep in the morning to do it, and I hadn’t had to take a lunch hour. And I could go ahead and relax when I entered my apartment.

Eventually, I decided on writing at the coffee place at least four days a week, right after work, for no more than forty-five minutes a day. (I discovered that if I tried to push beyond forty-five minutes, I got too much into the “forcing myself” zone and I started to rebel. If I kept it at forty-five minutes, it usually felt just right.)

Creating takes energy — there’s no way around it. And while it’s true that creating gives us energy (as Maya Angelou famously said), it’s also true that our bodies have needs, very real ones.

Since several years prior to this period of my life I had completely ignored my physical needs and ended up terribly ill, I knew I had to take my body’s needs seriously. I knew I couldn’t afford to let perfectionism take the reins again. I needed a “reasonable, realistic” creative routine.

Ugggh! Reasonable and realistic had to be two of my least favorite words. (Still true for me — I’m an INFP, after all!)

So I had to do a couple of things in order to allow myself to carry on with this “workable but not necessarily exciting” creative routine:

• I had to let myself be a regular, boring human who couldn’t crank out a novel draft in a weekend on a great wave of inspiration.

• I had to accept that my creative identity was changing — it was no longer about great highs and lows — I was no longer flying above the treetops or clutching a towel sobbing on the bathroom floor. My creativity was now going to be built into my daily life, in a quieter, more subtle, more sustainable way.

And this needed to be okay if I was going to have a healthy relationship between my physical body, my emotional self, and my creativity.

It took me about a year and a half to get to a complete novel draft, and another year to rewrite it. I didn’t “crank it out in a weekend,” but I did finish it. (And although this novel makes me cringe now, I used excerpts from it to get into a graduate writing program, where I became a better writer. No creating is ever wasted!)

It’s a fact: as much as we may not like to believe it (I know I didn’t), we have a finite amount of energy available to us each day. (When we’re going through big things, we’ll have less than usual.)

We don’t move forward by arguing with reality. We move forward by embracing it. When we tend to see lots of possibilities, it can be easy to get disconnected from the realities of our physical and emotional selves.

But we’re in physical bodies for a reason (if we weren’t, we wouldn’t be here, having this human experience!). We need to honor our creativity and our physical and emotional needs.

Finding the right creative routine takes testing and trying. I tweaked this routine in small ways many times, and my life is different now and I don’t have this routine anymore. We need to be open to what works for us now, and willing to let it change and evolve.

It’s possible to find a creative routine that works for you — even when it seems like it isn’t. What have you discovered about this for yourself? I’d love to hear from you.

I am currently enrolling new coaching clients. Do you need support in making your creative work a priority while practicing excellent self-care? I’d love to help.

Want to stay connected? You can sign up for my monthly-ish Artist’s Nest Newsletter, here.

Above images by Carli Jeen, Ella Jardim, and Kyle Glenn, respectively, on Unsplash

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On gratitude, appreciation, and right timing

November 15, 2018November 15, 2018 / Jill Winski / 2 Comments

As we near the time of Thanksgiving here in the U.S., I want to circle back to something I’ve been doing for quite a while now. (I wrote about it in this post.)

As a complement to writing morning pages, I have been doing “evening pages” since early last year. I don’t do them absolutely every evening — usually it’s more like once or twice a week at this point. In my evening pages, I simply answer this question: “What worked today?”

It feels fitting to mention this at Thanksgiving time, as I notice it’s become a kind of unintentional gratitude practice for me as well. In answering this question in my journal, I never fail to notice so much that worked during the day that I would not have noticed if I weren’t choosing to focus on it.

For example, yesterday a woman held the door for me for a long time when I was struggling with my bags. (This on a day when I had also complained to my partner about the rudeness of another person I’d encountered.)

Until I sat down to my evening pages, I’d already forgotten about the kindness of this person who held the door — but when I set an intention to think back on what worked, she popped right into my mind.

It’s easy to get swept up into dark territory these days (I think you know what I mean!). And I’m not saying we should “be positive!” and ignore important issues that must be dealt with. But we must also choose to notice how much goodness is present. How much kindness, how much generosity.

***

My evening pages have also pointed me to something else: the rightness of timing.

One of my “default” fears is that I am moving too slowly, that I take way too long to get where I need to go. While I have accumulated all kinds of evidence that this is not true, it still tends to be a go-to fear for me, particularly when I am feeling thwarted in some way.

I noticed this happened for me on Sunday, when I ran into technology issues while trying to get my monthly newsletter out. The more frustrated I got, the longer it took, the more I noticed myself going to that default fear: Why are you so slow? Why does everything take you so freaking long? You’ll never get anything important accomplished. You’re always behind where you need to be.

Although the technology issues had nothing to do with me personally, my poor mind tried to make sense of them by blaming myself and deciding the problem was that I was just too slow. (This is a “child-me” thing — children blame themselves for all kinds of things that have nothing to do with them. With their limited power and perspective, it helps them to make sense of things. How often do we do this as adults, even though we have far more power and perspective than we did as children?).

Finally, I stepped away and decided I’d deal with the newsletter on Monday. As I did my evening pages Sunday night, I found myself writing about all kinds of things during the weekend that had been good timing for me. Things that might not have happened if I’d forced myself to do other things.

Like: I regretted missing a volunteer opportunity Saturday morning — but during that time, I met up with this adorable little dog I know (and his people!) in my neighborhood. We watched this lovely creature bound through the fall leaves, losing his little lime-green “dog booties” — three of them popped right off as he ran — which caused all of us to laugh, and didn’t phase the dog at all, who just kept right on frolicking.

I was so grateful for witnessing that — it felt so nourishing to me — that I went right to it in my evening pages. But if I’d forced myself to do the volunteer thing I’d thought I “should” do that morning, I’d have missed it.

So, my evening pages have given to me this helpful question: What if my timing is perfect? Most humans tend to have a deeply-ingrained habit of asking ourselves unhelpful questions. Focusing on what works, what we cherish and appreciate, can point us to far better questions.

***

I’ll be taking the end of next week off for the holiday, but you can still sign up for one of my Autumn Transition Coaching Sessions through tomorrow, Friday, November 16. If you’re struggling with a tricky life transition this fall and need some support, I’d love to help. You can find out more about these sessions, here.

In the meantime, I wish you much to cherish and appreciate (whether you observe Thanksgiving next week or not!).

What do you notice when you shift to focusing on what worked today, or simply what you appreciated? I’d love to hear from you.

Want to stay connected? You can sign up for my monthly-ish Artist’s Nest Newsletter, here.

Above images, respectively, by Evie Shaffer and Alvan Nee on Unsplash

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Permission to be done (and Happy Halloween!)

October 31, 2018October 31, 2018 / Jill Winski / 2 Comments

Periods of transition are often (but not always) synonymous with letting go. It might be letting go of a job, a relationship, a home — but, in a deeper and broader sense, this letting go is often a letting go of who we used to be.

One of the issues that can arise here is one of permission. My Autumn Transition Coaching Sessions are underway (you can find out more about these here), and something that has come up more than once so far is “permission to be done.”

Recently, I ran into someone I worked with years ago. Running into her, recognizing each other and catching up a bit, reminded me of the many pleasant and kind people I worked with in that job, and as we parted ways I found myself thinking, just for a moment or two, “Why did I ever quit that job? That was a good situation for me.”

And it was … until it wasn’t. I can remember Fridays back then, done with work for the week, when I’d walk home in the dwindling sunlight (I had an insanely short commute, one of the great perks of that job), feeling so satisfied with my life and grateful for what I had.

Except, in truth, there were only a handful of those happy Fridays, max. (Memory is funny like that. ) That period of satisfaction didn’t last all that long. Things changed, I changed — my essential self wanted a different experience — and it started to become time for me to be done.

And yet, being “done” with that job was a process for me, in and of itself.

Looking back, I can see that there were various “parts” to being done. There was the part where I wanted to be done — but really, truly wasn’t. And that part went on for a pretty long time. Because the “me” who wanted to be done with the job was in conflict with the “me” who wasn’t ready to be done, a struggle ensued, and until both “me’s” were on the same side, it wasn’t truly time for change.

And then, after what seemed like ages, I was ready. Except I had a hard time giving myself permission to be done. Because once I was no longer in inner conflict, I recognized the plain old fact that my job was just pretty pleasant, and I worked with nice people, and I had good benefits. (And there was that insanely short commute!)

When we’re making changes or decisions from a pretty peaceful place like that, we’re actually on much more solid ground than when we try to change from a place of dissatisfaction and unrest (this is usually a sign that we’re, actually, not quite done).

But it can also feel challenging, sometimes, to simply give ourselves that permission to be done.

We might have some fear or confusion around giving ourselves that permission — particularly if we think we might be letting others down in being done, or if we harbor the belief that “quitting is bad” or that being responsible means hanging in there for the long haul.

If we’re heavily identified with being “the person who sticks around”, it may be harder for us to give ourselves permission to be “the one who leaves” or “the one who lets go.” (Being done does not always look like leaving, but it usually feels like it to some extent! Even if the change we’re making is strictly an internal one, there is still an “inner leaving” process to go through, a letting go of the person we were.)

On the smaller scale, the day to day one, I notice that this time of fall, of Halloween, where the days are noticeably shorter, helps me give myself permission to be done with the day. When darkness creeps in more quickly, it’s like there’s a clearer line of distinction between day and night.

It also reminds me that, in many ways, I am not in control of beginnings and endings, of day and night, of the seasons of my life and of life in general.

While this can be unsettling, it’s also a relief. Recognizing where I do and don’t have control can be a big help in giving myself that permission to be done when I need it.

Where do you need permission to be done? What helps you give yourself this permission? I’d love to hear from you. And Happy Halloween!

P. S. My Autumn Transition Coaching Sessions are underway and will be available through November 16, 2018. If you need some support in navigating a difficult transition this fall, I’d love to help. You can find out more about these sessions, here.

Want to stay connected? You can subscribe to my monthly-ish Artist’s Nest Newsletter, here.

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Knowing yourself and saying no

September 9, 2018September 9, 2018 / Jill Winski

An opportunity to do something I’ve been wanting to do popped up out of the blue today. Except, it was very last-minute. As soon as I read about the opportunity in an email, and realized that the timing felt off for me, my whole body kind of deflated.

Thinking about taking the opportunity felt draining — definitely non-energizing. My body wisdom was clear, and I decided not to take the opportunity without much more thought.

This got me thinking about the importance of knowing ourselves, especially in this day and age of so much FOMO (that stands for fear of missing out, on the off-chance you’re not familiar with this ubiquitous term!).

I used to agonize terribly over most decisions — particularly when I sensed I might need to say “no” to something.

“Yes” tended to be my default position — if only to avoid potential conflict. (“No” was a word in my childhood that caused more conflict than any other, so by the time I was an adult, it was fraught with all kinds of stuff for me. I recently watched an episode of Mad Men where Sally Draper says “no” to Don — and the ensuing madness confirmed that Sally Draper is my childhood self’s fictional soul sister.)

When I think back to my twenties (from the perspective of my forties), I sometimes wonder why I was so upset about certain things, or why some things I’d deal with swiftly and deftly today turned my world upside down back then. Good grief, I’ll think, picturing my twenty-three-year-old self. What the heck was my problem?

And then I remember, connecting with compassion for this dear younger self of mine: It’s because I have a kind of “self short-hand” in my forties that I didn’t back then — I can quickly act from an accumulated self-knowledge that was undeveloped back then.

(That’s not to say everything is easier now. Some things are a lot harder than they were then.)

It is precisely because I agonized so many times over decisions in the past, and explored what was going on for me with all that agonizing, that I don’t often freak out over decisions in that same way these days.

I know now that there are few decisions that are permanent, there are few opportunities that won’t ever come again (and if some are truly lost, there are others right there waiting), and people can handle it if I say no (even if it doesn’t seem like it in the moment).

And because I know myself better than I did twenty years ago, I understand that one of my gifts is picking up on all kinds of subtleties and complexities — and that the “downside” of this gift is that if I focus too much on those subtleties and complexities, I can get lost in them.

And that means recognizing that not every decision requires weighing a bunch of things out. And some decisions do. And because I know myself better than I did at twenty-five, I intuitively sense which decisions are which for me.

I also know that picking up on all these subtleties and complexities means that sometimes things feel wrong to me when in fact nothing is wrong. I’m just picking up on a lot, and it needs to be sorted or let go, and I probably need to take a step back and reconnect with myself. When I didn’t know this stuff about the way I processed things, life was a heck of a lot harder.

So sometimes when I am working with a coaching client who is facing a challenging situation, I will ask: What do you know about yourself when it comes to situations like this? How do you tend to feel? What do you tend to do or not do?

Usually, a wealth of self-knowledge pours forth from the client when I ask these questions. They know a lot about themselves and have only temporarily “forgotten” (the brain-fog that often happens for us when we’re really stressed). And they need to be reminded that they have forgotten.

For me, for example, when someone rushes me to make a decision, if I don’t have all the information I need, I can’t access a clear yes or no for myself. If they push me further, I’ll tend to shut down.

Knowing that about myself, I’m able to say these days, “I’m not able to give you a clear answer on this until I have more information (or more time, or whatever).” That keeps me from moving to the shut-down place.

But if I have gotten to a place where I’m feeling shut-down, if I ask myself “What do I know about myself when it comes to feeling like this? What does feeling shut-down often mean for me?” — I can gain perspective again: Oh, when I’m feeling shut-down it usually means I’m pushing or forcing myself to do something too quickly. Oh, yeah. Maybe I can slow down here. Maybe I can allow myself to catch up with myself.

What do you know about yourself now that you didn’t twenty years ago, or ten, or five? How does this knowledge help you make the best decisions for yourself? I’d love to hear from you.

P. S. As I wrote this post, I got an email update. Turns out the opportunity I mentioned, that felt too short-notice for me, has been rescheduled — for a date and time that feel just right.

Coming up: I’ll have openings for new one-on-one coaching clients as we head into fall. Do you need support in making your creative work a priority while practicing excellent self-care? You can learn more about working together, here. Or, take a look at my Is This You? page.

Want to stay connected? You can subscribe to my monthly-ish Artist’s Nest Newsletter, here.

Above images of feather, © Popa Sorin | Dreamstime Stock Photos, and sparrow, © creativecommonsstockphotos | Dreamstime Stock Photos, respectively

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You don’t have to get rid of anything

July 30, 2018July 30, 2018 / Jill Winski

A friend who read my last blog post, where I talk about clearing space for our creativity, told me she loves the idea of clearing space, but the reality is it’s hard for her to get rid of stuff.

I don’t particularly like the idea of getting rid of anything, either. My tendency is definitely to hang on.

Our innate temperaments and our childhood experiences are a big part of this. I had a boyfriend once who kept “losing” mix tapes I made for him (back in the ‘90s, around the time mix tapes were starting to become quaint). I couldn’t understand this. I still had mix tapes people had made for me in the ‘80s. I still had music I’d taped off the radio in like 1984. But his temperament and childhood experience made him much more prone to “ridding” than mine did.

The thing about “getting rid of” is that it feels like pushing something out — there’s a forcefulness to it, an anger, even. If you’ve ever been in the process of moving homes and reached a point where you had to make a lot of decisions quickly, you might have done some ruthless “getting rid of.” And it probably felt necessary at the time.

I know I’ve also had points in my life where I’ve “gotten rid of” things as a symbol that I was ready for change — like the time I cut off most of my hair with some dull scissors when I was about twenty-one. (I instantly regretted it — but it was undoubtedly a change!)

There’s a significant — if subtle — difference in energy between “getting rid of” and “letting go.”

When I clear physical space so I can focus on my creative work, it feels like I am creating something in the clearing, rather than “getting rid of.” It’s a gift I’m giving to myself — I’m not ripping something away from myself.

I think this is where we can develop a lot of resistance to change in our lives — when we believe the change will look like getting rid of things we love, or those things we love being ripped away from us.

Sometimes my life coaching clients say things like, “I just really need to get rid of this critical voice in my head”, or “If I could just get rid of this bad habit.” A critical voice? A bad habit? Who wouldn’t want to get rid of those things?

The truth, though, is that the critical voice and the “bad” habit are serving purposes for us, and we can’t just demand that they go away (especially when they may have served those purposes for many years!).

When we push something away from us, it tends to hang on even harder. In this sense we can’t truly “rid” ourselves of anything — the very energy of “ridding” is a pushing away energy. (Have you ever gone out of your way to avoid someone? Did you notice that you just kept on running into them?)

How does “letting go” feel different? I notice that letting go feels like relief to me. It feels like lightness. I also notice that there is no forcing in letting go.

And I’d say that’s because “letting go” is a process, whereas “ridding” is an action. It’s okay — and at times necessary — to “get rid of.” But I notice I sometimes feel regret over things I got rid of — whereas I do not regret letting go.

If we observe patterns and habits we want to “be rid of” — without actually trying to get rid of them! — we’ll see over time that they wear themselves out when we truly don’t need them anymore. This is the process of letting go. It’s organic.

In the same way, I find it doesn’t really work for me to “get rid of”my actual physical stuff. It’s more helpful for me to notice how attached I am to it, and allow the attachment to be there, even while a part of me is wanting to lessen that attachment, or maybe already no longer feels the attachment.

I’ve discovered that I let go of what I no longer want in my life more authentically and deeply when I observe myself this way. When I force myself to get rid of something, it or another thing like it just reappears in my life. (Like when I used to “get rid of” the job that sucked, only to find myself in another very similar job three months later!)

What do you notice about “getting rid of” versus “letting go of”, for you? Is there a difference for you? I’d love to hear from you.

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Do you need support in making your creative work a priority while practicing excellent self-care? Feel free to check out my Ways We Can Work Together page!

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Are you clearing space for your creativity?

July 9, 2018July 9, 2018 / Jill Winski / 5 Comments

My sister came over yesterday and pointed out that my kitchen table was a bit unruly. It was, actually, piled with stuff.

I tend to create piles — and I’ve come to realize that they are part of my thinking process and the way I move through the world. I focus on this over here, and then a little on that over there, and I collect and sift through lots of feelings, thoughts, and information as I do. My piles are the physical manifestation of this flow from one thing to another and back, integrating it all as I go.

So I don’t try to eliminate my piles, as I once did. I simply set an intention to keep them on the small side.

My sister’s comment yesterday caused me to notice that the kitchen table piles were becoming a bit monstrous. So today I set about doing some clearing there.

When you have a task like this, it always seems worse once you begin it, and then after you’ve put about fifteen minutes into it, and can see some progress, you realize it’s not going to be that bad if you just work on it a little at a time.

I didn’t end up clearing off the entire table today (I got it down to one tiny pile and one medium-sized one), but what I did achieve freed up so much space, and I was able to sit there with my journal and feel a lightness I haven’t felt since … well, since the last time I did some clearing of the kitchen table.

This got me thinking about how, on a grander scale, we can 1) become blind to the clutter in our lives (it can become part of the landscape, whether it’s clothing we no longer wear or a group we no longer want to be a part of);

and 2) that quote attributed to Einstein about how you can’t solve a problem from the same consciousness that created the problem. The mind that sees all kinds of obstacles is not the same one that sees all kinds of freedom, all kinds of possible solutions you’ve never tried before.

The problem-seeing mind tends to keep on trying to solve things in the way that didn’t work — sometimes for years.

The mind that sees all the ways it is already free of the problem is coming from an entirely different space. This mind has more space. It sees space.

So one of the things we can assign our problem-seeing mind is the clearing of space.

What I noticed as I cleared my table today was that I changed. As I focused my attention on the task at hand, I began to engage my more creative, space-seeing mind. My body began to relax — I could feel space opening up on the table, but also within me.

How often do we try to stuff something into our lives without clearing space for it? How often do we try to know the unknowable — try to see our way into our future — without first creating an opening for the new?

When I went through those piles on the table this morning, I found coupons that were long expired, sketch paper I’d forgotten I’d purchased, a card from a friend I’d forgotten to put in a folder I have labeled “nice things”. The piles were composed of the past, and unmade past decisions. Small ones, to be sure, in this case, but never the less, the piles on my kitchen table were like a holding station that zapped some of my energy every time I glanced at them.

I’d become blind to this, however, until my sister’s comment alerted me to it. I’d have seen it eventually, but it was good, today, to face it.

And how do I feel? Like there’s that much more space in my life for my creative brain to do its thing. When I look at the kitchen table now, I see possibility instead of a problem.

Clearing space might also look like:

Questioning your “have-to’s” and choosing to let them go
Letting go of a draining relationship
Being ultra-selective about where you focus your time and attention

Where in your life can you clear space and allow your creativity to enter? What do you notice about how clearing physical space makes you feel? I’d love to hear from you.

P.S. I have a fun new offering for one-on-one coaching clients — if this blog post resonated, you may find it of particular interest! You can learn more about my Living Space Discovery Sessions on my Ways We Can Work Together page.

Above images: flowers and sky, © Maunger | Dreamstime Stock Photos, and seashells and starfish © Grafvision | Dreamstime Stock Photos, respectively

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Competing values and conflicting desires

May 15, 2018May 15, 2018 / Jill Winski / 6 Comments

Many years ago, I trained to work on a crisis hotline for women in domestic violence situations. One night of our training, we did an exercise that has really stuck with me over the years.

We were given a sheet a paper with about a hundred different personal values written on it. We then took scissors and cut from the list the fifteen values on it that mattered most to us. Then we took those fifteen little slips of paper, each with an individual value on it, and whittled them down to the ten values that mattered most to us. And then five. And finally, three.

The instructor asked us, “How does it feel to let go of the things you value? To not be able to hold onto them? What do you notice about what matters most to you?”

The most surprising thing that came out of this exercise for me was realizing that one of my top three values was predictability. I’d had no idea predictability was so important to me. It didn’t sound very “exciting” to my young self at all. But I knew in my bones that this value of predictability was a true one for me.

What also came out of this exercise, though, was that another very important value for me was “a sense of possibility.” I had a hard time, back then, reconciling this with the deeply held value of predictability. But as I worked on the crisis hotline and talked to women in dire situations, I could see that most of them had a strong desire for predictability and a strong desire for possibility, both of which often felt cut off from them.

We humans are complex. Years later, both predictability and possibility are still deeply defining values for me. What I’ve discovered is that, for me, the risk of the possible often springs from the safety and stability created by the predictable — and vice versa. They are not as much at odds with each other as I’d once thought, and in fact I want to have the feeling of both, regularly, in my life.

I’ll admit, though, that when I learned “predictability” was a strongly held value for me, it felt at odds with my sense of who I was. Owning that value has been a challenge for me. But owning it made so much intuitive sense to me — I had for years at that point involved myself in relationships that were highly unpredictable, and I never felt safe or cherished in them.

One of the most frequent challenges I see coming up for coaching clients is exactly this: values that seem to “compete”, and along with them, desires that seem (on the surface, anyway) to conflict. On the one hand, we want this. And on the other, we want that. Sometimes the different things we value and desire may seem about as in sync as oil and water.

Here are some more examples from my own life of how this can look:

I value routine, but I also value flexibility and variety
I value solitude, but I also value lots of connection with others
I consider myself a homebody, but I also value exploring new places
I value a feeling of privacy, but I also value being seen and known

I used to think I was alone in having so much contrast in what I valued and wanted. But having spent nearly eight years connecting with people in my life coach role, I now know that it is extremely common to have values and desires that seem to conflict and compete all over the place. I’d say it’s just part of being human.

Our minds love to grab onto the all-or-nothing, the black and white. The part of the brain that wants to ensure our physical survival particularly gets caught up in this, because it is always trying to simplify. This is great with things that actually are simple: if I’m crossing the street and a car is zooming toward me without slowing, I’d better get out of the way.

With the complexities in our lives, though, it’s much more helpful to honor that they are complex. That things are not as all-or-nothing as they may seem. Or that, as Byron Katie says, our minds often get things “backwards”. (The Work of Byron Katie is a fantastic way to question what your mind believes. Katie says it is “meditation”.)

If you take my list above, for example, how does it feel different for you if we simply replace the word “but” in each sentence with the word “and”? That would look like this:

I value routine, and I also value flexibility and variety
I value solitude, and I also value lots of connection with others
I consider myself a homebody, and I also value exploring new places
I value a feeling of privacy, and I also value being seen and known

Wow! Just rewriting that list, I felt this amazing sense of spaciousness and possibility (one of my core values!) that I didn’t feel much of at all when I wrote the list with the word “but”. (As Martha Beck likes to say, watch out for your big buts!)

So when I work with clients who have competing values or conflicting desires (or both!), we first invite that sense of spaciousness to the table. How does it feel different if this is welcome, and that is also welcome?

What often happens from this place of spaciousness is one of two things: it turns out that one value or desire actually is more important than the other (so they are not truly competing or conflicting — it’s just that one takes more of a “supporting role”); or, there is very much a way that the energies of these seemingly competing or conflicting values or desires can co-exist.

When we see this possibility, we know that we are in the highly creative zone of our brains (as opposed to the “lizard brain” that is concerned only with our physical survival).

Where do you notice competing values and conflicting desires in your life? How do you work with them? I’d love to hear from you.

P. S. My Stellar Self-Care (In an Overwhelming World) one-on-one coaching program will begin enrolling at the end of this month. Want to learn more? You can contact me through my Ways We Can Work Together page.

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Allow yourself comfort — and see what happens

November 13, 2017November 13, 2017 / Jill Winski / 2 Comments

Toward the end of the year, I always find myself thinking back on the dear one-on-one coaching clients I’ve worked with, and what comes back to me about the work we’ve done together.

This year, I notice I’m thinking about comfort.

It seems there was a theme this year of my clients realizing that it was okay to allow themselves comfort.

That comfort did not have to be used as a reward, for when they were done with “the hard work” — it did not have to be dangled as a carrot to be consumed at the end of a lot of toil.

Comfort — amazingly! — could actually be part of the process.

I think I’ve written here before that “break out of your comfort zone” is not one of my favorite phrases. I’ve just never found it inspiring (though I totally get the meaning behind it).

There are a couple of reasons I dislike this saying. One of them is that I’ve seen many people — including myself — push themselves way too far out of their so-called “comfort zones”, to the point of having panic attacks, meltdowns, even breaking bones or pushing themselves through illness to try to compete in some way.

The other is that it indicates that being “comfortable” is somehow bad or wrong or self-indulgent. But for those of us who, perhaps, grew up without an adequate feeling of comfort and/or safety in our lives, this is inaccurate.

As I’ve written before, if you have a tendency to push yourself really hard (as most of my clients do), you probably need more comfort, not more withholding comfort from yourself.

And is it true that adding comfort to your “hard work” will keep you from getting it done?

Here’s what some of my clients found this year:

• The client who rewarded himself for completing his work on his writing project by taking his dog for a walk discovered that when he took his dog for a walk before he started writing, it actually helped him write better. He felt more centered and more creative. His body felt better because he’d moved it before sitting down (and his dog slept through the writing period rather than reminding him that it was time to go out!).

• The client who rewarded herself with a hot cup of tea after getting through a challenging weekly meeting found that allowing herself the tea during the meeting actually reminded her it was okay to show up as herself and be gentler with herself (and that warmth was an important thing to focus on when the “tough stuff” in these meetings arose!).

• The client who had recently left a long-term relationship found that allowing herself to stay home on the weekends wrapped in a blanket on the couch and watching Netflix was helping her grief process a lot more than “being productive” on the weekends (which was her usual approach!).

When we allow ourselves comfort, we are also choosing to trust ourselves, and to trust the process of life.

When I work with people who are in the midst of major transitions in their lives, 99.9 percent of the time they say that they just want to be out of the transition and that they are “moving too slowly” and that they need me to help them hurry up.

And I always say exactly what they think they don’t want to hear (but that brings some part of them deep relief): When we’re in a stressful transition, it’s helpful to allow ourselves to go slow. It’s not the time to make big moves and it’s definitely not the time to “break out of our comfort zone”.

In fact, we’re in transition because either we’ve chosen to leave the known and familiar behind — or because it’s been ripped away from us (and we had no choice in the matter).

What I have continually found in my own life is that when I’m in the midst of something really hard and I finally surrender to the fact that it is hard, and I can’t go as fast as I’d like because there is so much internal and external stuff to work through — when I accept that this is where I am and actually allow myself some comfort, that is exactly when things begin to transform. It’s exactly when I begin to relax into the new “me” I’m becoming.

But as long as I’m fighting things and trying to “tough my way through” what’s already hard, I am not allowing the space (or the comfort) to relax enough to welcome the new.

I’ve also noticed (as I wrote about here) that when I allow more softness into a task or a journey that feels hard, I do not become an overindulged mess. I actually feel far more capable, confident, and I enjoy what I’m doing a heck of a lot more.

I invite you to test this out for yourself. Where can you allow yourself a little more comfort? What happens when you do? I’d love to hear from you.

Speaking of transitions, the deadline to sign up for one of my specially-priced Autumn Transition Coaching Sessions is Wednesday, November 22. If you’re in an “in-between” place (with your creative work, a relationship, or some other aspect of your life) this fall and needing some support, I’d love to help. You can learn more about my Autumn Transition Sessions here.

Above images of tea cup © Jill Battaglia | Dreamstime Stock Photos, and candles © Diana Constantin | Dreamstime Stock Photos, respectively