Trusting your process

Getting clear on what’s true for you

/ Jill Winski

Several years ago I was talking to a friend of mine (who also happens to be a very gifted life coach). During our conversation, I kept comparing myself to someone else I admired, saying “I just can’t do what she does.”

My friend pointed out my use of the word “can’t” and asked me: “You can’t — or you don’t want to?”

I stopped and pondered for a moment. Oh, my friend was wise. The truth was, I didn’t want to do what this woman was doing. It was wonderful — for her, but not for me.

This realization brought me to another question: Why was I choosing to believe I wasn’t capable of doing something, when the truth was that I didn’t want to do it at all?

It occurred to me that it was “easier” for me to believe I just couldn’t than to accept and sit with that fact that, as is often true for me, someone else’s path wasn’t my path. Allowing this truth to surface meant that I would need to find another way that did work for me, for who I was (and am).

It is challenging to look inward for guidance when it seems so much easier to look outward. Realizing we don’t want to do it the way “everyone else” is doing it may trigger stuff for us, too.  (“Why can’t I do it the way she does it — what’s wrong with me?”)

Guidance that doesn’t fit us, however, is not “easy” at all. Trying to follow it feels like wearing a pair of shoes that are too loose or too tight — it’s hard to get where you’re going that way!

Isn’t it fascinating that our minds will actually believe things that are not deeply true for us, rather than take in truths that may be hard to accept? And yet, this happens all the time. I see it often with my life coaching clients — which is why, sometimes, our work is about simply creating enough safety and comfort for them to be with whatever their truth may be.

Because here’s the thing: if we aren’t standing in our truth, we have no solid foundation to build on. Somebody else’s truth, somebody else’s guidance, won’t do it for us (unless it truly resonates for us).

So how do we get clear on what’s true for us?

• Be sure that you want to know the truth. Sometimes I’ve worked with a client who realizes “I don’t want to get clear right now. I have so much going on that is causing fear and chaos for me, and I’m just not ready yet.” This is totally valid. You know what’s best for you — and in fact, a feeling of safety is key in allowing the truth to surface. Allow yourself to get to that place of safety — that inner feeling of safety — first.

• Don’t force it. You don’t have to grasp or push to know what it true for you — the truth arises when you feel safe enough to be with it and when you are in a place of relative peace. (I often connect with what’s true for me when I take my morning walks, which bring me to a peaceful place of acceptance most days.)

• Notice the language you’re using, as my coach friend helped me do during our conversation. If you hear words like “can’t”, “should”, “never” or “always”, that’s your mind going to an all-or-nothing place — and chances are, those words are not true for you.

• Know that your truth is not deeply buried. When you feel safe to contact it, to express it, you’ll find that it’s right there waiting to be honored. If writing is your thing, a simple and helpful exercise is to go to your journal and write: “What I really want to say is … ” (Thanks to Natalie Goldberg for this idea, which I found years ago in her book Wild Mind.)

• Again, safety. And support. Who is a person you trust, who is good at reflecting to you who you are, as my friend did for me? She knew me well enough to intuit that my “can’t” wasn’t really a “can’t” at all, and she played that hunch.

It is so much easier to move forward — even with the really challenging stuff — when we are doing so from a foundation of what is true for us. That starts with letting yourself know what is true, and going from there.

A quick update: My one-on-one coaching program Light Up Your Creative Self will close after September 30. This program may be for you if you are feeling blocked, stuck or simply like you are flailing in the dark when it comes to a creative project or your creativity in general. I have typically done this program with writers, but it is open to anyone who feels called to it — we are all creative (even when it doesn’t feel like it!). Interested? Find out more on my Ways We Can Work Together page, here. (By the way, it’s $25 off the total price through the 30th.)

Above image is “Autumn Leaf” © Ronfromyork | Dreamstime Stock Photos

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Who do you want to be today?

/ Jill Winski / 6 Comments

Saturday is normally a work day for me. I often have coaching clients on Saturday mornings, and if I don’t, I use that time for writing or other business-related things.

But when I got up this past Saturday, I realized I just wasn’t feeling “right”. After a couple of hours of inexplicably aching muscles, my mind went to all the things that could possibly be wrong; I imagined myself in the ER, or with a prolonged hospital stay; it would feel so invasive, it would be so expensive, and how would my elderly cat survive without me if I were in the hospital for a long time?

Meanwhile I kept telling myself I should make use of my day. It was important to keep on schedule! What would happen if I didn’t get it all done?

Saturday passed in a flurry of anxiety, during which I told no less than three people close to me over the phone that I was surely dying and things were crumbling and life always pulled the rug out from under me when I was feeling productive! Life didn’t want me to accomplish anything!

Fast forward to Sunday, when I felt markedly better and realized that I probably just had a mild bug which was causing weird muscle aches. Though I was tempted to play catch-up on Sunday, my body sent me a strong message that it was time to rest, and rest I did (with a little help from Netflix).

Monday morning, though, the tyranny of the un-done loomed heavily as I woke up, grateful to be feeling well but now back in “get-it-done” mode.

(So many years after the chronic illness that changed the way I related to myself back in my twenties, I still tend to make a very quick leap from “Feeling good” to “Now how much can I get done?” It still sometimes takes “feeling physically unwell” for me to truly slow down — and this is something I continue to notice and work with in myself.)

I went out for my morning walk (making it a brief one, since there was now so much to do!).  As I headed home, intuition guided me a little bit out of my way to walk past what I think of as “the cat house” — a house whose side windows are situated along a brick-paved street. In these windows, I almost always catch glimpses of cats. At any given time there seem to be about seven or eight cats living in this house.

The cats in the cat house are often asleep on various pieces of window-oriented cat furniture, but on Monday, I encountered two awake ones. In the first window sat a gray tabby, an adolescent, not quite full-cat size. It watched me as though I were the most curious thing it had ever seen.

In the next window, a full-grown, robust gray-and-white cat, sat hen-like. Its eyes followed me as I passed, and I couldn’t help smiling. It was like these cats posed a silent question to me: What’s your hurry, human?

I turned the corner and headed down the adjacent street, my mind quickly crowding out the happy images of the cats with my towering to-do list. But I felt a little shift in myself — a little bit of breathing room.

And then, as I passed the barber shop on the corner, noticing the barber inside chatting with a regular, scissors glinting, it occurred to me: Whether I approach “all I need to do today” from this place of frantic intensity, or borrow the laidback alertness of those little faces in the cat house and move through the day from a place of peace and curiosity, I will probably get about the same amount done.

And I asked myself, Who do you want to be today? The frantic person who tries to do it all because if you don’t, you’ll be really hard on yourself? Or the person who moves from a place of self-acceptance and recognizes that she is choosing to do what she does, and if it doesn’t all get done, she’ll be totally okay?

I chose the second person. And, interestingly, I got a heck of a lot done yesterday from that peaceful, self-accepting place, borrowing some of that laidback-yet-curious cat energy.

But whether I’d accomplished everything I wanted to or not, the experience of doing it, the journey of my day, felt so much more pleasurable (and powerful) than it would have had I chosen to be the frantic person who operates from urgency.

In her beautiful memoir Autobiography of a Face, author Lucy Grealy wrote that we don’t learn something big just once in our lives and then, that’s it; we tend to learn the same truths over and over again. This lesson is not new to me. In fact, this choice of who I want to be is one I make over and over again. Because I often forget that I have this choice.

The key, with so much in our lives, is remembering.

And when I choose self-acceptance and peace over frantic urgency, I do not contribute to the frantic urgency that is so prevalent in our world. 

Who do you want to be today? Who do you choose to be? How do you interact with yourself and others, based on this choice? I’d love to hear from you.

P. S. Way back when, I wrote about how our “not enough time” issues are really issues of self-acceptance. You can read that post, here.

P. P. S. My one-on-one coaching program Light Up Your Creative Self goes away at the end of September as I make room for new things I’m creating. Interested in this program? Find out more about it, here — and get $25 off until it goes away.

Above image © Olena Chyrko | Dreamstime Stock Photos

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When your inner guidance says “no”

/ Jill Winski / 4 Comments

stopsign

For many years, one of the hardest words for me to utter was “no”. To me, back then, “no” meant:

• cutting off an opportunity forever

• hurting someone’s feelings

• being perceived as rude or selfish

• admitting I couldn’t do it all (which, to my inner perfectionist, was akin to death!)

There were lots of other things “no” signified to me back in those days.

And an interesting thing happens when we are afraid of “no”: we don’t truly allow the inner wisdom that says “I don’t want this.” Or “the timing’s not right.” There is power in “no.”

A familiar struggle I notice with my coaching clients is this: An opportunity comes their way, but it doesn’t quite feel right. It looks good on paper, but something’s off. A part of them (and usually lots of friends and family, too), is telling them they should jump at the chance, but something tells them it’s either not the opportunity for them, or it’s a great opportunity, but not the right time.

This is a truly tricky spot to be in — if we let fear run the show. In fact, I was recently faced with a situation like this. An opportunity appeared and it looked great. But, somehow, it didn’t feel great. It felt exhausting — when I thought about actually doing it, I felt instantly tired and like I wanted to cry (this, I’ve come to learn, is one of my body’s ways of saying no when I try to push it).

Something I notice is that as I get closer and closer to “mastering” certain skills — in this case, the art of saying no! — the stakes in my decisions tend to feel higher and higher. I’ll hear myself saying, why does this feel so hard? Shouldn’t it be easier by now?

But life tends to throw us bigger challenges when we’re ready for a more challenging playing field. It’s like when you choose the “advanced” level in a video game instead of “intermediate”. Intermediate has gotten a little bit boring, but in the advanced level, it turns out the aliens shoot at you the whole time, not just off and on.

Even after many years of practice, I found it really hard to say no to this recent opportunity. But pushing myself through something that feels deeply exhausting is not walking my talk. It’s not what I stand for.

Let me tell you: the “yes” would have felt easier (in the moment). It is almost always easier for me to say yes when I am asked to participate. Saying yes doesn’t bring up my “stuff” the way no does (and I know this is not the case for everyone — some people have more difficulty with a genuine yes!).

In this case, I needed to say “yes” to permission to say no.

And you know what happened? I got so much support from the person I said no to. My genuine “no” — rather than closing off an opportunity — opened the door to the potential of future opportunities with this same person (who really appreciated my honest response).

I also had the experience of walking my talk when it comes to self-care — and being supported in doing so.

Had I said “yes” in order to not ruffle feathers, in order to not disappoint, in order to avoid the potential of beating myself up for “not doing enough”, I would have reinforced the idea that it’s not safe to say no.

And, my friends, we need to create evidence for ourselves that it is safe to do things that are hard.

Just as I once had an overstuffed file of evidence for my belief that saying no would mean I’d end up alone, I am building evidence for the contrary: saying no can be a powerful form of taking care of myself, and inviting others to support me in that self care — and participate in their own.

In her book The Language of Emotions, Karla McLaren calls situational depression “ingenious stagnation.” I wonder about this in terms of giving ourselves permission to say no to more of what our souls just don’t want — would we experience less depression if we had more permission to deliver an authentic no?

Do you find saying no difficult? What helps you do it when it feels scary? I’d love to hear from you.

(If you need help getting clear when you’re “on the fence” about a decision, you might find this post helpful.)

And: I’ll be enrolling in my Stellar Self-Care Coaching Program through the end of this month — I have room to work with two more people one-on-one. Please note that the small group version is currently full — but I will likely offer it again in the near future! Find out more here. 

Above image © creativecommonsstockphotos | Dreamstime Stock Photos

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Honoring your way of taking action in the world

/ Jill Winski

glidingswan

In my “former life,” I did a lot of one-on-one tutoring of writers, both privately and through the creative writing program at Columbia College Chicago.

A while back, I heard from one of these writers, who caught me up on the book she’s working on and told me that one of the biggest takeaways she had from the work we did together was that it was really okay for her to take time to ponder a question before she answered it — whether in her writing or in her life.

Who knew? I remembered, then, our talks about introversion and how she’d felt pressured to respond to questions very quickly in her college classes, but she needed a little time to sit with the question before answering it. Meanwhile, the “quick responders” would have carried off the conversation and it would have moved on, before she got a chance to put in her two cents.

Oh, had I been there. Whether you identify as an introvert, extrovert, or somewhere in-between, it’s a fact that each of us has a unique way of taking in information and responding to it.

In other words, our individual personal make-up causes each of us to have our own way of taking action in the world.

I could empathize with my tutoring student because so often in school I felt I’d been “too slow” to respond, and so I wouldn’t speak up at all.

What was actually going on was that, as an introvert, I needed to take in information and chew on it for a bit before I could form my response. (Marti Olsen Laney talks about the “long neural pathway” that introverts’ brains must traverse as they respond to information — as opposed to the shorter “extrovert pathway” — in her book The Introvert Advantage.)

There’s also the fact that our personal energy moves in its own way (think about water: for some of us, our natural energy is more of a slow, steady river current, whereas for others, it’s still, like ice, and others are more like Niagara Falls).

In our Western culture, we tend to put swift decision-makers and bold, take-charge energy on a pedestal; but the truth is that that is only one way of taking action, one type of personal energy. If it’s not yours, you can — and must — honor your way of taking action in the world.

***

Kathy Kolbe developed a test called the Kolbe Index, which assesses your “conative style” — the way you take action. When I took the Kolbe, I scored equally high as a Quick Start (who needs to jump into an experience, before thinking much about how to proceed), and a Fact Finder (who needs to gather lots of information before taking action).

While neither of these styles of action-taking feel totally like “me”, I can definitely see where I have both Quick Start and Fact Finder tendencies (when I’m excited about something, I sometimes forget to investigate the finer points of how to actually execute it before moving ahead; when I’m not sure, I sometimes gather information way beyond the point that I’m uncovering anything new).

Mostly, though, what I’ve come to learn about myself over the years is that I have a fairly slow and steady style of taking action, punctuated by seemingly “sudden” leaps of faith at key points in my life that can appear as though they’ve risen up out of the blue. But what’s really going on is that all these slow and steady movements provide a foundation for me to take big leaps into the unknown when I recognize it’s time to do that.

I’ve also learned that it’s important not to allow myself to be pressured by people who have a swifter and bolder style of taking action than I do (just as it’s important for them to let me know if my slower, steadier style is feeling too heavy and cumbersome for them). I see this with couples a lot: when one has a swifter action-taking style, the one with the slower or gentler style can feel left behind and the swifter one can feel too slowed down.

With my life coaching clients, what I often see is that their self-care suffers when they are trying to adopt a style of taking action that doesn’t feel true to who they are.

This can take some un-learning (I often say that self-care is more about un-doing and un-learning than it is about doing or learning anything new!). We might have grown up with parents who required us to move more quickly or slowly than felt natural to us, or maybe in school the steady, structured pace of the learning felt out of sync with our more circular or “hands-on” style of learning.

***

When I became ill in my mid-twenties, I realized I’d been trying to move through life with a bolder and swifter energy than was actually natural for me. I kept pushing myself to move more quickly, to do more, faster. Why? Because I thought it was what would cause me to feel more accepted and loved and successful in the world. But guess what? It actually contributed to my physical collapse.

All these years later, I feel so much healthier when I allow myself to take action in my slower, quieter, ebb-and-flow sort of way (and in the long run I arrive at my destination more quickly because I don’t burn out along the way!).

And I’ve developed a lot of trust in this way of taking action — it works for me, and I’ve gathered plenty of evidence over the years that it does.

And truly honoring my own way of taking action allows me to be more honoring of others whose action-taking styles are quite different from mine. It’s not about “right” or “wrong”; it’s about what feels natural for each of us.

What do you know about the way you take action in the world? Is the way you take action true to who you are? How does it apply to your self-care? I’d love to hear from you.

Speaking of self-care, I have two spots open for one-on-one clients in my Stellar Self-Care Coaching Program (I’ll continue enrolling in this program through the end of April). And, if you are interested in participating in the group version of Stellar Self-Care, I am enrolling for that as well until April 21. Please contact me via my Ways We Can Work Together page if you’d like more info on the group version, or if you are interested in finding out about working together one-on-one.

Above image © creativecommonsstockphotos | Dreamstime Stock Photos

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Is it time to set down those old coping strategies?

/ Jill Winski / 4 Comments

birdsflight

The other day, I noticed myself doing something I’ve done countless times in my life: I said “yes” when I meant “no.”

The story I told myself in my head, in the moment, was “Well, I’m too overwhelmed right now to get into a conflict by saying no. So I’ll say yes, and then I’ll find a way to gracefully bow out later.”

I have a lot of compassion for myself around this, because I was caught off-guard by the asker. And I don’t think there is anything “wrong” with the way I handled this. (I followed up the next day and said, “You know, after checking in with myself and looking at my schedule, I realize I actually can’t do X. I’m sorry about that.”)

But the truth is, I was out of integrity when I said yes, knowing I meant no. It wasn’t really fair to the asker, and the incident shone a light for me on an area where, perhaps, it’s time for me to shift “coping strategies.”

Back in my twenties, I went through some intense shifts where I realized I needed set some boundaries if I were to live the life I wanted to live, if I were to retain any semblance of my true self. So I said no, a lot. No, no, no.

In fact, I said “no” even when I wasn’t sure I really wanted to say no, just to practice. There was a lot of “no” going on during that time.

Eventually, I realized that many of my “no’s” were simply reactions to a fear of being controlled, to a fear of losing my autonomy. They were not genuine “no’s.” (Sometimes, when we’re embracing something new, we can go to an extreme with it. When that extreme starts to hurt, we know it’s time for some balance.)

So, bit by bit, I started letting “yes” — an authentic yes — be part of my life. And sometimes I got confused. Sometimes I’d say “yes” and realize that it was a people-pleasing yes, and then I’d get angry and go to a big NO. Sometimes I felt more of a “maybe” and I wasn’t quite sure how to handle that one.

So fast-forward to my forties. I’ve had tons of practice with all this over the years, and it is so much less stressful than it was when I was first learning to say yes when I meant yes, and no when I meant no. But I’ve held onto a coping strategy: When I’m on the spot, as I was the other day, I still sometimes go for the “yes” that is less about a true yes and more about not making waves in the moment.

And I realized this time around, I don’t need to do that anymore. I can let that particular coping strategy go.

I developed that coping strategy at a time of my life when I thought there was something wrong with anything less than a whole-hearted “yes” or a full-on “no”. I was at a place where my thinking was often black-and-white, all-or-nothing. It didn’t feel okay to be unsure or in-between.

So the way I worked with that belief was to say “yes” when I felt pressured, and retract my yes later. Which was still leaps and bounds better than how I’d used to handle things (saying yes when I meant no but believing I couldn’t say no, so going ahead with things full of resentment, reinforcing to myself the belief that I wasn’t allowed to do what I really wanted to do).

You know what, though? Today, I believe that it is perfectly okay to say, “You know, I really can’t. I’m sorry.” Or, “Hmm … let me ponder that and get back to you on it.” Or, “I’m feeling a little conflicted about that — when do you need to know for sure?”

There is such a range of “okay” here that I didn’t see back then.

And since I’m okay with whatever my response might be, however someone else responds is okay, too. I don’t have to jump to the old coping strategy of trying to predict and head off a “negative” response. I can breathe and tell the truth, and, if they choose it, so can the person who’s asking.

It’s interesting that I hadn’t even noticed I was employing a coping strategy of yore. (I love the concept of yore. Yore is a good word!) And, now that I’ve noticed it, I’m wondering what other “old strategies” I might be able to just set down? Because other, better ones, more authentic ones, have already queued up to take their place.

Do you remember the Buddhist tale of the man who uses a raft to get across the river, and once he’s across, he keeps carrying the heavy raft over his head, even though he’s already across?  How often do we do this in our lives? We’ve grown and changed and we’re not who we used to be — we have different needs, new strengths, more capabilities.

But some little part of us still resorts to the means by which we got here. If those means continue to feel authentic and relevant, absolutely continue to use them. But if they’ve gotten a little stale, if you feel like someone else when you notice yourself employing them, ask: can I let go of this now? Can I trust in a new way?

As I finish this post, I’m aware of how much this concept affects us not just individually, but collectively. We are being called upon to set down the old ways that no longer work.

And we’re being truly challenged here. Are we up to the challenge? Can we give ourselves lots of compassion while we find a new way — or, if we’ve already found it, can we be steadfastly kind and patient with ourselves as we test our new wings?

I’d love to hear how this works for you — do you notice yourself using coping strategies that are more about who you used to be than who you are now?

And: I had the true pleasure of talking to the wonderful writer and speaker Caroline McGraw for A Wish Come Clear’s You Need to Read video interview series. Such an honor to be part of this series — I hope you’ll take a look at the interview, and subscribe to get the whole series! Check it out, here.

Plus: I heard from a few of you who’d like to get on the info list for the small group version  of my Stellar Self-Care Coaching Program. I’ll be sending out info to those interested around the third week of February. If you’d like to get on the list, please contact me through the form on my Ways We Can Work Together page, here.

Above image © Creativecommonsstockphotos | Dreamstime Stock Photos

Embracing structure when you’re a go-with-the-flow type

/ Jill Winski / 10 Comments

stonesAs someone who tends to rebel against any kind of perceived constraint, I frequently need to remind myself that structure can be supportive and nourishing.

I also notice that the quality of my energy is innately flowing. Anything too rigid doesn’t quite feel like “home” to me.

If we’re not naturally drawn to a lot of structure — or, if we were “over-structured” in our childhoods, with nary a free moment to ourselves — we may rebel against structure as adults.

Emerson is often misquoted as having said “Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” The true quotation is actually this: “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”

Consistency in and of itself — and for the purposes of this post I am defining consistency as showing up regularly for particular routines and rituals — can be extremely supportive to us, especially for those of us who have very active inner lives.

If your inner life takes you on frequent rollercoaster rides, it only makes sense that your outer life might need a certain amount of grounding, centering structure — even if that structure looks mundane to the part of you that values creativity and adventure and discovery.

So how do we know the difference between structure that is supportive to us and, as Emerson called it, “foolish consistency”? We know by the way it feels.

I can always tell I am trying to “convince myself” something is working for me that really isn’t when I go up into my mind, away from my body. I’m tipped off to the fact that I’m doing this when I hear myself say, “Realistically, I should probably keep on doing such-and-such.” Or, “Logically, there’s no reason I can’t take up running.” (Um — except that I hate it.)

Our minds are very good at convincing us that we are “just being practical and realistic” when the truth might be that we are afraid of doing what feels better and more truly supportive.  Or maybe we just can’t give ourselves permission to do what feels truly supportive to us.

Which leads me to this point: Structure that is supportive to us may not look like someone else’s structure. And it may not look like what we think it will look like.

It could be that the job we swore we’d never take actually ends up providing us with a type of routine that both grounds us and creates steady income that feels delicious (yes, regular income can be a kind of supportive structure!).

We may also find that just a little structure goes a long way for us. The key is to allow the structure in.

For example, one of my clients recently started meeting with a support group for young moms once a month and she’s finding that this simple monthly get-together is paying off in spades. She looks forward to it, it creates community and connection for her, and she leaves it feeling less overwhelmed.

As a “naturally flowing type”, she’d been thinking a regular meeting like this might feel like a chore on top of everything else she’s doing — but it’s actually supporting her in doing everything else she wants to do.

That’s something that those of us who like a lot of flow in our lives often fear — that structure will feel like a chore, that it will hem us in and we’ll feel disconnected from our spirits. But I’ve found the opposite to be true — structure can provide a container that supports and channels the flow of our energy.

It’s key here to discover what kind of structure we need, and how much structure feels good to us.

When I get over-structured, I start to feel like I’m on a deadening treadmill. But the amount of structure that feels “too much” for me is actually too little for a good friend of mine. (And we’re both Myers-Briggs INFP’s — “P” types tend to prefer less structure, but even among them there is a spectrum of how much is too much!)

And sometimes, it’s worth noting, we need to allow in a little more of the energy that we tend to reject or resist. People who get caught up in a lot of “doing” often need to ease up a little and allow more being into their lives. And people who have difficulty moving into “doing” energy sometimes need support in taking more frequent action (which may involve adding more structure!).

Obviously, we all embody both of these energies at times during each day, but the cultural preference for “doing” in the western world can create struggle for us whether we naturally prefer more structure or less.

(I wrote about how I’m learning to make friends with structure and systems several years ago in this post.)

What do you notice about your own need for structure? Do you tend to need a lot of structure in your daily life to feel grounded and supported, or not that much? What helps you get things done, more structure or less? I’d love to hear from you.

Also: I have openings for new coaching clients in December and January. If you need support in making your creative work a priority while practicing excellent self-care, I encourage you to check out the ways we can work together, here.

Above image © Anatoly Zavodskov | Dreamstime Stock Photos

There’s no right way to process change

/ Jill Winski / 6 Comments

squigglyhearts

Many of us here in the U.S. are struggling to cope with our feelings about the results of our election this week.

One of the themes I’ve noticed over the past several days, for myself as well as clients, colleagues, and community I’ve connected with is something like this: I’m not sure how, or when, or where, to express what I’m feeling. 

I’ve heard several people say — as soon as a few hours after the election results came in — “It’s time to move on and stop talking about it.”

Whoa! This is big, for all of us (including those who are happy with the results of the election). How about allowing ourselves a little time to process this change, if that’s what we need?

I’ve also noticed myself feeling compelled to respond to others’ pain when I had nothing left in me to give. I’ve felt both comforted and exhausted by social media posts. I’ve wanted to grieve and process alone, and then very quickly wanted to grieve and process with others.

I’ve noticed that there’s a difference in feel between those who seem to want to hurry on to avoid what they’re feeling, and those who want to move on to create positive change without dwelling on what’s done. And probably many of us are experiencing all of the above.

I have so much compassion for all of this. When we’re hit with big change, each of us will respond based on our past experiences, who we are today, our unique temperaments, and the way we’re wired.

The bottom line for me: I want to feel safe, and I want others to feel safe. I want to be kind, and I want to honestly express what I’m experiencing when and where that feels safe and necessary to me. I don’t want to trample on anyone’s beliefs, and I need to honor my own.

I can care about you and disagree with you. I can love you, and need to process what I’m feeling in a way that is quite different from your way.

What if, as long as we are not intentionally hurting anyone else, it’s okay to process big change in whatever way we need to process it? As quickly or as slowly, as outwardly or inwardly, publicly or privately? With lots of talking it out, lots of contemplation, or a combination of both?

What if whatever we need is just okay? And what if, by open-handedly giving ourselves what we need, it helps us feel okay with others taking care of themselves in whatever way they need to as well?

I write a lot about self-care here, and how we really can’t totally separate self-care from other-care. What if the ultimate act of self-care is gentleness toward ourselves when we’re just not quite sure what we need? And that, in cultivating this gentleness toward ourselves, we’ll be better able to extend it to others as well?

How do you know how to best take care of yourself — and respond to the needs of others — during challenging times? Do you tend to move through big changes quickly, or do you need to process more slowly? I’d love to hear from you.

Above image © Madartists | Dreamstime Stock Photos

Intuition — or something else?

/ Jill Winski / 4 Comments

moonnight(Scroll to the end of this post to learn about two important deadlines.)

Something that often comes up for the clients I work with is confusion around the concept of intuition. When are we acting on our intuition, and when are other forces at play, that may look like intuition, but actually aren’t?

I used to believe that strong emotions and my intuition were the same thing. It took a few very painful experiences for me to come to terms with the realization that this wasn’t true.

At that time in my life, just getting in touch with my emotions was huge for me, because I had learned to disconnect from what I was feeling over the years. So when I got back in touch with my feelings, I began to act on them, usually extremely quickly.

This looked like: Getting and quitting jobs, without much forethought at all; getting into (and out of) relationships without pausing to reflect on whether they were what I actually wanted; expressing my feelings to others, even when it wasn’t helpful or necessary; buying things on the spur of the moment; staying up and active when I needed sleep — the list goes on.

All of the above, I came to discover, was not acting on my intuition — it was acting impulsively. It was an important place for me to be for a while, since I’d learned so well during my teen years to bury my feelings and disconnect from them (and my body, where feelings reside).

There’s certainly nothing wrong with being impulsive here and there. (It can be fun, for sure!) But ultimately, I had to face the truth that this impulsive behavior was not necessarily helping me. 

And then I began to wonder: what IS intuition, then?

Let’s start with what intuition ISN’T:

• It’s not action that comes purely from emotion (many times we think we are acting from intuition when in fact we are being driven by fear or anger).

• It’s not wishful thinking (sometimes we can confuse the hope that something will happen with the idea that it’s meant to happen).

• It’s not predicting the future (though acting on our intuition can certainly guide us toward important growth experiences, they may not look like we thought they would!).

Because we live in a very action-oriented culture, one of the most difficult things for us to do can be sitting with discomfort. (It can be hard to even give ourselves permission to do that!)

What I learned from my experiences was that my impulsive actions were often born of an unwillingness to sit with that discomfort. I thought I had to do something to alleviate it — and more often than not, I’d just create more mess for myself (like the time, at about twenty-one, when I cut my own hair, screwed it up, and then shaved half my head to “cover up” the screw-up).

Sitting with our discomfort and letting muddy water become clear, to paraphrase Lao-Tzu, is key to getting in touch with our intuition.

True intuition has a detached feel to it. There will NOT be strong emotion hanging onto a true intuitive prompting — it will feel simple, more like “I want to do this” or “I don’t want to do that.” Sometimes people describe it as simply “a knowing”.  (It’s the stressful thinking we pile on top of an intuitive prompting that makes it seem complicated!)

Intuition does not explain itself, either. If you hear a lot of “Well, I want to do this because of this and this and this and then hopefully this will happen but maybe Mom will be mad if it happens but I’ll figure out a way to deal with that and oh yeah maybe Bob won’t like it either if I do that but I’ll show him!” — that is NOT intuition, it’s your mind rationalizing an action you’re not clear you want to take (yet).

This is why it’s so important, when we’re unclear, that we start with our bodies and notice what we’re feeling, then let the emotions come up and through us, and then, when we’re in a calmer, more settled place, see what we know.

Because intuition, I’ve noticed, tends to hide from drama. Intuition is always there, and can always be accessed, so it’s not truly hiding; it’s just that the drama drowns it out and is so noisy intuition can’t be bothered with it.

(Intuition is kind of like my cat, who slinks off to hang out under the dresser when there’s too much company. It’s not that my cat hates the company; he just figures it’s not worth the trouble and will reappear when the environment is quiet and peaceful.)

Now, intuition does take our emotions into account. It uses them as information. And that’s an important point: intuition needs information to function.

Even “intuitive flashes” that happen seemingly instantaneously occur in part because our subconscious mind has picked up on various cues in our environments and factored in our reactions to them — all so quickly our conscious mind may not notice. (Here the classic example of choosing not to get on an elevator with a person who gives you a “creepy” vibe applies. You’ve only seen the person for a second or two, but something feels “off.”)

Our desire to please others, or our fear of loss and change, can sometimes keep us from being willing to access our intuition. I always encourage my clients to allow themselves to know what they know and to give themselves permission not to act on it right away. It sounds, um, counter-intuitive, but sometimes this is the safety we need in order to allow our intuition to emerge — particularly if we grew up in an environment where speaking our truth was not encouraged or accepted.

How do you discern between your intuition and other energies within you? What helps you access your intuition? I’d love to hear from you.

P. S. There’s still time to sign up for one of my Autumn Transition Coaching Sessions. If you’re in a life transition this fall and need some clarity about your next step, I encourage you to check them out, here. You can sign up through November 1, 2016.

Also, if you’re a woman at midlife who’s feeling stuck and yearning for change, I hope you’ll take a look at my dear friend Theresa Trosky’s program, What’s Next? Theresa is an extremely gifted Master Certified Life Coach, and she’s helped me (brilliantly) through some of my own challenges. Her program begins on November 2, and you can find out more about it here.

Above image is “Moon Night”, © Paolo De Santis | Dreamstime Stock Photos

Noticing (and celebrating!) small changes

/ Jill Winski / 2 Comments
frenchlizard

This lizard I saw in France reminds me that it’s okay to hang out when I need to rest and regain my energy.

I am having so much fun this summer supporting several of my clients in creating better self-care (you can learn more about my Stellar Self-Care Coaching Program here).

When I work with folks, I often see themes that are “up” for all of them (it’s amazing how this happens — the themes that jump out at me are, no doubt, themes that I’ve noticed in myself as well, and that’s why they stand out for me!).

One of the themes I’m noticing right now is our collective tendency to be “in a hurry”, to have it done yesterday, to finally “get it” once and for all. A couple of my clients have said, “How can I not know this stuff by now?” or “How can I still be struggling with this?”

Oh, wow, have I said this myself. In fact, I probably hear this weekly in various conversations.

It’s like we believe we should get to a point — hopefully fairly early in our lives — where we understand ourselves completely and there’s nothing more to learn. Because then we’d — what? Be perfect? Do everything “the right way”? Have it all figured out?

Wouldn’t that be awfully boring? The most exciting thing about life to me is learning more and more about who I am.

In fact, when I notice I’m comparing myself to others, one of my favorite ways to move out of that is to turn it right around and compare myself to myself. What do I know about myself now that I didn’t know twenty years ago, or ten? How am I better able to take care of myself and thrive and do my true work in the world because of that knowing?

A huge part of this is allowing ourselves to celebrate the changes we see — and not just the external changes, but the inner knowing that prompts that change. And I really encourage all of us to celebrate the small changes, even the tiny changes, we see.

Don’t fall for the idea that “it has to be ‘big’ to count.” So many of the changes we make in our lives that seem huge are made up of teeny tiny incremental changes that happened over time.

(I’m talking here about changes we pursue of our own volition — sometimes change is thrust upon us from the outside and, let’s face it, it’s just big, and in those cases we need support in handling the change, not in creating it!).

***

One of the changes I notice in myself over the past few years that has contributed to my practicing better self-care is that I pause more before acting (when it feels right). And I ask others to support me in allowing this pause.

This might look like saying, “I need to think about that before I make a decision.” Or, “Do you mind if we sit on this bench for a while and just hang out before we go on to our next activity?” It’s all about honoring my natural energy.

When I travel (especially long distances), I decide ahead of time that most of my first day in the new place will be spent resting, and I’ll move into more activity on the second day. When I went to France a few years ago, I spent an entire day hanging out in the villa we rented while everyone else went exploring. I floated in the pool and noticed the lizards and marveled at that white-hot South of France sun. It was what I needed.

But earlier in my life, I would have forced myself to go with everyone else because I didn’t want to feel left out, and ended up exhausted, unable to give myself the recharge I so badly needed after the trip. It felt so good to own my need for time to rest, keep myself company, and join everyone else the next day, fully energized.

Similarly, I’ve made plenty of poor decisions in my life because I sensed the other person wanted me to hurry up and decide, so I did — wrongly. I’ve discovered I don’t make my best decisions when I’m in a hurry.

And today, I own this. My partner said that when he and I first starting seeing each other, he was sometimes frustrated that it took me (what seemed to him) a long time to make decisions. But the other day he told me he now truly appreciates my (sometimes lengthy) decision-making process because, as he put it, “When you make a decision it is so right for you, and ultimately I can see how that’s right for us.” (Can I tell you how much I love that he said this?)

So, I celebrate these “small” changes in myself (which are really not that small, when it comes down to it). It’s all about supporting myself in who I truly am.

What small changes are you celebrating today? I’d love to hear about them.

If you’d like support in taking care of yourself in a way that honors who you truly are, I encourage you to check out my Stellar Self-Care Coaching Program. I’ll be enrolling new clients through August 31, 2016.  I’d love it if you’d join me if it feels like the time is right for you!

The choices that make you who you are

/ Jill Winski / 14 Comments

moonplantFrom my living room windows, as I sit in my blue chair, I often see a woman out on her balcony in the condo building across the way.

Her balcony is filled with beautiful plants and flowers and even a small tree in a terra cotta base.  She’s about my age — 40s — and seems peaceful and purposeful as she moves with her watering pitcher from plant to plant, disappearing inside occasionally and reemerging with a full pitcher through the sliding glass door.

I think I am living vicariously through this woman — just a little — because I like the idea of lots of plants, but I’ve learned I don’t want them.

In my old home, from which I moved last year (and wrote about here), I had a room devoted solely to plants.

Many of them were my mother’s plants, lovingly tended for years and years, which I inherited when she moved to the East Coast in 2005. And in 2014, when my sister moved to Michigan, I took her plants as well, several cacti and some succulents known as “chickens and hens”.

The plant room got to be very full, and although I had liked the idea of all these plants when I moved into the house, over time I came to realize that I am simply not a plant person. I am an animal person, and I adore taking care of pets, but plants exhaust me.

A little orange tree that had thrived under my mother’s care for more than thirty years eventually withered under mine. Most of my sister’s plants died after she gave them to me.

A friend of mine saw the metaphor in all this and pointed out to me that I’d been taking care of plants all these years that did not truly belong to me.

It wasn’t that I didn’t like the plants, but I admit I cared for them resentfully. I didn’t really want all these plants but had taken them on because I felt like if I didn’t, they’d end up on the trash heap.

My friend said, “Of course you don’t want them — they’re other people’s cast-offs. You never did want them; you just couldn’t say no.” (I make it sound like she was brutally blunt, but she is actually very kind when she says things like this.)

My friend had a point. It was my mother, not me, who desired a large house filled with plants. And my sister’s plants had been given to her mostly by my mother. And why was I caring for the parts of people’s lives that they’d left behind, when they were no longer willing to do it?

Today, the plant room of my old house a thing of the past, I stare out my window at this woman tending her plants and wonder: what if I actually do want a balcony full of plants? What if I actually want a life like this woman’s? (I have no idea what kind of life this woman has — only that, when the weather turns warm, she turns her attention to her plants). Shouldn’t I have what she has?

***

In truth, I can say for sure — yes, for sure — that I do not want to care for a balcony full of plants.

At least once a week — more than ten months after my move — I feel relief and peace in the fact that I no longer care for those plants.

But I notice — in myself, in the clients I work with, in the communities of which I am part — that we so often look out at others and make assumptions about their lives, and believe we should have what they have, do what they do, be what we perceive them to be.

I’ve noticed myself assuming that the woman across the way must be “successful” in life because she has all these beautiful plants and is able to help them thrive. She’s willing to put in that time and energy and devotion to plants, and I am not. That must mean something good about her, and something bad about me, right?

The fact that I actually do not enjoy caring for plants does not register to my critical mind when it’s comparing my insides to other people’s outsides.

And maybe, just maybe, this woman actually truly wanted all these plants and picked each one out with care, herself. Maybe they were not an inheritance she never wanted to begin with.

Two things bubble to the surface for me as I write this:

1) In the future, starting now, I will remember to say no more to things I really do not want. I will remember that my “no” does not necessarily relegate innocent plants to the trash heap — in fact, my “no” may create currently unseen possibilities, for plants AND people.

2) When I’m comparing myself to “surely-more-successful-than-me” others, I will remember that I have good reasons for my choices, and that making choices based on who I really am and what I truly want is one of my definitions of success. So while a balcony full of thriving plants may equal success for my neighbor, it doesn’t for me — even though I can deeply appreciate the view it creates.

What do you notice about the difference between who you truly are and who you (sometimes) think you should be? How do you connect with what you truly want, as opposed to what you think you should have? I’d love to hear from you.

Do you need support in making your creative work a priority, in a way that works for YOU (not the way you think you should do it)? I’d love to help. Find out if we might be a fit, here.

Above image is “Future Forest”, © Deca Raluca | Dreamstime Stock Photos