Mood, assumptions, and action

July 28, 2021July 28, 2021 / Jill Winski / 5 Comments

Sometimes when I am working with coaching clients, we talk about things that boil down, in essence, to “low mood.” Low mood is basically “I don’t feel like doing anything. I feel kind of sluggish and down.”

Low mood can be associated with depression, that’s for sure. Low mood can also have a chemical or hormonal component. It can also be, for some of us, our natural “setpoint.” If this is the case, it’s helpful to understand that, and to know that we may need to shift ourselves into action before we feel like doing anything. Wow! That’s a tough one, right?

I have written before about the importance of shifting our energy. I actually prefer this phrasing to “taking action.”

There tends to be a huge emphasis in U.S. culture, and, quite frankly, the coaching/personal-growth world, on “taking action.” Taking action is viewed as the “right thing” and stepping back, pondering, slowing down are often viewed as “not taking action” and therefore, the wrong thing.

Obviously, context is important here. It is definitely important to take action in support of injustice and in support of things we care about. We want to take actions that align with our values.

But many of my coaching clients have been addicted to “taking action,” and growth, for them, has been to slow down and learn that it’s okay to not do. It’s okay to stop. It’s okay to be.

All this said, when we are dealing with “low mood,” it can be important to take actions to shift that mood. Acceptance also comes into play here.

I know, for example, that my “default state” when I get up in the morning is low mood. It’s been this way since I was a kid. I can remember walking into the kitchen before I left for school for the day and my dad would be shaving in the little bathroom in the hall. “Good morning, Jillie!” he (a morning person) would say. I would grumble, barely audibly, good morning. His cheerfulness, at that time of day, was jarring to me.

Rather than “forcing myself” to be cheerful, I’ve found that it helps a lot to a) know that I am in a low mood place when I get up in the morning, and b) know that this will shift as I take gentle actions to start my day.

Sometimes we can get stuck in a kind of belief that is something like “I shouldn’t feel this way in the morning. What is wrong with me?”

Obviously, if we have severe low mood that is actually impairing our ability to function, this is something to check out with a doctor. But if, like me and some of my clients, you know you have a certain “low mood” default place, this self-knowledge is important.

And beyond that, self-acceptance — this is how I feel at X time of day and that’s okay, that’s part of being who I am so far in this lifetime — will allow you to move forward, rather than spinning your wheels in the land of “I shouldn’t be this way, it shouldn’t be this way.”

The thing about low mood is that when our minds get going in that space, we can spin out many very “negative” thoughts that increase the low mood.

In this low mood space, we may notice that we have many “negative” assumptions about things, life, and other people as well. (I put “negative” in quotes because I actually don’t like to view thoughts as “negative” or “positive”, or feelings, either. I think it’s more important to notice the feelings and behaviors that certain thoughts trigger than to label any of it “negative.”)

For example, in a low mood state I might read an email from someone and it comes across as snippy or rude to me. Later, in a more balanced mood state, it may come across as neutral.

In a low mood state, ideas or plans that previously felt important and good can seem trivial or exhausting.

It’s important to recognize that your mood can have a significant effect on what you’re experiencing, how you’re experiencing it, and the assumptions you make about other people.

Shifting out of a low mood space can be pretty simple. It’s why I take a walk every morning. It’s why I get my coffee out instead of making it at home — I get to exchange hello’s and how are you’s with the people who work in the coffee place, and I get to say hi to my neighbors (and their dogs!) on my way home. By the time I’m ready to go to work for the day, my mood has shifted to something more open, more grounded, more curious.

The steps to this shift can look like this:

Notice. Simply be curious about how you’re feeling at the moment (it’s pretty hard to be judgmental and curious at the same time — they are opposite energies!).
Move your body (in whatever way this is possible for you).
Connect with another being (human or animal) in a tiny way. Don’t make it too big! If connecting feels like too much, try observing someone else’s good-feeling energy. This might mean just taking a minute to watch a couple of sparrows (as I did the other day).

What do you notice about your “default mood”? How do you work with it? I’d love to hear from you.

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

Need support in taking care of your unique and sensitive self while making your creative work a priority? You can learn more about the ways we can work together, here. Wondering if we’re a fit? You can learn more, here.

Above images by Ludemeula Fernandes on Unsplash and MIKHAIL VASILYEV on Unsplash, respectively

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When it’s hard getting started: part two

February 9, 2020February 9, 2020 / Jill Winski / 2 Comments

When we start something new our lives — a project, a program, a class — we put it on the calendar and tend to think “this will take X amount of time in my schedule.”

But “starting new stuff,” as I wrote in my last post, is often about much more than just the time it will take.

Our brains can protect us, when we’re “taking the plunge” and doing something challenging, by oversimplifying just how hard it might actually be. We get swept up in the enthusiasm of “doing the thing” — and then, a little bit after we’ve begun, reality sets in: Oh. This is kinda hard.

I remember working with a client who wanted to make a commitment to writing regularly. He’d blocked out times about five days a week on his calendar when he was going to write. He came to a coaching session saying he had been writing — which we celebrated! — but he couldn’t understand why he felt so “off” and overall depleted.

He’d thought it was just about “making the time” to write. But it wasn’t just about the time. It was about many other things: writing, after a long time away from it, was like using muscles he hadn’t used in a while. (I used to start and stop and start yoga practice a lot, and every time I started it again, it took about a day for me to be reminded of the muscles I hadn’t been using when away from it.)

It was also about: the fact that writing felt uncomfortable. It brought up uncomfortable stuff: do I really want to write this? Is it safe to write this? Is this any good? Why am I doing this again? (Not to mention anything challenging about the actual craft of writing.)

It was also about: The reactions my client’s renewed commitment in his writing triggered in those around him, who depended on him in ways he might be less available for now.

It was also about: Realizing he might not be able to do the amount of writing he’d hoped he’d be able to do and get everything else done that was important and necessary to him. It was about figuring out what could be let go and what couldn’t. (It’s a really common “blind spot,” I’ve found, for us to add something new to our schedules and not realize that doing so means we likely need to take something old out of the schedule.)

And it was about other things that I’m sure I know nothing about.

Scheduling that time to do it is a starting point, and a vital one. And it’s also vital that we recognize that it’s totally normal for it not to go “smoothly.” It’s normal to experience a period of “disorganization” where we’re letting go of part of our old routine to make room for the new one, and where we’re figuring out just how to best incorporate the new thing on a daily basis.

I’ve experienced this myself here at the start of the new year: the first week of January I started a new and challenging thing, and it took me until the third week of January to realize why I was feeling so weirdly behind, disorganized, and depleted.

I thought of my client and many others I’d worked with who’d had similar feelings when starting something new — and I realized, oh yeah! I’m not just “taking a really long time to recover from the holidays this year.” I’m actually doing a new thing, flexing muscles that haven’t been flexed in a while, processing the change, noticing what I’m needing to give up because of it, what new boundaries need to be set, and all kinds of other things around it.

Once I got it: okay, this isn’t just about taking an hour or two out of my days to do this thing; there’s a lot connected to taking that hour or two, mostly in my emotional world — an interesting thing happened: I caught up with myself.

And I began to feel far more in the present moment, more “on top of things,” and am establishing a pace that feels right for doing this new project. There is power in naming what is happening.

If you’re in the process of beginning something new and challenging, allow yourself the recognition that making the time is only part of it. If you’re feeling all kinds of other stuff as you start this new thing, it doesn’t mean anything is wrong. It doesn’t mean you’ve made the wrong choice; it doesn’t mean you should quit.

The more we can accept that starting something new brings up our stuff — and that nothing is wrong when it inevitably does — the more we, paradoxically, are able to be with all the stuff that comes up. It’s believing “something is wrong here!” that is the problem — not the stuff that’s coming up.

(And if you are freaking out, try naming what’s happening: This is new to me, and it turns out there’s a lot more to this than I thought there would be. That’s okay.)

What do you notice about this for you? Do you expect yourself to “just put in the time” and get it done? How do you make room for everything that comes up around starting something new? I’d love to hear from you.

And, if you’re in a “starting new stuff” place and needing some support, I’d love to help! You can check out my one-on-one coaching offerings, here.

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

Top photo by Jen Theodore on Unsplash; bottom photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

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There are always alternatives to pushing yourself

October 15, 2019October 14, 2019 / Jill Winski / 4 Comments

I often write here about how pushing ourselves too hard for too long can result in frustration, exhaustion, and burnout. (Which, ironically, slows us waayyyy down, and we’re usually pushing ourselves because we believe we need to go faster!)

A client said to me a while back, “But how do I know the difference between pushing myself to get something done and making enough effort to get it done? They feel the same to me.”

I totally hear this. Most of us have been raised to believe that pushing ourselves hard is some sort of virtue, and that pushing ourselves is simply necessary in order to achieve something.

I used to believe this, and it had much to do with being disconnected from my body and emotions and not recognizing what was true for me until I was exhausted (or sick).

I was all about ignoring the subtleties that tuned me in to what was happening for me.

In fact, I was so good at ignoring my body and my emotions that when I did start getting quiet enough to tune into them, I thought something was really wrong with me.

I became acutely aware of every physical sensation, every ping of hunger, every gentle sadness. I had bulldozed over my inner world for so long by pushing myself that when I started to tune into it, it felt very strange. It was like turning up the light in a room that had previously been dim.

Over time, as I began to gain more self-awareness, I realized there was not just “one mode” of moving through the world — there were actually many flavors of “getting things done.”

Pushing hard wasn’t the only way. I could choose it, for sure, but I discovered over time that doing so was not the kindest, or most effective, path for me.

There are so many ways “staying the course” can look and feel, whether we’re talking about a project that’s important to us or something else we want to stick with through the end.

And the key here is to decide what kind of relationship we want to have with this thing, and with ourselves.

Part of this is choosing language that resonates with how we want to feel. If you don’t want to feel exhausted at the end of the day, it might be best not to say “I really need to push myself today.” (I’ll point out here that some people truly like the feeling of pushing themselves! Even for them, though, there’s a point where it’s too much pushing, not enough allowing, not enough being — and it’s important to know the difference for yourself.)

What I shared with my client is the difference, for me, between pushing and tenacity.

Tenacity, for me, feels like hanging in there with something just long enough to stretch myself for the day, and continuing to show up and do that for the long haul. It’s like stretching a rubber band just enough to give it tension — but not so much that it snaps back or breaks.

We could also think of this as the commitment to keep showing up because we want and choose to show up. Do you remember being pushed to do something as a kid? Why was that person pushing you? Because they wanted you to do something you didn’t want to do, no doubt.

When you want to do something — even if that something is uncomfortable — embracing inner tenacity helps you remember you want to do this, and you will. But since there’s no pushing involved, you’re less likely to trigger that opposing force that says “No! I won’t do it!”

When we look at hanging in there with a project for the long haul, we can see that our energy will naturally ebb and flow — on some days, we’ll have more available to us than on others. Sometimes, hanging in there for the long haul might look like resting more. Sometimes, it might mean working on something just that little bit longer.

If we can pay attention to our body sensations and our emotions, we’ll start to understand what “enough for the day” feels like for us.

This is something we learn and refine over time. It’s life’s work for some of us. And that is a good thing! We will never “arrive” — there will always be more to learn about ourselves. If we push ourselves to “arrive” as fast as we can, we’ll simply end up in burnout, with the realization that “arriving once and for all” is an illusion. There’s no “there” there.

Ways to differentiate tenacity from pushing:

• There’s a “deliciousness” to tenacity. It’s stretching you, like when you use muscles you haven’t before, but you’re not collapsing.

• If you feel “shut down” (or want to shut down), you’ve probably been pushing. Remember that if someone physically pushes you, it’s a reflex to either push back, flee the scene, or freeze because you’re so stunned. All of that is tremendously rough on the nervous system, particularly if it happens again and again.

• When you are tenacious, you quit while you’re ahead. You end for the day feeling alert, maybe slightly used up, but not so used up that you want to avoid your project tomorrow. You’ve used up a good bit of energy, but you feel like there’s more where that came from rather than “totally wiped out.”

• If you sense a lot of inner conflict, like you’ve got one foot on the accelerator and one on the brake, you’ve probably crossed over into “push mode.” When we’re tenacious, we stay aligned with a certain lightness. It doesn’t feel like a slog.

Really getting this difference is not an intellectual exercise — don’t let your mind tell you what’s “enough” for the day. It’s a visceral thing, and it takes practice. Twenty-plus years of learning here for me and I still overdo it at times, still get caught.

So I need to keep checking in with myself, notice what works for me and what doesn’t, notice where I’m getting sucked into what I think I “should” do rather than what feels truly supportive and effective for me.

(For more related to this topic, you might find this post and this post helpful.)

What do you notice about the different between pushing and tenacity for you? Is it subtle, or more pronounced? I’d love to hear from you.

Feel like you’re “in limbo” this fall and need some support to move through it? My specially-priced Autumn Transition Sessions are underway. You can find out more here.

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Above images of squirrel monkeys by Raychan, Vincent van Zalinge, and Diego Guzmán, respectively, on Unsplash

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Working with the things you can’t change

June 16, 2019June 15, 2019 / Jill Winski

Truth be told, I am not a big fan of summer. (I actually really dislike temperatures above about 75 degrees F). Fall, on the other hand, is magic to me. I basically wait out June, July, and August — once September hits, I can see the end of summer and breathe easier.

But, where I live in the Chicago area, summer (and a long one at that) is a given. Unless I decide to seek out a place where there’s no hot weather, summer is going to be here whether I love it or not. It’s one of those non-negotiables.

Non-negotiables are those things that just are — we can’t change them no matter how much we may want to.

Byron Katie talks in her work about “the three kinds of business” — my business, your business, and God’s business (or you might call this “the universe’s business”). (Katie’s tool The Work is a powerful one for dealing with things we have limited ability to change that are causing us pain, by the way.)

You can probably guess that “non-negotiables” fall into the realms of God’s business and “other people’s business”. I have a certain amount of control and influence when it comes to the realm of my own business, but when it comes to those other two, not so much (or, in some cases, none at all).

The arrival of summer is one of those things that falls into the realm of God’s business. For a client I worked with recently, her “non-negotiable” was that her son is moving to another country soon (her son’s business). A part of her doesn’t want it to be so (while a part of her is excited for him), but no matter how she feels about it, it’s happening.

We don’t have choices about the non-negotiables — except in how we respond to them, relate to them, hold them.

When my beloved cat passed away last year, I didn’t have a choice about letting him go — he was going to go whether I raged against it, tortured myself over it, or tried desperately to keep him here. I chose to respond to his illness — on my better days, anyway — by keeping him as comfortable as possible, loving him tons, and feeling huge gratitude for the gift of his presence in my life.

A friend who has a chronic illness told me, “I can’t get rid of this right now, or maybe ever, but I’m using it to learn more about myself.” (Since I can hardly think of anything more rewarding than the opportunity to know oneself better, I was truly wowed by this statement.)

Sometimes, we can take a nonnegotiable and turn it on its head by simply focusing on the things we do like about it — even if they’re relatively few and far between.

Summer? Well, I like wearing sandals and skirts in the summer. They feel freeing to me. I like going to the Polar Bear, which is only open in the summer months, and getting a sundae or a shake. There’s a courtyard building a couple of blocks from me where I can spot the resident cats lazing on the grass — but only during summer, when it’s warm enough for them to be out.

And I like my memories of childhood summers, when I ran barefoot around the neighborhood, orchestrating the other kids into complicated creative projects, and watching the local music video channel with my friend-down-the-street, always holding our breath in hopes of seeing something by Prince or Madonna or The Thompson Twins.

So yeah, not a fan of summer — but summer has brought me plenty of joys.

We can also “better” our non-negotiables. When I had to get a root canal a few years ago, I scheduled it at a time when my partner could drop me off and pick me up so his presence could comfort me before and after. (He also bought me this while I was at the appointment. He’s good like that.)

Sometimes, the non-negotiables in our lives are simply there. They may strengthen our acceptance muscles, should we choose to use them that way. They may offer us a chance to deepen our relationship to uncertainty, or to know ourselves in a way we might not have without them. They may spark kindness in us toward ourselves that was previously absent, or a softening toward ourselves and all of life. I’ve learned — through the non-negotiables in my life thus far — to be so much gentler with myself and others than I once was (and, at times, fiercer than I knew I could be before).

What have you noticed about the non-negotiables in your life? I’d love to hear from you.

Want to stay connected? You can sign up for my monthly-ish Artist’s Nest Newsletter, 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 images by Jake Givens, Clark Young, and Brina Blum, respectively, on Unsplash

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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!

Above images © Michael Flippo | Dreamstime Stock Photos, and © Ulina Tauer | Dreamstime Stock Photos, respectively

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Navigating the messy middle (and reconnecting with your “why”)

April 22, 2018April 22, 2018 / Jill Winski / 2 Comments

In my life coach role, I frequently work with writers. Perhaps so many of my clients are writers because writing is so important to me, and I really get the struggles and joys of the writing life.

At any rate, I often have clients who are at some point in the process of creating something — whether that’s a book or a painting or a play. They might be in the excitement (and trepidation) of beginning. Or they might have finished something, and aren’t sure what’s next for them.

One of the most challenging stages of creating something — and the place where so many of our fears and our icky inner critic stuff can come up — is the “messy middle.”

Maybe we’ve lost some steam with our project. Maybe we’ve lost our way a bit. Maybe — God forbid! — we’ve gotten a bit bored with what we’re creating. (And does that mean we should give it up and move on to something else? In many cases, no! It just means we’re in the messy middle.)

This is the time, my friends, for kindness.

Just how kind can you be to yourself — and your creative work — when you are in this place of feeling like you’re not sure you want to go on with what you’re doing? (I wrote about the importance of kindness to the creative process here.)

I remember getting lost in a store when I was a kid. I was probably about four. One minute I was with my mom and everything was fine, and the next my mom was nowhere in sight and the gleaming aisles of the store might as well have been miles wide. (I think it was Kmart!)

It was probably only a couple of minutes before my mom found me, but I remember during that brief window of time telling myself how stupid I was for getting lost, how mad my mom was going to be at me, and how the adults around me were very scary and there’s no way they’d help me.

Sound familiar? Even to your adult self? We learn very early to be hard on ourselves when things feel scary and disorienting. But this is exactly when we need to slow down, reorient ourselves to our surroundings, and breathe.

Once you’ve given yourself permission to slow down for a moment (or hey, how about a whole day?), it’s time to reconnect with your “why”.

What prompted you to begin this work in the first place? What made it so important that you actually began it? (Beginning is huge! We often avoid it.)

What was the feeling state you desired when you thought about creating this thing? It is always a feeling we seek, and not anything else, when it comes down to it. The “result” — whatever it may be — is only of value to us because of how we believe it will make us feel. How can you reconnect with that feeling?

The “messy middle” can also be a time that we’re tempted to compare ourselves to others whose middles are long in the past (we see the results of them having made it through their own messy middles, but not the middles themselves). Just as we sometimes compare our beginnings to others’ “halfway-throughs,” we can compare our middles to their finished products.

What I love about the creative process is how it is a metaphor for the process of living itself. While the beginning of a relationship, for example, often has its share of trepidation (can I trust? should I trust? Is it safe?), it also has plenty of excitement (the possibility of love! sex! learning each other’s secrets!).

The middle of a relationship, however, may seem frightfully unexciting. (Is that all there is? Is this really it? Where do we go from here? This is especially true if you are a reformed drama junkie, as I am.)

In life, perhaps even more so than in our creative projects, we are challenged to reconnect with our “why.” (And remember: you are always in relationship to your creative work. It’s a relationship like any other!)

Can we reconnect? Absolutely. The real question, though, is do we want to? And if we do, what might support us in doing so?

These are the questions to ask. Their answers will guide us back to connection, with our project, with our loved one, or they will guide us to somewhere else, where the love truly is for us, today.

What helps you through the “messy middle” in your creative process? How do you reconnect with your “why” when you seem to have lost it? I’d love to hear from you.

Happy Earth Day! Let’s extend our kindness to this beautiful planet and all of its amazing creatures. In honor of Earth Day, my individual coaching sessions are at a special price, through the end of this month (April 30). Find out more on my Ways We Can Work Together page.

Coming up: My one-on-one coaching program, Stellar Self-Care (In an Overwhelming World), will start enrolling in May. Want to learn more? You can sign up for my newsletter to receive the details, here. You can find out about other ways we can work together, here.

Above images © Scamp | Dreamstime Stock Photos, and © Just2shutter | Dreamstime Stock Photos, respectively

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Comparison and the “iceberg theory”

April 4, 2018April 4, 2018 / Jill Winski

Sometimes when I am working with a life coaching client, I become aware that there is a kind of unspoken self-judgment going on for the client that has to do with comparison. It often shows up in a desire to give up on something difficult they’ve started, or a belief that “something is wrong” with them.

If we unravel these beliefs a little bit, we often get to a deeper belief that might be something like “If I were meant to do this, it wouldn’t be so hard for me.” This is just a shade away from “It seems so easy for _____. What’s wrong with me that it’s easy for her, but hard for me?”

Geneen Roth once wrote that we tend to compare ourselves to people whose struggles are not apparent. Which brings me to what I call the “iceberg theory” of comparison.

We’ve all heard the phrase “that’s just the tip of the iceberg,” alluding to the idea that there’s a lot more to a problem or situation than the little bit we’ve touched on.

We can apply this idea to people as well: there is always more (sometimes much more) going on beneath the surface, below what we see “above the water.”

This applies even to people who share a lot about their struggles. One of my clients a while back compared herself to someone in her same profession who revealed a lot about herself on her blog. My client said, “There’s no way I could be so comfortable with revealing everything about myself.”

Notice the assumptions there? One, that the blogger was “comfortable” about revealing things about herself and her life. And two, that what she was revealing about herself was “everything.” That we were seeing the foundation of the iceberg beneath the water, when maybe we were just seeing a little further down the iceberg than my client would have chosen to let an audience in on at that point.

There is always more — there is always stuff we’re not seeing in those to whom we compare ourselves.

When I started my relationship with my partner more than seven years ago, I compared myself to him a lot. It seemed like so many things I struggled with came easily to him. And some of them truly did! (The excellent coach Theresa Trosky posed this question to me at the time: So those things should be easy for you, too?)

At some point our relationship turned a corner, and I began get back in touch with my own strengths, while still appreciating his, and also to realize that early in our relationship, his struggles had been far less apparent to me than they are now. In the first few months, I could only see the “tip of the iceberg” of my partner’s self. Now, I see much more, but I still don’t see everything. Just the other day he mentioned something that had been really hard for him to do, and I was surprised — I hadn’t known he struggled with that.

I have also had the experience of comparing myself to someone who truly did experience a lot of ease and joy in his life, most of the time. It wasn’t that he didn’t have heartbreak or disappointment, but he handled those things with a grace I couldn’t fathom finding in myself.

I felt a strange and painful combination of envy and admiration for him until one day I got the lesson: I wasn’t supposed to be him. It actually seemed to be true that I did struggle more in a lot of ways than he did — and maybe, at the end of the day, that was okay, because my life had a different purpose, a different thrust, than his.

When I finally got this at a deep level, not only did I feel a huge relief (and found this person much easier to be around!), but I realized something that has continued to be a theme in my life since then (nearly twenty years ago now): When I’m comparing myself to someone else, it’s a chance for me to practice deeper self-acceptance. Because the more self-accepting I feel, the less I seem to have the need to compare myself to others.

***

The purpose of the iceberg metaphor is not to provide a way for us to point at someone else and say, “She doesn’t really have it all together — we’re just not seeing how messy her life really is!” It’s a way to remind ourselves of the humanity, complexity, and depth of others — that they, too, struggle, despite how it may appear to us on a given day.

When I work with a client who’s caught in comparison, we first apply lots and lots of kindness and empathy. Our current world makes it easier than ever to compare ourselves (not to mention there is a part of our brain that has the sole purpose of comparing, in order to help us survive!).

Then, we reality-check. Can we really know it’s true that things always go so smoothly for the person we’re comparing ourselves to? And even if life does tend to go pretty smoothly for them much of the time (or they’re just really good at handling it!), what are we making that mean about us? (As my coach Theresa helped me see years ago, just because something that was easy for my partner was really hard for me didn’t mean there was something wrong with me or that I couldn’t achieve it, too, with the right perspective and support).

At the heart of comparison, I’ve noticed time and again, is the belief that if we are struggling, there must be something wrong. With us. With our choices. While there are definitely times it’s possible to drop the struggle, a certain amount of struggle is inherent to our humanness. So it’s always worthwhile to do some investigating here about what is true for us.

What do you notice about comparison, for you? Does the “iceberg theory” resonate for you? I’d love to hear from you.

Want to stay connected? You are always welcome to subscribe to my Artist’s Nest Newsletter, for updates on my life coaching offerings, to get in on our community calls, and other good stuff. You can sign up, here.

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Why it’s okay to be “boring” in your journal (+ community call date change!)

January 29, 2018January 29, 2018 / Jill Winski / 6 Comments

A few weeks ago I received this email (and the writer gave me permission to share it here):

I have been subscribed to your blog for a while now and I notice you talk a lot about journaling and morning pages and how valuable they are to you. While I want to believe this is true, I have so much trouble actually writing in a journal. It seems like everything I write is so mundane I can’t stand seeing what’s in my own mind! So I quit. But then I’ll want to try again, and I do it for a few days and I can’t stand what I’m writing so I quit again. What is my problem? Should I be journaling or not? I feel like it would help me connect with myself, but I don’t actually seem to like it. Any suggestions?

I wanted to share this email here because this is so, so common. I hear similar reports from my life coaching clients and have heard them from so many others when I share that I’ve been journaling regularly for more than thirty years.

First of all, whenever something becomes a “should”, we naturally develop resistance to it. So, no, you “shouldn’t” be journaling. You shouldn’t be doing anything.

There are plenty of ways to connect with yourself besides journaling and/or morning pages. Just because you hear lots of people saying how great they are doesn’t mean you have to do them. Find another way of connecting with yourself on a regular basis if journaling doesn’t speak to you. Find some way of being in your own company and noticing what you’re thinking and feeling. It doesn’t have to be journaling.

But I want to point something out here: When journaling/morning pages feel “boring” or frustrating because everything spilling out of you onto the page seems “mundane”, it may just be that you are uncomfortable with connecting with yourself.

I write tons of mundane stuff in the pages of my journals. I write about how I couldn’t decide which pair of jeans to buy, because one fit better but I liked the topstitching on the other one better. I write about how I can tell I am getting a zit and how I would have died if you told me when I was sixteen that I would still sometimes have zits in my forties. I write about how we rearranged the living room furniture and how pleased I am with how it looks.

And you know what? I enjoy writing this mundane stuff in the pages of my journal. I enjoy it because I am not trying to be “extraordinary” on the pages of my journal — my purpose there, often, is simply to keep myself company, to know the contents of my mind.

We are all capable of focusing on lots and lots of mundane stuff. And if we like who we are, if we enjoy our own company, that’s not a bad thing.

And here’s the paradox: My purpose with journaling is to keep myself company on the page, to know my own thoughts and feelings. And a lot of times, yeah, that’s pretty “mundane”. But my purpose with journaling is also to break through all that stuff, to cut a layer deeper, to get underneath it all.

If I’m really freaking out because I have a zit, if that’s really bothering me on a particular day, what’s underneath that? What am I making it mean? That underneath it all I’m still an insecure sixteen-year-old? That my body is out of control? That just when I’m feeling good, I have to be reminded of how imperfect I am?

You see what I mean? We can use the mundane in our journaling as a jumping-off point to understanding ourselves better. And that self-connection and self-understanding connects us to others — because we’re not so different from anyone else. In keeping ourselves company on the page, we realize we are in lots of good company.

When people tell me “I hate journaling because I can’t stand how mundane I am and how I wallow in my own shitty inner stuff” I want to say: Welcome to the human race. We are all mundane and we all wallow, at times, in our own shitty inner stuff. And, we are all capable of going a layer deeper, or many layers deeper, and letting that very human stuff take us to the core of who we are.

I would say to the writer of this email: There’s a reason that even though you always seem to quit journaling after a few days, you keep on wanting to try it again. You want to know yourself.

This is a very good thing. Because no one is ever going to know you as deeply as you can know yourself. Not a significant other, not a child, not a parent, not a friend. One of the huge gifts of being here on this earth is that you have the opportunity to know yourself.

People who have the desire to write, to create in any way, usually have a deep desire to know themselves. But sometimes we have a tendency to think this desire is “selfish,” because we are so mundane so much of the time. What if it turns out we’re not that extraordinary?

Give yourself a break. Let yourself be mundane. When you make room for your “ordinariness”, you will find it so much easier to allow the parts of you that are extraordinary to surface. Because we all have so much of both. We all have so much of everything within us.

A dear teacher of mine once said, “Great writing is nothing more than the truth, plainly told.” You will never see this more clearly than on the pages of your journal. But you need to stick with it for more than a few days. You need to be so loving toward the mundane contents of your mind that you see that you are not so mundane, after all.

And: Due to a scheduling conflict, I’ve pushed out the start date of the Artist’s Nest community calls one month, to Wed. Feb. 28. Want to join me on these monthly calls? You can get the call-in info (which I’ll send out approximately 24 hours before the call) by signing up for my newsletter, here!

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Getting clear on what’s true for you

September 26, 2017September 26, 2017 / 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.)

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Are you allowing the seasons of your life?

September 9, 2017September 9, 2017 / Jill Winski / 2 Comments

As summer winds down, I’m reminded of the summers when I was a kid, the easy, lazy feel of them. I can remember skipping down the street in my bare feet to watch the local music video station at my friend’s house. We particularly loved to catch Cyndi Lauper videos. (On one thrilling afternoon, my friend did my makeup like Cyndi’s in her “Time after Time” video.)

I don’t know what it’s like for kids today, but those summers of the 1980s feel, in memory, like such a contrast to the start-up of fall.

The summer was meant to be a season of fun, play, and intentional winding down. Fall had a tangibly different feel. I happen to love fall (it’s my favorite season), and part of why I love it is because it is, for me, about ushering in the new, while also feeling nostalgic for the falls of yesteryear. For the me who swore each school year that “this year I will show up at school as a completely different person!” (Which never really happened, but that’s a topic for another day.)

I love that the “me” of today doesn’t want to be a completely different person (thank God!), but there was something promising and exciting about that desire as a kid. The desire for the new, the sense that something amazing was just around the corner. Fall carries that energy for me, and mingled with it is a cozy feeling. New and cozy? Sounds good to me.

When I moved into “adult life” in my twenties, and even in college when I often worked through the summer and took classes, that “summer feeling” got lost somewhere.

There was also a period in my life when I lived in Hawaii for a time. While Hawaii was undeniably beautiful, I missed the seasons. There is something about the seasons in the external world that mirrors our inner shifting, and vice versa.

***

When I work with my life coaching clients, particularly the ones who feel they are pushing themselves way too hard but aren’t quite sure how to stop, I sometimes ask this question: “Are you allowing your life to have its seasons?”

Just as summer has a different flavor and texture than fall, our lives shift and change as one “life season” moves into the next.

Here’s the tricky part: If we don’t ease up on ourselves, if we don’t tune into ourselves, we can’t see the change in seasons in our lives. In fact, our pushing and tuning out are sometimes exquisite protections against allowing our lives to shift seasons.

This is why I focus a lot on self-care in my coaching practice: Self-care is, ultimately, self-connection, and when our connection to ourselves is blocked, we’re not able to get a clear sense of where we are.

If we are connected to ourselves, we’re attuned to the subtleties that alert us that a new season of our lives may be on the horizon. We prepare to open to it. If it brings up fear for us, we can investigate it and get support.

When we’re pushing ourselves (to keep on doing what we’ve been doing, or to do more even if it doesn’t feel good), or tuning out, we’re far less aware of those subtle nudges that tell us a new season is approaching and change is near. That, in fact, our lives are changing (because nothing stays the same!).

So how do we stop pushing? How do we tune in to ourselves?

We take time to feel our feelings. It sounds simple, and it is, but it isn’t necessarily easy. So often our “pushing” is really avoiding. And when we’re avoiding, there’s only one thing we’re ever truly avoiding: feeling our feelings.

Here’s the thing: No feeling will destroy you.

As the poet Rilke wrote, “No feeling is final.” Feelings move. They shift (like the seasons). If you can take five minutes to let a feeling come up and be with it, you will notice it start to shift on its own. It may return, but it will not flatten you.

It’s when we avoid our feelings that we get overwhelmed — because we are using our energy to push away rather than be present to what is true for us.

So, when I pose the question, “Are you allowing your life to have its seasons?” what I am really asking is: Are you feeling your feelings? Are you allowing them?

If your life seems to want to be lazy summer right now, can you allow that? If it’s leaning toward a brisker, crisper fall feeling, can you allow that?

If you’re fighting a season of your life as it approaches, can you simply drop the fight, a little at a time? Can you simply notice the desire to fight the change?

Do you allow the seasons of your life? I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.

Also: My Light Up Your Creative Self one-on-one coaching program will no longer be offered after September 30, 2017 (part of my practice of letting go of the old and welcoming the new!). If you’re feeling creatively blocked, stuck, or stagnant, you might want to check it out (and everyone who signs up prior to the end of the month will save $25). Find out more on my Ways We Can Work Together page.