Today, I meditated NAKED in my own backyard.
For some of you, you might think, “So what?” but if you know me, truly know me, you will understand that this is a really big deal. You see, for most of my life, I defined myself as my body. My value was interconnected with what my body looked like, how strong it was, how it was able to perform on the field or court, and how smart I was. Yet, despite how my body has looked over the years, I have never loved it. When I was sporting an almost 6-pack stomach--I still didn’t love it. When I was 20 pounds heavier after 8 months of backpacking, I still didn’t love it. No matter what my body has looked like, I still couldn’t bring myself to fall in love with it. It’s like the “backwards law” that Mark Mason speaks about in "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck". The more I pursued having a perfect body, the more I felt miserable not having one. When I was in high school I developed an eating disorder. Unlike many girls where it is as if an outside person takes over, and they don’t necessarily realize what they are doing, I was 100% conscious and in control the whole time. I essentially forced myself into having an eating disorder because I was that focused on what my body SHOULD look like, but didn’t. I reasoned that if I couldn’t be pretty, at least I could be thin. Oh, how screwed up my thinking was. After having more cavities in one dental appointment than I had in my whole life, and a college road trip where I was sharing hotel rooms with my mom and puking in the toilet while she worried outside the door, I was sent to a psychologist. Yes, I got over the eating disorder, but NO, I still didn’t love myself or my body. I still berated myself daily when I looked in the mirror. I still found all the faults. I still obsessed about the cellulite on my ass. I still sucked in my stomach, or flexed it in hopes that it would maybe, kind of, look a little different. Over the years, I eventually convinced myself that I may not be thin, but at least I was strong and fit and that is what mattered. Then I had my first miscarriage. Despite my strong, fit, athletic (though not thin body), I was unable to grow a child within me. My body was not strong enough and healthy enough to bring a new life into this world. I pretended on the outside that it was all okay and told myself, “This is for the best. The baby probably wouldn’t have been healthy. This is nature’s way of correcting itself,” and on and on it went. But inside, I wasn’t convinced. My body had failed me, and I was my body. Fortunately for me, this happened right in the midst of a deep awakening within myself. Two days after the doctor went in and scrapped out my uterus and the dead tissue, I was sitting in a large room of 100+ people for a coaching seminar program. Three days after the doctor went in and scrapped out my uterus and the dead tissue, I was standing in front of a large room of 100+ people being coached by the leader. It was he who let me in on the secret. “I AM NOT MY BODY.” It was something that I refer back to again and again, as a reminder that I am so much more than my body. So much more than what it looks like, so much more than how strong it is, and so much more than how smart it is. Yet, it wasn’t as if a light was switched and all of a sudden I loved my body. It is still something that I dance with on a regular basis, but the valleys are not as deep as they once were. I stlll prefer having sex with the lights off. I still wear a tankini in the summer to hide my stomach and my stretch marks. I still gaze at the cellulite on my ass and wish it weren’t there. But I also celebrate my body too. I celebrate my body for giving me 2 healthy children, despite being pregnant 4 times. I celebrate my body and when I go for hikes where I feel like I can touch the sky. I celebrate my body on my yoga mat each day as I twist, turn, and balance in new ways. And today, I celebrated my body while I meditated NAKED in my backyard. How are you celebrating your body? In possibility, Theresa Courage. Compassion. Connection.
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 Calling off my first engagement was one of the hardest and most powerful moments of my life. It was a day when I had finally, after years of trying to "save" the men in my life, realized that I deserved so much more. It was a day when I courageously decided to start over, yet again, despite my advancing years. It was a day when I decided that the best way to love myself, was to let go of the man that I loved. How had it come to this point? Why had I spent years dating men that didn't deserve me, nor I them?
This lie...this idea that love comes from outside of me, is one that I told myself for years. It is a lie that I see in many of my clients telling themselves as well. Last Friday, I was working with a client, who at the age of 67, is still hoping for her deceased mother’s love. I kindly and gently told her that she was no longer a child, and that the job of loving herself came from her. That the job of being compassionate and non-judgmental came from her. That her life and her love was in her hands. Not her partner. Not her brother. Not her boss. Not her deceased mother. But from her. My dear one, the same goes for you (and me too...despite sometimes forgetting.) Self-love is the best love. With love, Theresa Courage. Compassion. Connection. A couple of months ago, while working with a new client she mentioned to me that she had always had a dream that a prince was going to come and save her from her childhood. Last week, I was talking to another client who said the same thing. It is 2019, and these two capable, accomplished women are still living in a fairy tale. Yet, they are not alone. I may not be looking for Prince Charming anymore, but I know that, at times I am still looking for someone to take control so that I don’t have to. Someone to say, “Theresa, this is what you need to do, how you need to do it, and why you need to do it. Now go.” And yet, from experience, I know that when I have had someone do that for me, it hasn’t worked out in my favor. So why do I still find myself waiting? Why are you still waiting? Why are WE still waiting? Because somewhere, back in our subconscious, we have learned not to trust ourselves. We have taken on the belief that we are exactly how someone in our past said we were. That we aren’t strong enough. That we aren’t smart enough. That we aren’t savvy enough. That we aren’t powerful enough. Yet, we are! And the moment we start telling ourselves that--the moment that we step into that powerful, self-loving, self-accepting, self-appreciating, self-confident person, will be the moment we will stop waiting for prince charming, and finally “save” ourselves. We don’t need a prince. We need our resident BADASS PRINCESS to rise to the occasion. Are you with me? In gratitude, Theresa P.S. If you want support (not saving) to unleashing your BADASS PRINCESS, I have a handful of powerful exercises I can take you through. You can book something directly with me here. Courage. Compassion. Connection. Have you ever heard of a KENSHO moment? I hadn’t either until about a week ago. The term comes from Zen Buddhism and refers to the growth or enlightenment that one can gain in the wake of a painful experience. It is often spoken of next to the word SATORI, which also refers to “seeing” in a new way. If you are anything like me, you have probably endured your share of painful moments in your life, ones where you may have characterized yourself has having failed or been a failure. A failed relationship. A failed career. A failed business. A failed conversation. A failed health outcome. A failed effort of any sort. Yet, inside each of these supposed “failures” resides a potential KENSHO moment. A moment when you can learn and grow. Unfortunately, not all of us choose to turn our pain into KENSHO. Not all of us choose to see the power inside our powerlessness. Two of big KENSHO moments came by my own choice. July 7, 2007 was a date that many girls dreams of--her wedding day. Yet that wedding day never came for me. Five months prior, I made the decision to call off my own engagement. To tell a man that I loved, that despite that love, I didn’t want to be with him. It was one of the toughest decisions that I have ever made, and despite it being my decision it was still extremely painful. In the spring of 2012, I made another difficult decision--to resign from the career of my dreams. One that I had devoted years of schooling, training, and money to create. Again, it was my decision, but it didn’t make it any easier. Both of these moments left me feeling powerless. I won’t lie to you and say that my KENSHO moment was immediate, as I did my share of wallowing in self-pity and asking “Why Me?” over and over again. Yet, at some point, I made a decision. I decided that enough was enough, and it was time to rise out of my pain, and into my power. I created the KENSHO. It wasn’t a failed relationship. It was a successful one because it helped me to realize what it takes to sustain a long-term relationship, and it led to my meeting my current husband just 8 days after my non-existent wedding. It wasn’t a failed career. It was a successful one because I turned toward a coach and other personal development opportunities that have all led me to a new, inspiring career as a coach myself. To find your KENSHO moments, you don’t need to change your past, you simply need to look at it from a different perspective. See the success instead of the failure. See the power inside of the pain. See the gift wrapped in the sandpaper. In Possibility, Theresa P.S. I recently invited someone to make a list of all their failures. Then to re-write the entire list with the word success instead. (Like I did above.) I invite you to try it out as well. Create your own KENSHO moments. Courage. Compassion. Connection.
 You may not be as entrenched in the world of personal growth and personal development as I am, but there are three key words that come up A LOT, when it comes to discussing the root cause of many people’s life challenges--WORTH, ENOUGHNESS, VALUE. They are words that I use quite a lot myself, when I talk about my own struggles (worthiness issues), or when I speak with clients about theirs (also worthiness issues.) Look to the right. Do you see a category WORTHINESS? Yet, now, I am on the search for a new set of words. Want to know why? WORTH, ENOUGH, and VALUE are words that describe a measurement of some kind, which in turn brings with it a comparison of one thing to another. It’s not the vernacular of PEOPLE! It’s the vernacular of money and measurement. Yet, it seems like every coach, or spiritual guru, or healer out there uses these words to illustrate their own struggles, and the struggles of other people, and we wonder why we live in such a competitive and judgemental world. Why we live in a world where so many people feel shitty about themselves and their circumstances. At the very beginning of Mark Manson’s book, “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k”, he talks about something called the “backwards law”, which was actually coined by Alan Watts. (though I haven’t read it directly from Alan himself….). Here is what Mark says, “The more you pursue feeling better all the time, the less satisfied you become, as pursuing something only reinforces the fact that you lack it in the first place.” Which means, here I am living, breathing, and working in the field of personal development, where we use terms like WORTHINESS, ENOUGHNESS, and VALUE in reference to people, while not realizing that I am, in fact, perpetuating the cycle of comparing oneself to oneself, or comparing oneself to another, and in turn, not feeling so hot. The winning and losing, the being accepted or being rejected, the success versus failure, the worthiness and unworthiness, leave us stuck on a hamster wheel of emotions. We long to feel enough, yet in the pursuit of enoughness, we realize that we aren’t enough, which leads us back to feeling not enough AGAIN. And on and on the cycle continues. So how the hell do we get off? My idea: STOP TALKING ABOUT OURSELVES IN MEASUREMENTS! I am not money, and you are not money. I am not something to be measured, nor are you. If I couple the “backwards law” with the phrase “Words create worlds”, it’s like BINGO--I can now see the problem. The problem isn’t about my enoughness or your enoughness, it’s the fact that we are measuring ourselves against some unknown, unseen “thing” outside of ourselves, as if it matters, and as if we have somewhere to arrive where we will finally reach the penultimate WORTH. I am realizing it's all BS. I am choosing to step away from the world and vocabulary of measurement. Want to join me? In possibility, Theresa Courage. Compassion. Connection. When I started my career as a teacher my sole purpose was to contribute to the lives of my students. I wanted to be in service to others because I knew that I enjoyed it, more so than I enjoyed having a fat bank account. After more than a decade, though, I become bored--yes BORED. I wanted a bigger challenge. I wanted MORE, so I turned to school leadership as my next step. It seemed logical to me, as I could have a greater influence, one that extended beyond the walls of my own classroom and into the school at large. Looking back now, though, I don’t think that the move to leadership was really about wanting to be a bigger contribution--it was really about having GREATER INFLUENCE AND POWER (and money). Somewhere along the way, I moved away from playing the game of contribution, and instead started playing another game--the game of “power”, “money”, “importance”, and “better than.” All of which came from an underlying issue of my own...my false belief that I wasn’t ENOUGH. It was this new game that eventually led to my being asked to resign from my position as a school leader. When I finally woke up to the game that I was playing, I perceived it as too late to go back into the traditional education system, and I eventually found myself in the world of coaching. (It’s own form of education, I believe.) And yet, that pull toward the game of competition and power still beckons me from time to time, because I believe it is a game that many people play. If I am honest with myself, I can see that all of the dips in my business have come because I lost sight of what game I was playing. I lost sight of being a contribution. This quote is a great reminder to me, “In the game of contribution, you wake each morning and bask in the notion that you are a gift to others.” What about you? What game are you playing? With love and gratitude, Theresa Courage. Compassion. Connection. I used to think of my judgments as wrong because that is what everyone always told me--DON’T JUDGE or STOP BEING SO JUDGMENTAL. Unfortunately, telling me to not judge is like telling me not to breath. I might be able to sustain it for awhile, but eventually I just can’t help it. It's how I have been conditioned, and it's how I continue to see the world operate. Plus, I no longer want to. I want to EMBRACE and CELEBRATE my negative judgments. (Crazy, isn’t it.) I want to do so because they are the key to my growth. I want to let them out (albeit alone), rather than suppress them, or should on them, or distract myself from them because I know that they are telling me something important. When I get curious about my judgments, rather than judge my judgments (quite a paradox), then I can develop a better understanding of what is going on under the surface. Once I can go under the surface and seek to understand the origin of my negative judgments, then I can unlock what is missing inside of me which will allow me to transform my relationship with myself and my relationships with others. And you know the super cool thing that comes next--I become LESS JUDGMENTAL. Do you know the saying, “What you resist persists?” That is exactly what I am talking about. When I resist my negative judgments, and try not to have them, they just keep coming back, and coming back, and coming back because I haven’t dealt with the hidden unmet need underneath. Yet, once I embrace the judgment, explore it, find it’s root cause, and get creative for how to otherwise meet my needs, then the judgments slowly disappear. Want to try it? In gratitude, Theresa P.S. One of my mentors who teaches Non-Violent Communication went to teach a workshop to a group of monks, who all thought that they didn't need his workshop because they said, "We don't judge." At first he was a bit lost, and then he asked, "Well, why don't you judge?" And the monks response was, "Because judging is wrong." My mentor then smiled and said, "Okay. We can get started." Courage. Compassion. Connection. The other day I was speaking with a woman that I know and she mentioned that she was struggling with how to deal with a fellow tenant in her building, who also happens to be the president of the homeowners association. She described him as an asshole and a bully, and that everyone in the building was afraid of him, including her, but that she was determined to work things through. When I asked more questions in order to help support her, I found out what it was like for her to have a conversation with him. She described him as being both aggressive and intimidating and that when engaged in a conversation he gets really close and continually pokes his finger at her shoulder as he is making a point. (She demonstrated on me, and I was also uncomfortable.) “I tell him 5 or 6 times to stop, but he keeps doing it. I back up to have more space and he just moves forward again.” That is when the light bulb went off in me! This dear woman had set a boundary for him, and let him know that his behavior was not acceptable with her, and then she continued to TELL him, but she didn’t SHOW him. There is a difference between SETTING BOUNDARIES and UPHOLDING BOUNDARIES, and when we have people in our lives who are not treating us the way we want to be treated, it is because we have unintentionally taught them it was okay. We can set boundaries with people all day long, but if we never follow through with them, we are in essence saying, “It’s okay, I know I said I didn’t like that, but you can keep doing it.” When we don’t follow through with our boundaries, they aren’t boundaries at all. The advice that I gave my friend is the same advice I would give you. Here are the steps I invited her to take:
Are there any people in your life who are not treating you the way you want to be treated? How can you use these steps with them? Best, Theresa Courage. Compassion. Connection. |
Photo used under Creative Commons from lululemon athletica
