Don’t brag, be modest: The downside

Don’t let ANYONE dim your light, especially yourself, for the sake of others.

Most of us, especially women, are raised to believe that we should always avoid coming off like we’re bragging because that makes us look conceited. We’re taught to be modest instead.

Don’t get me wrong, being modest is great. But there’s a point at which too much “modesty” becomes unhealthy.

This mindset encourages us to diminish our strengths and avoid celebrating our small wins so that we don’t appear full of ourselves. Compounded over time, that becomes a destructive habit that can leave us feeling small, weak, unfulfilled, depressed, etc.

Our strengths get normalized and we struggle to find joy in everyday life because we only consider “big” things to be accomplishments. We start downplaying everything we do and self deprecating.

Success breeds success 👏🏻

If you want big wins, you need to learn to celebrate the small ones first. They are the stepping stones that lead the way for the big ones.

That is one of the many things that I will be working on in my upcoming program and with my one on one coaching clients. If that sounds like something you need, I would love to help!

Book your free consultation and let’s have a chat. No stress, no strings, no preparation needed.

With love,

Jess

Self-Care: Why is it so hard?

Self-Care

Everyone knows what it is and that it’s important. We’ve all heard the “you have to put your own oxygen mask on before you can help others” routine. Yet most of us struggle to actually make time for it.

I was watching Grey’s Anatomy (one of my guilty pleasures and personal self-care activities), and one of the scenes touched on a few reasons why we might struggle with this. I was blown away by the potency of that short scene and I had to share!

Reason #1 – You grew up in an unstable environment where you felt like you had to manage the emotions of other people to feel safe. Common in dysfunctional homes.

As an adult, taking time for yourself to rest might bring up anxiety and feel unsafe. It might only feel safe to rest when you are doing it for someone else’s benefit/need.

Reason #2 – You grew up in an environment where you had little to no support, emotional or otherwise. You kept yourself busy figuring everything out on your own.

As an adult, taking time for yourself to rest might bring up all of that pain from having to go it alone. Pain you had been avoiding by staying busy, that bubbles up in the stillness.

Those are just two examples of many of course, but they bring awareness to a deeper meaning behind the struggle to rest.

Do either resonate with you?

I would love to hear your thoughts! Drop a comment and let me know if you struggle with prioritizing self-care, and why you think that is.

With love,

Jess

Finding Light in the Darkness Hits the Podcast World

I had the opportunity to join coach Tony Wechsler on Strive to Thrive: The Purposely Positive Podcast. I had the privilege of sharing bits and pieces of my story, background, and journey. It was so much fun sharing some of the things I’ve learned thus far!

  • We talked about depression and anxiety, the differences between the sexes when when it comes to social conditioning and emotion, and the common practice of trying to resist and avoid “unacceptable” emotions. Things like anger, grief, sadness, among others getting shoved down, resulting in a culture riddled with toxic positivity and bypassing practices.
  • We talked about how easy it is for miscommunication and misunderstandings to happen with interpersonal relationships, romantic or otherwise. Highlighting the fact that we are all seeing the world through the lens of our own perspective and past experiences. How we are often unconsciously responding to situations in the present based on past experiences that have created false narratives in our minds.
  • We talked about therapy, the silly cliché of revisiting your childhood experiences, and one of my favorite exercises that drove a lot of my growth over the past few years. How the practice helps to unravel a lot of unconscious beliefs and patterns that drive our behaviour without our awareness, often wreaking havoc on our lives and relationships, holding us back from achieving our goals and chasing our dreams, and keeping us stuck repeating the same hurtful experiences.
  • We talked about how creating that awareness of your unconscious patterns and limiting beliefs enables you to more easily recognize when those thoughts or behaviours are coming up. With that awareness comes the ability to pause, reflect, and choose to respond differently. This genuine awareness of the self naturally results in deeper empathy and compassion for others, allowing you to communicate and relate more effectively to those you care about.
  • We talked about polyvagal theory and somatic practices that improve our ability to weave through the highs and lows of life more easily. Allowing yourself to sit in discomfort and face it head on, building practices that lift you up, and executing on those when needed. Thus creating a more flexible nervous system – one where you have more control.

If you’re interested in some or all of these concepts, I would love for you to take a listen! I made a point to share some of the people I’ve followed on my journey, tools I’ve picked up along the way, along with some of my favorite book recommendations.

In the end of every episode, Tony asks his guests to share their definition of being “purposely positive”. For me, that is reflected in the very title of this entire blog.

If you found your way here, I think you might enjoy the episode. It was an absolute pleasure to be a guest, and I am so thrilled to share it with you!

Catch the episode in full here.

If you find anything of value or learn something new, please do leave me a comment! I truly enjoy reading about others’ experience with my content. It makes me so happy if I’m able to impact even one person in a positive way with each post.

I would love to help you break free from whatever has been holding you back from the life that you want. If any of what I shared resonates with you and you would like to work with me one on one, book a free consultation and let’s chat!

With love,

Jessica

“Yeah, whatever. You don’t know my life!”

So I was listening to a thought leader recently, and he said, “successful people don’t have more hours in the day than anyone else, they just have more hours of the day that they USE (productively)”.

That really stuck with me, and it got me thinking…

First, I realized how many times in my life I would have rolled my eyes at that quote thinking “yeah whatever, you don’t know my life”. Immediately annoyed.

You ever find yourself thinking that? Heck, maybe you’re thinking it right now 🤣

This time it felt different for me. Like a lightbulb moment as I started going through the other shifts I’ve made. Life threw me some curveballs over the past few years, as I’m sure it did for all of us, and I fell off my path for a while. I can honestly say that I’ve surprised even myself the past few months with a fast bounce back in multiple areas of my life!

I came back from vacation January 9th with a goal to invest some time into personal development every day. I am proud that I managed to meet that goal for the remainder of the month and keep it up to this day! I now have nearly 2 months of daily personal development.

I was thinking about this accomplishment and how sparse my learning calendar would have looked some of the months prior in comparison. I’ve been able to learn so much in that short span of time, with everything from audiobooks, courses, and even language training. That said, self-development was just the tip of the iceberg.

I also re-established a morning routine and started getting up earlier – first at 630, then 6, 545, 530, and now 5 AM… and to think just a few weeks prior I was saying “I’m not a morning person”.

Not long ago I was struggling just to drag myself out of bed in time to get ready for work! The new routine that I’ve created for myself gives me more time to be productive and start my day off on a high with a meditation, learning, and a workout before heading into my workday feeling energized.

I should also say that while I do try to be in bed earlier, I still don’t go to sleep any earlier than I did before. What’s funny is that despite going to sleep around the same time and consistently getting up much earlier, I actually feel like I have more energy than I did before.

I’m getting LESS sleep, and yet I’m feeling MORE energized.

I went from eating more takeout and junk foods and a sporadic workout schedule back to a more balanced healthy diet and consistent workouts.

I went from struggling to get myself going in the morning and being distracted all the time to being more focused and productive in and outside of work.

I went from procrastinating on the things I needed to do to achieve my goals to finally taking action and making progress toward the launch of my own coaching practice.

I also went from mindless scrolling on social media or binge-watching TV every evening to being more mindful with how I spend my time.

I restricted social media time and started limiting TV time. Instead, I use the extra time to cook healthy meals, working toward my goals, read, meditate, and walk my dog. I bookend my days with healthy habits, and I don’t have any more time than I did last year.

There are several different strategies that I used, and continue to use, to help me make these shifts when I fall off track and hit one of those life lulls. I can’t wait to start sharing those this year!

I have a program coming that will equip you with the mental tools to make this kind of quick transformation toward your own goals. Stay tuned for more on that ☺️

In the meantime, I am so excited to put my psychology degree, coaching certification, and everything else I’ve been learning over the past few years to good use!

I am now working with clients one on one for transformation coaching. If any of this resonated with you and you struggle to make these shifts on your own, I would love to help!

Book a Free Consultation

With love,

Jess

Let’s Talk: Falling Back to Old Patterns, Spiritual Entertainment, & Overstimulation

To those following me here, I owe you an apology.

I set out to share my journey with this blog, warts and all. My goal has been to help bring light to others fighting through the darkness of their own healing voyage.

And yet, for months I have failed to deliver. For that, I am truly sorry.

It has been several months since my last post, and I thought a great way to come back would be to share a bit about what has been going on in my life in that time. I think it is a beautiful example of the peaks and valleys of this type of work.

Since my last post in early April, I have: moved to a new home, completed my Neuroencoding Methods of Coaching licensure, begun another coaching course with Tony Robbins, attended a week-long trauma-informed healing retreat, and balanced my normal work/life schedule. It has been quite a lot packed into a few months. In that time I’ve also been sure to squeeze in some much-needed summer fun and self care.

So what have I learned from this hiatus? There have been three primary lessons.

1 ) I tend to fall back to old patterns when things start to pick up. It’s like I have a warning bell in my nervous system that goes off when my blog starts getting noticed a bit more. When that happens, part of me starts to procrastinate. It continues to find other things for me to do instead of writing.

It’s a way to hide, because that part of me is scared to be fully seen. The thought of actually getting what is terrifying because then the risk of “failure” is even higher.

2 ) One of those old patterns is that I jump from one learning opportunity to the next, sometimes without even finishing the first thing. I’m officially licensed to start taking on clients as a transformation coach now, which is something I have worked incredibly hard to achieve.

And yet, there is a part of me that is terrified to get started. A part that feels like a fraud.

“Who are YOU to coach other people when you don’t have everything together yourself?”

That imposter syndrome is REAL ya’ll.

I have a degree in psychology and the social sciences. I’ve spent the last two years immersed in coaching material. I’ve read books. I’ve done countless personal growth events and courses… I KNOW that I have a ton of value to deliver, and yet… I’ve realized I’ve been the one holding myself back out of fear.

I’ve been chasing all of these development opportunities as a way to put off actually starting my business. It’s that “I’ll be ready when…” mentality. Except I kept jumping to something else, never feeling fully satisfied that I am “ready”.

As much as I know I am worthy and capable, there is still a part of me that doesn’t think I’m enough. That part of me doesn’t believe I can succeed, and it is trying to protect me from disappointment by keeping me distracted. This brings me to lesson number three.

3 ) In all of the various things drawing my attention for personal growth, I was not allowing time for integration. I was taking in a wealth of information that I wasn’t fully processing and using. So much wisdom. So many useful strategies. All going to waste.

I was expending all of my energy on learning and growing, a consistent consumption of information. It ultimately left little energy left in the tank for me to put it all into practice, which was the whole point! I became overwhelmed because I was doing way too much, and it left me depleted and unable to tap into my creativity to write.

What’s funny to me is that this actually brings me full circle, back to lesson number one;

Falling back to old patterns

I actually learned about “spiritual entertainment” toward the tail end of 2021 in one of the many personal development events I attended last year. I made a commitment at the beginning of this year that 2022 would be a year of integration. That I would slow down on the events and focus on revisiting my notes from past events to gain inspiration to write.

In a way, I did keep at least part of that commitment. I did slow down on the events; only doing the KINRGY TRANSFORM retreat, which just wrapped up this past weekend. And yet… the time I wasn’t filling with events, I was filling with books and courses. It was equally distracting and enabled that scared part within me to feel safer through procrastination.

So the key takeaway is this:

No matter how much we learn and grow, sometimes those old patterns creep in. What I’ve learned most of all this week is that this is not something to be ashamed of, and it is instead something we should embrace. All parts are welcome.

We have to recognize that it is ultimately coming from a place of love and protection. From a part of us that just wants us to be safe.

We have to remember that healing means witnessing yourself falling back to those old patterns, acknowledging why they are happening, and consciously making a different choice. Because after all, we are not our parts.

With love,

Jessica

Public Perception of Will Smith vs Chris Rock

I’ve seen a lot of the responses in relation to the incident at the Academy Award ceremony recently between Will Smith and Chris Rock. The responses tend to be polar opposites with people either praising Will and pointing anger at Chris for the insensitive joke, or villainizing Will for the act of violence and defending Chris.

In this post I am going to share a different perspective for consideration. I’ll use myself and my experience as an example. Then I’ll give you an exercise to try for yourself.

What stood out most to me as I watched the aftermath of the event were the posts made by multiple women stating, “if my man doesn’t defend me like this, I don’t want it”. This resonated with me because there is a part of me that could relate. Then I looked at it from the lens of everything I’ve been learning these last few years, and I came to a realization.

Much like many of the women I’ve seen making those types of comments referenced above, I too used to think it would be sweet for a guy to use violence against someone in my honor. I can think of one situation in particular where I watched a movie with a past partner about two brothers that went off with a vengeance trying to save one of their spouses who had been abducted. My partner at the time got all macho and protective, claiming he’d do the same thing if it were ever me.

I remember reacting very positively. I took as a symbol of strength and protection or something, which made me feel safe, happy, and loved. I also remember trying to relay that experience to someone else later on, almost like I was bragging about my boyfriend’s strength and love for me. I actually find this really funny now, but in the moment I was angry and annoyed when the person I told gave me a weird look after I relayed the story.

Rather than being happy for me, they were concerned. Others could see how toxic that mindset was back then, but I couldn’t.

Several years have passed since this experience, and in that time, I’ve experienced a lot of healing, growth, and learning. Looking back, I recognize that I felt this way with my partner because I was seeking the kind of feelings I didn’t consistently have as a child through my adult relationships. I know now that is not healthy for me, nor is it healthy or fair expectations to place on romantic partners.

With this new understanding, I see the kind of emotional outburst we saw with Will Smith more as a lack of emotional maturity and self-awareness. I can think of times in my life when I’ve used violence against others in an emotional outburst as well, and looking back I would say the same thing about my prior self in those situations. If we’re being driven unconsciously by our past pain, we often end up hurting others.

Even the people we love most. Even when we don’t mean to or want to.

I’ve found that violence and aggression stops being attractive when you recognize a true symbol of strength is self awareness and the emotional intelligence to be able to handle conflict without violence. It’s not as cute when you realize that it is an impulse or unconscious pattern. As a result, those outbursts could easily redirect toward you under the right conditions. This can apply with physical, emotional, and/or verbal abuse.

The incident at the Oscars was a mild situation and I’m in no way implying Will Smith would be abusive to his wife. That said, I felt I should share this different perspective as something to keep in mind when it comes to general mindset on this topic.

The posts I saw praising the behaviour is problematic because the next generation is watching and learning from ours. If this attitude is adopted and normalized widescale, it can put more people at risk of experiencing abuse. Conversely, the posts I saw villainizing Will is equally problematic because it fails to address the cause – unconscious trauma.

Domestic violence and abuse – be it physical, verbal, or emotional – or such abuse in general, is often the result of these types of unconscious patterns and emotional outbursts based on unconscious pain from the past. Abusers aren’t abusive all the time, and that’s how people often get stuck in those situations long term. It is up to us to take notice of this type of behaviour and monitor for signs of a pattern.

Remember: Hurt people, hurt people.

If we want to see a reduction in this type of behaviour in our culture, a good place to start is by putting an end to condoning this type of behaviour in ALL situations… even when provoked by insensitivity or even intent to hurt with words, such as a case like Will & Chris.

Lead by example. Seek to become aware of your own patterns. Give yourself the time and space to heal, and put in the effort to break the patterns that are no longer serving who you want and choose to be – because that is the real you. Invite others to do the same.

If you’re open to it, at this time I would like to invite you to do a little exercise.

Take a few minutes to think about your dating and relationship history. Do you have a pattern of ending up with people who are irritable? A bit of a hot head? Emotionally or physically abusive – to you or to others?

If you’re still with me, try taking it back a bit further.

What was your childhood experience like? Did you experience and/or witness domestic violence or abuse? Were your parents irritable and unpredictable? Did you grow up in a loving and nurturing environment, or did you feel more isolated and alone?

If you made a connection about yourself with this exercise, please put some thought into what I’ve said above. Maybe we grew up in a chaotic environment and that is what feels normal to us, so we unconsciously seek out what feels familiar.

If that is the case, I want you to know that we can teach ourselves to look at things differently and place higher value on other attributes in relationships. The partners we end up with aren’t always healthy for us, and we can change this by changing the story around the behaviour itself.

For more depth on this topic, I encourage you to read an incredible post by a psychiatrist.

I hope you found this helpful! If you learned something new and would like to share, I would love to hear from you in the comments.

With love,

Jess

So You Think You Have an Addictive Personality?

Throughout my life I’ve often said things like: “I have an addictive personality” or “I’m just an all or nothing kind of person“. Nobody, including myself, ever really questioned that. Until the last few years. Now I’m calling bullshit on myself.

Give me a few minutes, and you might too.

In my lifetime I have had an unhealthy relationship with substances, food, social media, television, and more. I would even go as far as including fitness and personal development in that list. Crazy to think of those really great things as unhealthy, right?

Let me explain.

I have been digging deep into the underbelly of my past, analyzing my patterns, and facing everything I’d tried so hard to bury and avoid. In so doing, I realized that those “unhealthy relationships” with everything that I listed above were simply a means to an end. A distraction from what I wasn’t ready to face. An escape.

I jumped from one habit to the next, interchanging vices when it became apparent the flavor of the month was unhealthy. It started in high school with substances, which helped me to escape my own mind and feel good for a change. When things got rough and I couldn’t continue as I was any longer, I traded substances for binge eating and watching television alone in my room.

With the new vices, I was able to dissociate from reality and check out from my mind in a new way. When I became medically classified as obese, depressed, and lonely from isolating myself in shame, I traded the excessive eating and lounging for health and fitness. That helped me get into shape, feel more confident, and start living my life again.

So what’s bad about that, right?

Well… I reached the point where my weight loss journeys always seemed to plateau. I was working out 6 days a week, and I started doubling up workouts thinking I needed to go harder. I was working my body so hard, determined to crush my goals, that I actually ended up injuring myself.

If you’ve ever had the misfortune of an injury like this, the next part may make you cringe. I heard a popping sound and my leg caved in during a stretch. It startled me enough that I paused and shook myself off to assess damage. I seemed fine, so I convinced myself it was nothing and pushed myself to finish the workout.

Unfortunately I’ll never know what would have happened had I not continued with that second workout. What I do know is that I had to pull myself up two flights of stairs by the railing while hopping on one foot when I finished that workout. It took over 2 weeks for me to regain the ability to bear weight on the injured leg enough to walk without support of a crutch or a cane. It’s been 5 years since the injury, and my knee still has not fully recovered.

What about personal development… how is that possibly unhealthy? – you may ask.

That one took me by surprise too. I learned about this concept last year during Mastin Kipp’s Claim Your Power LIVE conference: spiritual entertainment. Growth (personal development) is food for the soul. However, sometimes we can use it as a way to cope with, or dissociate from, things we are trying to avoid too.

In my case, that meant jumping from course to course, conference to conference, book to book. Mastin reminded me that we can sometimes run so fast after our healing and growth that we can run right past our breakthroughs. We don’t give ourselves time to integrate the lessons or actually learn anything from them, we just consume all the things and become frustrated when we don’t reach the desired destination.

As Tony Robbins likes to say, knowledge isn’t power. It’s what you do with it once you have it that matters. You see, we all conceptually KNOW what actions we should take to solve some of our problems. And yet, we don’t execute on them.

You can study how to play a sport, but will that make you a great player if you have no experience and don’t practice? The same applies to personal development. You can keep consuming material and learning new strategies, but your life is unlikely to see real change until you start executing on what you’ve learned.

So what does all of this mean?

It means that even really good things can be used as coping mechanisms or vices without our conscious awareness. Mastin has a great 3 minute video that outlines the difference between low-level coping (substances, toxic relationships, violence) and high-level coping (exercise and dieting, meditating, self-help tools).

This was eye opening for me because I realized that while I was doing all of these positive things for my life, I genuinely thought I was doing great and “healed”. Looking back now, I see that I had actually fallen into toxic positivity and (spiritual) bypassing. That “fake it til’ you make it mentality. Positive vibes only – avoiding anything that stirs up the shadows.

Don’t get me wrong… I was making more progress than I ever had with the low-level coping, but I still felt like I was treading water. I wasn’t getting where I wanted to be because I was still unconsciously using those high-level coping tools as a distraction or an escape.

I was trying to take the easy way out and move PAST my past rather than face it and move through it. That rarely works, and that is often why there are so many yo-yo dieters. It is why the gyms are full every January, only to go back to normal capacity within a few months as New Year’s Resolutions end early.

If that sounds familiar, know that it’s not lack of willpower. It’s not that you don’t want it badly enough. It’s not that you are lazy either.

The reason we get so far only to fall off the wagon and return to our comfort zone is because we haven’t addressed the root of the issue. It’s like slapping a band-aid on a wound that needs stitches. It may heal eventually. Though it could also get infected, take much longer to heal, leave you suffering in pain longer, and leave you with a nasty scar.

What we resist, persists.

If you started reading this thinking that you, or someone you know, had an addictive personality, I hope you found this post informative and relatable. I hope that it helped you see that it is much more likely that those patterns of being all-in for different habits is actually a symptom of a different issue entirely.

To name a few:

  • Unhealed, most likely unconscious, traumas.
  • Old limiting belief systems that were passed down from family or imparted on you through public education, social conditioning, or the media.
  • Unhealthy learned patterns that keep landing you in the same painful situations.

You deserve so much more! Only you can make it happen though. You have to be brave. Be willing to go deep within and face what you’ve tried to repress and ignore.

It won’t be comfortable, and it will hurt more before it gets better. But it WILL get better as you face and move through everything you tried to bury. That is how you heal and find inner peace.

So ask yourself a question. What is worth suffering for?

Would you rather stay in the same repeated cycles that keep bringing you pain over and over again? Would you rather keep treading water, struggling for every inch of progress? Or would you rather do the inner work that will set you on a course to a much brighter future?

Only you can make that choice. I hope you choose the latter, because you are worth the effort!

With love,

Jessica

Why is Learning so Important?

These daily words of wisdom from Napoleon Hill really resonated with me. When we learn, it actually generates dopamine (pleasure chemical) to make us feel good.

Have you ever learned something new and suddenly found yourself excited? That is because learning brings a sense of achievement and pride, which gives us drive and purpose.

If you work out, I liken it to beating a personal record or conquering an exercise you couldn’t do before. The mind is like a muscle in that way. When we learn something new we exercise that muscle, and it brings with it a sense of accomplishment.

Of course self-care is important, though I’ve learned there is an important distinction to be made between true self-care and self-abandonment/dissociation through escapist behaviours. It’s important to recognize that difference and not get lost in the endless social media spiral, consistent TV binge-watching, regular substance abuse, etc.

Those are all habits we develop to escape from our current reality, even if only for a while. What if instead, we actively worked on building a life that we didn’t need to escape from?

Make a conscious effort to prioritize learning. Try new things without fear of failure. Know that it is totally okay to be a beginner at something! Challenge yourself in new ways.

Do these things consistently over time, and you may be surprised by the positive impact it can have on all areas of your life!

Adopt Tony Robbins’ CANI philosophy – Constant And Never-Ending Improvement. Embrace the fact that the human experience is all about learning and growing, at all stages of life. Become a lifelong learner.

Why?

Because you deserve to live a life you love. A life that is filled with passion, fulfillment, and happiness.

With Love,

Jessica

Do You Operate With Emotional Courage?

I was listening to some leadership insights, and this quote really resonated with me:

“Emotional courage is the willingness to feel everything, and if you’re willing to feel everything, you can do anything”

– Peter Bregman, CEO and Bestselling Author.

I love this perspective! This explains why we often struggle to have difficult conversations. It’s most likely not because we lack the skills to communicate what we want to say.

Rather, it’s more likely to be because we know that saying what we want to say may challenge us. That it could potentially make us feel things that we don’t want to feel. If addressing something seems as though it will result in discomfort, we often push it away. We try to avoid it.

Overcoming this means learning how to be present with yourself in sitting through negative emotions and situations, building strong self-awareness, and being able to manage your emotions while communicating effectively. Did you know that being self-aware and having higher emotional intelligence is linked to a greater sense of happiness overall?

Why?

Because in building these skills you gain self-confidence, become a better communicator, are able to better understand and relate to others, gain more empathy and compassion for others, etc. These skills can be applied to all aspects of your life, with all interpersonal relationships.

Making an effort to hone those skills has the potential to improve all of your relationships both in and outside the workplace. It will help you become a better version of yourself, enabling you to show up as your best for those in your life. Who wouldn’t want that?!

Do you lead and move through life with emotional courage? Let me know in the comments!

With love,

Jessica

“New Year, New Me”

I wrote the message I am about to share in January on social media, and I wanted to share it here with all of you as well. I think this is an important message for all.

Especially if you set some new year resolutions, and are already starting to feel yourself slipping back to old patterns. Maybe you already gave up on the resolution(s) entirely.

If so, this is for you!

“Instead of aspiring to be different this year, how about aspiring to be more authentic? More true to you?

Make this a year of self discovery. A year of growth. A year of letting go of old habits and patterns that are weighing you down, holding you back from what you are really capable of in this lifetime.

The fact that you have goals and desires that you are passionate about means that you are meant for more than your current experience, and you can have it. It’s not about implementing new habits and behaviours, at least not initially.

First, you’ve got to dig deep and uproot the foundation on which old dysfunctional and unproductive patterns and behaviours are built. Once those are brought to awareness, they can be adapted and replaced to move you closer in alignment with your true self.

The self that isn’t held back by fear, doubt, or insecurity. The self that is free to just BE. That sounds like something I want too 💖”

So if you set some intentions and goals for the new year and only made it a few weeks, know that it is not your fault.

You’re not lazy.

You’re not a failure.

It’s not that you have no willpower or that you are incapable of change.

The truth is that you have some limiting beliefs and unconscious patterns of behaviour that are holding you hostage. It’s not just about finding a strong enough “why” as others may tell you, at least not in the way it is often presented. Rather, it is about uncovering the true reason, the unconscious one, that keeps you returning to the same unproductive or unhealthy patterns you are trying so hard to kick.

If you can muster up the courage to look deep within yourself, you will find the real purpose for those behaviours. With that awareness comes power. Once you become aware, you can catch yourself in those moments with full understanding of what need you are really trying to meet in that moment. That, coupled with the traditional “why” for making a change, will help you to overcome the thing that has been holding you back once and for all.

With love,

Jessica