Accessing Invisible Help and Guidance

I had a nail-biting moment recently, while returning home from an international trip via Houston.  My first flight had been delayed by two hours and by the time I reached the end of the mile-long U.S. Immigration line, I received a text from United Airlines that my next flight was boarding. I’m sure you can relate to the feeling of panic this scenario can conjure. 

I wasn’t willing to accept that I would miss my flight and most likely get stuck overnight in either Houston or the alternative connection that United was offering me. I made a request to my helping spirits, that assistance be given at every point so that I could make my next flight. Although I knew this was a tall order, I thanked them in advance for their help.

We each have helping spirits that are guiding us, whether we are aware of them or not. There is a wealth of different compassionate and loving helpers that work with us – power animals, guardian spirits, nature spirits, elemental allies, angels, mystics, healers, legendary figures, and ancestral spirits, among others.

When we take the opportunity to have a conscious relationship with them, we receive clear, individualized guidance that helps in every area of life – self-awareness, health, financial, interpersonal relationships, and work. They also perform healings on us.

I am reminded of a morning meditation, about 5 years ago. This was a time when I was experiencing extreme anxiety related to a stressful work decision. I was accustomed to releasing emotional discomfort in my body through meditation however, this one time, the sensation of panic in my gut just would not dissipate. The physical discomfort was so intense, I felt I couldn’t stand it a moment longer. I asked my helping spirits for assistance in releasing it, and thanked them. Immediately, the feeling of a soft caress, came over my right shoulder and moved down to my solar plexus and then out the window to my left. Like a soft breeze. Instantly the tightness eased and I felt an immense amount of peace and light fill the area where the discomfort had been. 

When we intentionally send out our requests to the Universe, we do receive answers. After that, it’s up to us to be aware and trust the signs so we can take advantage of the wisdom they contain.

There are many ways to receive divine guidance once we ask for help. These are a few that suggestions that work for me:

1. Ask for a sign confirming that you are on the right path or following the right course of action. Or if you have a specific question for which you are needing clarification. It’s important to ask for a specific sign that is meaningful to you within the timeframe that you would like an answer–24 hours for example. A sign might be a coin, or a hawk, or a rainbow, something that you would not miss. Be open to however the sign appears. You may see a drawing of a hawk for example. Always thank your guides in advance for their assistance.

A hummingbird is a meaningful sign for me. Recently I was asking my helping spirits for a sign that I should attend a workshop that I was considering. The cost of the workshop was more than I could afford so I wanted to be certain about it. I requested to see a hummingbird within 24 hours and thanked them for their guidance. An hour later, as I was preparing breakfast, I heard a tapping noise coming from the living room. A hummingbird had flown in through the backdoor and was tapping on the window, trying to get out, which I immediately assisted him to do. This was a very clear answer and one that I couldn’t miss! (As a side note for those of you who are familiar with the hummingbird friends I have at home, I wasn’t at home when this happened.)

2. An inner “knowing” is a powerful way to receive guidance. This is the voice within you that appears as a felt sense, an intuition, or gut reaction. To be open and receptive, you must take time in quieting your mind. When we’re processing something that happened in the past or worrying about what might happen in the future, we might be missing guidance that helping spirits are sending our way. Taking time for daily meditation is a very effective way to be open and receptive.

3. Hearing the voices of our helping spirits and even seeing them is incredibly powerful. There are two ways that I have been able access this form of guidance–night dreams and shamanic journeying. 

Every important event in my life has been foretold by dreams. I recommend keeping a dream journal by your bed and writing down whatever you remember the moment you awake. This will help you to remember your dreams as well as bring them into clearer focus. Just before you fall asleep, ask to receive guidance in your dreams about something you are needing help with.

Shamanic journeying is a potent way of accessing our loving and compassionate spirit guides. This method once learned, is accessible to everyone. Using percussive instruments, like a drum or rattle, we can alter our brain waves from an alpha to a theta state, in which we can travel into invisible realms, access a hidden universe, and seek the help and healing that our guides want to give us. 

4. Stream of consciousness writing is another incredibly effective way that the voices of our helping spirits can come through us and on to paper.  I recommend using pen and paper or journal if you already have one. Begin by asking your helping spirits to write through you and thanking them in advance for their support and guidance. Start writing and keep going without stopping until you’ve written 3 pages. Write whatever comes up without questioning anything before you write it. You can set a timer for 20 or 30 minutes also. Write whatever is in your head. Try not to second guess anything you’re writing.

You’ll find that guidance very quickly opens as you start writing. I have found that most people are very surprised with what comes out when they let it flow.

5. Watch for signs and synchronicities and trust in them. Just when you need it most, you might hear a song on the radio with the answer you are seeking. You might see a word or read a passage in a book. 

We are spirits in human bodies. These bodies and minds give us the opportunity to move around the world through our senses. Yet we have universal light burning in us. So why would it be unreasonable to think that we could connect and be guided by helping spirits that are not in human bodies now?

Trust that guidance is available to you. Ask for help and healing, knowing that we work co-creatively with our guides. When we open to receiving the support of our guides, our hearts swell with the gratitude that comes from knowing we are not alone, struggling through these tumultuous times. The more time we spend in gratitude, the more divine support we will attract.

The spirits will guide us but they aren’t going to do our personal work for us. Our life is still our responsibility–we are here on Classroom Earth to learn and grow. However, we have support and we can use the information that our helping spirits give us to maintain our balance, confidence and clarity.

When I’m in trust, co-creativity and gratitude, life flows easily. In this way, I am based more in love than fear, and life is nourishing rather than a constant struggle. Like any form of personal growth, whether physical, mental or spiritual, we must cultivate the practice as we develop and deepen relationships with our helping spirits. Spirits that are unconditionally loving and profoundly patient.

There are greater dimensions of the world that are here to support us, both seen and unseen. The unseen worlds are the greatest gift we’ve got right now to move us into the world we want to create and in support of our planet. It is more essential now than it ever has been, to access this help because we’ve reached the limit of our capacity of what we can do.  We must manifest in the physical world what we initiate in the invisible world first. 

You might be wondering if I made my flight. A few moments after my request, two immigration officers opened new checkpoints. As I rolled my luggage toward customs, another new line opened as I handed my bag to the attendant. Because I needed to change terminals, I ran with all my heart to security and another long line. Again, a new checkpoint opened and as I removed my shoes and toiletries and placed my carryon on the belt, a TSA agent shuttled me over to the expedited scanner, therefore bypassing the entire line. When I reached the departing gate, they were just beginning the boarding process. They had delayed the flight long enough for me to make it.

I believe in you,

Tricia

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I am teaching a 5-day retreat, Immersion into Guidance, October 14-19, 2019 (as well as in April 2020.) We will be exploring access to self and spirit realms through art, writing, nature exploration, plant medicine and shamanic journeying. If you would like more information, please go to Immersion into Guidance Retreat.

I would love to hear from you. What does guidance mean to you?  Please share your comments below or email me directly at tricia@triciaacheatel.com

It would be an honor to have you in my new Facebook group, The Expression of Our Unique Gifts. Here is the LINK. 

The Importance of Being Seen

I’ve recently returned from a trip to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico where I attended a workshop in which for the first time in my life, I felt truly seen.

Allow me to explain what I mean when I say “seen.”

American writer, mythologist, cultural anthropologist, and teacher Joseph Campbell explored thousands of stories told over the course of human history, across cultures and religions. In his first book, The Hero With a Thousand Faces, Campbell identified a thematic process of personal and communal transformation that permeated all of these stories which he called “The Hero's Journey.” 

Campbell described the Hero's Journey as occurring in a cycle consisting of three phases: The Departure, where the hero leaves the comfortable and familiar world and ventures into the darkness of the unknown; The Initiation, where the hero is subjected to a series of tests in which s/he must prove their true character; and The Return, in which the hero brings the blessing of their quest back for the benefit of not only their own life but to help serve the community and often the world. It is in this third phase that the community recognizes and acknowledges the discovered gifts inherent in the hero’s true character.

The individual returns home as an initiate turned hero that is seen and accepted by the community for his or her newfound gifts. 

Being seen is a true validation of what we have thought might be possible about ourselves yet we weren’t completely sure and often doubted. This is what our brain does, to keep us safe, it self-doubts and berates so that we remain small and protected.

Each of us has a need to be seen, to be known, to be understood, and appreciated for who we uniquely are. In this fast-paced world, wrought with comparison and distraction, for many of us this is a rare gift.

Being seen validates us because we feel important enough to be recognized and acknowledged by another. This makes us come alive and motivates us to engage, contribute and persevere. 

What I now know is that no matter how much self-work we do, until a mentor, coach, colleague, supervisor, teacher, family member, romantic partner, or soul friend, reflects back to us what s/he is seeing in us, it isn’t fully realized. It feels like this person can “read your heart” which helps awaken the inner light of your soul.

Even the act of paying attention to someone – by deeply listening, asking questions, and being present creates connection and allows someone to be seen. 

To speak about my life stories as representations of my unique gifts and to be deeply listened to and acknowledged was powerful. Even more powerful was to hear from the teacher and each participant about what they experienced as “my medicine.” This felt life changing. I feel a renewed sense of purpose and intention that will facilitate my contribution to the world. 

Ancient traditions around the world share the idea that each soul has an inner spark of life that grows by being seen, by being truly acknowledged and supported by others. 

As we decipher our life learnings, and them translate them into our life calling, in order to bring our work to the world, we must first have the experience of being seen.

May we hold this sacred space for each other for the completion of our own hero’s journey.

I believe in you,

Tricia

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I would love to hear from you. Share a time when you felt seen.

Please share your comments below or email me directly at tricia@triciaacheatel.com

It would be an honor to have you in my new Facebook group, The Expression of Our Unique Gifts. Here is the LINK. 

How to Track Your Life Purpose

Excerpted from Martha Beck’s newsletter of the same title.

(I’m in San Miguel de Allende this week, following my own life purpose hot track. I offer you the brilliant work of Martha Beck.)

Life Purpose. I have frequently written on this topic, including my book, Rooted in Purpose. I wanted to share Martha’s recent writing on this topic. I deeply value her perspective, which is a beautiful synthesis of science, humor, mysticism, and nature.

In this piece, Martha explains how finding or clarifying your life purpose is like tracking a rhinoceros. 

Like finding your life’s purpose, tracking a rhino can be baffling, discouraging, frustrating, and even frightening. But precisely because it’s so difficult, it can also be the most fun you’ve had since you learned to wear clothes. There’s something in our DNA that loves to solve puzzles and read clues, and that’s exactly what animal tracking requires. As our brains wake up to this kind of problem-solving, our ability to track anything, including our own destiny, improves exponentially.

There are just a few basic skills we need to track anything, including our right lives. These skills are innate; evolution has incorporated them into the hardwiring in our brains—though in most of us, these days, they lie dormant. First we must learn to recognize the tracks left by the thing we’re seeking (a rhinoceros, our life’s purpose). Then we must be willing to follow the tracks no matter where they lead; to stop and reconsider when we inevitably lose the track, and take the time to reestablish our connection with the right path. 

Martha goes on to explain how our societal selves learn to take charge and we lose touch with our universal self.

For tens of thousands of years, human children learned to follow tracks and other natural signs almost from birth. Most of us have learned to do exactly the opposite. Before we can see straight, we’re taught to behave according to the opinions of the adults around us, from our parents to society at large.

This means that when we ask ourselves “Am I on track?” we’re usually measuring how closely we’ve been able to follow cultural ideals: making lots of money, wearing the right clothes, matching whatever model of beauty happens to be our culture’s standard. Social standards are like well-marked, hard-paved roads.

By contrast, each of our personal missions is unique. No two of us are meant to follow exactly the same path. When we do, we begin to lose our particular essence; by fitting in and going along, we sacrifice our individuality and the sense of harmony that comes with it.

Recognizing the track of your life’s purpose is like learning to pick out the footprint of a rhino from a jumble of other tracks. It’s quite distinctive: a big, hooflike print in the center, tucked between two smaller toes. Since rhinos are big and heavy, you might think these tracks would be easy to follow. Not so much. The print may be clear in fine sand, but as the beast wanders into the grass, through rivers, and over hard rock, the tracks become subtle, often almost invisible.

The “track” of your life’s purpose also has a unique character. It often shows up as a sense of joy and lightness in the body (our minds are trained by culture to look for things like status and wealth, but our bodies aren’t so easily fooled). It may also appear as fascination, a strong desire to pay attention to certain topics or phenomena. More than anything, it’s a sense that what we’re doing is meaningful. Changing a diaper or pulling an all-nighter may not be fun, but when such things lie along the path of our life’s purpose, they always feel valuable.

If you look back on your own personal history, you can remember moments when you found your own track. In these moments you felt energized, deeply interested. Time disappeared. Attention became effortless. Maybe you’ll remember feeling this in the company of certain people, or wandering in specific places, or learning about your favorite subjects. Looking back, notice as many moments of joy and meaning as you can. Jot them down. Study them. See what they have in common. Memorize your own clear tracks as they appeared in the past, so that you can follow them into the future.

She explains how to look back on peak moments in our life to find the tracks of where we felt connected to what I call our Original Medicine, our unique gifts.

As you examine the tracks of purpose in your history, you may notice patterns and themes. Maybe you’ll notice that you always felt “on purpose” when you were designing something, or working with teams, or pushing your body, or drinking up fantasy worlds through books and movies. These patterns can show you what sort of life situation best serves your particular purpose. Conversely, the stretches of your life that felt joyless and meaningless are showing you what to avoid from here on out.

Once you recognize the track of your own purpose, you’re faced with same sort of choice. Do you follow your joy and fascination wherever they lead, or do you mimic what your parents, mentors, and social circle have always done? Sometimes there’s no conflict: you want to marry someone your family loves, or take a job that impresses everyone. But what if your beloved is the “wrong” kind of person for your relatives, or you want a weird job, or you’re drawn to an entirely different kind of culture?

When the well-paved road of social expectation and the track of purpose part ways, most people abandon themselves. They follow the well-paved road to a life of quiet (or not so quiet) desperation. The alternative is striking on an unknown path to an unknowable future. On that path you’ll encounter agony and ecstasy, thrills and chills, daunting effort and—ultimately, under and in and through it all—abiding inner peace.

How do we begin to live according to our universal self? It’s what Joseph Campbell referred to when he spoke of following your bliss. 

Every day, there are thousands of moments when we make this choice between our conditioning and our purpose. If you haven’t noticed one lately, pay attention. In a spare moment, do you read a book that really interests you, or scroll through endless social media posts that make you feel both overstimulated and blank? Do you talk about things that genuinely interest you, or make small talk so dull it makes you want to stab yourself? Do you truly, mindfully enjoy delicious food, or stuff yourself with substances you barely notice while doing something else?

The track of your life’s purpose isn’t “out there,” in some special, demarcated zone. It’s in front of you right here, right now. Making small choices toward your own joy, now, keeps you on track for the most fulfilling life you can live. You can begin in this very moment. What in these instructions lifts your heart, and what doesn’t? Which ideas feel true, and which don’t? Choosing to accept and absorb the former while rejecting the latter is the way you can start tracking your purpose in this very moment.

Times will come in life when we lose track of our sense of purpose. Martha explains how to find it again.

If you make even one choice today that takes you towards your heart’s delight, bravo. You’re tracking your purpose. But no matter how strongly you intend to stay on track, the day will come—in fact, many days will come—when you lose it.

Over and over, first-time rhino trackers get hopelessly confused. The track turns abruptly when they expect it to go straight. Footprints double back on themselves, or become obscured by other tracks—or simply disappear. My perfectionistic clients are often embarrassed when this happens. They’ve learned from culture that bafflement and loss are shameful. But there is no shame in nature, only repeated, peaceful opportunities to learn.

Becoming a master tracker doesn’t mean never losing a track. It means finding it, then losing it, then finding it again, so many times that getting lost no longer triggers anxiety or self-blame.

When joy, lightness, and meaning vanish from our lives, when nothing feels right or makes sense anymore, it isn’t a problem. It’s information. We’ve lost the track of our purpose. It’s time to find it again. 

When we feel lost, adrift in the chaos of life, most of us want to want to have our whole purpose spelled out for us immediately. We want certainty, and we want it now. Nature doesn’t work that way. It doesn’t deliver up a crystal-clear track, much less a rhinoceros, just because we really really really wish it would.

The same thing happens in rhino tracking. When the track goes cold, we can’t expect to rediscover it in the spot where we’re standing. We have to go back to the last “hot track”: a clear footprint in fine dust, a scrape of wet mud on a branch, some unmistakable evidence that the creature we’re seeking went this way. Then we can move forward again in a different direction and with even closer attention, until the next hot track appears.

When you know you’ve lost your way in life, relax. Go easy on yourself. Know that this, as much as the moments of discovery, is part of tracking your purpose. Then remember the last thing that brought you joy. It could be as simple as taking a nap or petting your dog. No matter how small it may seem, go back to it. Pay attention. Then move forward in a way that honors your inner sense of meaning more than ever. 

If you can do this over and overseeing the track of your life’s purpose, daring to follow it away from convention, relaxing when you lose it, and going back to the last hot track with renewed determination—you will encounter adventures that feel simultaneously unimaginable and exactly right. You’ll move continuously into the unknown, but always know how to find your way through it. You’ll drop whatever you no longer need, and find things you’ve never imagined. You’ll be so filled up by the journey you’ll stop thinking about destinations.

This, too, is how we’re wired. We don’t want our puzzles fully assembled, our crime novels solved on page one. We love the wondering, the wandering, the finding and losing and finding again. And this can be the way we live our lives. Today. Tomorrow. The next day. Every day. I don’t do this perfectly, by a long shot. But I do it as often as I can, as well as I can. It has brought me here, to this odd, fascinating, wildly fulfilling job. Where will it take you? I can’t tell you that. No one can. Only your own heart, soul, and mission—your very own rhinoceros—knows for sure.

You are worthy of success, prosperity and happiness. Go after it and lean into your gifts. Only you have your unique genius. The world needs your medicine.

I believe in you,

Tricia

I would love to hear from you. What is one small action step towards your heart’s desire that you can commit to this week? Please share your comments below or email me directly at tricia@triciaacheatel.com

It would be an honor to have you in my new Facebook group, Be Your Own Guru. Here is the LINK. 

Visibility for Women

At the beginning of each year, I choose a word that encapsulates my biggest intention. This year, my word is VISIBILITY.

I’m referring to the context of the definition of visibility that refers to “the state of being seen.” Like most women, I find it scary to put myself out there for everyone to see. And yet, how will I be able to make a positive impact on the world if I’m hiding?

Why is it that women with tremendous talent and innovative ideas often hide it from the world?

The influence of the inequality of women, the denial of women’s basic rights, has had a generational effect on women, shaping how we view ourselves and what is possible for us. This effect has contributed to the way we hold ourselves back for fear of rocking the boat or displeasing others.

 It is ingrained in our genetic memory or be helpful and supportive. To be GOOD.

We have become so virtuous as women at doing everything that society associates with being good and doing it all well, that we don’t feel like we even know who we are anymore.

When we live our lives from the social construct of being “good,” fitting in and doing what we think we SHOULD do, we have put our true selves, the selves we were born to be, in a box, hidden away in the garage and collecting dust. 

The fear of displeasing others, or of ruffling feathers means that we:

• Avoid conflict. This results in our needs not being met. This patterns leads to the acceptance that our needs are not as important.

• People please. Women accept the pressure of all the demands on them, to do everything they’re doing and do it all well, balancing the happiness of everyone else. Often at the cost of their own.

• Hold ourselves back. From putting ourselves out there to safeguard that we won’t be criticized or rejected.

• Hide our authentic selves. We put on the masks of different identities (good wife, supermom, community volunteer superstar, woman who has it all…) to be all the things we think others want us to be. Because we hope this will make us more acceptable.

For years, I taught a professional training in herbalism. Each year when the certification was complete, it was women who were hesitant to offer their services because they thought they needed something more – further training, the right office, a website – before they would be ready to help clients.

When we aren’t being true to ourselves, we are snuffing out our life force. We aren’t giving ourselves to the world the way we were meant to. Bringing our vulnerable selves out, in all our pain, honesty, and messiness is what will change our world. We need to do this for ourselves. 

Taking courageous action, although it requires vulnerability develops the roots which nourish a strong and confident sense of self.

What is the thing you are wanting to do? Write a book? Teach a workshop? Suggest a new strategy at work? Start a new career? Travel? 

The essential strategy to getting out of hiding and holding yourself back is this: TAKE ONE SIMPLE, VERY SMALL STEP. One action step that is so small and so easy that you can do it immediately.  This will create the energy and confidence to take the next small step. And the momentum will have begun.

My action step this week in becoming more visible was to create a Facebook group, a gathering of women to be in community and support each other in this work.  

It’s time for women to reconnect with their true nature, and to relentlessly and wholeheartedly create, regardless of believed imperfections and potential social perceptions. Or failures. Our work is to liberate ourselves from the societal myths that are blocking us from living in our authenticity. 

You don’t need to be better or work harder. You are already enough, exactly as you are. Learning to belong to ourselves develops the strong roots that will nourish our outward growth.

The pathway to joy and fulfillment is becoming more of who you already are. 

I believe in you,

Tricia

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I would love to hear from you. What is one small action step towards your heart’s desire that you can commit to this week? Please share your comments below or email me directly at tricia@triciaacheatel.com

It would be an honor to have you in my Facebook group, Practical Tools for the Awakened Woman, a place where we can witness other women and feel seen.

One New Thing Every Day

Your alarm goes off at 7:00 AM each morning. You grab your phone and scroll through emails, texts and Facebook, finally getting out of bed, going to the bathroom, and going into the kitchen to make a cup of coffee. 

The same routine every single morning. In fact, your morning routine is so ingrained, you most likely don’t even give it a second thought. Day in day out, doing the same things in the same way.

We humans thrive on routines. We have them for almost everything — morning routines, lunchtime routines, evening routines, bedtime routines, even weekend routines. The predictability that accompanies a positive routine can be comforting and familiar. 

So why change a routine? Because routines can get stultifying.

There are many positive upshots that come along with shaking things up and doing things differently.

Our specific daily routines work well for getting through day-to-day tasks without having to think too much about them. However, by switching up even little things – working in a different spot, mixing up your commute, taking a walk at lunch – you coax your brain into thinking more creatively.

The behavioral patterns we repeat most often are literally etched into our neural pathways.

Research has shown that breaking our patterns and changing our routine, builds new neuropathways in the brain. This allows us to perceive our world differently. Like putting on a different set of glasses through which to view life. Very cool! 

Broadly speaking, any time you force yourself to make a change, you encourage your brain to make new neural connections, a process called neuroplasticity. In our daily routines, we can run on idle, but changing even one thing each day forces your brain to pay attention and learn what you're doing more carefully. The more “plastic” our brains become, the more creative connections we’re able to have.

Through exercising your brain’s neuroplasticity by trying new things we benefit in several important ways, including:

• Enhanced focus

• Improved memory

• Greater creativity

• Better problem-solving ability

• Conquering fear and building courage

• Attaining a new level of self-knowledge

Changing things up gives us time and space to reevaluate what’s working well and what we would like to change. It gives us a new perspective that allows us to grow and learn.

Benedict Carey, author of How We Learn, explains, “Changing your work environment and daily movements — taking a different route to work, for example — can maximize the brain’s effectiveness, allowing you to retain more information and be more successful.”

Trying something new can also feel discombobulating though. This feeling of bafflement is the brain learning something new. This is actually a good thing. So relax into it with compassion for yourself. 

“When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.”– Lao Tzu

Trying new things brings an element of fear. There is a reason we fear change. Changes brings discomfort as we stray from the familiar into the unknown. And there’s the fear of failure that most of us deal with. We question ourselves with thoughts like “What if I fail?” “Can I do this?” “Will I look silly?” Failing, however, is not only to be expected, it's encouraged. Failure is a far better character builder than success and means we are putting ourselves out there and not settling for stagnation. While success propels us, failure will forge us into our true selves.

The familiar feels safe, but if you’re feeling stuck and wanting an opening in life, clarity about career, relationship, health, do something different. Change your routine a bit.

Try showering at night instead of in the morning. Take a walk before breakfast, instead of exercising after work. Eat breakfast for dinner. Bicycle to work. Sleep on the other side of the bed. It sounds simplistic but the resulting brain fluidity will create a new way of seeing things.

My commitment: One new thing every day. Today, I coached clients from my gorgeous back yard patio instead of my office. It was remarkable!

Try something new. Consider all the times you have thought “I wish I knew how to…” or “It would be fun to try…” Take a watercolor painting class, learn Chinese, join a writing group, learn to tango. 

In the process, you’ll open your brain, build courage and learn what brings you joy. If like many of my clients, you feel a bit stuck and no longer know what you love to do or what brings you joy, it’s time to follow your curiosity and try something new. Start today.

I believe in you,

Tricia

“When you leave familiar ground and step off alone to a new place, there will be, along with feelings of curiosity and excitement, a little nagging of dread. It is the ancient fear of the unknown, and it is your bond with the wilderness you are going into. What you are doing is exploring. You are understanding the first experience, not of the place, but of yourself in that place. It is the experience of our essential loneliness, for nobody can discover the world for anybody else. It is only after we have discovered it for ourselves that it becomes common ground, and a common bond, and we cease to be alone.”

–Wendell Berry

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I would love to hear from you. What part of your routine are you ready to change? What new thing are you committed to trying?

Please share your comments below or email me directly at tricia@triciaacheatel.com

Letting Go: The Freedom of Surrender

For years I’ve been practicing, teaching and coaching the acceptance of the painful past. The retelling of our stories about the hurt, disappointment, and betrayal, and seeing the past as an opportunity to learn and grow. Even feeling grateful for the lessons.

The past is long gone, yet we tend to keep it alive in our minds. How often do we allow our minds to go to the past – reviewing, rethinking, and reanalyzing a conversation we had or a painful experience and then feeling the range of emotions arise – guilt, regret, shame – berating ourselves for how we could have handled it differently or said something more? When there's still emotion tied to a memory, letting go of the past becomes increasingly difficult.

What I hadn’t considered is that I would be hit squarely in the chest with the happiness of the past and how I needed to also let go of that.

Could it be that happiness, felt deeply is also hard to move on from? 

Brilliant solutions often come when we least expect them and not in the easiest delivery format.

We moved from California to Oregon when my daughter was six and starting first grade. It was a hard move, just days before 9-11, the first of many challenges that marked the rocky launch of our new life.

Research has shown that our level of life satisfaction is impacted by four factors: life chances, course of events, the flow of experience and evaluation of life.  

As the multiple challenges arose during that first year after our move, my appraisal of the four interactive factors had me comparing our new life with the life we had left behind. 

There’s this tricky way the mind tries to keep us safe from harm. My mind’s version of this protective mechanism has been to look for all the ways this new place isn’t good and will never be good enough to be my happy place. For years, and without my full awareness, my mind has been telling me that to be happy I must hold on to the past, and to get back to what felt safe and certain.

Most important lessons are hard learned. On a recent trip, back to the town in California where we moved from, an exploratory journey in which I was considering a relocation, I was faced head-on with all the ways I’ve been using the past as a safety net. In the flash of a single moment, I was hit with the recognition that nostalgia can impede us from living life in the now just as effectively as past pain can hinder our happiness. In the slow motion where life and pain collide, I saw how I’ve been allowing my mind to thwart me. 

While I appreciate my mind’s ability to keep me safe, it is limited in its bigger picture wisdom.

It should be self-evident, however, the felt sensation in that moment, that the past is over, was so unexpected. Clearly, there’s a reason they’re called blind spots.

Why DO we hold on so dearly to the past? Because it’s the easy, more comfortable strategy. It’s familiar. It’s certain.

Martin Seligman, one of the “founding fathers” of positive psychology developed a model of life satisfaction based on the idea that there are five main factors that contribute to well-being: Positive emotions, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishments. 

This nostalgic period of mine was an idyllic time of life, in which Seligman’s five factors were in full expression. Every major contributor to happiness – home, career, family and friends, personal development, health and wellness, growth and learning, fun, spirituality – were at an all-time high. 

We are happy when we judge that our life fulfills our ideal plan.

Here’s the rub. I have continued to hold that period as my ideal. Granted, it was a time in which I felt immense satisfaction with life. But it’s in the past. None of the factors that existed then will converge in exactly that same way ever again. Continuing to hold a reflection of the past as the standard by which I measure life, can only lead to dissatisfaction.

Releasing my hold on it was one of the hardest and at the same time, most freeing experiences.

What does it cost us to hold on to the past? How is the inability to let go impacting our relationships, our lives, and our happiness? And how do we learn to loosen our grip so we can move forward in a healthier, happier way? 

We are constantly ending chapters to start new chapters. Our tendency can be to focus on "what used to be" and idealistically hold on to the past as if it had everything we ever wanted. The problem is that this tendency ultimately causes more suffering. It doesn't encourage growth and it doesn't allow us to experience everything this moment offers.  Any energy and attention we put on the past, is holding us back from our fullest potential now.

You can learn to let go and with fresh eyes start living a life full of more joy and freedom.

Here are five ways to help you master the art of letting go:

1) Notice when your thoughts are dwelling on the past. Bring your awareness back to the present moment by following your breath or noticing your surroundings through your five senses. What’s right here, right now? Is there something in front of you that you can feel grateful for?

2) If you have unresolved emotion linked to the past – grief, shame, grief, disappointment, anger, resentment – accept and allow these feelings. Don’t push them away or argue with them. Give them permission to be there. When there’s nothing to push against, the power of emotion dissolves.

3) Create a letting go ritual to free yourself from mistakes, past relationships, lost opportunities, old regrets. Write about them. Move them out of your mind and on to paper. Write a letter of forgiveness to your younger self. You might believe that the pain you’re feeling is caused by what happened, however, it isn’t happening now. It’s over. The pain is still happening only because you are continuing to relive it in your mind.

4) Notice the sensation of the emotion in your body. It might feel like tightness in your chest, a hollow feeling, an ache in your heart, or many other options. This is your personal experience. Place your attention on the sensation in your body and stay with it. This takes courage because we tend to avoid this kind of discomfort. Try to stay curious about it. Notice if it changes as you stay with it, being gentle and loving with yourself. Allowing your body to process the emotion is an important step in letting go.

5) Envision what you want your life to look like now. Whatever we give our attention to—wanted or unwanted—grows. Shift your focus to what you most desire. Imagine, visualize and invite in what you want. Open to what is possible.

My commitment this year is to confront and break free of self-restrictions that may be holding me back. I earnestly surrender to this current lesson. As painful as it is, I am grateful for the growth.

Attachment is the reason we suffer. May we all break free of inhibitions that no longer serve us, and be free of structures, responsibilities, and fears that are holding us back from being our most authentic and powerful selves. 

“The past is gone, the future is not yet here, and if we do not go back to ourselves in the present moment, we cannot be in touch with life.” – Thich Nhat Hanh

Change is the only constant in life. Because of this, we are continuously in the process of letting go. We move into each moment, letting go of the last one. Our level of acceptance of this is what either binds us or frees us. 

We are the creators of our own lives. Every day is a new opportunity to innovate the life we want. A life that fulfills who we want to be now, in this place and in this time. We get to create the experiences we want to have and determine how we want to feel. We were given the gift of free will. 

I believe in you,

Tricia

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I would love to hear from you.What are you ready to let go of? Is the past holding you back from living into your full expression of happiness?

Please share your comments below or email me directly at tricia@triciaacheatel.com

The Sacred Path of the Entrepreneur

Second only to parenting, my journey as an entrepreneur has shaped me into a better human. It has been an odyssey of awakening–from wine distributor, clinical herbalist and teacher, to apothecary and spa owner, and my current capacity as a life-calling mentor.

My impetus was not unlike most. I had found myself in an existential crisis. After seven years of working in the corporate world as an executive for one of the largest cosmetic companies, I found myself in a heap in front of the wall I had just slammed into. As painful as that wall was to hit, it was an excellent teacher. I could see that I was living a life that was in conflict with what I held to most dear up to that point. It was clear to me that I had to make a change or I would perish. I could not continue sacrificing who I knew I was at my core.

These moments in life feel like a crisis but with the gift of hindsight, we are able to view them as a gift – see them as an opportunity to course correct to a path with more meaning, aligned with who we truly are. After losing my way and then going through an emotional tailspin, I began the process of retrieving the person I had lost.

This process was essential for me to be ready for the thrilling and exciting ride of the entrepreneur, a pursuit that demands self-awareness. Stamina is required for the rigorous, often incredibly scary, and uncertain adventure of the entrepreneur. It necessitates the capacity to undertake risk. 

Over these past 30 years as a business owner, I have gathered pearls of wisdom, mostly hard won through painful trial and error; blood, sweat, and tears. The path of the entrepreneur is truly a call to adventure. With fresh eyes, an entrepreneur is able to see something that doesn’t exist yet in the world; a way that something could be done differently than the status quo. This is the innovative spark that inspires something new, better or different to be brought into the world. 

Stepping out of the comfort zone of certainty and into the unknown is a leap into possibility. This limitless possibility is restricted only by the imagination of the entrepreneur to dream about what could be.  We have to imagine something before we can do it.

This leap is as thrilling as it is terrifying and is one of the quintessential opportunities to glean self knowledge. The entrepreneurial journey continually demands inward reflection to show up authentically. Not to be whom you think you should be, but to be transparent, and faithful to your core values. Herein lie the powerful conditions for how a business can do good in the world.  A most effective business model is formed around the mission and values of the founder.

The road of trials as an entrepreneur is truly the hero’s journey; a journey where I have chosen to be the master of my own destiny and in the process have learned, as you will:

• How to befriend your limitations, confront your inhibitions and develop mastery of your inner critic

• The capacity to handle risk, uncertainty, and fear

• What it means to work co-creatively and collaboratively with partners, subcontractors, vendors, and employees

• How to communicate clearly

• That being true to your core values and what you desire most from life, is central to how decisions are made

• How to tap into and trust your imagination and intuition 

• What it means to be a mentor

• The contagion of your excitement

• How extraordinary and freeing it is to be the master of your own destiny

• The powerful force of good that comes from entrepreneurship being the most direct way to make a difference in the world

Having the freedom to make decisions on my own terms was the most compelling drive for me and demanded an inward journey and commitment to my mission.

We each come into this life with a mission to fulfill. Choosing to be faithful to this mission is what makes entrepreneurship a sacred path. Our mission is powered by our inner resources, our–gifts, talents, aptitudes, skills, knowledge, character qualities, and life experiences. Knowledge of the resources we have to draw from provides fortitude for meeting the challenges inherent with the commitment. We cannot command what we do not recognize.

Being an entrepreneur demands a willingness to try things, fail, learn from them, regroup, and try again. It’s a continual process of meeting challenges and building knowledge. This process is the greatest teacher for developing tools for befriending uncertainty and fear. Fear is a given, whenever we are doing something important. For someone who pushes herself hard to achieve, I learned how to overcome the shame of failure. The entrepreneurial path develops a comfort with change–what life skill could be more important in a world where change is constant and inevitable? 

Investing oneself in a business idea builds trust in oneself. There is a level of conviction in a positive outcome that is necessary for the idea to be successful. This calls the entrepreneur to a level of self-trust that is essential for bringing an idea to market. Trust in oneself is deepened, as the business demands the capacity to make mistakes, learn from them, and course correct. The tenacity required of an entrepreneur builds courage and confidence.

One of my greatest learnings has been getting comfortable asking for help. This is a big one for many women. No one can do it alone nor is that sustainable. There will be things that you don't know how to do, things that are not your strength. And that’s okay. One simply cannot know everything. Succeeding as an entrepreneur requires that you know your limitations and get help in the areas that aren’t in your wheelhouse–whether that’s in accounting, web design, creating a social media presence, or managing people. 

Clients ask me how I am able to see the big picture so easily and how they can develop that aptitude. This is a skill that I grew as an entrepreneur. Goal achievement is a step-by-step process that begins in the entrepreneur’s imagination.

The path of the entrepreneur is the clearest route to bringing your unique genius to the world. This is your gift to the world. Don’t allow self-doubt or the negative opinions of others to sabotage your dream. Be faithful to your mission.

In this hero’s journey, you’ll face your biggest demons around worthiness, feeling like an imposter, and any limiting beliefs you might have about money– and you’ll learn and grow in ways you wouldn’t have otherwise. You will learn to trust your intuition; to hear and head the voice of your inner mentor. 

How do you want the world to be different because you lived in it?

I believe in you.

Tricia

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I would love to hear from you. What is your mission? What idea are you wanting to birth? What have you learned from your entrepreneurial journey? 

Please share your comments below or email me directly at tricia@triciaacheatel.com

True Self as a Spiritual Practice

I admit that I read more self-help than the average person, yet It seems like in the past couple of years, the notion of the “true self” is being referred to more frequently. This might be because we are longing for a connection to something stable amidst what sometimes feels like world chaos?

Deepak Chopra says, “The true self isn't a familiar term to most people, although it is close to what religion calls your soul, the purest part of yourself.”

The concept of the true self was introduced in 1960 by Donald Winnicott, who used “true self” to describe a sense of self based on spontaneous authentic experience, and a feeling of being alive, having a real self. The false self, by contrast, Winnicott saw as a defensive façade.

Since I have made the pursuit of the true self my life’s work, I wanted to write about what it means to me. After working with clients over the past 30 years that span 4 decades in ages, a broad range of geographic location and nationality and a relative 70:30 percent gender ratio, with women representing the majority, my experience is that most of us don’t really know who we are. 

We don’t know that makes us unique and special and how truly magnificent and powerful we are. Most of us are operating through life from a societal or false self that was formed through cultural and familial adaptation.  

In a session today with a client, he spoke of wanting to be himself as a leader, to not be forced or unnatural. One of his senior executives had advised him to “do you.” How exactly do we “do” us?

These are some broad principles that I have found to be universal in living according to the true self:

• It begins with accepting yourself; knowing your strengths, values, and limitations and then living and leading from that place.

• It means being in integrity with yourself and not molding yourself to gain approval or avoid conflict. You’re either in integrity with yourself or you’re not. This requires making moment by moment choices from what feels true and authentic to you and you alone.

• You don’t worry about pleasing other people or live according to someone else’s standards or rules.  

Thomas Merton, one of the most influential Catholic authors of the 20th century refers to the true self, “not as the ego self that wants to inflate us, not the intellectual self that wants to hover above the mess of life in clear but ungrounded ideas, not the ethical self that wants to live by some abstract moral code. It is the self planted in us by the God who made us in God's own image–the self that wants nothing more, or less, than for us to be who we were created to be.”

Your true self is the essence of who you are, your pure identity that existed before birth, before any environmental influences or social conditioning. This self defines your unique quirks, longings, predilections, reactions and forms your uniqueness and individuality. Your true self is not changed or affected by how you were parented, who you were raised by or where you grew up. This is the part of you that must guide you towards your destiny and your joy. 

Contrarily, your other self, or the societal self, has developed because of social conditioning and the process of adapting to the expectations of family, teachers, and peers. This is the part of us that needs to be accepted for our very survival. As babies, our survival depends on the adults that care for us and to ensure that care, we modify ourselves for maximum acceptance. Human babies are born knowing that their very survival depends on the good will of the grown-ups around them. Because of this, we are literally designed to please others. 

The formation of our societal selves also builds the skills we need to effectively function within cultural norms – we learn how to speak correctly, be polite, share our toys, keep personal hygiene, dress appropriately, raise our hands in class, wait for our turn – the appropriate behaviors that will earn social approval. Our societal selves are critical to our ability to reach goals like completing a degree or landing a job. The societal self is the part of you that craved being told she was being “good.” The issue is that this people pleasing extends into adulthood and when the societal self dominates and the true self no longer has a voice, it gets lost and forgotten.

As Martha Beck says in Finding Your Own North Star, “Your essential self was the part of you that smiled for the first time as a baby. Your social self is the part of you that noticed how much your mother loved that smile. Your essential self wants passionately to become a doctor; the social self struggles through organic chemistry and applies to medical school. Your essential self yearns for time in nature; your social self buys the right hiking shoes. “ 

Typically, the societal self is the one in the driver’s seat, and the true self doesn’t even make it into the car. The societal self has dominated for so long, making choices according to what is most socially acceptable, that the true self can’t even be heard. That is until a cataclysmic life event happens which causes the societal self to collapse and then we are forced into questioning the choices we are making in our lives. Why wait for a cataclysmic life event?

The suppression of the true self is why almost every woman I have worked with has ultimately sought help. Often for years, they have been feeling dissatisfaction with life which has not shifted despite the perseverance at being a better person, taking yoga classes, eating a healthier diet, volunteering, and taking on more responsibility at work. Striving to be even more acceptable only makes things worse as it fuels the internal conflict between the true self’s need to pursue core longings and the societal self’s requirement not to upset anyone. The dissatisfaction eventually turns to restlessness, anxiety, numbness, self-doubt, even despair. 

If our life choices and behaviors are motivated by the desire to keep another person happy, we will lose the connection with our true self. Without that connection, it’s not possible to be deeply happy. Our culture teaches us how to create the external structures for success–education, career, income, home, car, image–yet we have confused these as the means to happiness. When we don’t find happiness, we try to make changes to our external world. True happiness arises from a connection with our true selves and the honoring of what our hearts yearn for, what brings us joy and fills us with awe.

Betraying yourself is selling your soul. So how do we calm down our societal self so that we can hear what the true self is screaming for? 

We must get out of the thoughts about our past that are causing us suffering and experience life in this moment, using our bodies as the navigational tool to instruct our direction. When the needle on the body compass points to joy, go there. When the needle points to suffering, it’s time to reevaluate your motivation.

Moment by moment we can keep returning to who we would have been without the pretense of who we think we should be.  

The whisperings of the true self are heard through the body. If you’ve been denying your own needs and desires to please other people or seek their approval, hearing what your true self is asking for may take some practice. It begins with choosing to make yourself a priority, accepting yourself exactly as you are, and every day giving yourself the gift of being silent so that you can quiet your mind and listen to your true self. It’s time to listen.

We have the choice of two identities: the external mask which seems to be real...and the hidden, inner person who seems to us to be nothing, but who can give himself eternally to the truth in whom he subsists.
― Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation

I believe in you.

Tricia

I would love to hear from you.In what ways are you being true to yourself today? Please share your comments below .

Magical Thinking

During troubled times, I find myself needing a touch of eternity. More of the eternal gives me a sense of inner meaning.

Recently I’ve become obsessed with the theory of entanglement as it applies to our connection with each other and how and each of us plays an integral part in the cosmic energy field. That not only does our attention, whether positive or negative, affect our personal experience of life – our happiness, health and relationships – but it influences the whole of humanity. When we emit the frequency of love, we uplift the world. During these troubled times, this is huge. 

Allow me to back up a bit. For years, I have been aware of the mind-body-spirit connection and the impact of thought on our health. The cells of our bodies are affected by our thoughts; there is a link between mind and matter. Cellular biologist, Bruce Lipton wrote about his research on this in 2005. Faith and belief can help the body heal. How we choose to respond to our life experience, affects our emotional wellbeing and ultimately our physical health. 

How powerful is our mind? Powerful enough to attract wealth, or love? Can positive visualization manifest a different future outcome? Can we attract healing through prayer?

The theory of magical thinking is that a person’s thoughts or actions, either the spoken word or the use of symbols, can alter the course of events without a causal link. That an object or action not logically related to a course of events can influence its outcome.

I became intrigued by this, which led me to the field of epigenetics. Epigenetics is the effect of genetic influence by factors other than an individual’s DNA sequence.  Environmental factors, like diet, lifestyle choices, and stress can turn genes on or off which can change the health of an individual as well as that person’s descendants.  Even more interesting is how our emotional response to life experience also affects epigenetics which can modify neuron activity in the brain. In other words, our thoughts affect our epigenetics which then modifies our neurons to think and believe more of the same. So, our thoughts do create our reality. 

In 2015, a study was released in the scientific journal Nature, proving one of quantum theory’s fundamental claims, that two entangled electrons, separated by a mile, changed spins simultaneously. 

Quantum physics says that as you go deeper and deeper into the workings of the atom, you see that there is nothing there – just energy waves. It says an atom is an invisible force field, a kind of miniature tornado, which emits waves of electrical energy.

Those energy waves can be measured and their effects seen, but they are not a material reality. Science now embraces the idea that the universe is made of energy. We are of course made up of atoms. Atoms that were connected prior to the Big Bang. Therefore, through the theory of entanglement, that although we are separate we affect each other. Our thoughts can influence each other. We discount the impact we can have on each other. Yet everything we do affects everything else. We are part of each other.

By taking your focus off the negative and noticing what’s good, this alone can make a difference. To do this, we must shift from allowing the mind to be the master and by putting higher consciousness in the driver’s seat.  

We’re wired to notice the negative; our human brain has a negativity bias. Our capacity to assess negative input is an evolutionary adaptation to keep us out of harm’s way.  The amygdala in our limbic brain records the memories that produced both agreeable and disagreeable experiences, and often unconsciously evaluates our experience for the purpose of influencing our behavior and protecting us. The limbic brain builds a framework from challenging past experiences. The building blocks of this framework are the negative beliefs and stories we tell ourselves. Stories like, “I’m not smart enough,” “Things never work out for me,” “I’ll never make enough money to live the life I want.” This framework becomes the lens through which we evaluate life and make choices.

Once we become aware of this bias, we can tap into the other tool we have for navigating through life – higher consciousness. This is the part of each of us that is connected to universal consciousness, divine intelligence, or God or whatever you want to call it. When we operate from this wisdom we are on the frequency that we are all connected, that the Universe is friendly and benevolent. We can believe in ourselves and in our fellow humans. We aren’t looking for what’s wrong and who’s out to get us. We are anchored in abundance, joy, connection, and collaboration. It is human nature to want to help each other, to be of service and to be generous. This is what makes us happy. 

By letting go of emotional blocks, like anger and resentment and allowing ourselves to forgive and be grateful, we are altering our genetic code and building a brain that is predisposed to happiness. Research has shown that it is the frequency of small positive acts that matters most. There is no limit to how our imagination can affect our physiology, our emotional wellbeing and the wellbeing of each other. This truly is magical thinking.

May you realize how special and powerful you truly are.

I believe in you.

Tricia

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I would love to hear from you.What have you been curious about? What do you do that helps you through troubled times?Please share your comments below

Overcoming the Shame of Mistakes

I really blew it this morning. I sent the wrong intake form to a new client and when she pointed it out, the shame settled into my gut. In fact, it took up all the space between my heart and my gut. It took over my mind with negative thoughts of how I would never earn her trust, how stupid I am and always have been, how I shouldn’t be doing this work because it’s not okay to make that kind of mistake. I became my 7-year-old self who didn’t understand math and her exasperated father couldn’t comprehend why I wasn’t able to get something so simple.

It is common for our emotional health to get damaged during childhood. A painful experience can shape our feelings of unworthiness and fuel the self-critical voice in our heads, even into adulthood. Our inner self-talk can be so painfully harsh. When we look at the root of what drives it, we find shame, the feeling that there’s something terribly wrong about us.

Childhood fractures are often centered around shame, the painful experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love. According to Lise Borbeau, author of Heal Your Wounds and Find Your True Self, there are five common types of wounding. These five types of wounding can show up in adults as:

• Fear of abandonment or fear of being alone

• Fear of rejection which can prevent us from accepting our own thoughts, feelings and perceptions

• Humiliation and fear of disapproval or criticism from others

• Betrayal or fear of trusting others

• Injustice, which leads to feelings of powerlessness. 

In my work with women, I typically see in equal measure the fear of rejection and the fear of humiliation as the most common causes of low self-esteem. Sadly, many women tell me how as children, they were told they were stupid, bad, overweight, not smart enough, high maintenance, needy, emotional, ridiculous, nonsensical, exhausting, selfish, spoiled, and disappointing.

It’s not hard to see how adult women might have internalized any of these messages and are now overcompensating to prove to the world that it isn’t true. Trying to do it all and do it all perfectly. 

Or not doing anything for fear of making a mistake– because a mistake would prove all the underlying negative beliefs. 

 Emotional fractures can lead us to armoring up in self-protection which can hinder our progress in life and block us from connecting with others as well as with ourselves. This armor comes from feeling ashamed of ourselves–our intelligence or our bodies–and needing to hide those messy parts of us. We don’t want to bring them out in the open for everyone to see how flawed we really are. This armor allows us to function in our lives and keeps us safe and hidden from the world but only to a point, until we make a mistake and then the shame bubbles up.

Creating mind-body awareness allows us to become the compassionate observer of the mind, body, and emotions. This isn’t about needing to fix anything, we are simply seeking to connect and learn.  Several times a day, take a few minutes to get quiet and bring your attention to your body. Then notice any physical sensations. You don’t need to do anything about them, you’re simply opening your awareness to them. You can set a timer to do this three times a day. This simple practice is a way to begin accepting yourself with having to change anything.

To experience ourselves fully, we must allow all that is present to be experienced and to do this we must stay physically present in our bodies. When we run away from, avoid or resist our experience, including the sensation of shame in our bodies, we force ourselves into powerlessness. Resisting emotion creates endless suffering, and welcoming it is the path to inner peace and feeling more at ease with yourself. 

Experiencing the sensation of shame feels vulnerable. It’s hard, but it only last a few moments if you stay with it. Vulnerability offers relief from having to hide from any parts of yourself. This is the source of freedom and empowerment. As you begin to accept all the parts of yourself, you’ll become comfortable sharing yourself with the world and being vulnerable with others. 

Today I am practicing body awareness. Being with the 7-year-old part of me that needs to be reminded that she is smart and she is lovable. I don’t want to run away from her or desert her. I don’t want to distract myself or numb away the shame. It’s a reminder that I need to question the negative self-thoughts as I notice them. It’s an opportunity to give myself love.

As adults, we can offer care and compassion to the parts of us that are still hurting. 

Writing helps me do this. It gives me a safe place to uncover the tender, scared, ashamed parts that are crying out for love. It helps move the shame through my body and on to the paper. Creativity, nature, and movement are other ways to move the emotional energy while also giving yourself the gift of awareness. 

Give yourself the love you needed then. Tell yourself the thing you’ve been waiting hear. You can be the one that does that for yourself.

You are magnificent dear one.

I believe in you.

Tricia

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I would love to hear from you.Are you caught in shame? Have you discovered how to move through it? Please share your comments below or email me directly at tricia@triciaacheatel.com

Claiming Your Own Happiness

You’ve heard that saying, “happiness is a choice.” Though like other self-help statements, when we hear them, we understand the concept but have no idea how to do it. 

So how do we choose happiness? 

Our cultural belief is that in the pursuit and achievement of success we will find our happiness. However, from my experience, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Shawn Achor, Harvard researcher and author of The Happiness Advantage has found that actually, pursuing happiness will lead to success.

There’s a large body of research in the field of positive psychology that has shown that happiness is a choice that anyone can make. 

According to psychologist Tom Stevens, Ph.D., happy people choose to make happiness one of their top goals in life. Stevens adds that, "The persons who become the happiest and grow the most are those who also make truth and their own personal growth primary values."

What I’ve noticed in my coaching work is that most of us are very committed to our thoughts. We believe them as if they are the gospel truth. Including the self-deprecating ones. We also believe that when we whip ourselves into self-improvement, we are pushing ourselves towards happiness.  If only I…lost weight…went to the gym more…found my true love….made more money….had more followers….was better at (you fill in the blank here,) then I will be happy.

What’s ironic is that one of the most effective pathways to happiness is through the mindfulness practices of letting go of our thoughts. This allows us to tap into the vast nothingness and peace within.

Meditation

Richard Davidson, a professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin, and Jon Kabat-Zinn, PhD, founder of the Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, co-authored a study on the effects of meditation on the brain. Activity on the left frontal area of the cerebral cortex coincided with feelings of happiness, enthusiasm, joy, and alertness. Activity on the right frontal area corresponded to feelings of sadness, anxiety, and worry. Their research demonstrated that meditation redistributes the balance between the left and right frontal areas and sparks more left-brain activity, thus stimulating positive emotion.

Try this with me for just a few moments. Sit down and close your eyes. Open your awareness with all your senses to the space around you. Just notice what you hear, smell, taste, and feel. Herbert Benson’s research at Harvard University found that opening awareness through the senses reduces stress hormones.

Being in the Now

Most of us tend to get so lost in our thoughts that we don’t have the mind space to notice happiness if it was standing right in front of us. This morning as I was out on my morning walk, it took the honking of a skein of Canada Geese flying over me to get out of my head. I was reminded that in every moment there is something to notice that can bring us joy. 

We need only to get out of our heads to experience the now. Yet most of the time we dwell in the past, rehashing old hurts, failures, and disappointments. Or we are in the future, worrying about the what ifs and worst case scenarios. Happiness is a now thing. You must be right here, right now, to experience it.

Self-Acceptance

Another key determinant of happiness is our level of self-acceptance. When we believe that we can only be happy if something about us is different, then we are viewing ourselves as flawed, rendering happiness unattainable. We all carry the residual scars from the past, we all have things to work on. Instead of seeing these as flaws, see them as what they are – the ways in which life has shaped you into becoming the person you are today. 

When we compare ourselves to others to see how we fall short, or judge ourselves as too fat or too skinny or not enough of something, we are self-berating and causing ourselves pain.

Find what you love and appreciate about yourself. Each of us has a unique set of gifts, talents and strengths, some we were born with, others the result of how life has formed us. Each new day is an opportunity to be a better human being, to learn and to grow. Accept who you are today and reach for how you want to be better, not because you’re flawed but because you want to discover your limitless potential for love and happiness. With the past behind you, and with all that you have learned from it, it’s time to accept who you are now.

Allow Yourself to Feel

Are you letting yourself be happy? Are you letting yourself feel the full depth of your life experience? Because if you are avoiding negative emotions, then you are also blocking your ability to feel positive ones too. 

Instead of numbing through food, alcohol, social media, or whatever your distraction might be, sit with negative emotion long enough to feel the pain of it move through your body. The sensation of emotion lasts about 90 seconds in the body if we allow it to move through us. If it lasts days, weeks, months, even years, then there’s a story we’ve been telling ourselves about it, most likely to prove the worst that we believe about ourselves. That’s the negativity bias in action. 

Feel the full range of your life experience. Feel it and then move on.

Gratitude

Cultivating positive thoughts improves our mood. One of the most effective ways to encourage a positive perspective is through practicing gratitude, or the appreciation of the simple things. This means focusing on the goodness that is already evident in life. 

Our brains are wired to look for what’s bad – as neuropsychologist Rick Hanson puts it, “the brain is like Velcro for negative experiences and Teflon for positive ones.” This "negativity bias" causes the brain to form stronger bad memories than good ones. We can counteract this negativity tendency by noticing, appreciating and feeling the sensations from the positive moments, no matter how small they may be. 

The practice of gratitude puts us in the state of receiving. Gratitude is a positive emotion that is felt after being the beneficiary of some sort of gift. It is a social emotion that is often directed towards a person (the giver of a gift), though it is also often felt towards a higher power. 

You can be the giver of that gift to yourself.

Daily Practice

Happiness is an inner experience that is yours to claim. Here’s a simple way to begin and end your day.

• When you first wake up in the morning, before you get out of bed or do anything (including checking your phone) ask yourself this question: “What is the greatest ideal of myself that I can be today?” Take a moment to teach your body the sensation of how you want to show up today. How do you want to BE, so that you can FEEL happy? Teaching your body in advance of the day will program your brain that it has already happened. Then affirm what you want to create and attract into your life – “I am healthy. I am prosperous. I am content. I am happy. I am loved.” Whatever you desire.

• The last 3 minutes before you fall asleep, instead of reviewing what went wrong in your day or tallying up everything that didn’t work out, or underscoring who you felt hurt by, program your subconscious brain with positivity and gratitude. Really feel the sensation of gratitude in your body by going through your day and giving thanks for everything that went easily and worked out on your behalf. Think of all the moments of connection, kindness and compassion from family, friends, co-workers, or neighbors. Remember the blessing of the warm water in your shower and the food that nourished you. Think of the beauty of nature as you drove home from work. Give thanks for your life.

Believe that you can feel happy. This is within your power. Believe in it, excavate it. It’s right there within you. 

"Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it."  Rumi

I believe in you.

Tricia

* * * * *

I would love to hear from you. What are you feeling grateful for? Please share your comments below or email me directly at tricia@triciaacheatel.com

The Self Integrity of Boundaries

You planned on meditating this morning. Then your text notifications started dinging. The dishwasher needed to be unloaded. Your email inbox was overflowing. Your partner asked you to schedule an appointment. Your daughter needed her uniform washed for a game this afternoon. The dog needed his walk. Then you were late for work. 

Believe it or not, we don’t have to be available for everyone, all the time.

Having clear and healthy boundaries is the driving force behind self-care. We are each in charge of protecting our own needs and energy outputs. There’s a myth that women believe, that we are supposed to do it all and do it perfectly.  We fear the consequences to our relationships if we set boundaries. We fear being judged or of hurting someone’s feelings. So, we sacrifice ourselves for other people.

How could we know how to set boundaries? We didn’t get any instruction on this nor did we have this modeled for us. 

There are many benefits to setting and holding clear and healthy boundaries:

• Boundaries create healthy relationships where other people respect and care about your needs and feelings. 

• Boundaries increase your self-esteem and personal power.

• Boundaries reduce stress, anxiety, overwhelm and fatigue.

• Boundaries help establish and protect your identity as an individual.

• Boundaries help you become a more understanding person, a better friend and partner.

• Boundaries are crucial for our mental health and wellbeing.

Becoming a boundary ninja requires having the courage to love ourselves even when it means we might disappoint someone.

A boundary is the clear line that declares your truth – asking for what you need, making your own decisions based on what you want, saying “no” when you need to, standing up for yourself, and not feeling responsible for how someone else reacts or feels. It also means not sacrificing your needs to please someone else.

The myth about doing it all and doing it all well is pervasive with the women entrepreneurs I work with. These are women who are daughters, sisters, wives, friends, mothers, aunties, business owners and employers. A lot of people to potentially feel responsible for. These are women who have pushed themselves hard to create and I honor them for that. These are the women who are the change makers and the world needs them. These are also the women who tell me they ended up in the hospital on an IV because they got dehydrated. Or are working when they have a fever. These women know they need to meditate but they just cannot find the time (and then beat themselves up for it.) They take care of everyone and everything before they take care of themselves. And they rarely ask for help.

I know this pattern well because I was one of these women. This was my strategy for decades until I got so depleted that I just couldn’t do it anymore.

To identify the signs that you may need to hone your boundary declaring skills, tune into your body and your emotions. If you feel resentful, angry, disappointed, overwhelmed, exhausted, not appreciated, or being taken advantage of, you may need to reevaluate your commitments for how you have not been clear enough with yourself about your needs. When our needs are perpetually denied, we can tend to feel angry with the very people who we are prioritizing over ourselves. Conversely, when we make ourselves and our needs a priority, we have the energy bandwidth and emotional capacity to be kinder and more compassionate.

Over committing to please or rescue others means we sacrifice ourselves and this eventually wears us down.  This striving, whether it shows up as trying to be a supermom, overachieving at work, or volunteering on multiple committees, is how women tend to overcompensate for the insecurity or unworthiness they feel, seeking validation through external accomplishments. 

Saying “No, I can’t do that,” can feel incredibly uncomfortable as we begin to practice honoring our boundaries. Choosing to feel that discomfort in the moment is an act of self-care in the long term.

Start practicing boundary setting in small ways:

• Protect your time by saying no to the things you don’t want to do or don’t have time for.

• Practice saying, “My plate is full.”

• Say yes to accepting help and support from family, friends, and co-workers.

• Say thank you to compliments.

• Stop apologizing for who you are.

• Stop feeling guilty about your needs.

• Speak up if something feels uncomfortable.

• Put yourself first – even if just once every day.

If it’s been a while since you honored your own needs, you may not even know what you want. You can get back in touch with yourself. Begin today by doing that one thing you keep putting off because you’ve been making everyone else a priority – take that walk out in nature, write in your journal, take a bath. Reconnect with your body to get in touch with what you truly want. The reward – your self-awareness and sense of identity will grow.

We are each responsible for our own happiness, our own choices, and our own feelings. Believe that you are okay, that you are enough, just the way you are. You need not be or do anything to be worthy of love and acceptance. 

The benefits of boundaries are huge – you get to live a life where you are choosing your own happiness.

I believe in you.

Tricia

* * * * *

I would love to hear from you.What boundaries, physical or emotional, are you needing to get clearer about? Please share your comments below or email me directly at tricia@triciaacheatel.com

The Courage to Live from the Inside Out

I found myself unable to write last week. As I sat with this and felt the inertia, the realization dawned that there was a level of vulnerability I was feeling, about my need to write something that would be profound and impactful. The pressure of it felt like an impenetrable wall. 

During a dinner conversation with friends, in which we were discussing our shared belief that we feel compelled to make a difference in the world, I recognized another pressure. The one where I tell myself that my worth is squarely centered in my ability to help others. I got curious about this – is this belief creating more joy and freedom for me? The answer was both yes and no. Yes, when I can sense a positive shift from a client or student. Also, no, because it’s a tremendous amount of self-induced performance pressure. 

I continued to be curious.

What if making a difference begins with me?

What if saving the world means we save ourselves first? 

What if what we need to save is how we create our own suffering with our thoughts?

I recalled an important lesson learned last year while I was on a spiritual quest in Mexico. That the important work I need to do in this lifetime is to save myself. I need to serve my own inner peace first. My writing need only be for healing myself. This might sound selfish at first glance. But if we don’t love ourselves, we are incapable of truly loving or helping another. If we don’t live from our own authenticity and magnificence, then we aren’t offering who we truly are to the world. Without this authenticity, our way of being in the world is one that was manufactured by the mind–most likely for recognition, reassurance, power, fame and followers.

This felt apt for me to write about this week.  To write for myself first and foremost and then maybe, just maybe it will be helpful for someone else. But that cannot be why I am writing it. I have no control over how my work should or could impact another. That’s not my business.

This kind of self-integrity requires courage. Way more courage than minding my editorial calendar. We are so programmed to view everything we do and say from the perspective of how it will be perceived by others. It takes immense courage to live from the inside out. To admit to ourselves where we need to do our own work. This is vulnerable and vulnerability is scary because it risks being seen as we truly are, with our faults and insecurities and weaknesses. 

We must risk being socially exposed to be true to ourselves. This requires showing up and being seen instead of staying safe behind a shield of protective armor or a mask that only shows how we want the world to perceive us. 

Our real work is about revealing ourselves as we truly are, not just the outside but who we are on the inside. The parts of us that are messy and broken. 

Courage is required for this work of living in integrity and alignment with the true self. The root of the word courage is “cor”—the Latin word for heart. In one of its earliest forms, the word courage originally meant “To speak one's mind by telling all one's heart.”

Can I risk sharing my heart? Can I not?

If being courageous means having the ability to do something that frightens us, then somehow, we need to find a way to be okay with feeling the fear and doing the thing anyway. That shows the most courage of all!

As I moved through this landscape of noticing, being curious and feeling scared to show up and be seen in this vulnerable way, putting my writing out there just for me, even though it might be criticized and admitting my own raw and tender beliefs, I watched my avoidance tendencies. It was quite entertaining to observe all the ways I was avoiding just sitting down and writing. So many things that required immediate research on the computer. Emails that I just had to respond to right away. Cleaning. Calendar organization. Meal planning. Organizing my closet. List making. More research. I was avoiding by doing!

Think of something that you really want to do but are avoiding it because it feels scary. In what ways do you avoid by distracting yourself? 

3 Ways to Build Courage

1) Stay With Your Fear

For me, I must stop the doing, just sit down and quiet my mind. Try this with me. 

Find a comfortable place to sit. Now just observe the sensation of your breath coming in and out through your nostrils. Feel your breath expand into your lungs and belly. Notice the rise of your body with the inhale, the sinking and relaxing with the exhale. If you get distracted at any point, bring your attention back to your breath and how it feels coming in and going out. 

Bring your attention deeper inside to your inner body. Keep breathing. Now notice any fear, anxiety or tension that you might be feeling. Where you are feeling it in your body? Pay attention to the physical sensation of it–the shape, the intensity. Keep your attention on it and ALLOW it. Don’t panic and run away from it by allowing your mind to get distracted. Keep breathing into that area until the sensation starts to shift. It might start to feel like it is getting softer or larger in size. Sit with this until you feel the sensation move through and out of your body and you sense a new level of relaxation and peace take its place.  

Sitting with ourselves in this way and allowing emotion to move through requires courage. When we do the courageous act of acknowledging and allowing fear, we are pointing ourselves in the direction of truth and freedom. It is from this place of truth that we can put our true authentic selves out in the world, even when it feels vulnerable. 

2) Acknowledge Your Acts of Bravery 

Allowing fear and building courage so that we can speak our mind and show our hearts demands being compassionate with ourselves.  Self-encouragement is critical to being courageous. Acknowledge and celebrate how you are bravely showing up in your life – every single day. We all demonstrate bravery every day. We deal with a variety of obstacles and a multitude of fears as a part of our daily lives. And for the most part, we dismiss our ability to overcome these as not worthy of acknowledgement. What I’ve learned is that recognizing bravery, no matter how insignificant the situation may seem to you, is empowering. It fuels self-confidence as well as personal and professional power.  

3) Seek Encouragement and Support

It is incredibly helpful to have the support and encouragement of a friend or mentor. Deliberately surround yourself with people who inspire you and believe in you. Share your vulnerabilities and ask for help in doing the important thing that feels scary. Being vulnerable in relationships creates deeper connection and inspires others to be vulnerable and courageous also. I keep a list of my support team and on days when it feels like life is too much for me to handle alone, I reach out. Getting support is a self-loving act.

We must start putting our work out in the world regardless of how imperfect we might think it is. We’ll screw up and that’s okay—actually, more than okay because it gives us the opportunity to feel vulnerable while also seeing that the world didn’t end because of it. This is how we build courage and get rid of the armor and the perfectionism that are the obstacles to living authentically, from the inside out. Don’t allow your scars to act as tough, resistant guards against future damage. Life shapes us. Let the world see the magnificence of who you truly are. 

I believe in you.

Tricia

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I would love to hear from you. In what ways are you showing the world your vulnerabilities? How are you pressuring yourself to be something you’re not? Please share your comments below or email me directly at tricia@triciaacheatel.com

Finding Whimsy in Ordinary Life

After a recent girlfriend trip to Mexico, I found myself feeling glum about returning to the day to day humdrum of stress and responsibility. You know that feeling – leaving behind the sun-drenched beach, snorkeling and kayaking in the turquoise water, and feeling free and easy. Vacation. Then the flights and the jetlag, the return to the winter cold weather, the emails, the bills….This reentry point from a vacation can be difficult, where the everyday schedule and tasks feel ordinary and overwhelming. Where discontent creeps in and dissatisfaction can take over. Because the very nature of a vacation is that it’s a break from the routine, it’s no surprise we can dread coming home. But no one should dread their ordinary life.

Although I have been intentionally working on contentment for the past few years, I still must remind myself that happiness is a choice. Everything (including the suckiness of vacations ending) becomes an opportunity to wipe away the negative thinking and find the blessings. I want to live in appreciation for what’s right in front of me. This was an opportunity to love the life I was returning to.

I’m not saying that beating the post-vacation blues is a walk in the park. But I do believe it can be. As I navigate this shift, these are some tricks and self-reminders that have helped.

• First and foremost. Feeling glum, discombobulated and exhausted post-vacation is normal. Don’t be hard on yourself that you aren’t snapping back with the feeling of renewal and rejuvenation that you were expecting. Cracking the whip on yourself is never the answer. Giving yourself compassion and tenderness is.

• Rest, rest, rest. If jetlag is involved, allow yourself time to rest to acclimate time zones. Give yourself permission to grieve if you feel like grieving. Any transition is letting go of something and grief is commonly involved. Let yourself feel sad for a bit and then decide to feel better.

• Give yourself permission to leave the suitcase and laundry for the following weekend. Remember the whip-cracking and how that’s not the answer?

• Allow for time during the first couple of days to go through emails, snail mail, paying bills, and grocery shopping. This means that you may need to say “no” to other requests and obligations.

• Choose little ways to find joy and comfort. I’ve been making comfort foods, like soup and pudding and watching uplifting movies (“The Hundred Step Journey” was wonderful!)  

• Remember your favorite moments from the vacation and feel gratitude for the experiences. Looking back over the pictures, writing about the experiences and telling friends about your adventures is a way to hold on to the feelings.

Integrate your trip into your regular life. This was the brightest lightbulb moment for me. When I thought about all the ways that my vacation was different, from spontaneous adventures, delicious meals out, impromptu margaritas, chatting with strangers, and enjoying nature, I realized that I can make these same choices at home. My home life doesn’t have to be the inevitable daily grind. I can choose to live the vacation mentality at home. This was the truest gift – changing my perspective about how I choose or don’t choose happiness. 

Returning to the routines of your life can be difficult, but it can be made easier by incorporating some elements of the vacation into your daily routines, like learning to make the pasta you enjoyed so much in Italy or listening to a soundtrack that reminds you of your trip while you are paying those bills. To maintain that free and easy vacation perspective, try on a whimsical lens through which you view life – giggle at your foibles, turn tasks into play, look for the good in people and situations, bring joy to the people around you, be curious. Embracing the ordinary and making small changes will allow you to recognize and appreciate each day, each moment, for the gift it is. Small things can be quite magical.

As a reminder, my screensaver is now a picture of my favorite spot on the beach. I’m determined to make this my state of mind no matter what stressor is presenting itself. I’m committed to finding play and fun in my daily routine. Regardless of whether I’m away on vacation or at home in my life, every moment can be more wonderful than the moment before. 

I’m choosing to savor that morning cup of extra-special coffee. Feeling the brisk winter air on my skin and revel at the birds on the snow-covered branches. Filling up the seed in my birdfeeder and the sugar water in my hummingbird feeders became my top priority. Each moment is just as beautiful as I choose to make it and watching the birds flit about is pure joy.

Plan some fun for the weekend after you get back. Schedule a hair appointment. Maybe there’s a pretty hike people have recommended that you haven’t explored, or a restaurant you haven’t tried, or a part of town you’ve never walked through. Invite a friend to go with you. Discover whole new worlds in your own backyard. 

Because a change of scenery has been so helpful to changing my perspective, I am planning my next vacation. Having something to look forward to can add an extra dose of delight to where you are in the time being. Whether you start looking at flights or just do some image searches of potential spots, the daydream factor can give you a boost.

Going on vacation affords us a new perspective from which to view life and find joy in the mundane of the ordinary. The trick is to experience them in new ways; to find fun in the daily rhythms. It is possible to take our repetitive, everyday tasks and make them enjoyable! Our attitude and approach is what can make all the difference.  Whimsy is defined as, “playfully quaint or fanciful behavior or humor.” 

Living a life, even an ordinary one, fully engaged and full of playful whimsy is something most people want to do but along the way they just kind of forget. Their dreams become one of those “one day it will happen” deferrals. The sad thing is, for many that one day doesn’t come because it requires an overall attitude shift about life. Life can be whatever you want it to be. Life has all the potential you bring to it–nothing more, nothing less. To find out how much that is, all you need do is show up. You just need to be present.

I feel grateful indeed for how vacations inspire my imagination. As I hauled my suitcase across the threshold of my front door, I decided to fully embrace the life I was walking back into and feel grateful for all that it holds. I want to show up for all the wonders and whimsy in each moment.

Today I plan to commit a random act of kindness.I feel downright giddy secretly doing something for someone else, knowing how much a simple act can brighten their day.

May you find the blessings in every day, however mundane they may seem. May you discover a secretly incredible and whimsical life in your ordinary world.

I believe in you.

Tricia

* * * * *

BEGIN THE IMPORTANT WORK OF YOUR LIFE: 

Schedule a free 30-minute consult. Are you ready to live into your full potential? Let’s talk about what needs to change for you to do that. Schedule a complimentary 30-min consultation here:  Schedule Your Discovery Session

Sign up for Tricia’s Blog to get weekly wisdom in your inbox and receive your free eBook: 5 Essential Steps to a Life of Passion & Purpose

Email us if you would like to receive a free copy of our Purpose & Passion Worksheet. coaching@triciaacheatel.com

Upcoming articles:

• Quieting the Inner Critic

• Authentic Leadership

• Overcoming Being a Good Girl 

• The Significance of Your Brand: The Impact You Are Making Through Your Work

• The Self Integrity of Boundaries: Honoring Your Own Values

• Creating a Culture that Changes Lives

• What are the Next Right Steps When You Feel Afraid or Unsure?

I would love to hear from you. How are you discovering whimsy in your daily life?Please share your comments below or email me directly at tricia@triciaacheatel.com

Tricia Acheatel has been supporting women in their personal, professional, and entrepreneurial growth for over 30 years. She teaches women how to access their inner wisdom, develop self-confidence, and create with conviction – to shape a life of meaning. Her unique approach blends inner work with practical mindset and business development tools that teach women how to find the courage to live their authentic and brilliant lives. 

From her combined experience – as a corporate executive, business owner and coach, herbalist/healer, life coach, author, life designer, success team leader, and teacher – Tricia brings wisdom, intuition, compassion, and clarity to her work. Her clients and students access newfound clarity, resilience, freedom, inspiration, and the knowledge necessary to launch their dreams.

Growing Your Confidence

Learning to Shine Your Light

Women have difficulty developing self-confidence. Because we tend to focus on everyone but ourselves, taking the time to develop our self-worth doesn’t come naturally to us. Also, girls are encouraged to be passive, and not too daring or confident. We wouldn’t want to threaten the guys!

But when we don’t live in accordance with what we know to be true for us, we incite a war inside of ourselves.

After decades of mentoring women through career transitions, work promotions, and launching or growing businesses, over and over I’ve seen them struggle with self-confidence.  I have observed clear and common patterns among women of all ages and across cultural and educational diversities.

Women are less likely to take risks. They don’t start things, even when they feel ardent about it. They don’t want to do anything if they aren’t sure they can do it perfectly. Or they get blocked from even taking the first step because they believe they aren’t smart enough. Or they try and when they fail, tend to give up. After all, if we can’t do it perfectly, it will confirm that we aren’t good enough!

Women don’t consider themselves competent in their work.

Women tend to avoid conflict. We view “keeping the peace” as one of our roles.

Women compare themselves with other women to confirm the beliefs they have about not being good enough. Or they seek approval from an outside source for their worthiness.  

Women are more likely to take criticism personally. 

Women tend to apologize, even for things that aren’t their fault.

Women are less likely to speak up in groups and share their opinions.

Women don’t express their needs in relationships – they tend to assume that their significant others will know what they are feeling and what they want and need. Then when they don’t get their needs met, they tend to feel resentful and unappreciated, even abandoned.

Women don’t ask for help and support and try to shoulder everything alone. They don’t want to be a burden to anyone.

Women put themselves last, taking care of everyone and everything else before themselves.

Women argue with compliments and downplay praise

Women are taught to be good girls.

Merriam-Webster defines self-confidence as “a feeling of trust in one's abilities, qualities, and judgment.” An article in The Atlantic about The Confidence Gap between men and women, explains the research establishing that women demonstrate less confidence than men.

Why do so many brilliant women lack a feeling of trust in themselves?

Culture shapes us. For generations, women have been taught to be silent, obedient, kind, and helpful. To take care of others. Girls are taught to be nice while boys are taught to be brave. Exploitive advertising attacks our self-confidence, leaving us feel like we aren’t good enough. Billions of dollars are made from our lack of confidence.

The biggest hit to our confidence isn’t culture though. It’s the way we limit ourselves, by the thoughts we have about ourselves. The lies we continue to believe about how we aren’t good (smart, thin, young, old, rich or anything!) enough to do what feels difficult and new so we wait until we feel perfect enough to put ourselves out there. Or until someone gives us their approval.

Richard Petty, professor of psychology at Ohio State University has studied confidence for years. He says, “Confidence is the stuff that turns thoughts into action.”

Taking action bolsters the belief in our capacity to succeed. Yet if we don’t act, then how will we ever build our confidence? Through trying, through success and even through failure, we build our confidence. So, it starts with trying. But trying at what? Where do we begin? 

Start right where you are. Express your opinion. Stand up for what you need at home and at work. Make self-care a priority. Take the risk to try something new even if you don’t feel ready. Ask for help. Accept a compliment. Stop apologizing for who you are.

We build courage and confidence by stepping out of our comfort zone and doing what feels scary.

With the “Women’s Wave,” history was made this year with a record number of women running for office and a record 110 women winning seats in the House of Representatives. Women are working to end violence against women, stop sex-trafficking and gun violence, offering aid to refugees, fighting for peace, equality and diversity. Women are launching businesses and nonprofits. Women are raising their daughters to be brave and their sons to be sensitive. More women are earning college and graduate degrees than men. Our competence is obvious.

I bet you have a vision for how the world could be. The wisdom and compassion of women are the answer to the world’s problems. The creativity of women is what we need. Your unique genius should be in the mix. Turn your ideas into action. 

When we live our lives from the social construct of being “good,” holding back our creativity, we have put our true selves, the selves we were born to be, in a box, hidden away in the garage and collecting dust. We aren’t giving ourselves to the world the way we were meant to. Bringing our vulnerable selves out for the world to see, in all of our messy pain and honesty, is what will change our own world first. We need to do this for ourselves first and foremost. 

Take a stand for your confidence. 

Take a stand against the way the culture has conditioned you. 

Take a stand against the way you are limiting yourself. 

I believe in you.

Tricia

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BEGIN THE IMPORTANT WORK OF YOUR LIFE: 

Schedule a free 30-minute consult. Are you ready to live into your full potential? Let’s talk about what needs to change for you to do that. Schedule a complimentary 30-min consultation here:  Schedule Your Discovery Session

Sign up for Tricia’s Blog to get weekly wisdom in your inbox and receive your free eBook: 5 Essential Steps to a Life of Passion & Purpose

Emailus if you would like to receive a free copy of our Purpose & Passion Worksheet. coaching@triciaacheatel.com

Upcoming articles:

• Quieting the Inner Critic

• Authentic Leadership

• Overcoming Being a Good Girl 

• The Significance of Your Brand: The Impact You Are Making Through Your Work

• The Self Integrity of Boundaries: Honoring Your Own Values

• Creating a Culture that Changes Lives

• What are the Next Right Steps When You Feel Afraid or Unsure?

I would love to hear from you. In what ways are you holding yourself back? Please share your comments below or email me directly at tricia@triciaacheatel.com

Tricia Acheatel has been supporting women in their personal, professional, and entrepreneurial growth for over 30 years. She teaches women how to access their inner wisdom, develop self-confidence, and create with conviction – to shape a life of meaning. Her unique approach blends inner work with practical mindset and business development tools that teach women how to find the courage to live their authentic and brilliant lives. 

From her combined experience – as a corporate executive, business owner and coach, herbalist/healer, life coach, author, life designer, success team leader, and teacher – Tricia brings wisdom, intuition, compassion, and clarity to her work. Her clients and students access newfound clarity, resilience, freedom, inspiration, and the knowledge necessary to launch their dreams.

Work is Love Made Visible

Taking Your Place as a Change Maker

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These are the words of Kahlil Gibran from his poem “On Work” from The Prophet.

Gibran’s writings gained popularity in the 1960s and 1970s during the counterculture movement, which responded to his lyrical language and mystical treatment of such subjects as love, death, nature and longing. When I was questioning the meaning of life in my 20’s, The Prophet was a guidebook for me. 

 The synchronistic circle of life is a marvel. My tatter torn copy of The Prophet disappeared during one of my many house shares and moves over the past decades. Then today, during a heartful conversation with a dear friend about how vital meaningful work is to our happiness and fulfillment, she reminded me that “work is love made visible.”

So many people feel anything from mild discomfort to miserable about their work. In our 20’s we embody an idealistic vision of how the world can be and believe in our ability to change it. Then for so many of us, we sacrifice those dreams and too often our values, and hunker down to the work of responsibility and survival. Often until years later when life catapults us into a life transition that forces a reflection on our place in the cosmos. 

If you believe that your work should be a daily slog so you can pay your bills, think again. Your work is your service to the world. What you deeply love and are passionate about, made visible to the world, connecting your life purpose with your work.

Viktor Frankl, an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor, said, “Those who have a ‘why’ to live, can bear with almost any ‘how’.” Purpose is a self-organizing central life theme that guides how we prioritize the actions we take and how we impact the world. We want to know our lives have meaning and that we matter. Whether our unique gift is to inspire, teach, support, encourage, uplift, transform, or create, the energy of it drives our goals and creates meaning. 

 These are the 5 key categories of what really matters to human beings:

1.     Growth – The desire to become better humans

2.     Happiness – Feeling excited to get out of bed in the morning

3.     Abundance – Leading a lifestyle where you FEEL you have an abundance of goodness

4.     Significance – Feeling important, like you are making a difference

5.     Meaning – Knowing you are giving back to humanity

We spend anaverage of 90,000 to 125,000 hours at work during the course of our lifetime. Is your work fulfilling these 5 critical human needs? Life purpose is one of the greatest predictors of life satisfaction.

If you’re ready to make a change in your work so that’s it’s more aligned with your purpose and what deeply matters to you, create a strategy of small, deliberate steps. Although there are exceptions, most people aren’t ready to make a change in one giant leap. Build a mound of tiny and big steps forward with many experiments to discover what you love.

1.    Assess your life and work values. What are you guiding values? Your values guide your way of being in the world and the beliefs that you hold most important. Your values are what you hold true above everything else, and give you direction. If you find you’re getting stuck figuring out exactly what meaningful work is for you, your guiding values can help. 

2.    Lay out your potential options and directions. There is no one idea for your life. All of us have more than one life in us and the average is 3.4. There are multiple great designs of your life so generate lots of crazy ideas. We tend to choose better when we have lots of good ideas to select from.

3.    Create your 100-day plan. Every day commit to making one tiny action toward a new beginning. Even if you don’t know where you’re going. Ask a friend or colleague to support you and hold you accountable.

4.    Give yourself permission to explore any little thing you’re curious about and start launching little projects. Start a blog or a podcast. Design an app. Write a poem. Weave a rug. Create a collage of your bucket list. Learn to play the guitar. Literally anything is okay! The only rule is that it brings you joy, engages and energizes you.

5.    Innovate 3 Real Alternative Lives

• Create a six-word title for each.

• Write three questions for each around what would you want to investigate, test and explore about each alternative (geography, experience, impacts of this alternative, what your life will look like, what your role will be, what training might be required.)

• For each, gauge your resources (time, money, skill, contacts,) likability (rate how it feels in your body–negative or positive,) your confidence level, coherence (consistency with your values.)

1)   Life One – This is centered on what you’ve already got in mind–either your current life expanded forward or that hot idea you’ve been nursing.

2)   Life Two – That thing you would do if Life One were suddenly gone.

3)   Life Three – The thing you would do or life you’d live if money or image were no object – you knew no one would laugh at you or think less of you for doing it.  (This should be a little bit wild, far-fetched and crazy.)

Explore your alternatives. Find someone who is living this life and set up a time to chat. This is someone who is doing what you’re contemplating or has real experience and expertise in an area about which you have questions. This will give you an opportunity to get a glimpse of what this path might feel like. Gather the story of how that person got to be doing that work and what it’s really like to do what he or she does.

Research has shown that meaningfulness comes from being a “giver.” If you aren’t ready to make a change in your work, yet you want to amplify the meaning and fulfillment level, cultivate your acts of giving. Meaning is premised on an entirely different way of interacting–that is, giving to others in service of the “greater good.” Find ways to innovate your role and workplace so it feeds your soul in ways that matter most to you.

This is how work becomes love made visible.

I believe in you.

Tricia

BEGIN THE IMPORTANT WORK OF YOUR LIFE: 

Schedule a free 30-minute consult. Are you ready to live into your full potential? Let’s talk about what needs to change for you to do that. Schedule a complimentary 30-min consultation here:  Schedule Your Discovery Session

Email us if you would like to receive a free copy of our Purpose & Passion Worksheet. coaching@triciaacheatel.com

Upcoming articles:

• Authentic Leadership

• Overcoming Imposter Syndrome

• The Significance of Your Brand: The Impact You Are Making Through Your Work

• The Self Integrity of Boundaries: Honoring Your Own Values

• Creating a Culture that Changes Lives

• What are the Next Right Steps When You Feel Afraid or Unsure?

I would love to hear from you. What defines meaningful work? Please share your comments below or email me directly at tricia@triciaacheatel.com

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Tricia Acheatel has been supporting women in their personal, professional, and entrepreneurial growth for over 30 years. She teaches women how to access their inner wisdom, develop self-confidence, and create with conviction – to shape a life of meaning. Her unique approach blends inner work with practical mindset and business development tools that teach women how to find the courage to live their authentic and brilliant lives. 

From her combined experience – as a corporate executive, business owner and coach, herbalist/healer, life coach, author, life designer, success team leader, and teacher – Tricia brings wisdom, intuition, compassion, and clarity to her work. Her clients and students access newfound clarity, resilience, freedom, inspiration, and the knowledge necessary to launch their dreams.

Are You Holding Yourself Back and Playing Small?

I used to think it would motivate me if I noticed and reminded myself of everything I was doing wrong – how I was falling short, how I could do better, what I could have said differently. You know, replaying past scenarios over and over in my mind to punctuate how I fell short. I didn’t waste time either, anytime was a good time to remind myself. 

It didn’t work. Oh, I definitely got results and was successful, but at a cost. Not allowing myself to believe in how powerful I truly am, kept me drained, flat, unhappy, and well, small. 

There is no passion to be found playing small – in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.

Nelson Mandela

 Are you living a life “less than the one you are capable of”? 

 These are some common ways we keep ourselves small. See if any sound familiar to you.

•  Deny compliments and don’t allow yourself to believe them

• Discount successes so you don’t feel too good about yourself

• Fear of appearing egotistical if you talk about your strengths

• Shrink yourself energetically so that other people will feel more comfortable around you

• Put yourself down when talking to other people

• Feel you don’t deserve the things you want or dream about

• Stay in relationships and jobs that aren’t making you happy

• Feel like the world is against you

• Avoid conflict

• Procrastinate the very things that will get you closer to your dreams

• Mindlessly browse the web

• Compare yourself to anyone who you perceive is better in some way 

• Seek approval and validation from others

• Tend to be a perfectionist

• Compare yourself to others to see how you fall short or appear better

• Feel like you never fit in

• Feel invisible

• Don’t speak up if it might upset someone

When we spend our energy finding all the ways we aren’t good enough, we don’t have the energy to follow what fascinates and energizes us. We don’t have the capacity to follow our bliss.

I coach brilliant women. Women who are dedicated, smart and committed to making a difference in the world. Yet they are stuck and don’t feel ready to take on that next big thing because they are focused on how they aren’t good enough more than how they are enough. So, they are waiting until they feel ready. 

Ten ways to own your magnificence and stop playing small

1. Don’t wait until you are ready. Don’t wait until what you are creating is perfect. Don’t wait until you get permission. Jump in and learn as you go. Perfect is the enemy of done. Good is good enough.

2. Remember that failure is essential to success. Instead of trying to avoid making mistakes and failing, successful people actively seek opportunities where they can face the limits of their skills and knowledge so that they can learn quickly. They understand that feeling afraid or underprepared is a sign of being in the space for optimal growth and is all the more reason to press ahead. Failures mean that you are putting yourself out there! The most significant accomplishments always arise out of failures. 

3. Believe in your big dream and commit to it. Decide once and for all that you are going to do this, starting now.

4. Envision the outcome. Imagine what your dream, whether it’s a promotion, a new career or a business you want to launch or grow, will look like and feel like as specifically as you can. Feel it and experience it has if it’s already happened.

5. Notice your inner critic, the voice that is telling you all the reasons you can’t do it, aren’t ready or qualified enough. Then do it anyway. That voice is trying to keep you safe and it’s time for you to give it a pat on the shoulder and say, “It’s okay, I’ve got this.” Isn’t your happiness worth taking the risk of going after what you want despite the voice that is trying to keep you small?

6. Let go of needing to be the good girl that makes everyone else happy. It’s time for you to do what you need to do, even if it doesn’t please everyone. You cannot sacrifice your genius to make someone else happy, it never works.

7. Get comfortable with discomfort. Anything important that makes us stretch and growth has an element of discomfort and fear associated with it. Staying comfortable will not get you what you want. Fear is normal when you are stretching, so feel the fear and do it anyway.

8. Break the big goals down into small actionable steps that you can get done easily and enjoy doing. If it feels too daunting, break it down into smaller steps.

9. Celebrate every step (and I mean EVERY step!) that you complete. Reward yourself with things you love that delight your senses – listen to music or the birds singing outside, watch the clouds or the sunset, smell flowers, snuggle with your dog, wrap yourself in a soft blanket, take a bath, get a hug. This step is essential to keeping that critical voice quiet as well as rejuvenating and recharging you.

10. Avoid comparing yourself to anyone else. No one, and I mean no one has your unique array of gifts, talents and experiences. So just do YOU. There’s nobody alive who can be you better than you. So never aim to be just like someone else. It’s a waste of a perfectly good you.

Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.

Dr. Seuss

 Whether you’re posting your artwork online, telling a friend the truth of how you feel even though she may get angry or hurt, raising your hand to speak up in meetings, expressing your needs to your partner, showing your kids that you value yourself enough to take time for you, or self-publishing that book you’ve been working on, these acts of bravery will build your self-confidence. 

Playing small doesn’t serve the world. You were born for greatness. You were born with unique and beautiful gifts. Don’t wait until you’re ready. The world needs you now.

I believe in you.

Tricia

* * * * *

BEGIN THE IMPORTANT WORK OF YOUR LIFE: 

Schedule a free 30-minute consult. Are you ready to live into your full potential? Let’s talk about what needs to change for you to do that. Schedule a complimentary 30-min consultation here:  Schedule Your Discovery Session

Upcoming articles:

• Authentic Leadership

• Overcoming Imposter Syndrome

• The Impact of Your Brand

• The Self Integrity of Boundaries

• Creating a Culture that Changes Lives

I would love to hear from you. Please share your comments below. In what ways are you holding yourself back? What would it look like for you to play big?

You can respond below or email me directly at tricia@triciaacheatel.com

Tricia Acheatel has been supporting women in their personal, professional, and entrepreneurial growth for over 30 years. She teaches women how to access their inner wisdom, develop self-confidence, and create with conviction – to shape a life of meaning. Her unique approach blends inner work with practical mindset and business development tools that teach women how to find the courage to live their authentic and brilliant lives. 

From her combined experience – as a corporate executive, business owner and coach, herbalist/healer, life coach, author, life designer, success team leader, and teacher – Tricia brings wisdom, intuition, compassion, and clarity to her work. Her clients and students access newfound clarity, resilience, freedom, inspiration, and the knowledge necessary to launch their dreams.

Your Zone of Genius

Can you remember a time when you were so engaged in an activity that you lost track of time? Time just slipped away and hours felt like only minutes, as you were completely and utterly ‘in the zone’?

The zone I’m referring to is called the “Zone of Genius” – a phrase coined by author Gay Hendricks.

Everyone is different. Your Zone of Genius is unique and individual to you. It’s what makes you special. Your unique genius is your natural gifts and innate talents combined with your life experiences. 

What would it mean to you to deeply know — and fully express — the gift that you and you alone contribute to the world?

Traditional cultures around the world have recognized that within each of us exists a unique array of qualities, gifts, talents, passions and longings that form our true identity and make us who we are. That each soul enters the world with a distinct, valuable and meaningful way to serve in the world. No one person is more special than any other because each of us possesses a unique expression that is essential. 

We are most happy and fulfilled when we are in our zone. Understanding our unique genius is fundamental not only to our happiness but also to overcoming self-doubt and feeling personally empowered.

Children demonstrate the inner qualities of their unique genius and may suddenly display a talent or wisdom beyond their age. Children dwell in their true nature and through play will demonstrate their unique gifts. Childhood play is free, joyful, and timeless. These feelings of expansiveness and freedom through play are like a compass leading us to our zone of genius. 

Think back to your childhood, to times when you ran, played hide-and-seek, skipped rope, climbed trees and built forts. As children, we naturally gravitate towards the activities that we excel at. What did you do as a child that made you feel good, powerful, and free? What activity made time stand still for you? You have innate talents, gifts and proclivities that directed your play as a child. This is an excellent place for clues to your unique genius.

Another clue are what I call “peak moments” in life. Think of times in your life when you were at your absolute best and felt a deep sense of joy, expansiveness, and freedom. These peak moments indicate an intersection of time in which you were in your Zone of Genius.

In working with clients to uncover their unique, they have discovered that it’s something that feels so easy and second nature that they easily overlook it and take it for granted as if everyone has that ability. What comes easy and natural to us though, can feel impossible for others.

Your genius is something that you are good at, love doing, it makes you feel “in the flow,” and comes easily and naturally to you.

44 Steps to Discovering Your Genius

After setting into one of your favorite places and centering yourself with a few deep breaths, answer the following questions.

1)   Things you love to do and do well

• What do you love to do when you have spare time?

• What do you naturally do well?

• What are you doing when you get so absorbed that you lose track of time? This is something you can do for long stretches of time and you don’t get bored or tired.

• What have your top 3 successes been from your perspective? (Not what others think.)

• What cause do you feel passionate about? Why?

• What conversation topics could you talk about all night long?

•  What topics do you love to read about/watch/listen to/learn about?

• What courses or workshops have you enjoyed the most?

• What activities make you feel free, joyful, and timeless?

2)   List your top three themes.

3)   Ask three people who know you well about what makes you unique – your gifts, talents and strengths. It may feel challenging to make this request but people love answering these questions. It’s human nature to want to help!

4) Narrow down your findings, looking for any common themes or patterns that emerge, indicating your unique genius. 

If you’re feeling stressed, tired, or run-down, you are probably spending much of your time outside of your zone. There may be activities that you do well yet they don’t bring you a lot of joy.

Make it a priority to spend time doing the activities where you are in your Zone of Genius. Give yourself permission to say “no” to new opportunities where you won’t be in full expression of your genius. This life is about being more fully who we uniquely are because this is the source of true joy.

You know you’re doing your best work and serving others at the highest level when you’re in your Zone of Genius. This is when you’re bringing your gifts, passions, talents and life experiences together in a profound partnership. This is serving in the way you were uniquely meant to serve. This is you at your best.

I believe in you.

Tricia

* * * * *

Upcoming articles:

• Authentic Leadership

• How to Stop Playing Small

• Overcoming Imposter Syndrome

• The Impact of Your Brand

• The Self Integrity of Boundaries

• Creating a Culture that Changes Lives

I would love to hear from you. What is your unique genius? What small step can you take right now to spend more time in your zone? Please share your comments below. 

You can respond below or email me directly at tricia@triciaacheatel.com.

Tricia Acheatel has been supporting women in their personal, professional, and entrepreneurial growth for over 30 years. She teaches women how to access their inner wisdom, develop self-confidence, and create with conviction – to shape a life of meaning. Her unique approach blends inner work with practical mindset and business development tools that teach women how to find the courage to live their authentic and brilliant lives. 

From her combined experience – as a corporate executive, business owner and coach, herbalist/healer, life coach, author, life designer, success team leader, and teacher – Tricia brings wisdom, intuition, compassion, and clarity to her work. Her clients and students access newfound clarity, resilience, freedom, inspiration, and the knowledge necessary to launch their dreams.

The WHY of Your Core Motivation

Life Envisioning for 2019 – Part 4 of 4

* * * * * 

It probably won’t come as a surprise to you when I tell you that pushing yourself to be motivated doesn’t work. Any of us can remember committing to being healthier, exercising more, losing weight, daily meditation, or cutting back on social media, and being better for a while but then falling off. So, we revert into our old patterns and feel defeated. Only to feel like things will never change.

How might this year be the one that is different, the year that you create what you most desire? 

Human beings have an average of about 70,000 thoughts per day. Some 90% of them are the same thoughts as the day before. The same thoughts create the same choices which yield the same behaviors, the same experiences and ultimately the same emotions. It’s easy to see then why if we don’t change our thoughts, it becomes very hard to change our lives.

When considering your goals for 2019, let’s examine your core motivation, the deep desire within you that is yearning for a different emotional experience of life. This is your why.

Thinking about being motivated doesn’t create motivation.

Let’s first establish the foundational principles of behavioral change:

·      Our thoughts are the language of the brain.

·      Our feelings are the language of the body and describe how we are experiencing life. The body is the emotional barometer that shows us our thoughts. 

·      Felt emotion comes from thought. 

·      New experience is a result of our behavior matching our intention. 

·      Our established identity and its associated beliefs change when we think in new ways.

Neuroscience research has shown that when we create an emotional feeling state that matches what we desire, we create the neural hardware in the brain that makes the action automatic when practiced over and over. So rather than thinking ourselves into motivation, we must experience the feeling of what we desire as if it has already happened. This then creates the neural pathways in the brain that will facilitate the necessary action steps.

We feel the way we think and we think the way we feel. To change yourself or your life, the thought must be combined with the felt emotion in the body of what you most desire – inspiration, abundance, worthiness, empowerment, love, wealth, success, health, wholeness, or whatever it is you yearn for. 

There are four critical steps:  

1)   Get clear about WHY you desire this outcome. This is the deep emotional connection to the outcome. For example, let’s say you want to lose 20 pounds. You might say that you want this because you want to look good for your high school reunion. Let’s go deeper. Why do you want to look good for your high school reunion? Perhaps it’s because you want to feel accepted in way that you never were in high school. What would that feel like for you? Getting to the deeper why allows you to access the feeling state that you are desiring from achieving the goal.

2)   Imagine the outcome. We must believe in the future that we cannot yet see. Accessing the feeling of what you most desire builds the neural hardware in your brain as if it has already happened. To convince your body emotionally of the health, wealth, career, relationship, or joy that you desire, you must believe in this outcome. Imagine what it will be like, look like, and how it will feel. Ask yourself questions like “What would it be like?” Have an image – a new job, a new house, a new relationship, new level of health and vitality, etc. – of what it will look like when you achieve your goal. This allows the brain to create a hologram for it. When we visualize, mentally rehearse and emotionally embrace a future event, we convince the body emotionally, which signals genes in new ways and shifts our epigenetics.

Timothy Gallwey’s book “Inner Game of Tennis,” published in 1974, though based on an exploration of the metaphysics of sports, articulates the essential principles at the core of this theory.

“In every human endeavor, there are two arenas of engagement: the outer and the inner,” Gallwey writes. “The outer game is played on an external arena to overcome external obstacles to reach an external goal. The inner game takes place within the mind of the player and is played against such obstacles as fear, self-doubt, lapses in focus, and limiting concepts or assumptions. The inner game is played to overcome the self-imposed obstacles that prevent an individual or team from accessing their full potential.”

3)   Understanding the obstacles that might get in your way. This involves connecting to the thoughts that bring you back to the same obstacles you had last year, and every prior year that blocked you from achieving your goal. We talk ourselves out of greatness. When we are aware of the thoughts that revert us back to our old selves, we can catch them so they never slip by unnoticed. 

4)   Make slow steady progress.Build on small wins. Practice and repetition turns neural pathways into neural superhighways and this recreates who we are. Literally we are changing who we are neurologically which means we make new choices, create new behaviors and have new experiences that produce new emotions. The brain responds to repetition, imagery and emotion. Encourage and remind yourself every day: “I am worth it!” “I can do this!” This type of self-encouragement helps us to unlearn our past emotions and biologically dismantle our old self.

When the mind and the body are working as one, nothing external can deter you from what you most desire.

What is the accomplishment you want to be celebrating at the end of 2019? 

I believe in you.

Tricia

* * * * *

Upcoming articles:

·      Your Zone of Genius

·      Authentic Leadership

·      How to Stop Playing Small

·      Overcome Imposter Syndrome

·      The Impact of Your Brand

·      The Self Integrity of Boundaries

·      Creating a Culture that Changes Lives

I would love to hear from you. Was this article helpful? What do you most desire? What obstacles are standing in your way? Are there any questions that are plaguing you that I can help with? I love creating helpful content. 

You can respond below or email me directly at tricia@triciaacheatel.com.

Tricia Acheatel has been supporting women in their personal, professional, and entrepreneurial growth for over 30 years. She teaches women how to access their inner wisdom, develop self-confidence, and create with conviction – to shape a life of meaning. Her unique approach blends inner work with practical mindset and business development tools that teach women how to find the courage to live their authentic and brilliant lives. 

From her combined experience – as a corporate executive, business owner and coach, herbalist/healer, life coach, author, life designer, success team leader, and teacher – Tricia brings wisdom, intuition, compassion, and clarity to her work. Her clients and students access newfound clarity, resilience, freedom, inspiration, and the knowledge necessary to launch their dreams.