Three Ways To Create Connection In Your Marriage Ep 19

Three Ways To Create Connection In Your Marriage | Relationship Coach

Missing connection in your marriage is something many of us struggle with; I certainly did. Maybe it’s something you’ve always thought you didn’t have enough of in your relationship, or it’s something that you feel has slowly dissipated; either way, it is 100% possible to bring connection into your marriage relationship, the type of connection you want. The journey to feeling connected in my own marriage has been an interesting one and one I have struggled with since the early years of our relationship, I think even before we got married. I had a belief that really did not serve me one bit; I believed that we didn’t have any connection and that he needed to change for me to feel connected. I had a vision of what connection meant for me and that vision was all about him.

This belief kept me from creating the connection I wanted because I was looking at why he wasn’t creating it. When I was able to step back and see that this could be something for me to figure out, I started the journey to taking my power back.

My own thoughts about lack of connection produced many arguments and were the basis of many of our sessions when we worked with different therapists over the years. When I found coaching and started working with my coach, she shared a different perspective that completely changed my life. There was a point in our work together when my coach questioned my thought about connection with Jeff and asked me what connection meant for me. I, of course, had lots to say about what it should look like. She asked what I thought about the possibility of us actually having great connection exactly the way it was, I told her she was ridiculous. After the session her question kept chasing me, I asked myself “what if?”, what if we did have great connection? How would I show up if I thought we had great connection?

Needless to say, from that point on, I have been on a journey to create the connection I want in my marriage. One, please notice how that coaching session worked for me. My coach didn’t tell me how to create good connection, she helped me think about it differently, and when I was able to think about it differently, it allowed me to come up with ideas of how I wanted to create connection in my marriage. That is what we do together, you and I; you share what you are struggling with, and I help you see what it is you are struggling with from different perspectives giving you new ways to problem solve and create solutions that work for you. Secondly, connection is something we create for ourselves; it is an emotion. It’s possible to feel connected when you’re not having a conversation with your partner or when you are. It is possible to feel connected talking about the weather or talking about the law of relativity because connection is a feeling we produce in our minds; it isn’t what your partner is or isn’t saying.

Something is compelling about doing the work of creating connection in your marriage. When you do the work of creating the connection you want with your partner, what happens is you will notice your partner starting to participate in conversations. When you don’t judge how they should show up, what they have to say and how they say it, you can simply enjoy your time together, creating connection!

Decide what different ways you want connection in your life and through conversation with your partner discover which ones they are willing to fulfill.

As humans, we want connection; we want to be included with others. It’s something we do from an early age on through our life, including when we get married, we seek to feel connection with our partner. Along with creating connection with your partner, I think it’s essential to learn how to build a relationship “family” that meets all of our relationship desires. Over and over again, including in my relationships, I see people disconnect from connections they have established once they meet their partner. We start spending most of our time with this new person while forgetting to keep our other connections alive; we look to our new partner to fulfill all of our connection needs which sets us up for expecting our partners to fulfill connection needs that they might not be interested in filling.

Remember how you did things with your partner not because you enjoyed the activity but because you wanted to be with them? Not a problem but also notice how many of those activities you might not care to be included in anymore and how might this be true for your partner as well? I call this took the “turning the table” concept where we take what we are struggling with and change roles which helps us better understand what might be happening instead of our partner not loving us anymore.

This step is about creating a list of all of the ways you might want to connect with others, think broad and think about connection that you might be wanting from your partner but aren’t getting. A few examples might be:

  • Adventure travels exploring new activities and locations
  • An art and creative partner
  • Art festival companion
  • Food adventurer
  • Romantic connection, physical touch
  • Someone to tell life secrets to
  • Dream conversations about what is possible in life
  • World traveler companion
  • Political banter companion
  • An accountability partner to follow through on dreams you want to fulfill in this lifetime

Our partners will not want to fill all of your connection desires, and I don’t think we would want them to, just like you might not be interested in fulfilling that connection desire your partner has around spending the weekend in a boat on the lake throwing out lines with bait on them. You will also have some connection desires filled by multiple people and some that are filled by one; you might do outdoor walks with your partner and still have another friend who joins you in outdoor activities and can look completely different. A relationship “family” is your group of people who help you explore life and your interests together. Some of these connections may come and go over time, or your connection doesn’t happen very frequently. As you expand your relationship family, you might start adding new ways you might want to connect with others, and then you start that search for a new partner to fulfill your new connection. Through this process, you may also discover that some of your current connections are no longer working for you and decide to limit or deprioritize those connections for those that are more fulfilling for you and the life you want to live.

Let go of your expectations of what connection should look like

When I started questioning what connection might look like with Jeff, I stopped arguing with what was currently happening as well as what had happened in the past. Instead, I started being curious about what could happen today and moving forward. I started opening up to conversations that felt awkward in my head but led us to some interesting conversations and laughs. When I started questioning that car rides should always include fun conversations, I started to get comfortable with the silence. When I got comfortable with the silence, I started coming up with conversations.

When you can see that you have a handbook for how your partner should show up and participate in a conversation, that’s when you can start closing the handbook and start coming up with your own style of connection and conversation. Check out my earlier post about Why Our Marital Handbooks Don’t Work.

What if it is ok that your partner doesn’t start conversations and when they do, how do you participate? Are you curious, or do you shut them down? Remember that “Turn The Table” tool I talked about earlier? Do you have expectations of how they show up, but when the table is turned, are you showing up the way you’d like them to for you?

Without your handbook of how conversations should go, you can start getting curious about when conversations might be best received, and you can start planning intentional time to chat. Share your intention with your partner, learn how to ask great questions, check out my blog post How To Ask Great Questions to get you started. What do you want to know about your partner, what do you want to talk about, and start creating that which you want?

Find a structured “meeting” time or schedule that works for you, just like a work meeting, where you discuss relationship basics as I share in my relationship huddle meeting.

Suppose you and your partner haven’t scheduled meetings before, this concept might seem a bit awkward at first. I used to have a Friday night catch-up with my daughter when she was growing up, and I looked forward to those nights because we shared discussions about things that came up for us during the week, but we didn’t have the time to hash them out and then we would turn it into a family night where we did something fun after the conversation. The same concept with your hubby, we have busy lives, and things come up for us during the week but then when the weekend comes if we don’t plan with intention, everything slips aways only to fester under the surface and eventually erupt.

Remember that this is your idea, you are taking steps to increase connection in your marriage, and that it’s quite possible that your partner might not bring anything to the meeting. If this happens you might find yourself wanting to blame them for not participating and being a partner, but I would challenge you to think about him not bringing anything to the meeting is a problem. Instead you could make it mean that you have the power to change this relationship that you want connection in.

To get started, I want to suggest you read my article about The Relationship Huddle; it will give you a structure to get your meetings started, and over time you can shape them into your own signature version. There is a reason we come together in meetings at work; it brings us together to talk about important things going on, things that have happened, and things we want to create; how important is it to do this same sort of meeting in our marriage?

Lastly, I want to suggest that you be willing to do the work to get what you want in your marriage, no matter how difficult it feels.

A bonus tip for you today is around the idea of commitment to do tough things. We are all familiar with the statement that nothing worthwhile is easy (or something like that); as my listener, you’re here because you believe your marriage is worthwhile, your happiness is worthwhile, and I fully agree. Worthwhile is work and is intentional. It is completely ok to set it down here and there and decide you need a break from the work; no problem, the problem comes when we set it down and don’t pick it back up again. When we don’t pick it back up, we will continue getting our old result which brought us here. Creating exceptional relationships is work because it requires us to step out of the comfort of staying the same, do something that might be new and that someone else might have an opinion about.

Your man might think what you are doing is ridiculous until he starts to see how it isn’t. When he sees that you are actually creating connection in your marriage, better enjoying time together, feeling more involved in your relationship, and creating more physical intimacy, well, I guess that it’s not as ridiculous as he thought.

You, my friend, have the power to create the connection you want in your marriage, and all it takes is a little nudge from inside to make it happen. Trust me, all of those little nudges you take action on will add to you creating a marriage worth coming home to!

I am a life coach who works with individuals to break down relationship barriers by awakening their true self. My process isn’t about changing your partner, it’s about discovering who you are so that you can AwakenYou in your marriage. If you’re ready to take your life and your love relationship to the next level then schedule your program inquiry call today and let’s decide together if this is your next step to creating the life you’ve been dreaming of

Five Steps To Ending Negative Body Image Self Talk Ep 17

Five Steps To Ending Negative Body Image Self Talk | Relationship Coach

Negative self-talk is a real thing, we all do it, but there is a practice different from believing the lies. A practice you can utilize to quiet those negative saboteurs while allowing you to hear them, recognize them, dismiss their lies and access the part of your brain that has your best interests in mind. This practice is what I call mental fitness, which resonates with many of my listeners because many of you are quite familiar with the required consistent practice of weight lifting to strengthen and grow muscle. Lasting results don’t come from a temporary practice, though beneficial and it will move you forward but stopping the practice only reinforces old muscle memory. You are all probably quite familiar with the phenomena of consistent training bring you slow, permanent results while watching those gains quickly disappear over a short hiatus from your program. Today I’m going to share several tips to help you end your negative body image self-talk but remember, the key is consistent practice and belief that the practice will win you results that set you free from the control you’re giving your brain over your body image sabotage.

One of the best things about mental fitness is that you can do it anywhere, anytime, with no gym membership required. Oh, you didn’t know that was possible in your physical fitness practice as well? I’m here to tell you that it is; all you need is to decide that your practice is part of your day-to-day life, and then you use that powerful brain of yours to show you how. Yes, your brain is what produces all of your results!

Let me share a huge result that I am quite proud of producing for myself. It’s been almost five years since I’ve looked in the mirror and didn’t like what I saw. Now, that doesn’t mean that my brain never offers up some sort of lie about what it sees in the mirror, but it’s much quieter now than it ever was in the past. I don’t squash it down and try harder to look “better” or different; it’s more of a whisper now that I gently notice and then excuse the thought, reminding my brain of who I am and how magnificent I have been created to be.

Most of my life I have done everything I could to change what I thought was unacceptable about myself.

I exercised.

Educated myself.

I learned how to eat right.

I read self help books.

I learned the latest and greatest makeup tricks.

You know what? None of it mattered. No matter what I did, that negative self-talk and desire to change was consistent; nothing I did was good enough to satiate the negative body image monster inside my head. I was never good enough; no matter what anyone else told me, I believed them to be liars. So what did I do? I tried harder, searched for a new level that might bring that satisfaction; it was a negative body image treadmill that never brought me to my desired destination.

Then one day, I decided enough was enough and that I would change this lifelong energy drain. I decided to step off the negative body image treadmill. I decided to stop denying God’s perfection of creation while being all-in on my journey to self-love, knowing that it would take some time, I committed myself to it. If you haven’t listened to my very first podcast episode, I highly recommend you go listen after you finish here: How To Start Loving Yourself.

The process of loving yourself includes quieting the negative self-talk. Period. Today we are focusing specifically on our bodies and how we talk about them. I want to invite you to follow the podcast and come back every week because every topic will bring you closer to the self-love needed to break this cycle. This month’s expert interview, which will release the last Tuesday of this month, is with master certified life coach Martha Ayim. Martha helps people end their relationship with binge eating and within the realm of what we talk about in this interview is the subject of body image and negative self-talk.

The first step to ending the negative body image self talk is to just decide to stop.

My intention here is not to make you mad because if you are anything like I was, you have tried this route with very little success. The problem is that you did not implement the other tools of change that I will be offering you today; you didn’t recognize that voice as a saboteur. Instead, you believed it. Believing that voice will only send you into the self reprimand that keeps you stuck and in a forever loop of powerlessness over your own mind and body.

The solution is within you, but you have to be committed to the end result; you have to believe in the truth that you are fully lovable and valuable, and worthy. Again, the ticket is committing and implementing ALL five of the steps I am sharing here today.

You have done a beautiful job over the years protecting yourself for some valid reason or other, you have taught your brain well, but now it’s time to re-teach it. There is no longer a reason to protect yourself; these thoughts are no longer serving you. You are an adult who gets to decide what you want to think, you get to decide to manage your mind, or you can decide to let your mind manage you, your choice. One will help you grow and increase the joy you experience in this life, and the other will continue having you search for something outside of yourself for that joy that keeps escaping you.

The next step is to understand the cognitive dissonance you are experiencing when it comes to what you currently believe about your body image.

To better understand cognitive dissonance, you can read a post I wrote specifically about this topic called What Is Cognitive Dissonance? Cognitive dissonance is the gap between where you are right now and the person you are becoming. In this instance, it would be looking at who you are right now, what you believe, how you feel, and how you behave versus the person you long to be, the person who believes down to their core that they are valuable and whole with certainty while no longer believing the voice inside their head that says they aren’t good enough as they are.

Your brain is very comfortable with your current belief, so comfortable that it has stored it away as an automatic response. It takes work, energy to believe something different, to change that old belief and exchange it for a new one. It’s like a child who loves its binky and will kick and scream when you take it away, until one day the child discovers that life is fine without that binky and maybe even a whole lot better. The child can clear the gap of the binky/no binky dissonance because they haven’t been using their binky for as many years as you have been telling your brain the story about your body.

Recognizing cognitive dissonance allows you to enjoy the journey instead of fighting against it. Understanding cognitive dissonance allows you to have compassion for the process and to trust yourself to know that you will keep doing this work until one day you look back and see how far you’ve come. It’s like looking at the long journey to swimming across the big lake in front of your Airbnb rental, thinking that you will never get to the other side. One stroke at a time, you tell yourself, one more, then another, until suddenly you find yourself on the other side of the lake, giving yourself a high five for persevering and not giving up on yourself.

The third step to ending the negative body image self talk is creating awareness.

This is where my mental fitness program comes into play. My mental fitness program is a simple, easy-to-implement process of noticing, hearing, and then dissipating the saboteur voices that we have partnered with over our lifetime.

Awareness is the first step of change; you being here searching for solutions to your negative self-talk and acknowledges that you are tired of the self-sabotage and ready to do something different. When you become aware of the action you are taking that you don’t want to take without squashing it down, again, unsuccessfully attempting to run away from it, that’s when you allow your brain to start coming up with solutions. See, you’ve already started the awareness problem by listening to this podcast.

As you create awareness and start taking the steps, I recommend you notice that you will continue to fall into old thought loops, but now the difference is that you recognize them and self-correct. The more often you put this pattern into effect, the less your old thought patterns show up.

A warning alert I want to share with you, to re-enforce what I shared earlier when talking about cognitive dissonance, is that your brain likes its old way of being; even if it feels like garbage, it’s a default, you do it on autopilot, it requires no extra thinking or energy consumption. The process will be a bit more difficult once you implement these tools because you have to bring your pre-frontal cortex into the process through deliberate interception. This is the process of any good change, though, eventually, your new thought patterning will become more auto-generated and committed to the primitive brain, something to look forward to!

Awareness includes calling out those old thoughts; I want to suggest you write them down, maybe using your notes app on your phone. Every time you look in the mirror or shop window as you walk by and say something negative, write it down, and then correct your thinking and remind yourself that you are beautiful. Yes, even if you don’t quite believe it. A super useful tool to help graduate into more believable thoughts, if thinking “I am beautiful.” isn’t working, is the thought ladder; you can read about that tool in my post titled How To Get From Here To There. Maybe that ladder thought is something like “I am contemplating the idea that I am beautiful.” There you go, bonus, a sixth tool to help you end your negative self-talk battle around body image.

My fourth tip is to work on creating compassion and empathy around the process.

Compassion and empathy are emotions that will always serve you well and open you up to understanding; they are emotions that open up your mind to its creative process, helping you come up with solutions. As you move through this process, you will start noticing the emotions you are feeling; some emotions open you up, expand you while others close you down, keeping you from changing. To help you with the process of learning how to experience your emotions, actually feel them, let me suggest you go read my post “How To Start Feeling Your Emotions.”

In my AwakenYou coaching program, one of the exercises I teach my clients is how to process emotions. Emotions are our body’s signal, our awareness tool. Learning how to tune into your emotions will help you become aware of what you are thinking and why; it is one of the most powerful tools I teach. The process of feeling your emotions opens you up to what your brain is trying to tell you, what it is trying to do for you and when you’re able to tap into this tool, you start to understand why you are feeling the way you are and see whether it is actually serving you or if it is an old, outdated, deeply engrained response that you can now choose to change.

Compassion, curiosity, and empathy towards yourself will always open you up to learning something new and helping you move past what keeps you stuck in old thought loops.

Finally, my last tip I am sharing today, a tip that will help close the gap even faster, it is the tool I call my self mentor.

This tool has evolved as I have utilized it, just like any other tool you have learned how to use. When you discover any new tool, you’re an amateur, a bit clumsy; you’re not really certain of the power the tool provides, but as you continue to use the tool, the power starts to reveal itself.

The future self mentor is the person you are becoming; you create her. Maybe you gather photos of her, you write about how she shows up for herself, how she holds herself, how she speaks to herself, everything about her you begin to envision. You start asking yourself how that future version of yourself would act right now; what would she say when she looks in the mirror and sees what she sees. Would she smile and wink at herself? Would she pat herself on the back? Would she lift her chest and stand tall?

Start creating your future self model, a vision board for who you are becoming, and watch grow into her.

As you do this work and implement these tools I have shared with you today, you will find yourself having your own back without relying on your husband to tell you how beautiful you are and then not believing him anyway. Of course, you still love it when he does so, but now you wink at him, give him a big hug and say, “Right on, honey, I couldn’t agree more with your thought!”

Remember, friend, this is a journey, and if you want help along the journey, then I’ve got your back; it’s what I do, and I love what I do! If you have any questions about this process or want help implementing these tools and all of the other tools I use to help women change their lives, then let’s chat soon! Let me come alongside your process, sharing some extra accountability and guidance to reach your goal with ease. Book your program inquiry call today and I look forward to hearing from you and helping you create your future self vision!

If you’re interested in learning about my Mental Fitness six-week course, valued at $1495, then get on my mailing list where I will be sharing all about this life changing program. Even better, every week I am giving away one of these programs to one lucky listener who reviews the podcast and sends a screenshot of that review to christine@christinebongiovanni.com, I will enter you into a weekly drawing that makes you eligible to join. If you don’t win, no worries, I keep everyone in the lottery, only taking out those who have already won. Reviewing is simple, scroll to the bottom of my podcast page and click on the “Write a Review” blue text, take a screenshot of your review and send it to me! I can’t wait to hear from you.

I am a life coach who works with individuals to break down relationship barriers by awakening their true self. My process isn’t about changing your partner, it’s about discovering who you are so that you can AwakenYou in your marriage. If you’re ready to take your life and your love relationship to the next level then schedule your program inquiry call today and let’s decide together if this is your next step to creating the life you’ve been dreaming of

Three Steps To Building Self Trust Ep 12

Three Steps To Building Self Trust | Relationship Coach

Today I had a consult with a woman who was having a difficult time making a decision, so I started asking some questions about actions she was taking, or not taking in her life. She didn’t trust her boss and then she admitted to several other people she didn’t trust, ultimately uncovering that she didn’t trust herself either. With her being able to uncover her distrust in herself, she could see the potential impact that could come from doing the work of building a trusting relationship in herself so she could let go of her lack of trust in others. Two weeks ago, we looked at one simple way to see if you trust yourself; please go back and listen to that episode if you haven’t already, it is episode 10, One Simple Way To See If You Trust Yourself, and this week, we will start working on that trust relationship. Today we’ll be looking at three steps you can start taking to build trust in yourself.

In episode 10, I shared some prompts for you to start becoming aware of how often you unknowingly let yourself down, thus building up that lack of trust in yourself. Those prompts included taking some time at the end of the day to take a look back and notice how many of the things you told yourself you would do, were actually followed through on. Then I asked you to look at what you didn’t follow through on and ask yourself why. That exercise was an exercise of self-awareness, not an exercise to look at all of the ways you are failing in life. Awareness is always the first step to creating change. I help my clients look at this newfound awareness with curiosity and empathy while exploring how we might want to start navigating towards something new.

Let’s look at three ways to start building self trust

Learn how to follow through on things you tell yourself you’re going to do.

This is, in my opinion, the most important step you can take and the easiest one to start implementing because it is actionable. When I say it’s actionable, I mean that you can start paying attention and prioritizing the items you want to be doing in your life. You can get them out of your head and schedule them on your calendar. This step is part math because once we get all of our desired actions out of our head and onto a piece of paper, we can create a process for prioritizing and scheduling. We can start to see that there is only so much time in the day, a portion of which you want to be sleeping and another portion is your time at work, so now you have to start determining how long each item will take and where you are going to fit it into your weekly puzzle.

Here is where you begin to notice what your brain starts to do. You begin to see how much time you have left to yourself, and you start squeezing all of the things into those time spaces.

Here is where you get to start running experiments to see how your plan is working. Did you allow enough time for the item you scheduled? Did you take more time with your allotted task and steal time from the next item you had scheduled? Did your item pop up on your schedule, and you decided it wasn’t something you really wanted to do at the moment, so you did something different? This is where experimentation with your scheduling and daily planning comes into play. You learn more about ending your time management battle and start figuring out how to honor what you said you want to do. When we look at what we want to do and work on the implementation of learning how to do what we say we’re going to do, it is never a process that tears you down for doing it wrong. It is a process of trial and error and managing what is going on in your head to learn and move forward.

Let’s look at something you want to follow through on; let’s use my relationship huddle as an example. You can read about the relationship huddle in my previous blog, where I teach you how to create a twenty-minute meeting that will forever change your relationship.

  • To begin, I like to write down my reasons for wanting to do what it is I am telling myself I want to do, as well as all of the reasons I don’t want to. This step alone helps me be all in on my reason for making room in my calendar for this item, and it also allows me to decide if it isn’t important so I can let it go, kick it out from consuming space in my head.
  • Then I like to write down all of the reasons I’m not doing the said item; what is in the way of me following through? It is always something I am thinking which is causing a feeling that drives me not to do what I say I want to do. It’s important to uncover this blurry obstacle that is keeping me from following through and building trust in myself.
  • Then it’s time to start coming up with a plan for moving forward. Please write it down, schedule it, walk through and bring to light emotions that keep you from moving forward.
  • Then start playing around with what emotions you will need to be feeling in order to follow through on your meeting, knowing that sometimes fear and discomfort might be two of the emotions that will have to come alongside courageousness.
  • Another tool I like to use is to look forward to what it will be like when I have followed through on what I told myself to do. I work on embracing and experiencing how proud and powerful I will feel.
  • Then I move forward boldly. When that item comes up on the calendar, I watch what comes up for me; I remember who I will be after I follow through; I embrace whatever discomfort is coming up and do what I said I would do.
  • Lastly, I plan time to look back and evaluate (is there a post I can link?)
  • Rinse and repeat.

The more you do this process, the more you start to trust yourself, EVEN if you don’t follow through because you start building a process for following through, and you start building a belief in yourself that you will figure this out. This is what builds self-trust, not that everything turns out as you expect but that you gave it your best and used it to learn and grow and move forward.

Learn how to experience any emotion.

You can see from the step I just walked you through that learning to become aware of emotions you are experiencing is one of the first things you will have to do to start following through. The main reason you are not following through is because of an emotion you aren’t willing to experience at the moment. Instead, you are choosing something that feels better at the moment, at your own expense.

Learning how to experience any emotion is a large part of what I help my clients with while they are going through the process of creating the romantic relationship they dream of. Taking steps to make this happen in your life is usually a bit uncomfortable, change is uncomfortable, sometimes so much that we choose to be more comfortable with what we are unhappy with. When that discomfort of doing something to help your relationship grow becomes more desirable than the comfort of staying the same, that’s when and where the magic in your relationship can start happening.

Make a decision to change your opinion of yourself.

As you start doing this work, you will also want to start looking at your self-belief, what you believe you are capable of, what you believe you are worthy of achieving. You will have to start peeling back the layers that keep you from loving yourself fully and believing that you are strong, lovable, capable, worthy, and competent. As you start creating this belief, self-trust starts becoming part of who you are and what you do. If you go back to episode one, How To Start Loving Yourself, you will learn this is something you can start believing today; you can decide and be done. Of course, your brain will keep coming back to offer you that old, conditioned thought to think, but today is the day you can begin to change that thought into one that will serve you best. This decision will build self-trust, self-confidence, and your best marital experience ever.

Building trust is one of the most important things you can do for yourself and your marriage. Trusting others starts with you. Join AwakenYou, and let’s start the process together!

I am a life coach who works with individuals to break down relationship barriers by awakening their true self. My process isn’t about changing your partner, it’s about discovering who you are so that you can AwakenYou in your marriage. If you’re ready to take your life and your love relationship to the next level then schedule your program inquiry call today and let’s decide together if this is your next step to creating the life you’ve been dreaming of.

Old Story, New Lessons

I have a morning routine that includes reading the Bible, meditating upon what God is teaching me through those words and how I can implement the lessons into my day.

I’ll be completely honest in saying that some of those days I find it difficult to find the message, kinda like I grasping for straws. As a side note, I decided to research the googles to figure out what the phrase “grasping for straws” truly means. I found it interesting and applicable in that it’s similar to a drowning person grasping at the weeds to try and save oneself.

The longer I practice, the longer I yearn to learn without any expectation, the more I hear the teaching within the words.

Surprise. When you remove the noise, that’s when you suddenly hear the teaching.

That’s what happened today.

Luke 15:11-31, which is the story of the lost son, commonly know as the prodigal son.

There are three characters in the story and since I’m not a biblical scholar I’d like to stick to how the story can parallel some of our own lives today.

First there is the younger son, the lost son, who asks for his inheritance early, took his money to look for something better. Truly seeking pleasure at his own expense without looking into the future at how his current choices might affect his future results. In the story we’re not surprised in how he loses all of his money through pleasurable experiences and ends up destitute, starving, working in the fields feeding the pigs. Finding himself in a place of desperation, he swallows his pride, admits his powerlessness, returns to his father to repent and ask to work as one of his father’s hired hands.

Then there is the father, full of love, giving his son the free will to do as he pleases. He doesn’t attempt to control him and isn’t angry or disappointed in him when he returns. He throws a party in celebration of his son’s return.

Lastly, we have the eldest son who stays home, works the farm by choice, possibly in hopes of being the “better” son in the eyes of his father. The eldest son is looking for validation for his hard work and diligence, so much so that when his brother returns he refuses to join the celebration. Jealous and acting like an emotional child, he’s not all in on his choice and blames his father for not treating him with the love he is treating the “lost” son with.

Maybe you know someone who could fit into one of these three roles.

Maybe you see yourself in one of these three characters.

Maybe, like myself, you see a little of yourself in each of them.

My attention was mostly drawn to the older son.

He had a manual for how his father should be respondin so that he could be happy. He wanted his father to act differently towards the younger child, as well as himself, so that he could feel better.

He was judging his brother for his choices in an effort to make himself feel better.

He was being an emotional child by not taking responsibility for how he felt, blaming both father and brother.

Basically, he wasn’t managing his mind.

Managing your mind doesn’t mean we have to be happy all of the time.

It means recognizing what is causing us to feel the way we do.

It’s recognizing that we always have a choice as to how we feel, without having to change what is happening outside of us.

After finishing my Awaken You program the older brother would have recognized the cause of his anger, see the results that anger produces and from that place; determine if he wanted to go to the party or not.

He could be all in on his choice from a place of love for himself, and everyone else, not from a place of blame and resentment.

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My Awaken(TheTrue)You program is for people who want to discover their true self, discover the missing key, find their purpose and then start building a legacy from pure power. I have made it my mission to show you how.

I’d love to offer a free call for you to work out whether or not my program and life changing promise is a fit for you. Either book your call now or send me an email with your availability before your subconscious primitive mind tells you to run and hide.

Please share this message with anyone who you think might benefit from hearing this it and join my mailing list where I send out weekly tips on how to start building love and confidence within yourself.

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Social Taboo: Talking Out Loud About Our Struggles

As I was reflecting on a social gathering we had here at the house a few weeks back, it struck me as interesting when I thought about how uncomfortable people get when we openly discuss things that we are struggling with in our lives.

It’s not that I don’t understand why, I mean, I was the queen of covering up my poop 🤣🤣🤣 ! OK, let’s pause a moment because I am completely laughing out loud at myself. The previous sentence was not in my original writing of this post and that sentence was real truth my friends! I just was envisioning my dog Zeta after she does her business, she is adamant about covering up her 💩, sort of like I was 🤣.

It’s just that through all of the self work I have done, through all of the coaching I have gotten, I am very comfortable talking about my 💩 and I’m going to tell you why. If we just keep covering it all up it becomes a big pile of messiness but the messiness isn’t outside of us, like it is for Zeta, it’s all piling up inside of us creating one big toxic mess. Getting it out, talking with a coach, seeing it on paper, hearing it out loud allows us to process and start re-wiring our inner, self taught program, allowing us to upgrade into a daily next best version.

I wonder if you can figure out why we’re so uncomfortable talking about our problems.

What I came up with is that we’re uncomfortable with ourselves. We are ashamed, embarrassed, disappointed, afraid of other people’s judgement, what they might say.

We attempt to control what other people think about us by doing things like:

  • pretend everything is amazing
  • complain and blame others
  • gossip about others, directing attention to someone else’s “dysfunction”

I now realize how healthy it is to share our struggles and here is why I believe this:

  • talking out loud about our struggles allows us to heal but also brings about healing in others, as they hear our story they can start to feel some relief, some hope and possibly be able to initiate positive steps towards feeling better themselves
  • it helps you be a true human, not pretending to be perfect or someone you’re not
  • it allows people to see the true you and connect on a much deeper level

People are going to either like you or not, you might as well find your truest connections by being your truest self.

We are human.

We all struggle.

Stop denying the struggle and start addressing it. Stop trying to control other people’s opinion of you by being someone you’re not.

Be you.

It feels so amazing!

It’s what I do on a daily basis, not just for me but for all of my beautiful clients. There is nothing more rewarding than watching people work on their problems and start living the life they were meant to live.

With a big proud smile on their face 😃

I am learning how to be me and helping you let go of your created you so you, and others, can embrace Your True You!

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My Awaken(YourTrue)You program teaches incredibly powerful women like yourself how to identify and live out your truth. How to believe in your success and boldly share it with the world. How to leave a legacy.

I offer a free call to anyone brave enough to take the steps of creating the life they were meant to live. It’s a call for you to decide if this work is for you or not. I believe it is.

Share this message with a friend who needs to hear it, for every woman willing to do the work of becoming her best self there will be thousands of others impacted by her journey.

This is my life, join me in my mission to save the world, one powerful woman at a time.

When You’re Excluded

Last night I was excluded from a family girls event.

What?!? Can you even believe that?

“They left me out.”

“I must not matter.”

“I’m not important.”

“They don’t like me.”

“Whatever, how rude!”

Yep, it really happened and that’s how I would have reacted in the past. I would have blamed, pouted, felt sorry for myself, beat myself up, been sarcastic, (try to) make everyone feel bad. Of course, if you’ve been following me, we know that we can’t make other people feel bad.

You see, two years ago us Bongiovanni women decided to finally follow through with our Christmas banter about getting together outside of the holidays.

Thanks to my Aunt Mari, we’ve followed through.

Except this year they left me out.

I was actually at a meeting during this get together and after the meeting I had a message from my daughter and a voicemail from my Aunt.

I responded to the text of “Where are you?” with a tapback “?” and then read the transcript from the voicemail and immediately felt a bit sad.

Turns out that the email invitation went to an email that I haven’t used for over 10 years and for a moment I did have a thought that made me feel indignant and cause me to blame and complain. I noticed it, allowed it and then started to look at how this was no big deal.

They went without me and it was awesome.

It was awesome because I got to watch how my new brain handles these new situations, first hand.

I had new thoughts like:

“What a bummer!”

“This is not a big deal.”

“Everything is ok.”

“Nothing has gone wrong here.”

“I am fully worthy, enough, complete.”

You know the best part?

I get the result of loving myself, as well as everyone else, instead of not mattering to myself, or anyone else.

I love my new brain!

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My Awaken(TheTrue)You program is for strong, success driven women who want to discover their true self, discover the missing key, find their purpose and then start building a legacy from pure power. I have made it may mission to show you how.

I’d love to offer a free call for you to work out whether or not my program and life changing promise is a fit for you. Either book your call now or send me an email with your availability before your subconscious primitive mind tells you to run and hide.

Please share this message with anyone who you think might benefit from hearing this message and I highly encourage you to get on my mailing list where I send out weekly tips on how to start building love and confidence within yourself.