Welcome back AwakenYou listeners, how are you this week? I’d love to hear how everyone is doing as we just welcomed in summer last week and are so very close to the close of the first half of 2022. I have been embracing a bit of peaceful reflection while contemplating my plans for the second half of this year. I believe our life is full of cycles and that it is helpful for us to consider where we might be in a cycle and to honor what actions that cycle might be calling us into. Right now I am in this cycle of looking back and feeling pride for all of the things I have done to get myself to where I am today. At the same time, I am sitting in the present being grateful for all that is in my life while also looking forward to reconsider where I want to go. As I’ve eased into accepting this space, because I did a bit of kicking and arguing with it as this cycle entered my life, it’s been interesting to watch what unfolds. Kicking and screaming because these cycles don’t announce themselves, often you wake up inside of one and are left wondering why you’re feeling like you took a nose-dive into laziness. With this, I want to suggest that all of you consider what it is you are needing right now in your life and whether you will honor that need or fight against it. Is your soul asking you to take a pause in order to decide your next steps in your life, in your marriage?
Maybe one of your next steps needs to be taking a look at how you are thinking about your marriage, without trying to figure out why you are thinking these thoughts but simply observing. If you go back to an oldie but goodie blog post, which I have also provided an audio version for those who prefer to listen, about the Self Coaching Model in that episode I teach you about a tool I use that helps you see how your thinking is affecting YOU. As we start to see our thoughts about our spouse and our marriage we notice how these thoughts are making us feel, we start to see how we then show up in our marriages and the result that these thoughts are creating for us in our marriage. My Abundant Love Free Mini-Course is the perfect place to start the process of examining your thoughts, how they’re serving you and then I share a practical and fun way to start creating your own Love List of thoughts that help you create more of what you want in your marriage. Go download the course now, the link is in the show notes, and start the process of creating more abundant love in your marriage!
This week I decided to divert away from what I originally planned to talk about this week because as I go through this time of pause I see so much evidence of resistance to the value in this process. Not only can I look back in my own life and see evidence of the fear of stopping to reconsider or re-evaluate, but I also see it active in the lives of my clients so I want to talk about it today and share how you can start taking the steps to do the same in your own life.
I felt called to talk about this topic because it has always been a struggle for me to take real breaks without an old familiar thought popping up for me that links taking time to be as being lazy. Knowing I’m not alone in this process I wanted to share a few tips to help you along your journey to understanding the importance of being able to pause so you can decide your next steps or maybe in the pause alone, you find your next steps. What I mean by that is often we are so busy focusing on what’s next that we don’t allow our brains to shut down and reset, while in this reset process this is where the next steps start to formulate themselves. Today I want to take some time to think on a few things around taking time to pause and if you are thinking this episode is a waste of your time then I want to suggest that you are the one most needing to continue on listening.
Why do you need to accomplish?
I know the need to accomplish seems so obvious and valid but have any of you noticed how fleeting the gratification is that comes as you cross off completed tasks from your to-do list? It’s about as long as it takes to cross or check that to-do off, or less, before we’re on to the next to-do, while maybe even adding another one on to the pile!
Many of us are conditioned to believe our value comes from doing things but let me ask you this, is getting things done one of your values? Let me share this as someone who has worked to quiet her over-achiever voice, crossing things off the to-do list will NEVER increase your value or worth, it’s inherent and it needs to come from within, not from what you do or what others tell you. You may even be thinking that getting things done IS one of your values and if you are I want you to consider taking time to discover your top values – one of the things we do in the very beginning of my AwakenYou program, what this does is it helps us to check-in with what we think is important.
Take some time to look at your need to accomplish and how it might actually be getting in the way of what you most want to accomplish when you look back on your life. I promise you that when you look back you won’t be highlighting all of your hours spent at work, pulling all the weeds, getting all your closets organized or whatever is on your current to-do.
When it comes to your marriage, is it possible that you are using your accomplishments as a way to prove yourself worthy? Are you comparing to-do lists? Are you doing as a way to prove your spouse’s lack of accomplishment?
Are you lazy?
I want to suggest that you take some time to write about what you consider lazy to be, it might be a bit eye-opening. Do you want to think of yourself as lazy or do you want to think of yourself as powerful, accomplished, and worthy?
If taking time to be was actually an integral part of getting MORE done, how would you look at taking time “off”?
In your marriage: are you doing more to prove the opposite to your spouse?
Do you trust yourself?
So many voices demanding your time and energy. Which way should you turn? Which action should you take? Who needs to be prioritized? Most of us don’t trust ourselves enough to say no to the demands while saying yes to ourselves. We continue to tell ourselves we’re going to do something, like take some time for ourselves, and then don’t take the steps to implement, evaluate and create our success, which ultimately leads us to not trust ourselves.
It’s like we make the goal so insurmountable that our failure is inevitable. Could we instead take a smaller step like pausing and telling someone you have to think about it when you have someone ask for your time. Pause before you say yes, or no, pray about it, meditate on it, do you want to change your current plans to take the time to yourself, saying no to yourself, and say yes to them? Baby steps my friends. Constraint and one step at a time.
In your marriage: what is it you want to do in your marriage, how can you come up with those small steps that will get you moving forward?
Trauma and busy-ness
Something I’d like you to consider is if your busy-ness is connected to some past trauma or voice of someone else, because if it is, and it’s likely it is, how can you take your power back in your present life? How can you recognize this old coping mechanism of running from the pain and give yourself a giant hug of loving kindness while recognizing that it’s an old pattern. You can grant yourself time to pause while also teaching yourself that you are not lazy and how to trust what it is you need.
As you begin to open up to the possibility that taking a break is exactly what you need in the moment and trusting that when that need is fulfilled you will jump back into your next step with exuberant commitment.
The work of working on our marriage relationship includes the work of compassionately recognizing old trauma reactions so that you can slowly release them and start to embrace the love relationship that feels light and airy.
When it comes to our lives we need to look at where we are, where we’ve come from, and where we are going while also taking time to learn how to listen to our inner wisdom. When we are able to see how our thoughts fail to serve us, how we strive to make others accept us as worthy without taking the time to do so for ourselves, that’s when growth occurs. Other people will think we’re lazy and not accomplishing enough when we honor the cycle of settling down and resting, it’s when you can be ok with what they think that shows you the progress you’ve made. It’s when you trust yourself to take the time when your body and brain needs it and to come back even stronger, this is what proves you are growing and making progress. What if this time you are going through right now is exactly what you need to make the most of that time that is coming up?
I am a marriage coach who helps women and couples go from feeling powerless to change how they feel about their marriage to feeling powerful and taking ownership of how they feel. My process isn’t about changing your partner; it’s about discovering who you are so that you can AwakenYou in your marriage, and through this process, you will begin to find that your partner will change as well! Schedule your free mini-coaching session today to discover how coaching can help you take your next steps forward toward what you want in your marriage.
