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There are 2 ways to approach relationships.

The first one is by making everything about you, taking it all personally, and worrying about yourself.

The other way is to focus on the other person, to give generously, to put them first, to extend yourself on their behalf, and to make sure you keep what’s best for them in the forefront.

The first way is our default setting.

The second way takes consistent and conscious effort. It takes emotional labour, a lot of soft skills, and a high EQ.

The first way leaves you feeling like you can’t get enough, you feel like you need to preserve yourself, and use force to make things happen.

The second way fills your heart. It makes all of the extra work worth it, and it pays off in ripple effects that you might never anticipate or even know about. It’s powerful and works in mysterious ways, but you have to trust that the work is worth it and will be enough.

If you choose the first way you will always feel like there is more to life.

If you choose the second way, you will have to operate on faith and trust and expose yourself all of the time. You can’t protect yourself or you fall back into the first way.

But the good news is, you’ll never have to think about yourself because the more you try to help other people get what they want, the less you will ever want for anything else.

I always looked at people pleasing like brown nosing. In my mind people pleasers are doing things to keep the people around them happy, saying what other people wanted to hear, and being who they wanted you to be.  

There have been times I have preached to others about being a people pleaser and how it wasn’t authentic.  

Since I started being brave, I have noticed something about myself that I didn’t want to see. 

I am a people pleaser after all, but not in the way I had defined it.  
My way of keeping people happy is to do less and remain small. 
I shrink to keep them happy and to not threaten them in anyway.

I don’t speak up and I try not to stand out because both cause conflict. 

My mom had to force me to buy a pretty wedding dress because I wasn’t even looking at the picking pretty ones.  

I did the same with my high school graduation dress. 

I have been so surprised with the amount of support I have received on my new journey to be brave. 

My life view was telling me I had to be small, but the support I have received has been so big.  

Big and small at the same time. 

This is just one more reason to live outside your comfort zone.

I was having a conversation with a friend the other day about love.

I mentioned to him how there were so many times I remember “liking” my boyfriend a whole lot more after we broke up than when we were a “couple”.

It’s one of those things I feel guilty about because it’s so backwards to how it’s supposed to be.

I was so relieved when he answered with a “me too!”

“Me too” makes everything feel better doesn’t it?  It’s so healing to know you aren’t the only one.  Alchoholics anonymous is really on to something there 😉

It seemed there was something about being exclusive that changed the dynamic of the relationship.

Exclusivity brought about dependency, co-dependency, jealousy, control, constriction, restriction, rules, and all of the crazies with it.  

We would break up and all of that would all disappear and I would think, “hey I genuinely like you as a person”.

My mom is subscribed to Stacy Westfalls  email list and she forwarded me an email from her the other day.

For those of you who don’t know, Stacy rode “Roxy” bareback and bridle-less in the freestyle reining at The Congress in 2009… the video has since gone viral because it’s nothing short of absolutely breathtaking.

In the email Stacy said this:

“It took me years, decades even, of developing my skills to the point where I understood:

• A well trained horse is in physical and mental balance.
  
• A well trained rider is in physical and mental balance.

When these statements are both true and you watch a horse and rider…you are watching self carriage. I would argue that the horse and the rider are both fully required to be in self carriage for them to blend into each other and become extensions of one another.”

Self carriage.

I love this.  

I literally can’t even begin to describe how much I love this.

This does not only apply to horse and rider, a healthy relationship is a healthy relationship whether it’s between 2 animals, an animal and a human, or 2 humans.

“Self carriage is required for them to blend into each other and become extensions of one another.”

1000 times yes!

Maybe it’s because I grew up on the back of a horse, but this is the kind of relationship my soul is begging me to find.

This is the kind of relationships we all need to have.

I encourage you to watch the video of Stacy and Roxy, even if you are not a horse person, and watch them together. (Click here)

It is the most beautiful relationship I have ever been witness to, and now Stacy has given me the words to define it.

I genuinely hope you can find this in your relationships, this is how they are meant to be.

I have learned over the years that I do best with a certain level of security. When all of my physical needs are met and I’m not feeling threatened in any way then I am my most creative, ambitious, best self.

Because of this I don’t take a lot of financial risk. I do not feel secure when I can’t pay my bills, and therefore I’m not able to be my best self if I overdo it.

Learning more about financial risk is something that’s been on my list for a while, but yesterday, by accident, I started to see risk in a new light.

I was listening to Theresa Reed talk about risk. Up until this point, I only associated risk with money. But she said we all take risks everyday.

As I started to think about this I realized several different ways that we take risks.

When we open our hearts we take a risk.

When we tell a lie, or sometimes when we tell the truth, we take a risk.

When we procrastinate we take a risk.

When we drive we take a risk.

When we leave our children with a babysitter we take a risk.

When we get on a horse we take a risk.

Every single thing we do involves an element of risk. And we really are risking something every day.

When you start to look at risk in this light, you will see that there are areas where you are more inclined to take bigger risks, and others not so much.

If you look at the areas where you are comfortable taking a bigger risk, you can apply the framework from it to an area where you are less inclined to take a risk.

It’s worth taking the time to determine if you are more comfortable taking a risk emotionally, physically, mentally or financially.

Then take a moment to ask yourself why.

I think you can learn a little something about yourself here. I certainly did.

My mind doesn’t think in terms of failure… I don’t worry about failing, and I don’t ever feel like I’ve failed. It’s not on my radar.

I assume a lot of people must worry about failing because there is a lot of talk about dancing with failure, failing forward, and failing more than you succeed.

Since failure is not something I worry about, I’ve made up for it with other very real and scary worries.

I get hung up on being wrong, making the same mistake twice, or looking dumb. Those are way worse if you ask me.

I avoid them at all costs.

They are pretty similar to failure, but not quite the same.

Brooke Castillo was talking about daily action in pursuit of an impossible goal on her podcast, and she talked about the failure that comes with it.

I loved the analogy she used and the visual it created for me, and I think it’s worth sharing.

She said the winner of the Super Bowl doesn’t win without mistakes. They fumble the ball, turn it over, miss tackles, and the other team scores.

The Super Bowl winner makes mistakes the whole way… and still manage to win in the end.

It’s always such a relief to me when I get out of my head and see that mistakes are normal. And so is failure, and so is making a wrong play.

You can win the Super Bowl even though you’ve made mistakes.

You can not win the Super Bowl if you don’t play.

Nobody is responsible for your feelings. Only you are.

But that doesn’t mean that you won’t still be triggered.

Sometimes someone will say something that upsets you because it’s opening an old wound.

And sometimes someone will say something that is mean spirited.

At times like this we need to remember that what comes out of another persons mouth says more about them than you.

When someone is downright mean – they are telling you who they are.

Believe them.

It’s never helpful to give someone else the power to make you feel bad about who you are. You are always beautiful and brilliant.

Our culture rewards and admires high achievers. That’s not how all cultures work, but it is how our culture works.

At the same time, we tell each other not to work too hard, and believe that people who do aren’t happy.

Maybe that is true when we are talking about ego and scarcity driven jobs, but always doing your best is different.

The “doing your best work no matter what you are doing” road isn’t busy and it’s too fast paced for a lot of people.

Practicing until you understand the skill, tying up all of the loose ends, working until you have overturned all of the stones, matters if you want to give yourself the very best shot at success

It’s almost always appreciated by others who see it and are on the “do your best work” team.

Give it all you’ve got this time, and then watch for what mattered and what didn’t, search for how you could do a little better next time on the things that matter.

This is all a lot easier if you remain humble and don’t fall into the trap of believing you are in a race against someone else.

You are only ever in a race with yourself.

I was discussing recent events in my life with a friend a while back and she said to me, “people do the strangest things thinking they’re getting their needs met”.

I loved it when she said it because even though I preach about others being mirrors to us, there are still things I take personally. I was in the middle of a “taking it personally” scenario. Her words helped me get some distance so it didn’t feel so much like it was “all about me”.

I’ve noticed when there is something I need to hear or understand better, it pops into my life in different ways and from different messengers.

When I was reading an article and one of the headings in the article said, “No matter what kind of behavior other people exhibit, they are acting in the most effective way they are capable of (at that moment) to fulfill a desire or to relieve their suffering”, my ears perked up.

Same message, new messenger.

The article went on to say, “Some methods are skillful and helpful to others, others are unskillful and destructive, and almost all destructive behavior is unconscious. So there is no good and evil, only smart and dumb (or wise and foolish.)”

I’ve often wondered if destructive behaviour is smart or dumb. Manipulation appears highly calculated, but if that person deeply and open heartedly understood the consequences and ripple effect of their behaviour… would they still do it? I don’t think so.

What does all of this mean?

People are constantly trying to meet their need to fulfill desires or relieve suffering. That includes me and you.

Conflict comes when one person is trying to fulfill a desire and another person perceives that action of fulfillment to cause them suffering.

At that point we begin to gain insight as to whether a person is skillful or unskilled.

The trick is knowing what to do once you gain the insight.

I haven’t totally figured that part out yet.

Room and space to think is important, but so is consistent action.

Too much of one or the other will take you backwards.

Its a dance between building your outer life, and taking apart your inner one.

Thinking gives you a chance to see what’s happening, sort things out, notice what is working, and heal.  If you don’t give yourself the time to think, you keep repeating patterns and reacting to life in the same ways.

But too much thinking will paralyze you.  It creates self doubt, wears you out, and brings overwhelm.

So you have to keep taking action.  Trying new things, learning new skills, applying new knowledge and consistently showing up.

But then you need to take stock.  Taking time to think and process the changes that are happening so you can assess what direction to head when you get going again.

Then you stop thinking and get going.

Being present, in the moment, and accepting what is happening as it happens.

Then processing, sorting it out, remembering what’s important and trying again.

Don’t stay in either space too long, just go back and forth between them.

Thats the journey framework.

Have you been doing too much thinking?  Or taking too much action?

Before I stared my fear of rejection straight in the face, I was dancing around it.

I was making choices for the wrong reasons, people pleasing, and staying in toxic situations because I was always working overtime avoiding rejection.

But when I started to see rejection differently, I was able to make better choices.

What I learned was that people weren’t actually rejecting ME.

They might be rejecting the situation, or the offer, and in some cases they were just not able to be open minded or brave enough to say yes.

Other times they just weren’t in the right place or at the right time.

But it was never a straight up rejection. And their choice wasn’t a reflection of my worthiness like I used to believe.

I am worthy because I am human. That’s it. That’s all it takes for all of us. We are all worthy.

Some times we aren’t in full alignment with each other, but that doesn’t make us any less worthy.

Just for today move forward boldly without fear of rejection. You are worthy. Nobody else gets to decide that for you, so stop waiting for approval, or worrying about being rejected.

The universe has a hard time delivering to those who don’t ask. No for now doesn’t mean no forever. Things are always changing. Leave your fear of rejection behind you and build the life you want.

I used to feel guilty about investing in myself because I didn’t know my value.

I would buy a book, but I would buy the kindle version so that it didn’t cost as much.

Almost everything I spent on for myself was bought second hand or on a smoking good deal, otherwise it was left at the store.

Buying the domain for this blog wasn’t an easy decision.

It was one of the first times I felt like I really invested in myself.  I had to think it all the way through and I justified it by the fact that I bought $6 drinks at Starbucks occasionally, so I actually did buy things “just for me” and that it would be ok.

It changed my life.

(Interesting to note that I almost never go to Starbucks anymore).

The following year I invested in myself once again and bought Seth Godins Marketing Seminar.  It was such a struggle to get through as I didn’t know much about marketing, and honestly wasn’t very interested in Marketing.  But I really admire Seth Godins brain and I wanted to learn from him.

That marketing seminar changed my life.

I have bought several other online seminars from Seth Godin since and each one has brought new perspective into my life.

I have just purchased my 3rd course for this year – and I expect it to change my life too.

We are in an incredible moment in time.  For the first time ever, the Internet has made it easy to learn from the people who came before you. Who have already tried to do what you want to do and they are sharing their experiences.

They used to say technology was outdated before it ever hit the shelves at a store because the knowledge spread so quickly. Now that we are connected to so many humans we can learn from each other so fast that we used to know can become outdated quickly too.

Invest in yourself.  The options are endless and its no fun to get left behind.

You are worth so much more than a drink at Starbucks.

Courage means you show up when you would rather put your head in the sand.  

Courage means trying something you’ve never tried before.
Courage means looking your fear in the face and not buying into its story.

Courage means you speak up for yourself.

Courage means you do what’s right even when it seems wrong.

Courage means you ask the question, and listen what the answer is.

Courage means being kind when you want to be malicious, and being brave when you want to be small.

Courage means you can do hard things.

And you CAN do hard things.

Having courage is the only way to achieve the life you want… without it you will never get there.  

“Courage is the most important of all of the virtues, because without courage you can’t practice any other virtue consistently” ~ Maya Angelou

Somewhere along the line we learn that work has to be hard.  That we have to struggle and exhaust ourselves in order to get anywhere.

And when we have that belief it makes working, hard to do, hard to get excited about, and hard to accomplish.

But work doesn’t have to be hard.

Just for today, let your work be easy.

Let go of the notion it has to be hard and look for ways that it can be simple.

Just be consistent, that’s what matters.  The time spent working toward something will pass either way, make sure you have something to show for it.

Always celebrate the payoff you get from consistently showing up, putting yourself on the hook and using your time well.  Notice the progress you’ve made along the way so you don’t burn out.

Just for today let’s help someone else get a little closer to what they want.

Our culture teaches us to be selfish and to look out primarily for ourselves. We are taught to use others to increase our “fame”, or piggy back on someone else to increase our status.

Just for today let’s change our focus.

Let’s go beyond what we see through our lens and our worldview, and really consider what someone else sees and what they are aiming for, then let’s help them move closer to it.

Maybe a conversation will help, it might be a gift, or it could be lending a hand that makes a difference.

Let’s help each someone else rise.

When we focus on our own journey we are able to continue to grow and evolve in a way that makes sense for us.

When we start feeling like someone else is “getting ahead” of us we begin to force outcomes and push agendas.

Anytime we force something to happen, we miss the details that come with the unfolding of the journey.

It’s great to cheer others on in their progress, but it’s possible if they are moving fast they aren’t becoming the person they need to be to sustain the change. It’s also possible that they are.

Either way, trying to hurry your journey in order to keep up with someone else doesn’t make sense because you didn’t start at the same start line.

The tortoise wins the race because he just keeps plugging away.

There is always so much more we can be doing.

We are never done.

And if we aren’t careful, we can burn out trying to do it all.

This is always an issue for me. I’m constantly having to check myself before I wreck myself.

Often I go too far.

But lately I’ve been working hard to just let enough be enough.

Just for today, let yourself and all that you do be enough.

And we might be surprised to find out that it really is enough.