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You just can’t make decisions out of fear. Fear is a result of the story you’ve been telling yourself and it is never the truth of the situation.

Instead of avoiding or shielding yourself from the fear, you need to move forward in spite of it.

You need to be brave.

Maya Angelou says that courage is the most important of all of the virtues. And Power vs. Force says that courage is where you shift from low vibration into high vibration.

Courage is a big deal.

I realized while listening to Tony Robbins yesterday is that you can’t have courage without fear.

I usually muscle my way through the fear by being brave. But I don’t welcome the fear to give me a chance to be courageous.

If we never had fear, we would never have courage.

And we would never have hero’s.

Welcome the fear. Not only is moving ahead in spite of the fear courageous, it is where hero’s are made, and its where you cross the line into a space that most other people won’t.

And if you keep moving ahead in spite of the fear, over and over and over, the world is your oyster.

I was chatting with a friend of mine the other day…we talked about my blog and the weather and just made general conversation.   When It was time to leave, she said, “I have something I’ve been wanting to talk to you about for a while, but I haven’t had the words”. 

She likes to have her thoughts all together before sharing.   Talking and journaling are both such great ways to sort out your thoughts.  She hadn’t done either yet.  

So the conversation had to wait.  

She went straight to work.   One of her first customers was deaf, and she had to write everything down putting her behind for the rest of the day.  

When she later told me the story, I thought, isn’t it amazing how the universe sends us messages?   When you don’t say something to someone who listens, you are sent someone who can’t hear and you’re forced to write.   

Oh the irony.  

It was like she was being given her options to sort out her thoughts right back to back.  

I don’t know if that was really the intended message for my friend.  I know she didn’t see it that way.   But it was a funny enough sequence of events it made me chuckle.  

Yesterday I talked about messages and how they show up. When I start to see the same information come at me from unrelated sources, I start paying attention.

This is how the universe speaks to you. You don’t get the guidance if you aren’t listening. Every interaction, whether it’s with a person, animal, plant, or thing, it holds information because it contains energy. The way you interpret the energy is all about you and your journey.

The message I wrote about yesterday that I have been receiving was the importance of movement in all living things. We have been trained to stay confined, lay down to rest, and seize up when we are sick, injured, or unhealthy. That is completely backwards to how we are designed. When we move, we heal.

The second message I have been receiving from several different sources lately is that small tweaks make major change.

We like to completely throw in the towel and change everything when we are not seeing the results we want. This sabotages what’s been working and takes us back to the start, sometimes in a much worse starting spot.

Big changes uproot the entire delicate energetic balance and should be done with great care and consideration.

When we make small changes at the source, we keep the momentum and the energy we have already built. As that energy flows forward from the source at a slightly new angle, the results are dramatically different.

To keep the changes small takes great discipline and laser focused intention, diligence and understanding of where you are and where you want to go is critical. Nuance is everything.

Refining ourselves, our plans, and our actions requires high level thinking. The journey is hard, but the rewards are great.

Making change in your life isn’t hard.  It happens in an instant.  A new understanding or a new decision will change everything.  The hard part is sticking to it because it’s so damn uncomfortable.

That’s why Tony Robbins says, “if you’re going to storm the island, you have to burn the boat”.

If you give yourself an out, you’ll quit before you get to the other side of the dip.  (Seth Godin wrote a whole book about The Dip – the predictable spot to quit – where things get hard and you feel defeated.  Spoiler alert:  this is the worst possible time to quit)

But getting to the other side of the dip is hard.  Way harder than you think its going to be.  It feels impossible.  So if you aren’t forced to get there, if you don’t burn the proverbial boat… you’ll turn back.

The other side is where you find all of the things you were looking for when you attempted to make the change in the first place.  Maybe its peace, maybe its confidence, it could be where you find your value, it might be where you find what your heart desires, or maybe it’s freedom.  Freedom to do what you want, when you want, the way you want.

The freedom to live where you want, be who you want, have the relationships you want, and enjoy your time the way you want.

These things are on the other side of the dip.

You don’t actually have to burn the boat, because that adds an element of fear and safety.  In order to create, we need to feel safe.

I used to never stick with something because I thought I had to always go all in.  I would abandon everything, but because I felt naked and alone in the storm I would quickly switch directions if it didn’t work and start again somewhere else.

That made things worse.

All you have to do is not allow yourself turn back.  Keep refining things, keep finding a way to make them work, keep track of what is working, and keep exploring the island.

One day you might need your boat to move forward – you just can’t allow yourself the option to go back to where you came from.

P.S.  The $50 discount for my workshop runs out on Tuesday.  Click here for more details

How is it that I’m 41 and only just figuring out what a bully is?

Aggressiveness was so widely accepted in my circle for years, it had become normal…

I decided a few years back that I wanted to level up, and I started researching what that would mean exactly. I wasn’t proud of my life and I wanted to do better.

It’s been a journey and I would love to tell you all about that journey so far… but not today

Today I am mostly surrounded by healthy adults… where maturity is plentiful and aggression is rare.

My image of a bully was a big mean kid pushing a little kid around the playground. It never occurred to me that those kids become adults, and never learn any different,

In those moments when I am faced with a bully (one from my past or otherwise), I am flabbergasted that people still operate this way in the world.

I know empathy is a high level skill, but it genuinely shocks me when someone is operating with a complete lack of awareness for how their behaviour is landing on another person.

That’s how I define a bully, and for the first time in my life I can see a bully clearly.

It’s never ok to be forceful.

We are a community minded species, which means we are wired to want what is best for each other. Anytime we are forcing our opinions or agenda onto someone else, it’s our ego talking, not our true nature and we are being a bully.

If you are looking for a particular outcome and you’re not reaching it… you probably need better skills in communication, negotiation, empathy, compassion, leadership, or maybe even sales/marketing. Take it as an opportunity to learn… and to grow into a better person.

Aggression is never the answer… you look like a lunatic, and it shows complete disregard and lack of compassion for humanity.

We began to notice evidence of mice in the house.

So I brought a barn cat inside.

Neither of my dogs would accept the farm cat into the family.    Everytime he came upstairs the dogs would chase him back down.  After a year of this torture, I took the poor cat back to the barn.

Then the mice came back.

So I got a tiny 7 week old kitten hoping he would become a good mouser.

Baby Crosby didn’t know any different.   He would come and go as he pleased, playing with everything in sight, paying no attention to the dogs.

The dogs would stare at Crosby, totally dumbfounded that he wasn’t afraid of them, and that fact scared them.  Which was fascinating to me.

Four weeks later…everyone is friends.  And the kitten already caught a mouse.

I love it when a plan comes together.

The kitten eats with them, plays with them, and sleeps in the laundry basket (irrelevant but cute).

What if we could be like the kitten?

What if we just made ourselves at home and didn’t let the bullies bully us?

What if we just did our thing while people stare at us…and eventually accept us?

Maybe showing up for life in a new way wouldn’t be so daunting.

They say grief is the price we pay for love.  

When I first heard this, I didn’t like it.  Grief is so difficult to navigate.  There are so many different emotions and stages, and it can bring  you to your knees at moments you are least expecting it, over and over again.   

Why is the payment so harsh, for something so beautiful?

The more I understand real love, the more I’m beginning to understand.  

We grow and flourish with love.  

When we are supported by it, we can be brave and do things we had never considered doing before.  

Love heals us.  

Love strengthens us.  

Love changes us.  

Love provides us with elements of life we can’t run to the store to buy.   

Real love is a privilege.  

So when we lose someone who has given us a portal towards these privileges, there is no easy button.  There is no way to sail through unscathed by their disappearance from our lives.  

When you look at the big picture, when you are grateful for the blessings love brings.   The payment for it doesn’t seem harsh, it seems minuscule in comparison.   

And aren’t we so fortunate to receive the gifts love brings to us, before payment is due.  
 

I’ve learned that gathering tools to help me out of a rut is the fastest way back out. My whole goal is to always feel as good on the inside as possible, because from there I know I can be my best self as much as possible.

We can’t be the best version of ourselves when we are under attack or feel threatened. It takes up way too much of attention and we are distracted from what matters most to us.

The best thing to do is to remove the idea of the threat as quickly as possible. Once we spiral down, climbing back out is a chore.

What are the tools that help? Most importantly we need a strong foundation in our belief system.

This is what is inside of you and gives you grit and resilience. It fosters all of your self talk.

We need to fully believe that everything works out in the end. We need to embrace the fact that whatever is happening is happening in our favour, instead of against us.

We need to have clear boundaries. Every time we allow something that isn’t quite right in our lives to exist, we chip away at our own inner peace and our strength leaks out.

It’s also important to know that how we see ourselves is a reflection from the people we surround ourselves with. Once you understand this you will know why it’s so important to find people who love you and see the best in you. They help you to see the best in yourself.

If you want your best self to be better then start showing up in the world, the challenges you face will only serve to help you figure out what’s important.

The good news is that everyday we get a new opportunity to do better and be better than we were the day before and refining can happen slowly over time.

Last year I listened to a clip from Jason Silva on Facebook. He said, “I am not who I think I am, I am not who you think I am. I am who I think you think I am.”

I disagreed with this so strongly when I heard it. I was a person who had been hiding who I am for so long, and was fighting the labels I had been given and accepted. I was constantly searching for my authentic self and how to express it that I couldn’t accept that might come from another’s point of view.

I disagreed so strongly that his words stuck with me so I could at the very least understand them and then prove them wrong.

So I’ve been paying attention to this for a while now, and I’m really beginning to think there is something to it.

Because I can’t see myself from the outside, I don’t know how I’m being perceived. I want to know if what I think I’m trying to accomplish or the message I’m trying to send is actually happening.

I am pleased when what I’m doing is working and I want to know if I haven’t got it right yet and still have some work to do.

I don’t always detect when something is out of alignment because sometimes I have told myself a story to justify it and I’m getting in my own way. Sometimes I need someone to tell me, “Jodi, this isn’t normal behaviour for that” or “Jodi, you won’t get where you want to go if you keep doing this”.

Other people are constantly reflecting back to us who we are.

As long as you are clear about what’s important to you and who you want to be…

As long as you are willing to accept their reflection as feedback, not as a negotiation tool of your self worth, then you can use their feedback as a guidepost to sorting out whether or not you are on track.

This is how I felt about competing. Winning for me was never about seeing other people lose. It was always a gauge for myself.

Because showing horses is a judged event, we paid for someone else’s opinion about how we compared to everyone else around us. It goes against almost everything I preach on a daily basis.

But it also gives you very good feedback on where you are personally at. When I was striving to win, but coming up short, it was constant feedback that I still had much more to learn.

When I started to win more frequently, it was feedback that said I was starting to really understand my job.

This is also how I feel about people in general. Since I took the marketing seminar I have seen a huge change in myself. I understand and empathize with other people on a deeper level than ever before.

I am finding that if I see treatment towards others or myself that I think is unjust or unfair, I am passionately speaking up against it. This is new behaviour for me, and I wouldn’t have recognized it if I didn’t have other people reflecting it back to me.

Without their mirror, we don’t know who we are.

We are nothing more than a fallen tree in the forest wondering if we even made a sound.

Other people matter, not for us to please, but for us to understand ourselves.

Relationships have never been easy for me. From the outside looking in, I always assumed they were easy for everyone else and I was the problem.

In grade school I really struggled with belonging. I never did well in groups and always just wanted one friend for myself. That worked well until one of us missed a few days and left the other one solo, or until we made other friends.

In junior high I floundered a lot. I added boyfriends and bullies to my mix of relationships.

By high school I could finally see the light and knew the end was near. I switched schools to find a new crowd, my best friend got a steady boyfriend and she spent all of her time with him, and I had a boyfriend through the majority of those years.

After school I took control of my relationships, but not in a healthy way. I wanted friends but I had written off the idea that anyone wanted to be friends with me, so I joined Mom groups but always kept my heart closed and guarded.

Closing your heart is never a good idea. I didn’t know that at the time, I didn’t know it was a thing. I saw myself as the victim. I considered myself open and loving and friendly, but I thought nobody wanted to be friends with me. That belief caused me to sabotage every relationship, because I didn’t think anyone wanted to be friends with me, I made every decision believing they didn’t care.

I would cut friendships off cold turkey when I decided I didn’t want that type of friend anymore.

I wouldn’t show up to places I had been invited to because I didn’t think anyone would notice if I was there or not.

I wouldn’t tell them important things or talk about things that mattered because I didn’t think they cared.

How awful and confusing it must have been to be friends with me. I was kind and loving, but had this underlying belief that nobody cared, so I treated them poorly by never showing up.

Only in the last 5 years have I started to see how much I was the problem.

Only in the last 2 years have I started to gain a real understanding for relationships and how deep the connections run within them.

I’ve learned a few things…

You don’t get to just walk away from a bad relationship. There are years of healing and processing and disconnecting that has to take place.

When someone enters your life for whatever reason, personal or business, it is always important to keep the relationship strong and healthy and boundaried. At some point you will have to process all of the bad details, the more you do in real time the better it is, you don’t get to just walk away from them.

Unhealthy personal beliefs cause hurt, heartache, and pain to everyone, not just you.

I have learned the belief that serves me the best is believing that everyone feels the same way I do at the core level.

Everyone wants to be loved.

Everyone wants to be seen and heard.

Everyone wants to belong somewhere.

Everyone is operating from their own level of consciousness and it’s never about you (even when it feels like it).

Everyone longs to be fulfilled and have a meaningful life.

Everyone benefits from vulnerability, connection, support, and real empathy.

Once I began to see other people in that light, everything changed.

I learned to treat others with care and I love them more freely. I show up, I listen, and I have a better understanding of what it takes to be a good friend.

But mostly I have learned to respect every single relationship, every single connection, and every single interaction.

They aren’t about me, they are about all of us.

Every single one matters a little bit. Every big one matters a lot and they all needed to be treated with the utmost care and attention.

Until we can receive with an open heart, we’re never really giving with an open heart. When we attach judgment to receiving help, we knowingly or unknowingly attach judgment to giving help.”

― Brené Brown,

When you lose your opinion it’s a sign.

You might think you are being non confrontational and easy to get along with, and it’s probably true that you are… but it’s important to have an opinion.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want you to be like Aunt Matilda and so attached to your opinion that it causes fights at the dinner table.

I don’t want your opinions to stress you out and cause you grief because you argue with anyone who opposes it.

I just want you to decide who you are and what you stand for and how you feel about certain things.

And that involves having opinions.

Not having an opinion is a sign that you have shut down. You have been beaten down either mentally or emotionally. It’s extremely unhealthy and causes all sorts of resentment.

This is not the way to make friends. This is the way to losing yourself.

One of the very first podcasts I ever listened to told me to “have strong opinions loosely held.” I wish I could remember who said it, because it’s brilliant and it’s exactly what we need to do.

No end of world attachments. Just opinions.

And your opinion matters, if to no one else it matters to you, and to the little voice inside of you that cares.

PS. If you are on my list I sent you an email this morning. I would love to hear your opinion on it. If you would like, you can sign up to receive it at the top of this page.

If you pay close attention you will be fascinated by what goes on inside of your brain. I have no doubts.

When a song will gets stuck in your head it eventually gets your attention. You might not notice yourself singing a certain line over and over… but eventually you get tired of it, and then you notice it – and often you can’t stop it.

The same is true for other people’s words.

When you go into observation mode of what is happening inside of your head, often you will hear someone else’s words rumbling around.

The tricky part about other people’s words is that they don’t get your attention like a song does… they get mistaken for your own.

If you aren’t aware of the words that are controlling you (and most of the time you aren’t) you will battle those words inside of your head. They will cause tension, stress, anxiety, guilt, overwhelm, and self worth issues.

They wreak havoc!

But they will also keep you honest.

When someone else’s words get inside of you, and you recognize the battle they are creating, then taking time to analyze what it is that you want, or what is most important to you, will help you find your truth.

Just for today, if you happen to notice yourself battling inside of your head, stop and ask yourself which voice is you and which one isn’t.

You might just be surprised at what you find out.

On the flip side – your words will get stuck inside someone else. If you use them wisely and you can make the world a better place.

Just for today believe you are ready.

Believe you are there, everything is in place, and the time is now.

Allow all of the stories you’ve been telling yourself about why you can’t, to take a backseat.

Don’t allow resistance, doubt, fear, overthinking, and hesitation, to creep in… just for today.

Don’t allow yourself to worry.

If you want to tell yourself all of the reasons why you can’t, or shouldn’t, there is always tomorrow to talk yourself out of it again.

Just for today, remember all of the reasons why you can.

We cling to what is kind of working for us.

Sometimes it’s a job, a person, or a situation that isn’t perfect and probably isn’t really all that great in most ways, but we are getting a pretty big payoff in one way, so we won’t let it go.

We put ourselves through all sorts of misery and pain because at least it gives us a sense of safety (pays the bills, keeps us fed, keeps us warm).

But when we are on a journey to build a new or better life or become the best version of ourselves those comfortable things trap us in our old ways and our old life.

It is possible to have a life you want without making trade offs to feel safe and secure. But first you have to be brave enough to stop clinging.

You can’t be held hostage by your comfort zone.

Turn your fears into stories of faith and trust and action. You’ll be surprised how better options show up that don’t make you compromise.

You need to allow the people, places, and things to fall away from your story when it’s time … and move forward into unknown territory.

Right now I am taking a course from a friend – who is very smart and knows this subject inside and out, and I am a beginner. This has thrown me into beginner territory and I’m a complete hot mess over it.

I love to learn, and I think I’m pretty smart.

I was labelled as a smart kid in school. When I was young the school put me in enrichment programs until my parents pulled me out not wanting me to turn into a nerd with no social skills.

But the smart label stuck with me.

Labels are tricky because they can push you to live up to it, and they can also debilitate you when you aren’t living up to it.

Old labels become a story we tell ourselves. Nobody really cares about them, except for us. They become expectations and standards that we hold for ourselves. Sometimes this is good, and sometimes it’s not.

I am happy to be self taught. This is a safe space for me because there are no comparisons, there are no grades, and there is no test. It’s just me, expanding my knowledge.

But it’s very hard for me, and my ego, to be taught new things. I have embarrassed myself several times because my ego takes over trying to outsmart the teacher.

So please keep me in your thoughts as I learn from my friend and try not to let my ego embarrass myself and ruin a friendship in the meantime.

While I am being humbled over here I am once again reminded that the past does not equal the future.

There is huge power in words.  They hold an energy of their own that can reach to the deepest places in ourselves.  Places we don’t even want to admit exist.  Words can give you insight into yourself, into another person, into a relationship and into the future.

The right words can heal you, build bridges between you, and guide you to places you haven’t been. The wrong words can chill you, build walls between you, and start wars among strangers, or friends.

I feel like I never really knew their power until I started becoming more aware of how they affect every thought, every outcome, every relationship, every contract, every vow, and every social interaction. I wish when I learned “Language Arts” in school, I had learned more about the art of language.

I now listen to the words other people have used from a new point of view. I imagine what it would take for me to have put the words together like they have. I wonder what life experiences they have had or how they knew to put the words together the way they did.

What I am seeing over and over again is that vulnerability and humility are always at the heart of the words which have the most meaning and that we connect the most with.

The best song lyrics are the ones that talk about things we feel but don’t say out loud.

The best pieces of writing are the ones that illuminate a part of us we have kept in the shadows.

The best speeches are the ones that ignite something in us we can’t ignite for ourselves.

If you want to deepen your connection with other people, it matters what words you use, how you use them, and how you put them together. It also matters what words you don’t use.

Never underestimate the power of the words you choose, they tell everything.

“Words are things. You must be careful, careful about calling people out of their names, using racial pejoratives and sexual pejoratives and all that ignorance. Don’t do that. Some day we’ll be able to measure the power of words. I think they are things. They get on the walls. They get in your wallpaper. They get in your rugs, in your upholstery, and your clothes, and finally in to you.” – Maya Angelou

I find language to be incredibly interesting.  

Words have incredible power.   Each individual word we use has an energy of its own.  

There are so many fabulous and precise words you can use to describe with, and there are some not so fabulous ones….

“Profanity is the effort of a feeble mind to express itself forcibly” – Spencer W. Kimball

Speaking of a powerful way to use words to get a point across….  this quote nails it perfectly.

A friend of mine repeated this quote to me one day after a few too many F-bombs had come flying off my tongue.   It was very well played.  It changed me and opened my eyes.   

I’m not sure anyone wants to have a feeble mind.   For sure I don’t want to, but feeble I was at that moment.  

When you listen to someone who is using all sorts of profane words to express themselves, you begin to wonder why they don’t change it up.  Not only is the repetition hard to listen to, but the harshness of the words take away from their message.  

Profanity has become a colourless shortcut.    

 Let’s start using brilliant and beautiful words for expression instead.   Conversations would be so much more interesting then, don’t you think?