What a glorious Spring day here in the San Francisco Bay Area!
So I did this for my mid-day break.
This is one of my favorite ways to recharge during my workday.
What do YOU do to take care of you during the day?
Comment below and share with me. Or send me pictures. I want to see!
…and if you don’t do anything, then this is time for you to change that. Your happiness and productivity at work depend on how well you take care of you.
Whether you love your work or not. This is ESSENTIAL.
Since my grandma’s death a month ago, I’ve been remembering all the sweet memories of my time with her.
I found this picture of me when I was 4 in front of my grandparents’ house. My grandma took it.
You may wonder: What has this to do with going for the career and life of your dreams?
It has EVERYTHING to do with it.
In the past 10 years, I’ve been doing a lot of inner work to heal my childhood wounds and change the limiting beliefs I had about myself since childhood that impacted my life as an adult.
I used to think that there was something wrong with me. I was not pretty enough. I was not fun enough. I was not [fill in the blank] enough.
Thanks to all the inner work, I now know that these beliefs were FALSE.
I’m PERFECT exactly as I am. There is nothing wrong with me.
There has never been.
NEVER.
…except in my own mind.
When I see this adorable little girl, I can LOVE her exactly as she was. and send her the love that I could not give her then.
I see PERFECTION in her. I see BEAUTY in her. INSIDE and OUT.
I know she has nothing to prove to anyone.
She never had.
What about you?
Are you able to love your younger self and see the perfection in them?
or
Are you still holding negative beliefs about yourself? That you are not enough or broken in some ways?
Are these negative beliefs unconsciously driving you to PROVE that you are enough? to make choices in your career and your life to PROVE your enoughness?
If so, this may be why you are stuck in work you hate or not having the work and life you want.
I see it in a lot of my clients. The deep-seated belief that they are not enough. and the need to prove that they are enough.
As a result, they make choices or behave in a way to PROVE their enoughness.
The unconscious false beliefs they took on as a child is still driving their work and life as adults.
They wonder why they are stuck in a vicious cycle and can’t be happy in their work.
Through the process I do with them, I help them reconnect with their true authentic self, their innate brilliance within. They start realizing there is nothing wrong with them, nothing to change about who they are.
…and things start to shift.
What beliefs are you holding about YOU?
Comment below and share with me. I’m here to support you.
To your brilliance, To the work and life that reflect that brilliance,
Grieving SUCKS.
…and it SUCKS even more when you lose someone you were very close to.
The closer you are to someone, the more grieving sucks. The harder it is.
Yep.
Grieving is HARD.
Grieving HURTS.
Grieving is PAINFUL.
This is a reality of the human experience.
I know it firsthand.
I’m grieving my dear grandma’s death right now.
I hate the pain of it.
I hate that she is gone.
I wish I did not have to go through it.
I wish the pain would go away
I wish my grandma was still alive.
Every time I go out and about, a memory of her pops up.
I’m in my car and I remember when we would drive to places together.
At the grocery store, I remember when we would grocery shopping together in France.
In my bathroom, when I put my jewelry on, I remember the last time I saw her and was wearing the same jewelry.
I won’t call her anymore in the mornings or be late to my spiritual center on Sundays because I was calling her.
In the morning when I wake up, I feel this big hole inside of me.
And every time, this memory comes, it HURTS. and the tears want to come.
It hurts so much that I want to push the pain away. This is my first impulse.
Initially, I do.
and then, I stop and let the tears out. I let myself feel. It hurts and it takes LOTS of strength and courage, but I do it.
Because the only way to heal grief is to GO THROUGH IT.
Yes.
Let me repeat that. This is SO important. I want you to really hear it.
The only way to heal grief is to GO THROUGH IT.
NOT BYPASS IT.
NOT AVOID IT.
NOT AVOID THE FEELINGS.
NOT AVOID THE PAIN.
NOT LAUGH IT OFF.
It’s counterintuitive; I know.
It hurts so much that we don’t want to feel it.
We think it will get better if we don’t feel it.
We think it’s weak to feel it.
We think we need to get a grip.
We think courage and strength mean not feeling it.
NOPE. NOPE. NOPE
The opposite is true.
To heal, you have to feel
YOU HAVE TO FEEL THE PAIN OF IT.
FEEL ALL OF IT. YES, A L L O F I T.
If you don’t feel it, you can’t heal it. (as my mentors say) and this is true for ALL emotions.
FEELING IS BEING ALIVE.
If you stop feeling, you stop living.
You start dying inside. If you stop grieving, you stop living.
I’ve seen this in so many of my clients. In our 1:1 session, they may come to the call feeling some emotional pain and they want to bypass it to go to the vision of what they want. They ask me to bypass it. and I don’t.
Because It does not work that way.
To access joy, vision, and positive energy, we have to feel the pain first, when there is pain.
Otherwise, the pain stays trapped inside and blocks our life force, our insights, our joy.
We find JOY, VISION, CLARITY again by going through the pain and feeling it.
Lots of repressed emotional pain can be a major block to clarifying and finding the work you love.
Have you noticed how you feel better and lighter after feeling your emotions?
I know I do.
I’ve cried so much last week, that I’m feeling better this week.
The intensity of the grief is slowly diminishing.
I’m feeling better because I did not bypass the pain. I let it be and flow out of me.
I’m slowly starting to accept the loss, even if I don’t like it.
Is there a present or old grief that you need to feel? Some emotional pain that you have not felt?
If so, I really encourage you to feel it. and if it’s too hard or scary to feel it by yourself, reach out and seek some help, including professional help.
You are stronger than you think!
As a human, you are designed and built to feel all of it, and recover from it.
Isabelle
P.S. There is beauty in grieving, as this beautiful quote that my friend Jennifer sent me says:
“In the Lakota/Sioux tradition, a person who is grieving is considered most wakan, most holy. There’s a sense that when someone is struck by the sudden lightning of loss, he or she stands on the threshold of the spirit world. The prayers of those who grieve are considered especially strong, and it is proper to ask them for their help.
You might recall what it’s like to be with someone who has grieved deeply. The person has no layer of protection, nothing left to defend. The mystery is looking out through that person’s eyes. For the time being, he or she has accepted the reality of loss and has stopped clinging to the past or grasping at the future. In the groundless openness of sorrow, there is a wholeness of presence and a deep natural wisdom.”
― Tara Brach, True Refuge: Finding Peace and Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart
On Thursday morning, at 7 am PT, I defied time, space, and visa and I traveled to France to honor my grandma’s memory at her funeral. (My dear grandma passed away last Sunday.)
I was there with her, with everyone. I saw her and I saw everyone. It was a very cold afternoon in France. Everyone was bundled up. A few snowflakes had fallen earlier in the day.
I spoke. I read a letter to her, to honor her memory so that everybody could hear how an amazing grandma and woman she was.
People heard me loud and clear. They were touched. I was there. Oh, how wonderful to be able to be there from so far away.And talk to my grandma that way.
Thank you technology. I’m freakin’ grateful for you and for Emilie, the angel who made this possible for me.
Thank you FaceTime, thank you Bluetooth speaker.
You all made grieving from so far away more bearable.
Because of some Visa renewal in process, I cannot physically go to France right now. But I found a way to be there and it made such a difference!
Do you defy things to do what matters most to you? or to honor the people you love?
How creative are you when you are faced with things outside of your control?
or when you cannot do things the way you want?
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