Step TEN to Creating a Life You Love: Re-evaluation, Self-Compassion and Living in Grace

“I do not at all understand the mystery of grace - only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us.” —Anne Lamott

The 10th and final step to create a life that you love is about graceful living and self-compassion through the growth process—which really is a lifelong process. With this final step, you may find that your goals shift and maybe even majorly change. Sometimes what you think you want dramatically changes when you are more engaged in the self-reflection and self-awareness process. With self-reflection it can come to light that what we think we want may really be what others have wanted for us—or what we think we should do rather than what we truly desire deep inside.

Currently a lot has changed with the COVID-19 virus impacting everyone all around the world. Have you noticed any shifts or changes from this significant shift in the way you work, commute, socialize and live your life? This is a helpful time to evaluate and re-evaluate your vision for your life, your goals and most importantly to focus on taking care of yourself.

Throughout this step there will be opportunities for evaluating and re-evaluating your personal change process. You want to ensure that you create a lifelong dedication to being true to your authentic self. Self-compassion and graceful living are at the core of this step. These are subtle and yet powerful shifts that solidify the benefits of the change process. They are rooted in mindfulness. How to be with yourself, how you treat yourself and care for yourself are essential to creating a life that you love. You spend a lot of time with you, and maybe at this time, more than ever before! When you are attempting to grow in self-leadership, you want to get along with, offer support to and care for yourself.

Living gracefully is being accepting, at ease and patient with life. Now if you are a total type-A person, that does not mean changing yourself at the core of who you are, that would not be living in authenticity. It does mean if you are type-A (a bit controlling, like things a certain way, impatient, maybe a little bossy?) that you could work to soften and create more grace towards yourself and others.

As you are engaging in the change process and feeling more grounded and empowered to live the life you want and a life that you love, it is helpful to re-evaluate where you are. As you reflect on how you got where you are, you can assess if this is in alignment with where you want to go. If you not, that’s ok! It’s better to know now. Life is short, but at the same time, life is a really long time to feel stuck and unfulfilled. It’s never too late to shift gears and create new goals and reimagine your vision—no matter what.

Self-compassion is an essential element to this process of personal growth and change. When you treat yourself with kindness you are more likely to extend that kindness outward and become resilient. There are three parts to the process of offering yourself compassion in times when you are struggling or feeling down on yourself. These three steps to self-compassion are: 

1.    Mindfulness- aligning with what is true right now. How are you feeling right now? Do not go into a judgmental space, just notice and allow yourself to be present with whatever is there.

2.    Universality- reminding yourself that you are human! Remind yourself that at times everyone feels this way.

3.    Kindness- say to yourself words that you would offer to a dear friend going through the exact same emotional experience or struggle. 

Here’s an example to highlight the process of offering yourself self-compassion: I am upset with myself for not completing my desired action steps and not following through with my plan for this week. I am beating myself up inside and feeling inadequate and like a failure. Shifting into self-compassion, first I become mindful of my emotions and ask myself, what is true right now? Then I acknowledge how I am feeling, right now, which could be: I feel inadequate, I feel like a failure, I feel frustrated, sad and defeated. Then I offer myself the experience of feeling the universality of this experience: sometimes everyone feels this way, at times everyone feels disappointed in themselves, this is a common human experience. Then I offer myself kindness and consider what I might say to a friend experiencing the same circumstance: I am committed to my goals, I just got distracted last week and that’s ok, there’s A LOT going on in the world right now that feels out of control. This week I can plan and prepare to follow through. It’s also ok to not push myself so hard when there are additional stressors out of my control in life. How do you feel after reading that? Think of a time you were hard on yourself and practice these three steps to experience how it feels to offer yourself self-compassion in the present moment.

When you are stuck in the thought cycle of beating yourself up, you will most likely stay in the disappointed and defeated state for a much longer period of time. This does not build resilience. When you apply that kind of grace to yourself you feel less pressure and you will be less likely to punish yourself internally. This process builds an extremely valuable inner resources such as feeling confident, strong and worthy. This process releases any internalized guilt and shame. This very simple three step process can produce profound shifts and results within your life.

Graceful living is living in a state of ease, not trying to control, force or judge anyone or anything—especially yourself. It is truly a kind way to be and exist within your life. Grace is not easy all the time and requires, just like anything else, practice. How can you approach something with a bit more grace today? Try it and notice the impact. Patience and releasing judgment are important factors, and they too are a practice—often a lifelong practice.

Now that you have been working through these ten steps, I hope you can integrate this very useful element of self-compassion and living in grace towards yourself and others. This not only allows you to create a life that you love, but to have a mindful, accepting and peaceful inner and outer experience.

Have you been using these steps to work towards any particular change in your life? I’d love to hear how this process has impacted you and the changes you desire. I do hope this finds you healthy and safe amid this global crisis. Please, take care of yourself and be well.

Step EIGHT to Creating a Life You Love: Building on the Change Process

“Quitting is never an option on the road to success. Find the way forward. If you have a positive mindset and are willing to persevere, there is little that is beyond your reach. The attitude of being ready to work even in the face of challenges and despite odds is what will make all the difference in your life.” ― Roopleen

Step 8 to creating a life that you love is about celebrating your change process and nurturing it as it develops. You will focus on the good, the wins you are achieving and the positive shifts that are occurring. You will have opportunities to make adjustments when your motivation needs some tweaking. Developing a consistent daily practice to focus on the positive and express gratitude will be outlined and encouraged to integrate into a daily self-awareness positivity practice. When you focus on what’s going well you tend to want to create more of it!

As we move into this step, and really the final three steps, the aspects surrounding change are more nuanced and less direct. They are more about how to hold onto the changes you’ve created and continuing to dive deeper into what you want and why you want it. Because backsliding is an inevitable part of the process, developing a daily practice to ensure forward momentum is essential.

You may find as some of the smaller steps become habits that your focus may change, what you want may change and your desires become deeper. For example, for many who struggle with emotional eating, they often initially have goals related to wanting to change their body in some way or adhere to some type of diet plan. However, after making shifts and changes, they recognize that their relationship with food, body—or anything else—are all reflected within their relationship with themselves. This is experienced through deep self-awareness and constant self-reflection.

This step is about allowing the positive changes you’ve created to become not just a rote habit, but to savor the experience of the change, to take in the positive feelings of the change and to recognize and be grateful to yourself that you are responsible for the change. This is worth celebrating! Gratitude and daily self-reflection practices that focus on what went well, what changes you’ve maintained and where you can fine-tune your vision is central.

Now that you have seen how a plan turns behaviors into habits, maintaining those habits is how to continue to build on the change process. Taking time daily to reflect on what you did do, what went well and the positive impact that it had on you will help to keep the motivation flowing. This is the time to incorporate gratitude as a practice into your daily routine. As you reflect on what went well, say thank you to yourself for taking the time to put action into your vision and make the changes you desire. Expressing gratitude to yourself to be able to take action and for any of the people who supported you or anything/one else that helped you through this process will allow you to experience an abundance of positive feelings. When you link these positive feelings with the process of change, that will create a stronger desire to keep going. Reflecting on the good, taking time to let it sink in deeply and expressing gratitude all support your progress and build upon the change process in a meaningful way.

Putting this daily practice into your routine would look something like this… Start a daily positive action and gratitude journal. Begin by taking a couple slow, deep, centering breaths. Open your journal and write down two things that you did today to support your vision. These will be any action steps you did take today, no matter how big or small. Focus on what went well and how it felt to complete those action steps. (If your mind tries to distract you with what you didn’t do or anything negative, pause and go back to focusing in this moment solely on the positive.) Take a moment to savor the positive feelings that arise, letting them sink into your being. Notice how it feels in your body to focus on the positive, along with celebrating your growth and change process. Now thank yourself for taking the time to do these action steps and notice how that feels to focus your gratitude inward. Next, write down two things/people you are grateful for from your day and specifically why you feel grateful for these things/people. Take a moment to savor those positive feelings of gratitude, letting them sink into your being. Notice how it feels in your body when you practice gratitude. Savor the positive experience of reflecting on your dedication and expressing gratitude.

This simple and yet super powerful daily practice will help keep you aligned to your greater vision for your life. This daily practice is such a rewarding part of the change process. It does not take much time; however, it makes a big difference in how you feel and ultimately sparks more desire to continue to take action consistently. As you build on the small steps you continue to take, over time you prepare yourself to make big changes and live your vision. You are creating a life that you love!

Step ONE to Creating a Life You Love: Self-Awareness

“Self awareness is the honest ability to take a look at your life without any attachment to it being right or wrong, good or bad.” –Debbie Ford

Last week I introduced ten steps to creating a life that you love and over the next ten posts I’ll be diving deeper into each step. When I think about any of the changes I have made in life, usually the first time I attempted the change it didn’t stick. Things like exercising consistently, eating well, self-care, meditation, reducing stress and anxiety, all did not integrate so easily. When I was able to examine why I couldn’t seem to be consistent, I realized a lot about myself and how I operate. I need structure, support, accountability—and I have to need and want the change for a reason bigger than “I should” do this. It was through the process of self-reflection and self-awareness I could see where I was getting in my own way of making the changes I claimed I wanted in my life. That leads me to step one, which is self-awareness. This step encourages a process and specific practices to become deeply self-aware.

In order to know yourself fully and understand your patterns—whether they are positive (encourage change and consistency) or negative (self-sabotage and fear based)—and get comfortable with the discomfort of change, you MUST have self-awareness. This first step to creating a life that you love offers you the ultimate foundation for change. The process of becoming more self-aware allows you to explore and examine your internal emotional world, how you respond to life, what motivates and inspires you as well as the often self-created blocks to change that are standing in your way.

Mindfulness is a major part of this step, as is self-compassion. Having a deeper understanding why you have not yet made the changes you set out to make more than once is key to knowing yourself and building your Inner Strength to make it happen. When you are living mindfully you create opportunities to know yourself and accept yourself completely with a nonjudgmental awareness. When you can remove the judgment you remove pain and shame. This step presents opportunities to create practices to live a truly mindful life. As you become more self-aware, present and accepting, you will begin to tune into and listen to your inner wisdom.

Understanding how to be mindful and practicing mindfulness have been big time game changers in my life. I have learned that I am indeed my own worst enemy—or my greatest ally. If you have had a desire to make a specific change in your life, possibly in relation to your relationship with food, understanding yourself and why you have not stepped into a space of change will create the opportunity to open yourself up to the possibilities on the other side of your limiting beliefs and fears.

When it comes to emotional and stress eating, the difficult part about change can be not understanding how it became a negative pattern, and then not knowing what else to do with stress and uncomfortable emotions besides soothe them with food (or fill in food with whatever your self sabotage patterns may be). That is why self-awareness is where we start. When you become self-aware, you understand and see clearly where your patterns have arisen from so that you can begin to create change through self-awareness, self-reflection and self-compassion.

While self-awareness is understanding that the patterns exist, self-reflection allows you to understand how these unhealthy patterns originated and become “stuck” and then self-compassion creates internal peace and acceptance. All of these elements require that you are mindful, that you are fully present and that you engage with what is true right now without judging it. This vital piece of mindfulness—the nonjudgment—is the kicker! You might feel really adept at being present, however, your ego might have a WHOLE LOT to say about the present moment as it is being presented to you—this is right, this wrong, this your fault, this is their fault, you are superior, you are inferior—the poor ego is where we usually hold much of our internal messiness. Being nonjudgmental and compassionate recognizes that we all are a mess to some degree and that is not good or bad, it’s just what is true right now.

Below are some questions that allow you tap into what you want in a reflective way. These questions offer an opportunity to understand your limiting beliefs, your internal “mess” and begin to not only challenge them, but understand that they are a part of your past and you no longer need them as you move forward. Couple this self-reflection with self-awareness and a daily dose of mindfulness and you will be well immersed in step one!

Pull out your favorite journal or any pen and paper and as you read each question just begin to “free write” whatever comes to mind. Don’t overthink this and definitely do not judge what comes up and out. Just write…

1.    What do I think when I hear the word change?

2.    How does it feel in my body when I think about the word change?

3.    What do I want?

4.    What limiting beliefs do I have about what you want?

5.    Do I believe it is possible for me to have this, why or why not?

6.    Is any of what I want coming from a space of ego, meaning what others will think if I had this, or having this makes me a better or worse person in the eyes of others?

7.    Are there any internal judgments coming up inside of me because I want this?

8.    How much do I want this, how long have I wanted this, what have I done so far to get this?

9.    What is the reason I have not pursued what I want?

10. Where did this reason come from?

11. What motivates me when I do pursue what I want?

12. What is my biggest fear?

Now read back over your answers and notice how it feels to be in a space of self-reflection and self-awareness. I recommend that you follow up with some free writing from a space of self-compassion. The three steps to self-compassion are: 1. mindfulness, recognizing how you are feeling in this moment without judging it; 2. creating a sense of connection, recognizing that at times everyone feels this way; and 3. kindness, speaking to yourself as you would a friend about why you have not moved forward towards what you want as well as offering yourself kind reassurance. Write down your biggest insights that you have created through self-reflection.

I encourage you to practice a mindful minute every day for this next week (and beyond!) where you set a timer and begin to connect to the rhythm of your breath. Any time you notice that you are attending to a distraction, such as a thought, a sound, an emotion or a body sensation, release the distraction and return your focus to your breath. Your mind may get distracted every second, that’s ok! Just return your focus to your breath every second! Mindfulness is called a practice for a reason! Remember that in life you get good at what you practice…

So that’s first step towards creating a life that you love, self-awareness. When you know yourself and stop judging yourself—and you open yourself to understanding your own blocks and doing the work to move forward—you set yourself up to create a life that you love.

I will be back next week with step two, aligning with your sense of purpose. This step will be fun and engaging, however, it will be most helpful to move forward when you understand why you have been standing still, so do the work this week to reflect to prepare yourself to tap into your vision and purpose!