Lisa McCourt teaches writing, creativity and joy to passionate souls who are ready to substantially up-level their success in work and in life. Her most recent Hay House release, Juicy Joy, is the culmination of three decades of full immersion in the world of personal development, training with top gurus to decipher the secrets of radical, lasting joy. Lisa’s 37 published books spanning all genres have sold over 5.5 million copies, won six publishing awards, and gone into 11 languages. A live and online trainer to thousands, Lisa is a frequent speaker at both writing conferences and self-growth events. Learn more at www.LisaMcCourt.com

We all experience life challenges that looking back we can see were the catalyst for living a deeper, more authentic life. What has been your greatest personal challenge that you’ve overcome that served as your pivot point to transformation? 

To say my greatest personal challenge has been overcoming my people-pleaser tendencies would be a vast understatement. I was a people-pleaser of epic proportions. Olympian-level. People-pleasing was my superhero power.

From a lifetime of developing this skill as a survival technique, I’d gotten to the point where whoever was in front of me, I could immediately intuit exactly who that person would most like me to be, and become that for my interactions with them. It could be a friend, an employer, a lover, or the kid at the deli counter making my sandwich; it didn’t matter. Whoever it was, I could instantaneously become whatever would delight that person most.

My driving force — the thing that’s propelled me throughout my life — has always been a desire for connection. For as long as I can remember, I’ve craved genuine, meaningful connection with others. But ironically, this superhero power I’d developed was the very thing that made true connection impossible for me. Because when you go through life with a skill like that – no matter what love or admiration or affection anyone tries to offer you, you can’t receive it. You know deep down, that this love is contingent upon you keeping up the façade you spontaneously created for that person. So no matter how much love anyone tries to give you, the love has nowhere to land.

People-pleasers have a reputation as being super-giving, super-caring, super-loving types, right? We’re not. That’s just the illusion we project. The truth is that people-pleasers are the most selfish SOB’s out there. Everything they do is motivated by a need to make you like them. Because your attention, your admiration, is what sustains them—it’s their lifeline—it’s like blood to a vampire. They’re going to do anything they can to suck it out of you.

I struggled with my people-pleasing addiction until the day I finally, after an excruciatingly long learning curve, locked into the deep knowing that I am whole and complete whether anyone approves of me or not. That may sound terribly mundane to you if you’ve never been afflicted with a people-pleasing addiction, but I can assure you it was monumental for me. My whole world opened up from there.

Describe the transformational moment or wake-up call when you realized that life change was necessary? For many, it’s a spiritual awakening, an emotional downfall, or a life-altering experience that shakes us awake.

I have a solid foothold in plenty of victim stories. I could tell one now and make you cry. But the truth is, my most transformational pivot-moment came in the form of a tipping-point, after many years of gradual accumulation. I was in a beautiful place, clinking wine glasses with my best friend, watching my perfect, healthy children play. I had the manifestation principles down, even back then. I’d been studying metaphysics my whole life and I’d manifested it all – the husband, kids, beautiful home in my favorite part of the country, stellar health, a lucrative dream career as an author of parenting books and kids’ books that were selling millions of copies. But I was screaming inside. Aching. Always hoping maybe the next self-help book or the next seminar might patch that up, and if didn’t, at least I was always really good at hiding it, and as long as it stayed hidden everything would be okay. Here’s how I describe my turning-point moment in Juicy Joy, 7 Simple Steps to Your Glorious, Gutsy Self:

A garlic-infused breeze kicks up the palm fronds beside the table at my favorite neighborhood bistro. “What do you want?” Sarah asks me. Her kids and my kids—all smart, sweet and beautiful—chase one another around the plaza fountain. Sarah gets up to bring them wishing coins.

What do I want?

I want more.

I want to crash out of this invisible armor I’m trapped in—to tear away the shackles and freefall, delirious and wild. I want uninhibited, unbridled, uncontained passion. I want to plummet naked into a velvet ocean at midnight and roll in the ecstasy of the waves.

I want to peel back my layers and hold my raw wounds up to the sun for healing.

I want to slice through these suffocating wrappings and grab onto core me—whoever that is—and never let her go; make her into the real me, the only me, for some to love and some not to love . . . and I want to not so painfully care who does and who doesn’t.

I want to feel, taste, devour it all—no filters, no censors, no gatekeeper telling me what is rightfully mine to take and what isn’t. I want rapture. I want free, primal, abandon at the top of a mountain under a full moon. I want to absorb me, embrace me, the light and the dark, the glorious and the hideous, and cherish it all and laugh at it all forever.

Sarah’s back. “So what do you want?” she asks.

What do I want? “Caprese salad and a cup of pasta fagioul.”

We close our menus and clink our chiantis as my daughter slides, sweaty and precious, into my lap.

After experiencing your personal wake-up call what were the most powerful steps you took to change your life?

I’d reached that tipping point and I had to really look to figure out what I was doing wrong with my personal development practice because I knew this was good stuff and it worked and yet I was missing something with it. And what I discovered was missing was pure, unadulterated authenticity and self-love. I was taking all these really wonderful, powerful principles and spending the time and effort to really learn how to use them – but I was only applying them to my external shell – this persona I had created and started calling ME a long, long time before. It wasn’t who I really was at my core. I’d spent so many years as this persona that I didn’t even remember who I was. I had no idea. But that’s who was screaming. She wasn’t gonna let me ignore her anymore. She wanted out.

I recognized at this point that on some level, I’d been intentionally blocking my core self. I was terrified of anything surfacing that might threaten that shell. Once I realized that authenticity and self-love were the deficits that result in a people-pleasing addiction, I began funneling all my personal-development practices into the specific goal of transforming myself in those two areas.

I discovered that I wasn’t only being inauthentic in my interactions with others, but even within my own self, I was inauthentic about my own feelings. If you’ve been on a spiritual path for a while, maybe you know what I’m talking about. It’s easy to get the impression from many spiritual teachings, that the goal is to eliminate all negative thinking. We’re taught that negative thoughts and feelings will bring us more negativity, so we need to keep our vibration high by thinking happy thoughts, happy thoughts, all the time, in order to bring more happy circumstances our way.

I’m not saying this advice has no place in a well-rounded consciousness program, but without a super-skillful application of it, this goal can become a deadly dangerous practice. You are a human being, and you have human emotions for a reason. The goal should never be to eliminate the “bad” ones, but to train yourself to feel joy in all of them. Pushing away a negative emotion never really gets rid of it anyway. Repressing or denying any of your feelings just causes them to get lodged in your subconscious energy stores.

Every natural human emotion is a gift. Sadness is a gift. Anger is a gift. Shame is a gift. Our suffering around these emotions is caused by our resistance to feeling them. Without the resistance, they flow right through us — naturally, beautifully, perfectly. It’s what they’re meant to do. Every emotion is an exquisite message from the divine, and if we stay open to them, and grateful for these messages, we don’t have to suffer from any of them.

You are an energetic system and your authentic emotions are energies that reside within that system. Denying and suppressing your genuine feelings is denying YOU. It’s a form of self-loathing, self-abuse. So the most powerful steps I took to change my life were the steps that led me to full acceptance of every feeling and emotion that surfaced for me. Learning to embrace the broad spectrum of my authentic emotions led me to a level of self-love I’d never come close to experiencing before.

Please share a Positive Mental Shift tip that woman can implement today to support them on their journey of transformation and empowerment.

To know your feelings is to know you. Decide right now to honor and embrace every feeling that comes up for you. It takes practice because most of us are not in that habit. Start by simply setting the intention for yourself every morning when you wake up: “Today, I’m going to check in periodically and ask myself what I’m feeling.” You might set a goal of deliberating observing your feelings at least once every hour. Then every time you look at a clock, let that serve as a reminder to check in with yourself.

Whenever you notice having a positive feeling, make a point to appreciate it. Your positive feelings are always a cause for celebration and the more you celebrate them, the more you’ll have.

When you notice a negative feeling, consciously welcome that feeling, too. Invite it in. Observe how your default would be to resist the feeling, or push it away or deny it. Choose to do the opposite. Put your hand over your heart or your gut or whatever helps you to intensify the experience of the feeling. Mentally pull back into the frame of mind Buddhists call the “witness state,” and observe yourself. Say to yourself, “How interesting that I’m feeling this right now.” Ask the feeling what its gift is, and remain open for an answer to come to you, even if it doesn’t right away. Try to feel grateful for the feeling.

I know you want to get to that BETTER feeling, so here’s a self-honoring way to do that: As often as you can throughout your day, stop and ask, “What am I feeling right now?” After fully accepting and embracing whatever answer you get, next ask yourself, “What would I LIKE to be feeling?” Directing your attention to what you want to feel (and vividly imagining that feeling) will naturally open up ideas and possibilities that will lead you to have the feelings you want.

The more you are able to expand your emotional range, the more comfortable you’ll be in your own skin. You’ll connect better with others. You’ll get to the point of truly welcoming every feeling without resistance. And here’s a big bonus benefit: Every time you welcome a new feeling that matches the energy of an old feeling you’ve previously repressed, you’ll actually be releasing the negative energy that got stored in your energetic body with that repressed emotion. All those undigested emotions you’ve stored away will gradually work themselves up to the surface until you eventually start experiencing the ongoing bliss of true emotional freedom in your daily life.

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Alice Chan, Ph.D., a former award-winning Cornell professor and seasoned business consultant, is an inspirational personal empowerment author, speaker and coach, devoted to living consciously. Following a near-fatal car accident in December 2008, she reconnected to her soul mission in this life—to help others rediscover their true selves and love their lives. Her first book, REACH Your Dreams: Five Steps to be a Conscious Creator in Your Life, is hailed as a “compelling and acutely honest guide to creating an inspired and passionate life.” Learn more at www.dralicechan.com and download your free REACH Your Dreams tools.

 We all experience life challenges that looking back we can see were the catalyst for living a deeper, more authentic life. What has been your greatest personal challenge that you’ve overcome that served as your pivot point to transformation? 

On December 30, 2008, I was nearly killed in a car accident. While I was still unconscious in the hospital, I had a near-death experience. While being enveloped by a bright white light, the warmest Unconditional Love that simply wasn’t of the human world, and a certainty that all was perfect and exactly in right order, I was informed that I almost died, but was kept alive because there was more for me to do in this life.

Having sustained severe head trauma and being truly lucky to be alive, my recovery was long and arduous. In hindsight, for some 6 months after the accident, I suffered from post-trauma stress. There were countless times when I’d lie in bed, physically sick and having little will to live. I’d ask, “Why didn’t I just die? That would have been so much easier than this!”

But, deep down, I was unwilling to accept that I was kept alive to suffer. So, I dug deep and summoned every ounce of strength I had to thrive again. In November 2009, one week before Thanksgiving, I quit the job I had long since outgrown to venture into self-employment. Never mind that the year end was a lousy time to start a consulting practice, there was a historic recession going on as well. All logic pointed to how stupid leaving my job at that time was. However, my inner wisdom had gnawed at me for months to leave my job in November.

By then, I knew that I couldn’t ignore that nudge, even in the face of how illogical and truly frightening that move was. I had no idea of how things were going to work out, and there was no guarantee that the professional leap of faith I made would pay off. In 2010, the first full year I was self-employed, I went on to having my highest income-earning year of my entire career up to that point—again in the midst of a historic recession.

Nearly dying and having a glimpse of the Love, Perfection and Right Order in the Spirit World gave me a chance to experience what I had only read and heard about. That is, no matter how things may appear objectively speaking, and how much life can challenge us sometimes, when we’re living our mission in this life, we’d never, ever be left stranded.

Going through the difficult recovery also gave me a taste of what being in surrender mode is like. We hear all the time the need to give up control and surrender to life. Yet, it’s a difficult proposition for most, and certainly for me. In the first 8 weeks after the accident when I couldn’t drive, I had to let others take me anywhere I needed to go. As independent as I had grown to become, it was truly unnerving for me to be so vulnerable and dependent on others. The accident was symbolic of losing control completely and having no choice but to surrender. It was a tough lesson to learn at the time, but I can appreciate how that experience strengthened my faith and my ability to trust my inner wisdom to direct me into the unknown.

It was this experience that finally got me over my inner critic’s objections to my writing a book on personal empowerment. I got the “Divine download” in March 2008 to write this book. But I didn’t feel I had the credibility to author such a work, nor did I believe I was worthy of being the channel of such a message. I finally realized that writing this book was a piece of the mission I was kept alive to fulfill. So, in the first quarter of 2011, I’ve finally cleared out enough internal blocks to birth “REACH Your Dreams: Five Steps to be a Conscious Creator in Your Life” in 3 months, while holding down a consulting practice. The writing flowed, and it was the most exquisite experience of co-creating with the Divine I’ve ever experienced in my life!

In sum, I can honestly say that that accident changed my life forever. And, having had that near-death experience was a priceless gift, as it was what kept me going through many moments of immense fear and self-doubt, as I know that I’m living the life I’m meant to live, the mission I was kept alive to fulfill.

Describe the transformational moment or wake-up call when you realized that life change was necessary? For many, it’s a spiritual awakening, an emotional downfall, or a life-altering experience that shakes us awake. 

As mentioned above, the accident itself was the wake-up call. However, long before the wake-up call, my life wasn’t working. For years, I had questioned what my purpose for being in this life was. In March 2008, the same year I had the accident, I had come to a crisis point of feeling that, if I had to continue living the life I was living, I might as well be dead! I accepted a friend’s invitation to go to Sedona and sit on Bell Rock. She said that the energy of that site had the power to set in motion change whether or not I was ready for it. And I certainly was.

It was while in Sedona that my torments in life all made sense. I was meant to experience all the struggles, heartbreak and pain so that I could relate to those I was born to serve. I was supposed to write a book and create programs to help others who suffered like me and needed to find a way out of the rubbles to live with passion and authenticity, being in alignment with who they really are.

When I came home from Sedona, I started writing, but couldn’t continue because my human self—the part that was controlled by my ego, my inner critic—didn’t believe I was worthy of the “assignment.” I was nobody. Who would want to read anything I had to say? Who am I to teach personal empowerment? Before long, fear and doubts around survival completely took over, and I reverted right back to living the life that I had long since outgrown—and loathing myself even more for being stuck doing that and not having the courage to change.

It took the wakeup call of almost dying and continued spiritual study to get myself ready to really embrace what I was called to do. So, it was an experience of spiritual awakening that came with a lot of necessary physical recovery, emotional cleansing and mental preparation. I started to realize that, in sharing my story and sharing tools on conscious living, I’d be doing my part in encouraging others to know that their struggles don’t define them, and that, no matter how much existential pain and discomfort they might be enduring, they could never miss their lives if they kept their faith and remained open to being guided.

After experiencing your personal wake-up call what were the most powerful steps you took to change your life? 

The first most important step I took after the accident was to make the decision to thrive again. As mentioned above, the recovery was very difficult physically and psychologically. I realized that, if I didn’t make the mental and emotional choice first to feel better, I’d be resigning myself to scraping by one day at a time indefinitely. So, that conscious decision to thrive again was pivotal.

Then, I engaged in months of gratitude and forgiveness work. Almost every day for months leading up to quitting my job, I wrote list upon list of things to be grateful for in my life. Also, I wrote list upon list of all the anger and resentment I felt for the owners of the company I was working for at the time. I knew that if I didn’t do that, I’d carry the bitterness and resentment of being over-worked, under-paid and under-appreciated into my consulting practice. So, even though the initial lists were really just empty words, I kept at it until I actually felt the release of the trapped negativity. I was actually able to forgive them—and myself for being a spineless doormat for way too long.

The third most powerful step I took was honoring what I was ready to do at the time. I knew that it would be too drastic of a life change to leave my job to become an author, coach and teacher in a completely different field. I simply couldn’t do that. Instead, I said “yes” to leaving my job in objectively bad timing and a historic recession, but choosing to take an intermediate step of becoming self-employed in the same consulting field to give myself some time to get used to giving up the security of a regular paycheck with benefits. This decision to honor my humanness helped me build faith. It has served me well ever since, and I’m a huge advocate of honoring our humanness while we continue to awaken spiritually and carry out our soul’s mission in this life. After all, it’s ultimately about living a human life with a consciousness of our spiritual truth.

Please share a Positive Mental Shift tip that woman can implement today to support them on their journey of transformation and empowerment. 

If I were to name one critical Positive Mental Shift to implement today, it’d be to practice knowing that we are inherently whole, complete and enough without any conditions. It’s unfortunate that just about everybody learns unworthiness during the course of our lives—and then we have to spend the rest of our lives unlearning this untruth! It’s this unworthiness at the root of our identity that feeds the self-doubt and fears that allow our inner critic to run our lives.

When we don’t believe we’re each truly magnificent Divine Love in human form, that’s when we keep ourselves trapped in a life that’s unsatisfying, because we don’t know that we can do better, that we deserve better. We stay in abusive relationships and/or jobs that make us feel like spineless doormats. We struggle to pay our bills and sustain our lives. When we’re able to “deprogram” ourselves from all the messages about what we must do and what we must have in order to be worthy, we can get reconnected to our Authentic Truth and live from that knowing. When that happens, our self-worth isn’t contingent upon what we do for a living, how much money we have in the bank, what kind of an objectively successful life we can proudly flaunt to a critical, judging human world.

When we can shift our mindset to knowing that we are enough without having to qualify for it, and that we don’t need to be fixed to be deserving, that’s when life circumstances can’t bring us to our knees—or at least not keep us down. Because we know we have the power to shift our mental state, and the outer parts of our lives have no choice but to transform to match our inner state. It’s by Universal Laws that this is so.

How do we do make this mental shift? Learn to cease self-judgments. That is, we don’t call ourselves a failure or stupid because our lives don’t meet the marks of some arbitrary yard stick we’ve learned to use to compare ourselves to others. We don’t make ourselves wrong when we feel low-energy emotions, such as jealousy, depression, angst, etc. It’s true we don’t want to dwell on these emotions. But, the first step to knowing and accepting that we’re whole, complete and unconditionally worthy is to not make ourselves wrong for being human. Instead, we honor our humanness in having these emotions sometimes, and know that we have the power to choose lovingly to shift away from them.

When we can accept ourselves unconditionally, even through the times we’re crabby or feel like a failure, we can then accept and love ourselves unconditionally. When we can accept and love ourselves unconditionally, we return to knowing our truth of being whole and complete. When that happens, the world around us will also magically follow suit and see us the same way, too.

 

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Andrea Hylen believes in the power of a woman’s voice to usher in a new world. She is the visionary and founder of Heal My Voice, a non-profit organization dedicated to empowering women to heal a story in their lives, reclaim personal power and step into greater leadership at the dinner table, in their communities and in the world. She is an author, inspirational speaker and workshop leader at retreats and conferences speaking on Women’s Empowerment, Collaboration as a Business Model and Women Healing Together.  Learn more at www.healmyvoice.org

We all experience life challenges that looking back we can see were the catalyst for living a deeper, more authentic life. What has been your greatest personal challenge that you’ve overcome that served as your pivot point to transformation? 

Greatest Personal Challenge: Negative Self-Talk and People Pleasing. The greatest challenge, the one that took every ounce of strength I had was making the decision to leave my first marriage. And the main reason it was so hard was my dysfunctional pattern of people-pleasing and putting everyone’s needs and desires ahead of my own. In my family, everyone was married for 50+ years. Marriage was honored and valued as a lifetime commitment. ‘Til death do us part. I felt there was an unspoken pact within the family. The words loyalty, fear and shame were attached to the big “D” word. You got married and you dealt with the dysfunction. If you were unhappy, just put yourself at the bottom of the list and deal with it. Even with a family lineage of alcoholism and verbal abuse and unhealthy relationships, divorce was never an option. So, when I told a family member that my marriage was falling apart and I felt my heart was breaking, I was told, “you made your bed now lie in it.” No discussion. No questions asked. No concern over the words “I am dying inside.” It was expected that marriage was a lifelong sentence. No reason for early parole. You made your bed, now lie in it.I met my husband at Temple University on the day before school. Both of us were transfer students and there was an optional “studying seminar” we both attended to start the semester on a strong foundation. Our lives were woven together in the first few weeks of school when we discovered that we both commuted an hour and a half to school and lived only 10 minutes from each other. Synchronistic connection. One day we found ourselves standing on the train platform together! Totally surprised. I became a member of his family instantly and we were married after four years of school, work and dating.

He was a functional alcoholic. Working a full time job with overtime, then coming home, cracking open a beer and drinking all night until he fell into bed. I was aware of the alcoholism in his family and in one conversation before we were married, he told me he would stop drinking. A sign of my people-pleasing. Do not confront anything that might be a conflict. Do not bring up uncomfortable conversations.We moved two hours from our families, bought a house, worked full time jobs and gave birth to two daughters. The birth of our second child, Elizabeth threw me into a tailspin. In the hospital, I remember looking into her eyes and feeling this powerful wake-up call. It was like she was saying, “Okay, Mom. I am here now. Get it together.” Six weeks after her birth, I returned to work and saw a flyer in the elevator, announcing a lunchtime Al-Anon meeting. No more excuses. It was time to tell people that I was living with an alcoholic and to admit how exhausted I was from trying to make our marriage work. I felt like a failure.

The people pleaser in me had converted to Catholicism, walked on eggshells, suffered in silence, tried: cleaning the house, being cheerful, cooking Sunday night dinners, doing all of the child care, grocery shopping and more. My husband was critical and controlling and my own negative, internal self-talk had an ongoing conversation of criticism layered on top of his. Finally, I started to see a therapist and explore the family history of alcoholism and the dysfunctional behavior in my household.

By the time I hit an emotional bottom, I was isolated from family and friends, forgot who I was and what I valued, lost all sense of self, sleep deprived and suffering from a mild depression.

Describe the transformational moment or wake-up call when you realized that life change was necessary? For many, it’s a spiritual awakening, an emotional downfall, or a life-altering experience that shakes us awake. 

There were two pivotal moments that were wake-up calls. The first was late one night, sitting in the kitchen cross stitching ornaments for Christmas presents. Surviving on only three to four hours of sleep each night, I had a moment of paralysis. My legs and feet were frozen in place. I couldn’t move. I cried out for my husband to help me. With his assistance, I was slowly able to shuffle into the bedroom. Crying myself to sleep that night, I kept repeating inwardly to myself, tomorrow is Al-Anon. I just have to make it to the Al-Anon meeting. Pushing myself to be the perfect mother, wife, employee, including making handmade ornaments had driven me to the beginning of a nervous breakdown.The second was seeing a look in my two year old daughters eyes, the daughter who was calling me to “get it together.” I was arguing with her father when I heard a voice in my head say, “This is not the role model I came to be for my children.” I made the decision that I would leave the marriage for the sake of my daughters.

After experiencing your personal wake-up call what were the most powerful steps you took to change your life?

It took me almost a year and finally I moved out of the house. Emotionally it felt like I was crawling away. To get out, I left my daughter’s behind. No support from family or friends, my husband and I verbally agreed to joint custody. I knew I needed to take the oxygen mask for myself first. To rent a house, set up the household and then resume my role as a mother. My husband manipulated the legal system and tried to prove that I was crazy. The first few years, we were in the court systems fighting for joint custody. I learned how to use my voice to stand up for myself and my children. I took classes and learned a variety of healing modalities. Attended Insight Seminars that helped me to connect with a new community of conscious, awakening people. Organized book circles in my living room to heal emotionally with John Bradshaw’s: The Family, Julia Cameron’s: The Artist’s Way and James Redfield’s: The Celestine Prophecy. Over time the commitment I had to my own heal myself, helped to heal my daughter’s, too.

Please share a Positive Mental Shift tip that woman can implement today to support them on their journey of transformation and empowerment. 

FIND SUPPORT from healthy individuals and groups.The funny thing about support is that the biggest thing most of us really need is inspiration and someone who believes in us. Someone who can mirror who we really are and remind us that each day we are getting stronger and healthier. I found support in Al-Anon and in groups of people in spiritual classes and workshops. I had amazing mentors at work and slowly but surely, I found my tribe of people. Now, 25 years later, I see Facebook groups and Pages another wonderful support of inspiration. One more thing: I know that we haven’t met in person. But, I know that if you are reading this, you are ready to wake up. And I BELIEVE in YOU!!  

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Salle Felton – As featured on ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX News affiliates across the country, Sallie Felton, President of Sallie Felton LLC is a professional life coach, international radio talk show host, #1 best selling author, facilitator, international speaker, former hypnotherapist and deep imagery therapist. Her unique approach, which is equal parts honesty, playfulness and genuine compassion, is what’s earned Sallie accolades from clients, colleagues and radio show guests alike. As she says, “this is a process so let’s start where you stand, right now, right here. What do you want? How will you achieve it? And most importantly, when are you going to start? If not Now, WHEN. Learn more at www.salliefeltonlifecoach.com

 We all experience life challenges that looking back we can see were the catalyst for living a deeper, more authentic life. What has been your greatest personal challenge that you’ve overcome that served as your pivot point to transformation?

I remember this well, the honeymoon was over. It was in 1974, three months after Conway and I married something different was occurring, something I had not seen in all the 4 years we had been dating. (Let me preface by saying in the early ‘70’s (or pre-historic times as our children would say) many couples were just beginning to “live together” before marriage. Conway and I talked about it, but decided it would put more strain on our parents than not).

How had I missed this? I would arrive home from work and Conway would follow on the next train out of Boston. Upon arriving home, without a hug or a kiss “hello”, he would get out of his business suit, put on more comfortable clothes and go to bed! What was going on? My mind was spinning, “What did I do to cause him to ignore me?”, “Was I this bad at being a wife?” or “Does he regret being married?” I felt alone and walking on eggshells.

Dawning the proverbial “happy face”, from which I mastered from my mother, I tried to cheer him up, tried to be upbeat and positive. This proved to be exhausting not for him, but depleted me. His quietness, lack of energy, lack of appetite, restless sleeping and solitude was becoming an everyday occurrence. He would make an issue out of the simplest of things. What was going on? This was not the same man I fell in love with 4 years ago? What did I do?

Do you know he used to call me “sunshine” and had it engraved in my wedding ring, but I felt like “dark clouds”? Who was I? I used to be so happy, so full of energy, so upbeat…now I felt alone, lonely, uneasy and walking a thin line. I would do everything and anything to keep status quo. I had a pit in my stomach day in and day out. I remember when someone would ask me, “How is married life?” I would “happily” lie responding, “It is great!” Who would want to hear my story? It surely had to be all my fault.

I did the best I could for the next four years. He would go in and out of his “moods”. Some months were better than others. I guess I got used to the pattern and accepted this was the way my marriage was going to be…I had heard other peoples’ marriages had hard times. I remember going to speak to his parents and asking if they had seen this behavior. Without skipping a beat his mother said, “Oh yes, he is just like his father and his grandfather, just like my father as well. You will get used to it. It is just the way they are. Don’t worry about it.” However, I confided much more in my primary care physician as to how Conway’s behavior was taking a toll on me. I would have sought counsel from my sisters, however, each of them were going through their own transitions…i.e. separations or divorces and I did not want to be influenced or “sucked in”. Remember misery loves company? I did not need to be drinking the same water. My married life was feeling more empty than full. So what then? What was the tipping point? It was not until the end of 1980 that I woke up.

Describe the transformational moment or wake-up call when you realized that life change was necessary? For many, it’s a spiritual awakening, an emotional downfall, or a life-altering experience that shakes us awake.

It was not until the end of 1980 that I woke up. Our first son’s birth was on October 23, 1980. I had had a miscarriage the year before so needless to say we were over the top with elation. Corey’s birth brought such joy into our household. There were of course the transitions which go along with being a first time parent: the changing diapers 12 times a day, your days are never your own, you are the last on the totem pole to be fed and sleep was a word that just appears in the dictionary.
Although Conway did his fair share of parenting, I was still feeling “on alert” as I never knew what mood he would be in at any given time. His weekends were filled with playing tennis tournaments or in the summer, he and his brother would race the sailboat. We were seldom together or as a family. One thing people don’t realize is when a person is depressed they are surgeons in disguise. They have an innate ability to mask this disease from others outside his/her immediate family. Case in point, his sister and brother thought he was “just fine”; “Seems ok to me.” It made me think I was going crazy, was I imagining this? Why could I see it so clearly and no one else saw it? Their response was, “He is always quiet, and he’s just in one of those moods.” Ah, yes, “one of those moods”. You mean the moods which would go on for days, weeks, months and years? Those moods?!
There were days when he would barely play with Corey or talk to me when he came home from work. Our conversations would be at best five words, then the sports channel turned on or he was engrossed in a book. Intimacy went out the window and I felt neglected (of which I took on personally). I wanted to be with a man who wanted to be with me, to share all the ups and downs, to be there to support, nurture and comfort me and TO ALLOW me to do the same for him! How much more could I take of this? The tipping point for me was walking by the garage door and being grazed by a wooden tennis racket cover coming straight for my head. I ducked. I realize I happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, he was not aiming for me, he was furious about something. But what if this was Corey walking by the garage? Something had to give. This was not ok, anymore.
I was scarred. I spoke to Conway and said I was going to make an appointment to see a therapist for myself. I needed to understand what I could do to “survive” this relationship or whether I wanted to stay in it. Notice the word, SURVIVE …that’s how I felt. Each day seemed like a fog, I just never knew when it would lift. One thing was for sure, I did not want to raise a child in this environment. I was scared, scared to think I would be on my own with a toddler and feeling guilty at not “making this work” with Conway. (30 plus years ago there was a stigma of people who were divorced (“something was wrong with them” and I certainly knew this was what my parents felt). Guilt if I left, guilt of not being myself if I stayed.

After experiencing your personal wake-up call what were the most powerful steps you took to change your life? 

I saw a female therapist once a week for months. She asked me point blank, “At what age did you lose your voice?” I was bewildered, what did she mean, I could speak clearly. What she meant was, at what age did you allow your power, the power of your voice to be taken away from you? I felt as if I was hit with a 2 by 4 piece of wood over the head. I remembered it well. I grew up with four other sisters, I was number 4 in the pecking order. All through my childhood I remember being characterized as the “emotional one, the drama queen, Sallie’s over reacting, she’ll settle down”. So what did I learn…to be silent because no one was listening anyway!! I could not get anyone’s attention. Therefore, I learned early on to devalue my thoughts, trust my inner negative critic that it was always right, never share my opinions (no one took me seriously) and never ever stand out. (It is no wonder I connect with animals and nature, they heard my every secret and knew my soul) My self-confidence was at an all time low, but on the flip side it was on a high when it came to my business, The Rocking Horse. Why…because I could take myself out of the home environment and be creative designing outerwear. I was away from the negativity. Sounds like an oxy moron does it?

On one occasion Conway was invited to join and the subject of being depressed, separation and or divorce was asked of him. We had talked at length about it and he was not opposed to seek help; he too was tired of feeling “off”. This made all the difference for me; if I knew he was willing to look at our relationship and make the effort to work on himself, I would support him and us. We learned of a wonderful psychiatrist who was still taking on new patients. Now let me say, this was 30 some years ago and much has changed. Back then Conway would try a med, wait 6weeks for it to show some signs of working and if not, he would have to endure weaning off of it for another 6 weeks. It was hit or miss. That was the tough part for all of us. By taking the time to work on myself and changing the dance of our relationship, Conway chose to follow in step.

How did I empower myself?
1. I learned to work on boosting my self-esteem…one word at a time.
2. I OWNed that part of me which loved to draw (took courses at the Community College),
3. I succeeded in becoming quite a competitive tennis player (obtaining a top ranking in New England: (#1) mixed, (#1) doubles and (#2) singles),
4. I expanded my business (did more Expos),
5. I set my boundaries. I learned to say “No” and said “Yes” to those things which I truly wanted to do and not what I should be doing. For the first time in my life I began to “push” back without the fear of being hurt, rejected or judged.
6. I spoke honestly with my husband as to what I needed out of our relationship: needed him to step up and be present with the children, support me and my efforts/projects; need more time with him (date nights) and spend quality time with the family on weekends.
7. I learned being perfect is only in the eyes of the beholder…good is good enough.

Please share a Positive Mental Shift tip that woman can implement today to support them on their journey of transformation and empowerment. 

If I were to relive my last 39 years of marriage (and yes, we are still very much married, J) I would impart these tips for any woman to implement today. First and foremost, never compromise your values or beliefs by giving away your voice. Being true to yourself is priceless! Here is an exercise you can do now:

1. Write down all your strengths which you believe you have: not “I am good at playing tennis, playing the piano (these are action items….” I mean, “I am a good listener, I am a compassionate person, I am a forgiving person”…etc…(we want to know WHO you are and what type of a person you are)

2. Here are some examples of character strengths/values: Appreciation of beauty , Citizenship, Curiosity, Fairness, Forgiveness, Gratitude, Hope, Humility, Humor/Playfulness, Ingenuity, Integrity, Judgment, Kindness and Generosity, Leadership, Love of Learning, Loving, Perseverance, Perspective, Prudence, Self-Control, Social Intelligence, Spirituality, Valor, Zest

3. Take the VIA (values in action) survey on the below link //www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/Default.aspx then click on the below: VIA Survey of Character Strengths Measures 24 Character Strengths.

4. This test is about all the strengths/values you use ON A DAILY BASIS. The top 5 are the ones you use the MOST each day.When I first took this test (and I dated it) I was amazed at what showed for my top three strengths/values: Kindness and Generosity, Honesty and Fairness, Humor/Playfulness. But when I looked at all the rest, it made sense…I don’t use others the same way as I do the top 10.

Here are my top three:
– Kindness and generosity. This is what I am made of…I go above and beyond for people. So sharing my knowledge is easy for me to do. But sometimes I have away the “cow”.
– Honesty/Fairness. I did not realize that honesty was an equally high strength/value of mine which I used daily. It made me realize that truth and being authentic, SPEAKING MY VOICE, is a must for my existence. It is in my soul, in my heart.
– Humor/Playfulness. All my life I have been a prankster, I guess I got this “gene” from my father…and one I foster in our own children. There are times when my humor/playfulness gets the best of me, but it’s part of me and I cherish it.
5. Write down what you learned about yourself! Now you have taken the first step, BRAVO!!

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