Celebrating Celebration

There’s been a lot to celebrate here in Wisconsin over the last few weeks.  Historical sporting events, perfect weather, and high school homecomings top the list.  So, it’s got me thinking about the power of celebration.

I’ve posted before about celebrating success and celebrating learning.  I believe that all life situations are a cause for celebration.  When an experience plays out the way you desire… hooray!  Cause for celebration!  When an experience plays out in a way that you didn’t want or expect… hooray!  You now have an opportunity for learning more about yourself, the Universe, and what you want (or don’t want).

Because I also believe that perspective and focus are key to living with love and joy, I’ve going to launch a daily celebration.  Hooray!  Each day, I will post “Today, I’m celebrating…” on my Facebook page.  I will also use this blog for expanded thoughts that the celebration inspires.

I invite you to play with me.  Add your celebrations to the comments here and/or on Facebook.  Perhaps launch your own celebration project and note your celebrations on your blog, Facebook, refrigerator, journal or wherever.

What we focus on expands.  I choose to focus on the celebration of life each day.  There are infinite opportunities to celebrate.  We don’t need to wait for championship games or scheduled parties or major milestones.  Celebrate the moments of each day, and allow the energy of celebration to welcome in more fun, joy and love into your “ordinary” experiences.

So, today I celebrate the start of new things!  New celebration initiatives, new Life Coaching students, new possibilities, new awarenesses, new connections, new opportunities to be more authentically me.

Join me in celebrating more celebration!  What are you celebrating today?

Pick Me! Pick Me! Article on Me Time for Yourtango.com

Update:  Here’s the article!  My stuff is on page 2 

I was asked by YourTango.com to submit an article about “Me Time” and moms.  The following is the piece I submitted.  There is the possibility of it making it into international syndication (like yahoo.com), so send good vibes.  I will keep you posted if/when it hits the scene 

Your job as a mom is a big one.  The list of tasks and responsibilities can seem endless and daunting on a good day, and downright impossible on a bad day.  When you add in the pressure of being your child’s most critical role model, it’s easy to feel that you may never be enough.

For some, adding self-care to the list of priorities is laughable. We all understand the reasons…I don’t want to be selfish; I don’t have enough time, money or energy; my family needs me.  However, when you realize that how you treat yourself teaches your children how to themselves, “Me Time” is no longer selfish or indulgent, it’s a necessity.

Finding the perspective and time to take care of yourself can be challenging.  Here’s some thoughts to get you started.

• Let them do it!  Your kids are brilliant!  Give them the opportunity to learn, grow, make mistakes, figure things out, and take care of themselves.  This is a win-win.  The more you allow your children to do for themselves, the less responsibility you have, and the more time you create for taking care of yourself.  Oh, and it works with husbands, too!
• Say No.  Take a look at your daily schedule and weed out a few things that are not fun for you. Just because it is available, doesn’t mean you need to do it.  Respect your time and energy and let go of tasks and activities that don’t bring joy or enrichment.
• Change your definition of Supermom.  You don’t need to bake cookies, be on every committee, coach soccer, have a spotless house and children, and wear pearls to be Supermom.  Instead, move toward being a Supermom that is
  confident, loving, and joyful.  It is not about what you do, it’s about who you are.
• Check your self-image.  How you feel about yourself is a good indication of how your kids are going to feel about themselves.  You are their primary role model.  If you’re not feeling good about who you are, make a commitment to yourself and your kids to improve your thoughts.

Your kids deserve a strong, confident, love-filled mom, and you have the ability and the power to be that role model. Feeling good is contagious.  Do something just for you today, and allow yourself to feel really good about it.  That good feeling will benefit everyone in your life.

Jill Baake is a mom, Life Coach, and the author of I Love Me Mom – A Guilt-Free Guide to
Honoring Yourself and Empowering Your Kids. Learn more at www.ilovememom.com.

Feelings about Caring about Feelings

I’ve been thinking about feelings this week.

I believe that I am responsible for my own feelings.  It’s my job to pay attention to how I’m feeling and my job to feel my way through any negative or less-than-desirable feelings that surface.  If I’m feeling out of alignment, or generally not joyful, I take responsibility for those emotions and look for lessons, insights, and behaviors that will allow me to move through the emotions and ultimately return to joy.

I also believe that relationships serve as mirrors for us and an additional resource for growth, joy and connection.  They offer an opportunity for feelings and experiences that differ from those that we can create alone.  Relationships allow me to practice taking care of my own feelings regardless of what others say or do.

Thirdly, I believe that I have a responsibility to ensure that I am being treated with dignity and respect from the people I share time and energy with.  That means that I will not allow others to bully, manipulate or disrespect me.  It’s my job to take care of my inner child and protect her from mistreatment from me and others.

So, to reiterate:

• I’m responsible for my own feelings
• I understand the role of relationships in my journey
• I accept the job of setting boundaries of acceptable treatment

Here’s where I’ve been getting confused… I believe I am responsible for my own feelings, and I feel it’s my responsibility to protect myself from any perceived abuse.  So, do I have an expectation from those around me, or don’t I?

I don’t need anyone to take care of my feelings.  That is my job.  I do however, feel that I have a need to surround myself with people who care about how I feel.  It does not feel good to me to have people in my circle that don’t care about my feelings.  I do not want anyone to put my feelings above their own; I do want to feel that there is a compassion or understanding to the fact that I have feelings too.  Yes, the feelings are my responsibility and I chose what they are, and it’s important to me that others acknowledge and accept their existence.

Here’s what I’m concluding for now.  I can care about how you feel (compassion, empathy, understanding) without taking any responsibility for your feelings.  Your feelings are perfect and I don’t need to fix them.  You can care about how I feel without “taking care” of my feelings. In fact, I think you must.  If you don’t care about how I’m feeling, the basis of the relationship feels flawed, and I then need to take responsibility for protecting myself from mistreatment.

I’m enjoying the exploration of this subject, and I welcome your thoughts and insights.  How do you understand the dual responsibility of owning your feelings and protecting yourself?

When Kids Bring Home Problems – Love and Logic Post

The following landed in my email inbox yesterday and I felt compelled to share.  Love and Logic is relatively well aligned with I Love Me Mom philosophy (perhaps I’ll post sometime on our philosophical differences), and this particular strategy feels good for me.  I welcome your thoughts on this article and your experience with Love and Logic.

 

When Kids Bring Home Problems

Connor was having trouble making friends. “None of the cool kids will play with me. Only the dopey kids will,” he complained.

“Oh, no,” Dad said with a wrinkled forehead and sadness in his eyes. “That sounds rough. What do you think you can do about that?”

“I don’t know,” Connor whined. “The teachers won’t help me.”

“Hmm,” Dad paused. “Would you like to hear what some other kids have tried?”

Connor grunted, “Guess so.”

“Well,” Dad continued, “some kids decide to forget about having friends. How would that work for you?”

“Not good. I’ll never have people to do stuff with.”

“Yeah, good thinking,” said Dad. “Some kids decide to pick out some cool – or maybe just nice kids and try to be super friendly to them. They go out of their way to say nice things – stuff like that. How do you think that would work for you?”

Connor thoughtfully frowned. “I guess I could try that. But what if it doesn’t work?”

Dad replied, “It’ll be interesting to see, won’t it? That’s all the ideas I have right now. Thanks for telling me about this. Good luck, buddy.”

Connor’s dad gave him the gift of struggling with a problem. Many Love and Logic parents have enjoyed empowering their kids to solve problems using this five-step process:

1. Respond with empathy:  “That’s a tough one.”
2. Send the power message:  ”Would you like to hear what some kids have tried?”
3. Offer ideas: “Some kids decide to…”
4. Ask about the expected results: ”How do you think that would work for you?”
5. Give permission to solve the problem: “Let me know how it goes. Good luck.”

Have fun experimenting with this technique next time your child brings home a problem regarding friendships, or just about anything else.

Dr. Charles Fay

©2011 Love and Logic Institute, Inc. All copyright infringement laws apply. Permission granted for forwarding and/or for a single photocopy or electronic reproduction of one email tip only. Please do not alter or modify. For more information, call the Love and Logic Institute, Inc. at 800-338-4065.

Entitlement 101

In recent years, much has been written and said about the current generation of young adults and your inflated sense of entitlement.  You feel that the world should be handed to you on a silver platter and that your every desire should be accommodated and honored.  You deserve every prize that life has to offer.  And you’ve been told
repeatedly that this entitlement mentality is a bad thing.  I disagree.

I think a sense of entitlement can be a great gift and a vehicle for creating a phenomenal life; IF you know how to use it.  I believe that you do, in fact, deserve every prize that life has to offer, and that the world is yours to experience and enjoy.  So, why are so many young adults with a solid sense of entitlement finding themselves experiencing a life in
great contrast to their dreams.  There must be more to the equation.

Here’s how the conscious creation of reality works.  I have a dream (the conscious kind, not the sleeping kind), and I become aware that I want to experience something, have
something, or feel something.  Because I am now aware of what it is I want to experience, have or feel, I make decisions in my life that reflect that desire and move me in the direction of my dreams.  I have a core belief that I can have or create whatever my heart desires, and I am worthy of (entitled to) that achievement.  And I am worthy of the
experiences and lessons that are presented along the road to that goal.  (It’s important to note that this is the conscious version of the story.  The unconscious creation is simply decision, surprise outcome, reaction.  The outcomes of the decision still create the life experience, but there is little awareness of how the decisions are made or where they will lead, and the role of entitlement becomes nearly irrelevant.)

If entitlement is one part of the conscious creation process, and that piece is already in place, maybe one or more of the following roadblocks are getting in your way.

Dream Confusion:  First, your dreams need to be clear and personal.  Saying that you want to be rich is simply not enough.  You’ve gotta do better than that.  Who is it that you want to be in this life? It’s tough to actively move toward a goal if you don’t know what the goal is.

Decision Malfunction:  You may feel that you’d like to experience success, yet you make decisions on a day-to-day basis that do not reflect that desire.  If your dream is to be
successful (whatever that might mean to you; see point above), are the decisions you make in alignment with that goal?  If not, the path you’re walking is going to lead you  somewhere else.  And your arrival will probably surprise you.

Selfishness Slip:  Creating the life of your dreams should not inhibit others from doing
the same.  If your action plan or attitude indicates that others will lose if you win, you need a new plan.  Effective entitlement recognizes that my success does not come at your expense.

Self-Love Sabotage:  A feeling of deserving is often more difficult to achieve than a feeling
of wanting.   You might want to experience the joy and energy of life, but if there is a part of you that doesn’t feel you are deserving of that experience, your decisions will lead you
away from it every time.  You need to love yourself so much that the decisions you make reflect that love and allow for the results you desire.

My advice to the entitled generation?

• Get clear.  Figure out what it is that you want to experience in your life.
• Get thankful.  Have gratitude for the opportunities that you have access to and the lessons that you’ve been learning and will learn on the journey.
• Get focused. Pay attention to the decisions you are making and the possible outcomes of those decisions.  Your life is a collection of the outcomes of the decisions you make.
• Get real.  You will need to move in the direction of your dreams if you wish to
  achieve them.  Use entitlement to know that you deserve the best in life, but use action to get there.
• Get happy now.  It may take some time to reach your destination.  Find a way to enjoy the ride without derailing the train.

Post originally written 2/2010 by Jill Baake.

Connection Redirection

Remember Pavlov?  He’s the guy that rang the bell then fed the dog. After a few go-rounds, he could ring the bell and the dog would salivate.  The dog made a connection between the bell and food.  In reality, there is no actual connection between the bell and the food, yet even after many failed attempts where the bell produced no food, the connection remained.  My dear readers, the same is true of us.  There are lots of connections that we have crafted throughout our lives that in truth have no association, yet our behavior and belief remain.  Let’s look a few examples.

Money = Security:  Many of us are conditioned with the belief that money is necessary for security.  If we have money, we are safe.  It feels true that abundant money may help alleviate some concerns in daily life, but the reality is that there are people with large supplies of money that feel very insecure, and people with minimal financial balances who feel perfectly safe.

I’ll be happy when…:  Do you practice this one?  It’s the forever unattainable happiness that is connected to some life circumstance, event or achievement.  “I’ll be happy when I graduate.”  “I’ll be happy when I meet that special someone.”  “I’ll be happy when I lose 20
pounds.”  We connect happiness to external events in anticipation of those events changing our feelings.  And it is true that these successes are worthy of celebration and will bring a momentary high.  However, the reality is, if you’re not happy now, there’s a good chance you won’t be happy then either.  Why?  Happiness (real happiness) is not connected to life circumstances.  It is connected to how you feel about yourself, your personal power, and your ability to navigate life.

Partner = Completion of Self:  Finding a perfect life partner is a goal that many
people share.  It is common for people to associate wholeness with the presence of a mate.  The truth is that you are whole, and any pieces that you are looking to have completed by a partner will remain void after the initial high of partnership wears off.  Let me clarify.  Partnership can be wonderful, and if it is something that you wish to have in your life, that’s great.  However, if you are seeking a partner to “complete” yourself, you’re asking for trouble.  Know your own completeness and look for a partner to enjoy and enhance your life.  A partner should be a bonus, not a space filler.

It’s common that we learn of these misaligned connections through trial and error and often through hardship.  We typically don’t know the connection exists until it is challenged in some way.  You may realize that your definition of who you are requires an overhaul when you lose your job or your partner.  You may discover the disconnect between events and happiness when you find yourself feeling low even though the circumstances of your life are good.  If often takes experiencing the contrast to
realize that the connection wasn’t true to begin with.

Here comes the coaching part.  Awareness is always the first step in any positive change.  If you wish to change some of the connections you’ve created, take a good, honest look at where they exist.  Next, collect some evidence.  Are there times in your life that you were
happy, even though you hadn’t yet achieved some of your goals?  Are there other people in your life that have found contentment and joy despite your necessary prerequisites?  (Secure without money, whole without partner, happy without circumstance, etc.)  Once
you conclude that the connection is invalid, then watch for places in your thinking that it pops up.  When you notice it in your thoughts, remind yourself that it was simply conditioned to be there, and replace it with your new truth.  Just as the conditioning for the belief took time to build, it will take time un-build.  Be gentle with yourself as you learn a new skill and be generous with your self-congratulations as you
experience the positive shift.

 

Post originally written 5/2010 by Jill Baake.

I Can Do It!

No, this is not Nathan's actual sandwich

We had some friends over the other day, and Nathan (age 6) asked about having a snack.  I asked him what kind of snack he was thinking about, and he decided that a peanut butter and jelly would do the trick.  He got out the bread, grabbed the peanut butter, found the jelly in the fridge, and took a plastic knife from the drawer.  He skillfully spread the peanut butter, gooped the jelly, mashed it together and went on his merry way; freshly crafted sandwich in hand.

My friend commented that her son (also age 6) wouldn’t have a clue how to make himself a sandwich.  She does all of those types of tasks for him.  It never really occurred to her to have him try it for himself.

And so began my wonderment about self-sufficiency and the value of knowing that I can take care of myself and that my kids deserve to know that they, too, can take of themselves perfectly.

The next day, I was reminded again to think about self-sufficiency and the “I can do it” spirit.  A few weeks back, I took my car for an oil change at the Hales Corners
Fast Track.  The oil-change guy told me that my cabin air filter needed to be replaced.
The part would be $60.  He showed me the filter and I happily ignored his sales pitch.  Then I started to I wondered if I could just do it myself.

I decided to see if YouTube could offer a little insight on this filter thing.  Sure enough, a fuzzy 3-minute video showed a clip here, a clip there, filter out, done.  So, I checked out the AutoZone website and learned that the $60 part that the Fast Track guy would graciously sell me, actually costs $18.  Wow.  Later that day, I picked up the part I needed and when I got home, I replaced my cabin air filter in about 3 minutes.  Couldn’t have been easier and I was way proud of myself.  I saved $42, and enjoyed the satisfaction of self-sufficiency in car repair. Go me!

It feels good to know that I can do things for myself.  It also feels good to know that my journey toward self-sufficiency in recent years has had a positive influence on my kids.  Nathan and Rylan get lots of opportunities to figure things out, do things for themselves, and celebrate the sense of “I can do it!”

Here’s the added bonus!  The more I allow my kids to do things for themselves, the less I have to do for them leaving more time for fun stuff.  Who couldn’t use more time for fun stuff?

Where can you empower your kids to be more self-sufficient?  How about your own “I can do it” practice?  You can do it!  (Whatever “it” is).

Isn’t today a good day to give it a go?