Guilt and Fibromyalgia

In my last blogs I talked about guilt in my teens and when my children were babies. Later in life this is how guilt took a hold of me once more.

Fibromyalgia put my life in a tailspin.

As I have said before, Fibromyalgia put my life into a tailspin. I had so much guilt because I was unable to attend family events. And, even if I was at an event, I wasn’t really there – not 100%. I put everything I had to give into my job, and when I came home, I had nothing left to give to my family.

During the first few years of my illness, I took my kids to a lot of movies. It was one way I felt I could do SOMETHING for my children, but once the lights went out, I was out as well – sleeping the movie away because of chronic fatigue.

My daughter is the youngest of my children, and this time impacted her the most. She would have dreams where she would be calling my name and needing help. She could see me, but it was like she was seeing me through glass. I wasn’t coming to help her. When she told me about her dreams, my heart broke. She didn’t tell me to hurt me. We were being candid about that time. Now that she is older, we are able to discuss this time and why I was not present. Her older brain is able to understand it. We have worked hard on our relationship so that now she DOES know I am ALWAYS here for her!

Crazy thing about OolaBlockers is they want to wiggle their way back into your life.

She has forgiven me, and I have been able to forgive myself. That doesn’t mean every now and again the guilt doesn’t try to trickle back into my thoughts. That’s the crazy thing about OolaBlockers and learning to retrain your brain. Once you have combatted the blockers, they try to sneak in again to see if you forgot all the hard work you have done to retrain your way of thinking with OolaAccelerators and the use of affirmations. Whenever this happens, I start to say my affirmations again like a fervent prayer to let the OolaBlockers know they do NOT belong in my life anymore.

This is a perfect example showing that Oola is not a destination but a way of life. If you are ready to start this new way of life, leave me a comment below or schedule a 30-minute chat so you can start living the life you were meant to live!

Together, we are Positively Powerful!

Dang It Anyway, if Our Children Don’t Bring On the Guilt!

Dang it anyway, if our children don’t bring on the guilt, I don’t know what does?

This is my continuing series explaining how guilt showed up at different times in my life.

Continuing to teach rather than staying home with my children when they were babies was very hard for me.  When my children were born, I really struggled with the fact that I continued to work fulltime as a teacher instead of staying home with my babies. I felt guilt for leaving them to go to work. I also felt like I was missing out on precious moments that can never be redone. This is still the one do-over I would do if I had the chance. And yet, when I have brought it up to my children, they tell me to let it go because they LOVED being at Mary’s (their nanny) and that they never felt deprived by my working. Again, they had “forgiven” me before I could forgive myself. I say “forgiven” because they didn’t even realize they had to forgive me. It was all me.

Poor Mary, she thought I didn’t think she was doing a good job with my kids. We had to talk and cry together about my feelings and the guilt I had. She was an amazing daycare provider for our children. Someone who we still have contact with today.

A seed planted 25 years ago.

This is where that seed of a dream to use my passion of educating others and helping others while working from home really took a hold. I didn’t know how it was going to happen or when, I just knew at some point in my lifetime it would.

I am setting myself up so that when I have grandchildren, I can take care of them while their parents work. This fills me up with so much gratitude for my career.

If you are feeling stuck in guilt and having trouble forgiving yourself, comment below and we can get on a complimentary 30-minute chat.

Together, we are Positively Powerful!

How Does Guilt Play in Your Life?

Well, let’s just start by saying I am a practicing Catholic, so guilt is engrained in me. I have a dear friend who once told me that people of the Catholic and Jewish faiths tend to be people who have lots of guilt in their lives. Now, this blog is not a dissertation on religion – rather it is about the OolaBlocker guilt.

Guilt goes hand-in-hand with forgiveness.

When I think of guilt, I often think of the high school years. High school can be an intense time. It is a competitive time, a time where you try to blend in with the crowd instead of standing out, where even the smallest mistake is not easily forgotten. It is a time of gossip and the untrue rumor mill. Life can be hard when you are in the thick of the chaos. But, fast forward a few years, and you soon realize that chaotic time was only a small part of your entire life. We grow so much in all areas of life beyond the 4 walls of high school. But during those years, how can you forgive yourself when your mistakes are constantly front and center?

I want to share with you times in my life that I felt guilt.

As I look back (Of course, hindsight is 20/20!) I realize I held myself back from accomplishing better things in my life because I had difficulty forgiving myself.

I’ll start with the summer of my senior year in high school. Remember, those high school years are tough!

The first has to do with my grandmother. She was ill with ovarian cancer. She had battled cancer a few years earlier, and now, it had come back. She was dying. We all knew it including grandma. This was the first time I had to face the death of someone so integral to my life. Rather than enjoying the precious time I had left with her on earth, I came up with reasons not to see her. It was too painful to be with her knowing it wasn’t going to last. Why do we do this? For me, it was a coping mechanism. If I wasn’t with her, I could pretend her illness and declining health weren’t happening. Of course, now, I wish I had put on my big girl pants and done the Oola thing by showing up – doing what needed to be done. There is not a day that goes by that I don’t wish I had that time back with her. I have had to learn to forgive my naive self. I know that my grandmother knew I loved her with my whole heart, and she had already forgiven me because that was the wonderful person she was. If I am even half the person she was, I will have lived a life worth living!

The second time I carried a lot of guilt revolved around a bad relationship. I keep hearing Bon Jovi singing Bad Medicine as I write this bit. I knew it was wrong the whole, short time I was in the relationship. I feel that I definitely was allowing the OolaBlocker, self-sabotage, to do its work for me here. Luckily, I did get out of this relationship earlier rather than later. I can still remember when I was finally able to forgive myself of this relationship – which really is giving it too much weight by calling it a relationship. I was in my parents’ living room with my mom, and I just broke down crying. Not those pretty, movie- star cries. This was the ugly, hard to breathe, snot running out of the nose cry! Like I said – NOT pretty! I told my mom that every time I came home (meaning back to my hometown), I felt as though everyone was judging me and laughing at me and that I would never get the forgiveness I so craved from my parents or “the town”. Mom took me in her arms and just said, “You’ve already been forgiven! I love you no matter what! That was just a small piece of your life. Go on and do the amazing things I know you were meant to do.”  I immediately felt this huge anchor and chains come off of me, and I felt like I was ready to fly! From then on, I never looked back. One of the positive things that came out of this situation was that when I met my husband, I KNEW he was the one and that he was a GOOD man.

Crazy thing about OolaBlockers is they want to wiggle their way back into your life.

That’s the crazy thing about OolaBlockers and learning to retrain your brain. Once you have combatted the blockers, they try to sneak in again to see if you forgot all the hard work you have done to retrain your way of thinking with OolaAccelerators and the use of affirmations. Whenever this happens, I start to say my affirmations again like a fervent prayer to let the OolaBlockers know they do NOT belong in my life anymore.

This is a perfect example showing that Oola is not a destination but a way of life. If you are ready to start this new way of life, leave me a comment below or schedule a 30-minute chat so you can start living the life you were meant to live!

Together, we are Positively Powerful!

Ubuntu is Very Oola!

I know you are thinking I come up with some doozies for words. And, what do these words actually mean anyway? Well, if you don’t know what Oola means by now, I haven’t done my job very well.

Ubuntu

I learned about this word and its meaning recently. I am part of a group of 6 business women who get together every week via Zoom. We support one another in many ways. In other words, our group is very Ubuntu! One of the gals brought this word to our attention, and I just had to share it. You can also learn more about it in the program The Playbook which can be found on Netflix.

Unbuntu is a term used in South Africa that refers to community and the concept that when the community is successful so are the individuals within that community. Rather than being envious (envy is an OolaBlocker) for someone else’s success, we celebrate it and are genuinely happy for them. This in turn will raise the positive vibes for the entire group and others will then follow suit and succeed themselves. I love this idea!

Desperation

As we go through this crazy year with a lingering pandemic and a polarizing presidential election, I can’t help but wonder how many people are becoming desperate. With all of the uncertainty and desperation floating around, I see way too many people tearing each other down rather than building each other up. Because of this, there are certain areas of society that are bringing each other down even further.

Rather than going down with any group, I choose to take the path of Ubuntu. So much can be accomplished when we are not out for only ourselves but for the collective whole – celebrating the successes of others.

Living in an Ubuntu state of mind allows us to use the OolaAccelerators to the best of their abilities.

Gratitude:  When we use gratitude in our everyday lives, even when things don’t go according to plan, it helps us lift ourselves up. It helps us move forward with a positive mindset.

Love: Not only loving ourselves, but loving others as well.  When we look at others from a stance of kindness and love, we are able to more easily empathize with the struggles they are trying to overcome to make their lives more abundant.

Discipline:  This is observed when we show up for others and ourselves. It is the drive to keep going when the going gets tough. You don’t stop and blame others for where you are. Rather, you take responsibility for yourself and work until you have accomplished the goal you set forth.

Integrity: Today, integrity means keeping your word to yourself and others – under promise and over deliver. You whole-heartedly celebrate the wins of others.

Passion: If you are truly working with your passion, it is easy to celebrate the wins of others, because you understand that you too will have many successes ahead of you.

Humility: This one definitely speaks of Ubuntu because when you are humble your goal is not to put yourself up on a pedestal. Instead, it is about serving those around you and having a purpose that is tied to something greater than yourself.

Wisdom: We can learn so much from others. We don’t have to have all the answers. Life is richer when you enfold someone into your inner circle and truly listen to them and learn from them.

If you want to live a life with Ubuntu, I can help guide you on this journey. Drop a note below, and we can set up a 30-minute chat to get you started living an Oola Ubuntu life.

Together, we are Positively Powerful!

Oola is Not for the Faint at Heart

Part III Oranges vs Skittles

OolaAccelerator: Discipline

Oola is not for the faint at heart. It takes hard work, just like anything else in your life worth working for. With that said, discipline means doing what must be done – even if you don’t want to at that moment. It also means doing things consistently, like working out 30 minutes a day, putting money away for retirement, or working on resources for your business.

Stay Focused.

If you are focused every day on your 3 goals – the oranges for the day that get you one step closer to your dreams – you will accomplish your achievements quicker than you originally thought possible. (Be sure to read my first blog in this series to find out what I mean by “oranges”.)

Self-Correct.

The other part to discipline is self-correcting if you stray off course. Just get up, dust yourself off, and start where you stopped. Start moving forward again. Once, you start to learn to self-correct, you will find you have an easier time identifying when this needs to happen and take it all in stride.

Need a Guide?

Sometimes it takes a neutral person to help you sort through the daily duties of your life and help you find the path in the middle of it all – what you can delegate, what your dream truly is, and coming up with the goals, the baby steps, to get there. That is what I do as a Life Coach. Comment below or schedule a 30-minute chat with me so we discuss your path.

Together, we are Positively Powerful!

Your Values Are Tied to Laziness Part 2 Oranges vs Skittles

What? Let me explain. For this scenario, I am not talking about the lay around all day, doing nothing kind of laziness.

We all have values.

Two to three of our values tend to be set pretty high on our value scale. These are our oranges. (What do I mean by “oranges”? Find out by reading my first blog in this series.) When we have duties to do in our high value areas, it is easy for us to accomplish them. These high values are often your passions as well.

When we have tasks that are not high on our value system, it is easy to procrastinate in getting the job done.

This is basic human nature. Often, this is a skittle – something that has to be done but is not high on our priority list. I am guilty of this just like everyone else. For example, I hate cleaning the shower. How often do you think my shower actually gets cleaned? Let’s just say it should be done at least one more time than it is.

Delegating

Delegating your low-priority duties is an option so that these needed tasks don’t get overlooked. Decide which parts of your life you can hand off and which you can’t. Remember, you don’t have to be awesome at everything. Take the burden off of you, and let someone do those activities you dread. This does not always have to be hired out, you might have a friend or family member who is willing to do this for you and you do one of the things you enjoy for them that they would rather not do – a win-win situation!

I can help.

Sometimes it takes a neutral person to help you sort through the daily duties of your life and help you find the path in the middle of it all – what you can delegate, what your dream truly is, and coming up with the goals, the baby steps, to get there. That is what I do as a Life Coach. Comment below or schedule a 30-minute chat with me so we discuss your path.

Catch me next week.

Next week, I will continue the conversation of oranges vs skittles in regards to discipline.

Together, we are Positively Powerful!

Oranges vs Skittles Part 1

In the world of Oola, we talk a lot about Oranges vs Skittles.  What does that mean exactly?

OolaBlockers: Focus (lack of) and Laziness

Let’s start by discussing the OolaBlocker lack of focus. For many of us, our focus is scattered or misdirected. This becomes even more true when you have multiple commitments. All of your commitments seem to have an urgency to them, but how can you balance your time to each one? How can you stay focused?

Skittles of life.

We have so many ways to waste our time like binge watching Netflix or playing games on our phones. We also have the day to day duties that need to be done, like checking email, getting groceries, cooking meals, and running kids to and from practice and school. These are the Skittles of life – the routine things we need to get done.

Oranges of life.

Then, there are the oranges of life – the things you do to get you one step closer to living your abundant life. Unfortunately, the oranges often get pushed aside because we become caught up with our skittles or other distractions. Or, our daily to-do list doesn’t get accomplished because we waste time on other things. However, there are a few steps we can take to avoid these traps.

Try setting a timer when scrolling through Facebook, playing that game, or watching TV. This helps you keep track of time. It enables you to relax for a few minutes without letting time get away from you.

I love the Oola saying, “Become a laser beam, not a flashlight.”

Instead of overextending and overscheduling yourself by working on a wide array of tasks, you can focus your time and energy – like a laser beam – on just those things that will get you closer to your goal – the oranges of life.

All it takes is a neutral person.

Sometimes it takes a neutral person to help you sort through the daily duties of your life and help you find the path in the middle of it all – what you can delegate, what your dream truly is, and coming up with the goals, the baby steps, to get there. That is what I do as a Life Coach. Comment below or schedule a 30-minute chat with me so we discuss your path.

Stay tuned to next week,

where I continue the conversation of oranges vs skittles in combination of your core values.
Together, we are Positively Powerful!

Hang It On The Cross

Hang It On The Cross:

This is a prayer I have by my kitchen sink so I can see it every day.  I hope you appreciate the message during this Lenten season.

Hang It on The Cross

If you have a secret sorrow

A burden or a loss

An aching need for healing

Hang It On The Cross.

If worry steals your sleep

And makes you turn and toss

If your heart is feeling heavy

Hang It On The Cross.

Every obstacle to faith

Or doubt you come across

Every prayer unanswered

Hang It On The Cross.

For Christ has borne

Our brokenness

And dearly paid the cost

To turn our trials to triumph

Hanging On The Cross.

-Author Unknown

Positively Powerful Strategy:

 If you have scrap wood or iron, make it into a cross. It does not have to be large.  Then, on pieces of paper write down all your burdens.  Hang it on the cross whether that is with a nail, tape, or ribbon. You decide.

Once that burden is on the cross, you do not need to think about it anymore.  You have released it to God.

For your convenience I have this prayer for you to print off to place next to your cross.

Burdens:

If you are dealing with burdens, as a life coach, I can help you overcome them.  Contact me below for a complimentary 30 minute chat.  It is private.  God wants YOU to live a life worth living.

Together, we are Positively Powerful!

You Can’t Have It All Without Faith

Faith is part of a balanced life.

If you’ve been focused on excelling in your career, growing your finances, creating a beautiful home, or building a network of business relationships, you’ve probably created an amazing life for you and your family. If your kids have been focused on sports, academic achievement, or extracurricular activities, they’ve probably got a great start on their future.

But while many people think this kind of success equates to “having it all,” the reality is that you really don’t have it all without faith.

Many successful people have a close relationship with God.

Story after story abounds of high achievers—people at optimum levels in every other area of their lives—who say either they couldn’t have gotten there without a close relationship with God, or that the level of success they now enjoy has inspired them to become more faithful.

If the world has thrown your life off track lately and you could really use someone on your side, God is ready for a wholehearted relationship with you.

And it’s this connection where you’ll discover your unique life purpose.

It’s where you can say, “Hey, if this is what I’m supposed to be doing, then smooth my path and show me the next steps.” It’s also where you can find answers for the tough stuff that comes up in life.

Of course, I’m not here to prescribe any particular religion. But I do know that faith asks us to believe in something bigger than ourselves.

Faith is part of a balanced lifestyle.

And coaching people through finding balance and achieving life changes in every major area is something I do through a unique 10-week coaching program designed around the bestselling book and coaching formula: Oola.

Check it out or message me for details.

Is Your Family Life Blissful, Happy, and Balanced?

Bring Balance to Family Your family is your inner circle—

the people you should turn to in tough times, but also the people who turn to YOU for the same reason.

Imagine a family life that’s blissful . . . happy . . . balanced.

Now, check in with yourself about your current family situation. Do you need to improve your marriage, calm a tense family situation, set better boundaries with the kids, or otherwise improve your closest family relationships?

One of the toughest things

my coaching clients have to work through is a family situation that’s stressful, heartbreaking or at the tipping point of crisis. Even worse are those parents who are so stressed in other areas that they’ve “checked out” of their kids’ lives and future.

The good news is

that it’s absolutely possible to create the kind of balanced, happy and supportive family life you want and deserve. While long-term goals take time and commitment, some immediate ways to improve your household atmosphere are to:

• Schedule a date night this Saturday with your spouse
• Have that “difficult conversation” with your aging parent
• Cook dinner as a family at least three nights this week
• Establish a calm morning routine for younger children
• Set boundaries with your argumentative brother

If you need to show up differently and make some serious changes

(in your family situation or any other category), I have good news: I’ve teamed up with Oola authors Dr. Dave Braun and Dr. Troy Amdahl to bring you a 10-week focused approach to creating a life that’s balanced, happy, and growing.

 Don’t just dream about the ideal life you want.

Start living it with Oola Coaching. Click now (or message me)!