Institute of Step-Family Dynamics

Tag: self-care

  • Making Time Matters

    Making Time Matters

    For too many years to comfortably count or acknowledge, my mantra was ‘I don’t have time’. I didn’t have time to stick on a load of dishes or washing, to make my bed, to cook a meal, to read a book, to hang out with my kids. I was drowning in busyness.

    I had created a life where I didn’t have time for the things that mattered as a coping mechanism for c-PTSD. If I created a life of chaos and busyness then I didn’t have a chance to notice my trauma. If I kept my head so full, then there was no space for triggering or upsetting memories.

    It would be nice if that actually worked, but of course it didn’t, and I ended up having uncontrollable flashbacks that meant I had to give up work. I spent two years recovering. Part of that was learning not to overload myself, but the busyness mantra remained.

    Busyness kept my life chaotic. It meant not doing the things that made life easier and more enjoyable. I was so paralysed by the idea that I was too busy to do things, that it got in the way of me being able to be productive and use my time well.

    Recently I was given a question that made me pause.

    What was a core belief that was getting my way?

    Low and behold, I realised. It was the idea that I was too busy to do things.

    A lightbulb moment!

    I put on my curious observer hat and watched how many times a day I told myself I was too busy to do something that would take a few minutes and make life work so much better. It was astounding and confronting.

    I started to challenge this self-talk. When I heard my inner voice start, I realised that this was a thing that would not take long and would make a difference.

    I started folding and putting away the washing directly from the dryer or the clothes line. It meant I didn’t have to deal with clean washing mountain. It meant that I didn’t have to set aside a big chunk of time to deal with folding laundry and then begrudgingly put it away or nag others to do it. I don’t mind putting a few items of clothing away for my husband. I certainly did often balk at doing that with piles of laundry. Unsurprisingly the children also find it easier to put away a few items at a time, rather than piles. It’s the answer to the room tidying technique that consists of putting clean laundry into the washing pile because they can’t be bothered putting it away.

    Dishes are easier to manage because we don’t have dirty dishes pile up in the kitchen. Clutter and mess attract clutter and mess. I had spaces and areas I used to call ‘crap attractors’, they were places were things that we didn’t ‘have time’ to deal with piled up. Taking a few minutes to deal with things on the spot means the crap attractors no longer exist.

    Making my bed often felt like something I didn’t have time for, as I rushed out the door to work. As I took a minute or two this morning to make the bed, I reflected about what a difference it make to the look and feel of the room. I grabbed the dirty laundry on the way out the door, dropped off my coffee glass in the kitchen on the way through and then sorted the dirty laundry into the appropriate baskets. I took another minute to put a load of laundry on. In less than 5 minutes I did the work to make our bedroom the sanctuary we want it to be, and ensured laundry didn’t pile up.

    It’s not just about our physical surroundings.

    Making time people is another thing we often feel is beyond our stretched busy schedules. I was in session with a client the other day, and because of lockdowns and the pandemic her children were home. They are amazing at giving their mum space to talk with me, but this day Mr 5 needed her. She took the time to connect with him.

    What did he need? It turned out he needed a hug.

    She gave him a big hug until he was done. He walked off happily and we were able to resume our session in peace. Other times, when she has tried to hold a boundary about not being interrupted, his distress took up way more time and space than the couple of minutes breaking for a hug took. It made me think – how often do we not give our step/children what they need in the moment, because we feel we don’t have time, and then spend way more time repairing and dealing with the fallout.

    I notice that when I take the time to notice my stepchildren doing things well, they blossom. When I take the time to connect and slow down what I am doing to include them, their behaviour improves. Yesterday I spent time planting out seed pots that were a supermarket give away last year. Something I had been ‘too busy’ to do for many months. Me sitting down for an activity attracted Mr 15 to the table, he sorted labels and helped get water for the potting pods. We chatted as we worked. Us sitting down attracted his sister, she came and chatted with us and then called her mum to ask whether she’d like some of the herbs we were planting. Mr 14 came along and sat for a while too.

    Taking time to do something I previously would have told myself I didn’t have time to do created so much more than simply planting some seeds for the garden. It created space for family, for connection, and conversation about food etc. These simple things, that in reality don’t take nearly as long as we think they will, are the stuff that grow our families and ourselves.

    We recently moved into a new house, and with that came a conscious decision to live in a more aligned and connected way. Eating at the table was a big part of that. We replaced the uncomfortable dining chairs with chairs that encourage us to sit and chat. We got a table that fitted the dining space well and looks good, replacing the second hand stained table I bought 13 years ago as a stopgap. I took the time to think about how I wanted us to live, as individuals and as a family. I thought about how to create space and spaces for the family. Our family morphs into many forms as people come and go. At times we are a family of two, half the time a family of at least five, and sometimes a family of 9 and then more as extended family come and go. It takes a lot of time and energy to manage the logistics involved to create a home that works for so many different groups. When we feel we don’t have time to do the emotional and mental labour involved in creating a nest that works, we often live in chaos and stress.

    I started writing this article 20 minutes before I was due to start a meeting. Usually I would have told myself I didn’t have time to start writing, with just 20 minutes. Making this start means that this article won’t go the way of so many that I plan to start and write, but don’t because ‘I don’t have time’. I’ll come back to finish this, where most often I wouldn’t come back to start it.

    And…my meeting finished earlier than expected, so I have time to pop back in and finish before the next meeting. I’ve created a whole article in the time I would normally write off as not being enough time to do anything much at all. Shifting my core belief around time and how much time doing things actually requires has been transformative.

    What core beliefs are getting in the way of creating and living the life you want and need?

    Is it about how much time you have?

    Is it about what you should be doing/thinking/being/earning?

    Is it about how your family should function? Or would function if you weren’t a step-family, or single parent?

    Is it about how much your mental health gets in the way of you being your best self?

    Whatever it is, sit with it for a moment. Get out your curious observer hat and watch how this belief is playing out? Is it accurate? Is it how you think it is?

    What can you do to shift the belief from something debilitating to something empowering?

    For me, for now, I’m working on reminding myself I have time for the things that matter and that making time matters. There’s a whole slew of other beliefs that are coming up for review – not being able to stick to a schedule or routine is in my sights!

    Feel free to share what belief you’re about to curiously observe below.

  • The Chores of Self-Care

    The Chores of Self-Care

    This article was originally published in Stepparentmagazine.com

    It seems counter-intuitive to lump chores and self-care in the same sentence, right?!? Isn’t self-care about fun, luxury, the chocolate cake in the bath? What is fun or luxurious about chores?

    For a long time I thought self-care was about indulgence. Indulging my wounded child, not doing the things that seemed boring or onerous. It was about bunking off from doing the things that I didn’t like doing. I’m going to self-care by watching a movie instead of doing the washing or cleaning the house. Self-care was a get out of jail free card. I’m not doing the things, I’m choosing self-care *shines halo*. Except that approach to self-care didn’t really seem to improve my life. Sure, it seemed fun at the time, some of the time. The problem was after I emerged from my cocoon of indulgence, all of the crappy stuff I had been avoiding was still there. A soak in the bath tub did nothing towards reducing chaos at home or making me feel any better about the things I was escaping.

    Let’s take a look at what the goal of self-care is.

    It’s about making our needs a priority, and doing what we need to meet those needs.

    Let’s say that again for those scarfing down the chocolate bar in the vain hope they will feel cared for and nurtured by indulging the inner chocolate fiend…

    Self-care is about making our needs a priority and doing what needs to be done to meet them.

    So I guess the first step towards self-care is figuring out what are the needs are in that moment, or perhaps more importantly, what our unmet needs are. What is it that we need to take care of for ourselves? What is draining resource or leaving us depleted? What do we need to do in order to top up our resources?

    Sometimes it is a good soak in the bath, listening to our favourite music, sipping on a beverage of choice with a tray of snacks, and a good book. Sometimes it is taking a moment to have a cup of tea and a treat, to sit down and stare out of the window while feeling the warmth of the cup in our hand and the delicious indulgence of a treat.

    It’s not always pretty this self-care gig though. Sometimes it’s dragging ourselves to yoga or the gym, when we really, really don’t want to go. Other times, it might be loading the dishwasher before heading out for the day, putting that last load of washing in the dryer before bed. It might be cooking dinner when your whole being is crying out for unhealthy take out.

    I had a week of that last week, the non-glamourous, non-indulgent self-care. I lay in bed after a night of broken sleep, desperately trying to convince myself that going back to sleep before my client session was a better idea than going to anti-gravity yoga. I battled. It was a huge dilemma as to which would be better self-care in that moment. In the end, I decided dragging my aching body along from some stretching was probably going to be of more benefit that lying in bed for another hour or two. I was right, it was. I felt invigorated after yoga. I would not have felt invigorated after a bit more sleep

    When it came time for dinner that night, I didn’t want to cook. I had taken meat out the day before and it needed to be cooked that night or thrown away. My husband was too sick to cook, so it left me. Damn it, where was an adultier adult when I needed one!?! I decided to watch the cooking show I like before I dragged myself into the kitchen to begrudgingly make dinner. It was enough for me to make an effort, we had delicious pork chops on a bed of apple, celery, and onion with sweet wine sauce. The dinner was nurturing, nutritious, and I felt a quiet sense of achievement at the end.

    If I had gone down the indulgent, avoidant ‘self-care’ path that day, I would have ended it feeling like a failure, like my life was out of control, and filled with physical pain. It turns out that sometimes the best self-care is doing the things that feel like work. I’m still a fan of the long bath with music and a cup of tea, I’ll indulge in a massage when time and budget affords. Making time to meet up with friends, reading a book, going for a walk…all of these things are part of a good self-care regime, but don’t forget the satisfaction of a task completed or a life enhancing choice.

  • Take The Trip To Angerville, Just Don’t Move There…

    Take The Trip To Angerville, Just Don’t Move There…

    Memes about how it’s all just a matter of a positive attitude abound. I know I’ve posted a few myself. I do believe that so much of our life experience is dependent on how we chose to frame it. There is a huge element of perception involved in how bad a negative experience can be.

    But, and this is a huge but – trying to be positive all the time is not healthy.

    I’m going to repeat that in a different way, in case you missed it. Denying your negative experiences and feelings is not healthy.

    I used to be so angry with the mother of my stepchildren. I hated her, and then I hated myself for allowing myself to hate her. I was torn as to who I hated most – her for the behaviour I saw as so abhorrent or me for not being able to let go and my anger. I ended up making myself physically ill, I carried so much stress and tension in my body, I was in incredible pain.

    My anger at myself for feeling, what were at the time, congruent feelings was what was making me ill. If I had allowed myself to feel the anger and frustration, instead of fighting it and beating myself up for it, the feelings would have passed far more quickly and easily.

    Instead, I felt so lost and alienated from the person I had thought I was and the person I felt I should be.

    Anger is an important feeling. One we need to be grateful for and pay attention to. Anger tells us when our boundaries have been crossed. It tells us when we are not honouring ourselves or are allowing others to dishonour or respect us. Anger is one of the most important tools in our toolbox when it comes to keeping ourselves safe.

    I spoke to a friend the other night who had hit breaking point. She had just had enough, she felt it was too much to go on and she felt ashamed and weak because of those feelings.

    It was at that moment I realised just how dangerous these exhortations to maintain positivity at all times are, how shaming the idea that your problems are down to your attitude and just changing your thinking will change your world.

    Guess what, we all have moments when we reach our limit.

    Every single one of us. What we often don’t have is a safe space to share those moments.

    We don’t have enough people saying – guess what, your response is completely congruent with the entirely crappy situation you are dealing with. Rage, cry, scream and blame the world and those in your world who are causing you pain.

    We need to have those kinds of conversations more often. People need to understand their pain and suffering is not their fault or a result of a crappy, weak attitude or mind. We also need to let people know these times will pass. Life will move on, the pain of this current situation will change.

    It’s here that for me the rubber hits the road.

    It’s what we do with those painful experiences that defines our lives.

    When we see these times as calls to action, as times when we are being pushed to look at our lives and figure out what is causing us pain…we can make sure our visits to Pity Town don’t turn into long term stays or end up with us being trapped there.

  • Beware The Expert – Finding Help That Fits

    Beware The Expert – Finding Help That Fits

    This article was first published in Stepparentmagazine.com

    Stepparenting and becoming a happy step-family can be hard. We sometimes don’t even know what we don’t know! It’s human nature and common sense to reach out and try to find some help. Sometimes that help is sought from family and friends, and sometimes we decide it’s time to call in the experts.

    This is where it can get tricky!

    People might know a lot about their situations, or about other people’s situations. You might even have family therapists who know a lot of families. None of those people are the expert in YOUR family dynamic. None of those people know you and your situation and family members as well and as intimately as you do.

    This brings us to the first thing to beware of.

    One size does not fit all.

    Any friend, therapist, or coach who tells you that there is one way to do things right is wrong.

    There I said it. Sometimes coaches and therapists are wrong too. Or at least wrong for your family, or rather not a good fit for the dynamic you are working with. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve spoken with over the years who have been made to feel like failures by well-meaning coaches and therapists.

    There aren’t yet a lot of opportunities  for coaches and therapists to study step-family dynamics. Often they are operating from a therapeutic framework designed for families of origin or first families. The techniques and suggestions might work well when you have 2 parents living in the same home who have created a family and a family culture together. Those same theories and techniques don’t always fit in a step-family dynamic where there are more than one household, family culture, and set of parents to wrangle.

    If you are looking for professional help, ask questions.

    Ask about the person’s experience with step-families, ask if they see the dynamics as needing different approaches than a first family. If the answer is no to either of those questions, I’d recommend you keep looking.

    This is even more important if you are dealing with a high conflict situation. Conventional wisdom is that ‘it take two to tango’ or that both parties are equally responsible for conflict. This is not how it works if you have a pathogenic parenting situation, or are dealing with a disordered ex. Those situations require careful handling and an understanding of the pathology at play.

    Ask questions to probe… does the professional understand what pathogenic parenting or alienation is? Have they worked with high conflict situation before? Do they understand some of the problems this can cause for children and how those problems might present? It’s a highly specialised area, and needs an expert who understands this.

    If it doesn’t feel helpful and supportive, it probably isn’t.

    Sometimes therapeutic conversations can be confronting. They can be challenging. They can be uncomfortable. What they shouldn’t be is leaving you feeling like you are failing or that you are the problem on a consistent basis. There will be sessions where you might not feel that great afterwards, even my clients have those moments. Those will be a one-off and we will talk through why it felt like that and resolve it the next session. If this isn’t your experience and you don’t feel supported, it might be time to consider another professional.

    We can inadvertently give away our power when we are feeling overwhelmed. Navigating the whole step-family dynamic can be overwhelming at times, so it’s unsurprising that we can feel like we don’t know what we’re doing and should just do what we’re told.

    At times, it might be helpful to try something that feels uncomfortable or counterintuitive. If it doesn’t work, it’s not because you aren’t doing it right or there is something wrong with you and your family, it could be because it’s not the right intervention for you and yours at this moment. It might also be that you haven’t understood exactly how it’s supposed to be implemented and might have missed a vital piece.

    It’s important you feel safe enough to go back to your professional and tell them it hasn’t worked.

    Things not working includes you not wanting or managing to engage with a suggested intervention or technique. If I make a suggestion a client doesn’t end up going with, it’s not the client being lazy or not doing their homework, it’s that I have not been able to find an intervention that resonated enough for the client to engage. It’s not time to make the client feel bad about not doing the things we’ve discussed, it’s time to look at what about that particular thing felt too hard or didn’t work.

    In our indigenous language, we have a word awhi. It means to gather in with love, to hold with care. This is how I want my clients to feel when they work with me, it’s the concept and way of being I want them to be able to bring into their families.

    If you aren’t feeling held and supported, the expert may not be the expert for you.

  • One Life Enhancing Choice At A Time

    One Life Enhancing Choice At A Time

    Not going to lie, I have been feeling rough physically recently. I could say it’s from the pandemic stress, but that would be a lie. You don’t get a body like mine from a lifetime of healthy choices. It takes years and years of unhealthy choices, of ignoring pain and warning signs. It’s years of not so benign neglect that has me staring down the barrel of 53 with aching joints, a bloated stomach, and a general feeling of blerk.

    It should come to no surprise to anyone who knows me that I have attempted to address this at times, over the years, sporadically. I’m sure my long suffering children can remember the various lifestyle choices they’ve been subjected to. One of the worst was what my ex-husband called ‘Fit for Unhappiness’. I think the actual title was ‘Fit for Life’, but the unhappiness was more accurate.

    So while it may seem that I’m a slow learner, I’ve realised that I am not one to sustain drastic lifestyle changes. I gave up being buddhist in my 20s because I really didn’t believe God wanted us to live lives of deprivation. I am a hedonist at heart. I love indulgence.

    It has now got to the point that my body is craving a different kind of indulgence than I have previously been offering. It wants me to indulge its needs, rather than my wants. Sigh… Bigger Sigh… The body has tools at its disposal I can no longer ignore. The day of reckoning has come.

    This is not where I declare that I’ve joined the gym, even a virtual one, or signed up to some weight loss program. Nope, I know from past experience this wil result in me resenting spending money on something I didn’t really want to do in the first place.

    Instead I am declaring today a day of life enhancing choices. Tomorrow and the next day seem likely to head that way too, rinse and repeat till life consists mainly of life enhancing choices.

    Yep – Life Enhancing Choices.

    This is an addition to my life that I can get on board with, in fact it’s one I use already in many aspects of my life…just not for my poor long suffering body.

    So what do life enhancing choices look like?

    Some of them are small.

    This morning I had a choice of my favourite decadent chocolate bar for breakfast with a coffee, or banana on gluten free toast. Actually, I probably had many more choices, but those were the two that presented themselves most readily. I decided to compromise and have the toast with a chocolate bar chaser. Then I tuned in to my body, I asked myself – did I really want the chocolate bar or was it because it’s habit and a way I have framed as ‘treating myself’? Damnit! My body was not craving or needing the chocolate bar.

    So toast it was. It was delicious toast. I feel replete. Life enhancing choice #1 done.

    I was then sitting there engrossed on my phone and I needed to go to the bathroom,

    Hands up all the women who put off going to the bathroom.

    I see you there!

    It’s a chronic problem among women. We somehow put our basic bodily needs behind all of the other things we feel should do first.

    Go to the bathroom people!

    Life enhancing choice for my body #2.

    It’s not always the big things that matter. I have a very sore elbow at the moment. It’s easy to ignore it. Instead I will put some balm on it today before I start work in my office. It’s putting on the balm, drinking the water, not wearing the uncomfortable clothes, going to the bathroom the moment we realise we need to…those seemingly small things can have a massive impact on our general wellbeing.

    Sometimes it’s bigger, more uncomfortable things.

    Recently I have been cutting back my client hours on the weeks the children are here, so that I can help them with their schoolwork. After the last time they were here, one of them threw me under the bus spectacularly with their mother, after lying to me all week about their schoolwork. I decided that sacrificing my work to help someone who had no regard for the value of my time was not life enhancing for me. I made the decision that I would set aside two days to help, my mother is doing one day, and my husband is taking annual leave to cover the other, and the kids can cope while I work on the other. It seemed like the only option was for me to do it all, until I decided that wasn’t working.

    An even more uncomfortable choice I am facing is that I know I need to knock consuming dairy on the head. I’ve given up gluten and nightshades for my joints, booze for my mental health, but the dairy…*sobs* I LOVE dairy. Cheese, cheese, milky coffee…these are the highlights in a dreary day. These highlights also leave me feeling physically crap, bloated, and sore. The life enhancing choice is going to be saying good bye to cheese and milk for a while, to restore balance to my long suffering body.

    I’m going to need a warm up to that. It’s ok to need warm ups for big changes. For me  a warm up looks like this: acknowledging change is required. Sitting with the frustration, annoyance, and sometimes grief around letting go fo the thing I need to let go of. Then might come bargaining…this may take some time! Finally comes acceptance. The pain of the loss is outweighed by the pain of staying the same.

    Since the dairy is such a big one for me, I might decide to break this down into a series of life enhancing choices. It could be I have a black coffee in the morning, instead of a delicious frothy latte. I might use pecorino on my nachos, which is not cows milk, instead of tasty cheese. Big changes that we find overwhelming or are resistant to, might need a more gentle and gradual approach. I struggle with structured exercise regimes, but I can make the choice to stretch my body a couple of times a day.

    What life enhancing choices can you make today?

    These aren’t shoulds, oughts, or I’m going to do all of the things right now. These are single actions or decisions; I won’t reply to the toxic text, I’m going to assume good intention in this situation, I’m not going to beat myself up for not making the bed today…

    Just pick one thing. If you find yourself motivated, pick another. Life enhancing choices are only life enhancing if we do them willingly and feel good about them.

    I’m off to go cut some lemongrass for my tea for my next client session. Life enhancing choice #3.

  • Getting Lost In The Other

    Getting Lost In The Other

    For a long time, I felt I needed to launch this website with others. I needed the support and the validation. What I was really telling myself was that I was not enough alone to stand in this place. In placing myself at the whim and will of others, I felt powerless. I was in a place of constant lack, I needed this or that from someone else. Whether it was help from my husband, or more qualifications, or a business partner, or someone to provide a service…those barriers kept cropping up. They ‘cropped up’ for more than 10 years. In hindsight, it took me 10 years to come to place where I was enough. It took me 10 years to come to place where I felt I was worth spending $100, $1200 or $2,000 on, to launch my website and business.

    Getting lost in the other has been a long time ‘friend’. It was a pattern in my first marriage. I constantly talked about ‘we’ needed to do things, if ‘we’ are doing something there is no responsibility to take ownership. The thing gets lost in the ‘we’ and I get to sit there helplessly playing the victim, blaming the other for the lack of progress and letting myself off the hook completely. It takes time and some uncomfortable reflecting to shift that thinking, to find the strength and confidence to make the ‘we’ into me.

    We all need help and support, don’t get me wrong. I am not able to do everything I need to do to pull this project off alone. It’s finding the line between giving away our power and reaching out when we need to. I agonised over what the call the site, I asked different groups of people over and over. Nothing I got back felt right. It several incarnations till I settled on Step-Family Dynamics. This was something I had to do myself. It was not a group effort gig. There are other parts of this journey that are something that can be a group effort gig. I am incredibly blessed with those I have around me; writers to contribute their stories, a very supportive husband, who has vast knowledge I can tap into. The difference between tapping into his knowledge and expecting him to do this for me is the difference between accomplishing my goal and not. It’s not because he is unwilling to help, it’s because it’s not his dream. It’s not his priority and while he is more than willing to make time to help me, quite understandably, he is not willing to make my dream his.

    When we get lost in the ‘we’, often what we are asking of those we make part of the ‘we’ is to take on our dream, to live by our values, to share our priorities. We get disappointed when they don’t, we feel let down, unsupported, and abandoned. How about we let them, and ourselves, off the hook? What would that look like? How about instead of passively expecting others to come on board with our plans, we specifically asked for their help in areas they feel comfortable helping? Instead of looking for co-pilots, we take control of our own vehicle, steer our own course.

    When we take charge of our journey, we disentangle ourselves from the murky depths of the ‘we’. We stop getting lost in the other and return home to ourselves. We send ourselves the very clear message ‘you are enough, you have enough’. Independence is not about cutting ourselves off from others and becoming like the little red hen who does it all herself. It’s about taking responsibility for our journey, for the route, the provisioning, and the help we need to access along the way.

    What are you currently getting lost in the other with? Where is your ‘we’ crying out to become ‘me’?

    Recently I have come to a place where I am now able to bring others in to work with, not because I need them, but because I am solid enough in my own doing. I’m not looking for them to fill gaps or do things that scare, I have learned the value of trusting my own capabilities and utilising the skills of others.

    We need to get solid in our own sense of being enough. If we gift ourselves that, we are no longer willing to give away our potency to ‘the other’.

  • New Year’s Revolution – or how not to fail at doing all of the things

    New Year’s Revolution – or how not to fail at doing all of the things

    Years ago one of the kids asked about New Year’s Revolutions. I thought it was cute and kind of accurate. As I thought on it again this year, I realised just how accurate it is. So often our New Year’s resolution are like a revolution in our lives. Out with the old, in with the new, get rid of everything we don’t like and we will live happily ever after in the new republic.

    Except we don’t.

    And then we do it again. Year after year. Decade after decade.

    All we are doing is reinforcing a sense of failure and helplessness.

    I gave up New Year’s resolutions quite a few years ago. I just couldn’t stand setting myself up for failure any more. My theme song when I tell myself I am going to do something goes something like F*ck you I won’t do what you told me! Honestly, the best way to get me not to do something, is for me to tell myself I should or it’s good for me.

    So I had to get off that merry go round. I had to start tricking myself into doing life enhancing things. Obviously the life span of that was short – I’m pretty smart, and I know myself rather well!

    So I started thinking about who I wanted to be, and what resources and actions I might need in order to be that person. Notice I used the word BE rather than BECOME. It’s kind of key here.

    This morning is a great example. For nearly a year now, I have wanted to be a person who walked their dog when they got up in the morning. For nearly a year now, I have been a person who wanted to walk the dog in the morning. Today I am a person who walks the dog in the morning. What changed? What is my magic formula? Which affirmations did I use?

    The only thing that changed was that I got up and walked the dog this morning.

    That’s it. No magic, no preparations, or incantations. Today I got so sick of not being a person who walks their dog in the mornings, I decided to change it.

    I’m not going to pretend I am now a person who walks their dog every morning. I’m not that attached to setting myself up for failure any more. I am now a person who knows walking their dog in the morning is as easy as getting up and walking the dog. I am pretty sure I can do this again. If I don’t do it one day, it will be because my higher value is not being a person who walks the dog in the morning. It might be because my higher value is resting because I am unwell, or getting somewhere early in the morning, or a myriad of other reasons that take precedence over being a person who walks the dog in the morning.

    I have tried so many different ways to become a person who exercises regularly. I have had lots of pain and injury issues, so the process used to start with me being active. It would progress to me getting out of relationship with my body in the eagerness of being active, from there it would turn to injury. The final chapter would be me being too scared to return to that activity in case I injured myself.

    I decided I wanted to become a person who could stay in relationship with body and keep my activity levels in line with my current physical capacity. This capacity is not static, so it meant checking in with my body as I did things. It meant taking rests. It meant realising it’s ok not to finish something I start if I get too tired or my body gets sore.

    Living this way means I know that some days I will be a person who walks the dog in the morning, and some days I will be a person who knows today is not a dog walking day.

    When we start to ponder the coming year, as we inevitably do around this time, rather than making a laundry list of all the things you are going to not do/do, what about instead pondering what kind of person you want to be.

    If you want to be a person who eats healthily, that might mean first being a person who stops buying unhealthy food. You might also need to be a person who replaces the unhealthy snacks and foods with healthy ones. You might want to consider being a person who notices when they crave unhealthy foods or habits and figure out how to avoid those moments.

    I stopped drinking alcohol about 18 months ago. It had just become a habit that wasn’t working for me anymore. I was sick of feeling subpar and having our social life revolve around alcohol. It was interesting watching when I craved a drink. It became really clear it was when I was very depleted and had pushed myself beyond the point of exhaustion. I knew then I needed to be a person who was aware of her available energy and did her best to not reach that point of exhaustion. If I had told myself my resolution was to stop drinking, my inner rebel would have had a huge tantrum and sabotaged within days. I know this, I’ve done it before. Deciding to be a person who didn’t drink alcohol, rather than stopping drinking is such a subtle difference, but for me it made all the difference.

    The photo above is my breakfast this morning. Today I am a person who wanted to fuel her body well. Tomorrow, I may not be that person, but I know that I feel better when I do this, so I will be a person who fuels her body well more often than not.

    The bottom line is – trying to stop or start things doesn’t seem to be very effective, instead focus on who you want to be. Give yourself grace for the days when you don’t want to be that person. It’s ok, we aren’t machines. We ebb and flow, we have days of high function and lower function.

    There is no magic to making change – be the person who does the thing you want to do, then you will be the person doing the thing you want to do.

  • Why I am Not Everyone’s Cup of Tea and Why You Don’t Need to be Either

    Why I am Not Everyone’s Cup of Tea and Why You Don’t Need to be Either

    I have been writing off and on for a number of different websites for a few years now. As writers we need to find our voice; develop a persona that represents us on-line and in our work. For years I tried for the calm, reasonable, balanced person; someone who was wise and measured. It was ok, because sometimes I am like that, it represented a part of me. The part it didn’t represent was the part I felt was maybe a little more ‘out-there’. This part swears, pushes the boundaries, is unconventional, and was a part I feared was maybe too confrontational to be socially acceptable. I worried about alienating readers, I worried I would be ‘too much’ for some people. The result was a watered-down version of me. My humour disappeared and so too did my integrity. I was playing small to try and appeal to the widest range of people possible.

    I took a break from writing for the last couple of years, I had a heavy study load and no creativity left for writing in this genre. My writing was focused on academic subjects and framed by the strict rules governing academic writing, I wrote my first piece after this break late last night, after a day of decisions around the name of this website and my therapy practice. I had looked at logo designs, trying to find something. All through this process I was walking the tightrope of trying to find something that would speak to others, appeal to them in a way that also explained who I was and what I do.

    It became apparent that I could not find a name that encompassed everything I wish to achieve in my work. In fact, since I originally wrote this piece, I’ve revisited the name of the site another few times. I’ve settled with step-family dynamics because at the moment it makes sense as a vehicle to let people know where my expertise lies. Even within this field, I won’t speak in a way that resonates with everyone. I’m blunt, despite my efforts to be soft and gentle. Part of it is cultural, us New Zealanders are pretty straight forward. Part of it is personality, I’m very honest.

    I will not be playing small to make sure I don’t offend sensibilities or ruffle feathers. I will be irreverent, I will on occasion use cuss words. I will make jokes about things people may feel we should not joke about. I will be me, my real self. I’m not going to try and be everyone’s cup of tea because even the most tasty tea will not be something everyone likes. I will make my best tea and enjoy sharing it with those who like that kind of thing. I need to walk my walk, so that I can support you to walk yours.

    I’m not everyone’s cup of tea and I will work with you so you don’t need to try and be everyone’s cup of tea either.