People are amazing when they are pushed to the limit – that moment right there, that’s when you become resourceful. The warrior, the goddess and the inner strength wants to come out, so you start looking at all the possibilities.
As many inspiring people have shown us, both in sports and business, what may seem like a hindrance or major setback can in fact become your biggest asset when fully accepted and then embraced. Look at Oprah Winfrey, a now powerful and inspiring philanthropist and media executive, who has led the way for so many people, showing us daily that the sky is the limit if you apply yourself. It’s well-documented that Oprah suffered sexual abuse at a young age. Her life could have turned out very differently if she had become defined by that and let those wounds hold her back; instead she flew to the highest level possible in her life and daily inspires others with her learnings through her books, talks and foundation.
Amy Purdy, a Paralympic bronze medalist, motivational speaker and co-founder of Adaptive Action Sports, is someone else that has shown all of us how to reframe life on the next level. You might have watched her TED talk “Living Beyond Limits” – if not, it’s worth a watch (see page 170). At age 19 she was diagnosed with bacterial meningitis. She was lucky to survive the illness but had to have both her legs amputated below the knee. Before losing her legs, exercise was always a big part of her life and she was determined to use her legs again and snowboard. So much had happened that was out of her control but instead of dwelling on what she had lost, she focused on what she had left, and strengthening her core muscles became her focus. Amy is such a perfect example of how to turn uniqueness into an asset. She went on to perform on Dancing With the Stars US and I don’t think I was alone in sobbing the whole way through her stunning contemporary dance with Derek Hough. I have so much respect for her journey, her resilience and her grace. She often talks about how positive visualization was a big part of her recovery; she literally imagined what she wanted to be doing way before she was doing it. In an interview Amy explained that she decided not to “lie at home and feel sorry for herself but instead find a way to better herself in the world”.
These are just a couple of inspirational stories that illustrate what is possible even when it seems impossible. It would have been so easy for Oprah and Amy to have become stuck in “Why me?” and focus on the pain, the hurt, and in feeling overwhelmed and not good enough, but they didn’t – instead they accepted what had happened and allowed it to fuel their journey forward, to push beyond limitations created by circumstances out of their control, and in doing so inspiring and giving hope to others.
“Challenges are an opportunity to up-level within.”
These examples highlight the magic that lies in the way you perceive yourself and the power of making peace and accepting your situation and yourself fully.
Accepting yourself
It’s one thing being self-aware, being aware of the habits and behaviours that have led you to where you are; it’s another thing to accept those things about yourself. It’s quite normal not to like or want to accept some of the things you’ve discovered, but it’s only by accepting them as part of who you are that you can change them. You may have discovered things about yourself that you want to improve on – for example, wanting to have more self-belief, self-respect or confidence. You may have realized that by working on these traits, you’ll no longer continue to make the same mistakes, such as choosing the wrong relationships or being challenged by particular kinds of people.
“This self-acceptance thing can happen in a moment of ‘A-ha’ or maybe more gradually as little by little you start to accept and embrace all that you really already are.”
One important thing I’m going to show you is how to embrace what you’ve discovered about yourself and love your uniqueness. Self-acceptance is a chance to really recognize your own value, who your truest self is beyond the stories you have been telling yourself and others.
YOUR TOOLBOX: ME RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW
Self-acceptance is about seeing yourself for where you are right now in this moment, not where you were or where you want to be.
It’s time to tune in and gauge where you are on the scale of acceptance in this very moment. Go ahead and answer the questions below. You might sit and contemplate them for a while or write the answers down in your journal now.
This is how I feel right now in this moment of my life…
I accept……………about myself
I accept……………about the situation
Tune into how you felt as you completed these statements.
YOUR TOOLBOX: MINDFULNESS EXERCISE
This mindfulness exercise, a Buddhist practice called Vedana, will help you to accept feelings rather than fight them – allowing them to be so that you can find peace with them – and stop them from spiralling.
Meditate for however long feels right for you, starting with 3–5 minutes (to time yourself, you can set an alarm or put on a relaxing tune if that works better for you). Relax and gently breathe in and out.
1. Allow thoughts to come up to the surface and acknowledge them without attaching yourself to them. Then label them in your mind with one of three words: pleasant, unpleasant or neutral.
2. Then bring your focus back to your breath. When another thought or feeling arises, observe it and label it in the same way as in step 1. Continue to do so throughout the meditation.
We like to label things in life, but by sticking to just those three words you will start to create pauses between your thoughts – some actual space. In that space you will find it easier to accept the things you have been resisting. It’s such a relief to just know for that practice you don’t have to be hard on yourself, judge your thoughts or get caught up in any negative self-talk – just allow whatever needs to come up for you to do so. Use only those three words so that you don’t judge yourself harshly. Just accept all as it is in the moment.
Feeling overwhelmed
For most of us, finding our way home to ourselves and all the beauty that lies within is an ongoing journey and with some mind tools up your sleeve – not least the exercises in this book – I hope you will be able to navigate through the changes with relative ease. However, I’m very aware that it can feel overwhelming when we start to up-level ourselves emotionally as human beings, when we start to act and make decisions that are truly aligned with who we are at the core of our soul. The feelings that come up on our inward journey might be rather unpleasant and you may wonder “Will this feeling ever pass? When will I learn?” You may become impatient and frustrated, feeling “I’m doing all of these things but nothing is changing YET.” It’s at those moments that you perhaps even consider hitting the snooze button on self-development, but you understand too much already and know that if you bury your head in the sand now, the problems will still be there when you emerge.
I want to stress the importance of working with a professional whilst going through these challenging times and situations. If you are trying to accept something deeply traumatic that has happened to you in the past or are having to face up to and work on a difficult personality trait, a professional coach or therapist will provide a healing space and be able to advise and guide from a neutral objective place allowing you to find your answers in your own time. I remember the first time I reached out to a Life Coach – it was the best thing I did for myself at the time. It taught me so much about myself and really helped me evolve and heal relationship grievances, and it inspired me to become a coach myself. I was reluctant to seek help at the time because I felt like I was supposed to have it all figured out and just cope with whatever was thrown at me. I was worried I would look weak, but I know now that it actually takes courage, acceptance and vulnerability to admit you need help and that it’s the best you can do to heal yourself. A therapist or coach won’t judge you – he or she will support you in your healing journey. However, I would like to stress the importance of finding someone who you trust and feel comfortable with.
Turning to friends can of course be helpful – “a problem shared is a problem halved” – but sharing raw and unresolved issues with loved ones before you have even made sense of them yourself is risky. For example, you might not want to discuss feeling jealous, frustrated or worthless before working out where those feelings are coming from. Family and friends will care about you, and want to defend and protect you, so might give you a biased and unbalanced view. For example, if it’s a relationship problem they might put all the blame on your partner and reassure you that you are not at fault for all the wrongdoings. Although that can feel good in the moment, in reality you are stopping yourself from actually figuring out what is going on and what this situation has come to teach you, even if the other person is in the wrong. Those close to you may also want to bring up a situation long after you have moved on, which carries the issue into the future when it should stay firmly in the past. If you have a friend or family member who can be objective then that’s good, but it’s not always the case.
Accepting responsibility
Whatever reasons there are for any relationship breakdown, even if one person has had an affair, there is always something we can learn that will help us grow as humans and there may be a part you need to take responsibility for. What I have learnt through years of working with couples is that there are usually many different parts to a relationship breakdown. Let’s look at someone having an affair, for example: often both partners are aware that there are issues but denying them. Perhaps one person has repeatedly made it clear that they would like their partner to listen more, to be home more, to work less, to have more fun together, to make time for each other and so on – they have reached out. Maybe one person in the relationship, whether it’s love, work or family related, was struggling in life and, instead of communicating that, numbing themselves with distractions such as other people, alcohol or drugs. In situations like this it’s so helpful to accept what you can take responsibility for because when two people take responsibility for their shortcomings or mistakes a beautiful space is created between them. A space where accepting what needs attention can enable a relationship to heal or allow it to dissolve in a more amicable and peaceful way. When you put your ego aside and take responsibility for your part, you invite the other person to do the same and it becomes less of a blame game, which we know resolves nothing.
When one of my clients came to me heartbroken because she had found out her husband had been having an affair, we worked through her emotions and she eventually accepted that there was no way back for them. She felt so disrespected and hurt, but after a while she was willing to look at what she could take responsibility for in their relationship. She realized that her relationship with alcohol had become out of control and admitted that on many occasions her husband had let her know how much it upset him when she drank – he would say he felt shut out and that she didn’t care about him. The sad irony was that she had felt lonely and neglected in their relationship, but hadn’t communicated how she felt – subconsciously she had begun to fill the void of feeling lonely by drinking and it had become a daily habit and a cycle she struggled to break. She enrolled in AA, alongside coaching and hypnosis with me, and made great progress. In this situation, accepting that she had an issue with alcohol was a huge step towards her healing, but unfortunately in this case it had taken an affair and a break-up for her to truly admit and accept there were issues that needed dealing with within. Of course if I was dealing with the husband too, we would have worked out his underlying issues for having the affair. Her realization took the therapy to a whole new place and instead of working on her broken heart from her marriage ending, we started working on the root cause of her issues and on healing the void within her. It transpired that this stemmed from the lack of love she had felt as a child when she was constantly left alone, feeling scared and not loved. Of course it would have been better if she and her husband could have communicated clearly and listened to each other and worked together to heal their issues. I’m by no means saying that having an affair is the answer, but just that sometimes it’s through the painful and hurtful situations that we learn our biggest lessons. It doesn’t have to be like that of course, but it often is. If it doesn’t hurt this much, then we aren’t forced to look at what the situation has brought up. If the challenges we are sent are not too uncomfortable, we often don’t learn the lesson – we just carry on as we are until the next challenge. As humans we unfortunately learn faster from pain than from pleasure, as we talked about in Chapter 1. Once my client worked on filling this void within her and on self-love, the next relationship she attracted was completely different. She was in a much better place emotionally and she has now come a long way from feeling lonely and empty to living a life where she feels fulfilled and loved.
Taking responsibility for our part goes for friendships and work relationships too. I remember a friend of mine highlighting to me, a long time ago, that she was always the one travelling to see me – she was totally right; I had just never thought of it this way. But I came to realize that what I felt, but had not communicated to her, was that although I cared for her I didn’t feel we wanted the same from our friendship anymore; that our values and beliefs were different at this stage of our lives compared to when we were younger. My action had spoken louder than my words and I took responsibility and apologized for my part and we amicably took a step back from our friendship. We still loved each other from afar, and still do, but chose not to carry on disappointing and expecting different things from each other that we couldn’t or didn’t want to live up to.
YOUR TOOLBOX: FILLING THE VOID
It’s so liberating to discover that you can fill a void yourself – you don’t need to rely on something outside of yourself to fulfil you and make you happy.
It’s extremely telling and healing to ask yourself:
“Is there a void within me I’m trying to fill?” and “What am I trying to fill that void with?”
Some examples might be:
• Food
• Sex
• This relationship
• Alcohol
• Drugs
What is the void? What feelings come up for you? Explore this by writing in your journal if you need to.
Examples might be feeling bored, alone, not enough. Answering this will help you to accept what the real wound is that you need to work on and heal.
Accepting I had to move on
I guess one of the most challenging times for me was when I found myself heartbroken in my 30s. I went from having landed my dream job on one of the biggest shows on British TV, buying my first home and being engaged to a great guy. Yay to me, I thought. The next minute I was walking away from all of it with my heart in my hands. Just like anyone else would when going through a break-up with a long-term partner, not long after you’ve gotten engaged, I went through the different stages of being angry, hurt, not quite wanting to believe or accept it and wishing everything would just go back to the way it was. I felt, of course, that would be easier than having to go through the awful experience of accepting it was over and the pain that brought with it. It was almost tempting to turn a blind eye and pretend all was still well. I even tried that but the pain of my broken heart was screaming too loudly for me to ignore it.
The acceptance did not happen overnight, I can assure you, and there were different stages of it. As my partner and I also ran a business together I had to accept that was over as well. Everything we had worked for was over. I kept wishing there was some quick way to get over this and when someone told me it might take me three years to heal I was in complete denial; it was just too much to think I would have to feel all of these nauseating feelings for that long. I tried blaming the other person at first but then realized that I had to accept the breakdown, understand the part I had played in us ending up in this mess and decide what I truly wanted to happen moving forward. Did I want us to resolve it? Did I want us to go our separate ways? And once I was clear o
n that I accepted both what had happened and my decision to go our separate ways. My focus then became healing myself, which included owning my part of the relationship breaking down.
“Whilst staring back at what could have been, you can’t see all that can be. Turn around and look at all of the opportunities that lie ahead.”
Looking back, this painful experience was one of the most healing experiences of my life and a big part of why I help so many couples in my practice today work through their differences and difficulties. I would like to think this whole experience has made me a more well-rounded and understanding person, coach and wife to my wonderful husband today.
Grieving
Accepting that we have to let go of something – a relationship, or a specific dream and goal – is difficult, and grieving for that loss is an important part of self-acceptance.
Tracey Cleantis, writer, speaker and psychotherapist, describes very well the art of grieving our unrealized dreams in her book The Next Happy. She makes very clear the freedom that follows once we close the door or, as she says, “let our dream die” in order to move on. The process of grieving our unrealized dreams is the same as when we grieve the death of a loved one – the way we experience it is individual to everyone and you can’t put a time scale on it. If you have worked really hard towards something, invested everything, whether emotionally or financially, and then realized it’s never going to happen it’s important to recognize and accept these feelings that are coming up around that – you will be able to reframe them once you have worked through them and are ready. It is important to accept the uncomfortable feelings and emotions and explore them with curiosity rather than pushing them away. As Carl Jung said “What you resist not only persists, but will grow in size.”
It's Not You, It's Me Page 6