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What You Need To Know About Being Labeled Irrational

October 13, 2018 by Must Love Crows Leave a Comment

Imagine 100 people in a line up in front of you, each one geared up and ready to tell you you’re irrational.

Why? Because the idea of being called irrational is adrenaline pumping. As in, you default to hyper defense, adrenal draining mode when it comes up. Which means it’s in your best interest to take a look at it.

Thoughts come up, like: If I accept their label of irrational, that means there is something wrong with me. And there can’t be something wrong with me. My mantra is: It’s Not OK for people to think I’m not ok; It’s Not OK for people to think I’m not ok. Must not happen. Cannot happen.

Gentle pause for peace inducing thought: Their label of irrational isn’t the true definition of irrational. It’s the label they give to anyone who doesn’t go along with what they want.

If you choose that as truth, then you have some options:

Speak – “Your label of irrational isn’t the true definition of irrational. It’s the label you give anyone who doesn’t do things the way you believe they should be done. Ie, in a way that suits your agenda.” (NOTE: This is gaslighting, a term for anyone who manipulates a person into questioning their own sanity using psychological means. Scary stuff. Prevalent. Look out for it. Here’s a book that will help you identify it.)

Don’t Speak, But Remember – I will never see this person again. This is not worth my time. I need to protect my wellbeing, by not giving so much of myself to something that doesn’t require it.

And then comes peace through self-assertion:

I know what the irrational label means. A rejection of boundaries. A fear of boundaries. A fear of me and my right to protect myself.

In order to accept me as rational, the labeler would need to accept their entire way of living as irrational. This terrifies them, so they label me as irrational, instead. However, this does not mean I am irrational.

We can accept that someone might label us irrational, but that doesn’t mean that’s what We Are.

Thoughts to ponder, to help you experience more peace in your life. And also, there’s this: Clarity comes when we dare to look at what upsets us instead of running from it.

The 40 Day Abundance Plan

September 20, 2018 by Must Love Crows Leave a Comment

I’ve decided to embark on a 40-day journey to refurbish my beliefs about money.

Why? Because I’ve spent much of my life in a dysfunctional relationship with money. Maybe you can relate. I’ve danced between overspending, never spending, worrying, being careless, and generally just feeling unsettled on a regular basis about the whole idea of money.

I’ve had wonderful blips of clarity and peace about my finances and experienced first hand how quickly I can manifest income when I’ve got my mind and soul in the optimal loop of thought.

But I’ve always ended up in super unhealthy work environments in the process, and then quickly become reacquainted with the ugh-inducing, low vibing realm of, “How will I ever make the money I want to make, doing what I love?”

I’ve seen what the pursuit of money, and money alone, can do to people. I know what it feels like to have your heart broken over and over again by realizing a loved one cares more about money than you. I’ve struggled with accepting the truth living within me in the vicinity of such people, a truth that affirms kindness, love, compassion, and generosity of spirit are more important than the pursuit of a physical, tangible item.

Because of all of the above and then some, I’ve got a suitcase I carry with me that is overpacked with dysfunctional money beliefs, and confusion over how to feel about it. It not only hurts my back (google money issues and back problems) but my heart, and I’d like to permanently unpack it.

I know it’s possible. I’ve witnessed many creatives I admire and respect to the moon and back get out the other end of money issues without sacrificing their wellbeing. Rather, they’ve ended up in an enhanced state of wellness, not only within themselves but in their bank accounts.

So I’m committing to making a shift happen in my subconscious through my 40-day abundance plan. Here’s what it looks like:

Writing out a statement on the first day, affirming what I know the be true about abundance, and what I choose to believe about it moving forward.
Reading a pro-abundance statement every morning.
Meditating about what I’ve read for 15-20 minutes every morning.
Writing down the thoughts that come to me after meditation.
Rinse and repeat x 40 days.

I started the plan this morning and full disclosure, it was super uncomfortable. However, I was grateful for the discomfort because I know from experience that its existence is a sign something is becoming dislodged in my psyche. And I’m VERY excited to see how my feelings transform over the next 40 days.

Side note: I’m not just winging it. I’ve adapted my plan according to what I read in “The Abundance Book” by John Randolph Price. And here’s a note from me about the book if you decide to google it or purchase it:

There are many references to God in it. If the idea of God freaks your freak, and you immediately get your hackles up, thinking about hyper-religious sects that do a lot of awful stuff in the name of their religious views that they proclaim God determined they must live by, take a breath. Then lower your shoulders, release your fists, and remember this:

God is a complex term for humans to process. There’s a lot of emotion tied to it depending on our experiences with religion. However, a productive way to process the term God when considering abundance, coming from a former judgemental-of-anyone-who-referenced-God human being who didn’t understand or appreciate the idea of us all bowing down to a white dude and denying the power of the female, is to see God as a synonym for universal energy, not as a physical human being.

Money is energy. It’s an extension of our inner world, of our beliefs. So if there is a lack in your outer world, there is a lack within you as well.

I know a bit about this subject. I’ve been researching it and pondering it for years. But my sub-conscious is all, “I’m comfortable being uncomfortable and worrying all the time. I’m not interested in your new ways, even if they are entirely logical and could potentially make life way more enjoyable and beautiful.”

Hence the 40-day plan, to pilfer out the limiting beliefs living in my psyche that are keeping me from the life I’m on the cusp of experiencing. It’s going to take a bit of work to clear out my sub-conscious but I’m hella optimistic that 40 days will do it.

I believe this truth, by John Randolph Price, infinitely: The good of the whole does begin with each individual.

It serves not only me but the world if I’m free of limiting beliefs. So here we go on the 40-day journey.

To peace and abundance, in our inner and outer worlds. See you in 40 days.

PS: Feel free to leave a comment of support. I would be grateful!

Advice For Difficult Seasonal Transitions (From A Chronically Seasonally Depressed Human)

September 3, 2018 by Must Love Crows Leave a Comment

Seasonal transitions have always proven to be tough for me.

I love the sun. I thrive when it’s warm outside. When the temperature drops, and it’s no longer weather appropriate to be bare-legged in a lounge chair with my computer, notebook, or latest non-fiction obsession, I enter into a period of mourning.

I don’t anticipate quite the difficulty as I’ve had over the past few years, but I’m still a bit weary. I’m not sure what will come about when the skies get grayer, and Vancouver Island starts to live up to its reputation as a rainforest.

I’ve recently upped my belief in the fact that everything is going to be OK, and that I will be OK, no matter what happens in my life. So that’s comforting when I start to feel uncomfortable with all the changes weather wise.

But that doesn’t mean the transition to fall isn’t capable of rocking me to the emotional core.

Something inside has a tendency to fight what is this time of year. It’s prone to clenching and refusing the universal need for the leaves to fall, the temperatures to cool, and the diminishing amounts of sun to be available to baste my body.

Something within doesn’t want to accept the changes.

I experience a lot of uncomfortable physical symptoms in the fall, too. Digestive issues (Will spare the details and you’re welcome for that); super dry skin; heavy depression; intense anxiety: all of them come on strong and are hesitant to let up on demand.

Remembering that everything is temporary when experiencing all the discomfort is, well, comforting. Sitting with how I feel isn’t. Letting things get emotionally messy is messy, and I don’t like messes.

But the alternative, of looking to the not so recent past and feeling bummed out over how fast the summer went, and wishing and hoping for more time in the sun, always proves to be a tempting, albeit terrible, idea.

Until I’m ready to see what was with lightness and look at summer with gratitude instead of fear over its passing, I need to leave it where it lay. I need to get to acceptance of what is first; Acceptance of right now. And I always get there, but not until I go through what feels like a spiritually led mourning period.

I believe this: That there is more to the struggle I feel during the seasonal change into Fall than just the passing of summer; That the feelings are too heavy and deep to be from missing my favorite river or lakeside spot alone.

Regardless of the origin of my feelings, my goal this year is to get outside the realm of discomfort over what is with greater speed. I don’t want to set up shop with depression and anxiety. My plan to make sure that doesn’t happen?

Do things differently than I’ve always done them during the seasonal transition.

If you’ve read much of what I write about on the blog, or in the twice-a-month-ish emails I send out, you’ll know that doing things differently is what I’m all about these days. Because doing things differently is the key to emotional growth.

Which is why recently I’ve been scanning through the last couple years, to the times when seasonal depression and anxiety started taking up square footage in my body like a great dane in a studio apartment. Not with a critical, self-shaming eye, but a clinical one. And I’ve asked myself:

What did you do when you struggled with difficult seasonal transitions in years past?

Here’s what I came up with:

I stopped posting and connecting with people on social media. I couldn’t think of anything positive to write about or share, ’cause I felt so down, so I just stopped posting altogether. I was gone long enough that friends started messaging me, asking if I was OK. So I isolated myself from my community and it definitely didn’t help me out.

I ate shitty food. Gluten much? How about Gluten too much. Plus dairy, pork, canola oil, corn, refined sugar, and salt: You name it, I ate it when I was feeling depressed. I’m a huge follower of the medical medium and have seen incredible results from following his suggested eating plans via his books, which you can read about in this post. So I know from repeated food-related emotional and physical upheaval throughout the year that September is not a good month to be trifling (Damn, I love a good trifle) with all the stuff on my “Don’t Eat This Stuff” list.

I was less active. Recovering from drug and alcohol addiction and the depression and trauma that fueled them taught me that when I’m experiencing heavy doses of depression I need to move my body. Which is tough because when I feel depressed I don’t want to be active. Case in point the last few years, when I dialed back my work out routine substantially in the fall, ’cause I had zero motivation. Needless to say, not doing anything made me feel worse.

I ran from my feelings by buying stuff. The last few years I’ve done a fair bit of running. Not around the block – I’m talking running from how I felt via emotional purchases. Tons of cash spent at the vitamin store for supplements in order to fix how I felt; make-up counter visits in hopes a new product would make me feel (and look) better; a surplus of books, some of which haven’t even been cracked yet: none of it helped. It just kept me busy while siphoning my savings account. Yuck.

I didn’t take time to be grateful. I was so consumed with fear over how uncomfortable I felt that I couldn’t see how it could ever get better. I stopped practicing being grateful and it made things way worse.

After all that investigating, it became clear that I needed a plan this year. Even though I feel like a different person – stronger, more empowered, and grateful than in years past – I still need to be ready, in case the same symptoms come about again.

So I made a plan for the transition to Fall and it goes like this:

Remain open to my community. I’m going to share what the transition teaches me on social media and on the blog. I’ll be mindful of the delivery, ie, keep my heart open, and ensure I share empowering yet honest content. And I’m going to make plans with friends, for the near and faraway future, instead of hanging solo all the time. Adding fun stuff to the calendar always feels good, no matter how far away it is (TGFJ = Thank God For Jen, who likes to plan ahead like I do.)

Write it out. I’m going to use how I feel as content inspiration for my blog, my book, and my workbook. This is a good chance to get introspective about what I’m feeling.

Not let depression make choices for me. Depression isn’t something I need to be listening to for health advice, so I’m not going to listen when it makes the super shitty suggestion that I numb my brain with entertainment shows, lay in bed all day, shop away my feelings, or eat bags of cheddar popcorn. Nuh-uh. Nuhhhh-uhhhhh.

Up my healthy eating game. The proof is in the dairy-free pudding (I’ve never tried making that but it feels like it’s google worthy): Shitty food equals a shitty frame of mind, body, and soul. I’m going to cut out the crap when I feel like crap and keep my house stocked with healthy foods so it’s easier to dismiss depression’s suggestion that I start eating cake at every meal.

Move my body. This is one of those cases where I have to get tough love-ish with myself: Even if I don’t feel like doing anything when I’m feeling down and out, I need to do it anyway. I’m not saying I need to sign up for CrossFit (though if that’s your thing, go get ’em, babe.) I’m saying move my body a bit, ie, walk around the block, or do one beginner yoga class per week – something that gets the blood flowing. Nothing good comes of stagnation, mentally or physically. I know this VERY well. Lighter equals, well, lighter. And I’m not talking about my waistline. Everything feels a little less heavy when you make time to move your bod.

Sit with my feelings. I’m going to notice when I feel like running by eating or shopping and sit with my how I feel instead. I’m going to go all Buddha on that “Hey – you should do this thing that will make you feel worse!” suggestion that I KNOW will be coming my way on the regular. Will it feel great to sit with how I feel? Not likely. But it’s temporary, and the sooner I am courageous enough to do so, the sooner my discomfort will pass. (I wrote more about this idea, of sitting with your discomfort, in this post.

Meditate more often. One of my Instagram friends, @remindmeditation, recently said: “Meditation isn’t hard. Learning organic chemistry is hard. Winning an Ironman is hard. Giving birth is tough AF. Meditation is easy. You can meditate.”

And Jaylee is right: You can meditate. We can all meditate. And while I don’t think meditating for long periods of time is easy, I DO think we sabotage ourselves by saying it’s too hard to even attempt. I do it to myself sometimes, particularly when I’m feeling depressed, and that’s an everyday meditator admitting that.

A way around the “I don’t want to, even though I know it’ll help me” is by lowering the bar. Making 1-5 minutes of meditation the goal is much less daunting than trying to force 20 minutes when you’re just not that into it. And it makes it more likely that you’ll actually do it. So less self-sabotage + more doing what feels doable = self-care, self-love, self-empowerment. The math checks out. I checked it.

Seasonal transitions can be tough. What makes them even tougher?

When you don’t have a plan to deal with the issues that might come with the changing of seasons.

Experience has taught me that waiting until things get hard is not a good plan. Having a plan is a good plan.

You might need to look at what didn’t work for you in the past, like I did, to sort out what helps provide relief, empowerment, and motivation when times get difficult.

One thing you can do right now? Share something you plan to do this year, to help you mentally transition into fall in the comments below.

You never know who you could be helping by doing so, so please take a moment to share your thoughts. And after that grab a copy of my One Minute Meditation Guide, which is a great tool to add to your Fall Wellness toolkit.

Now, I’m going to give Fall, cause it’s truly here on Vancouver Island, a warm welcome, even though it’s not exactly warm, and offer a reminder to you:

Be kind to yourself during seasonal transitions. It’s so very human, to struggle during times of change.

The 3 Phases of Courage

August 16, 2018 by Must Love Crows Leave a Comment

Everyone has things they don’t like doing. My least favourite thing to do? Put flea medication on my cat, Jack.

Jack has a special place in my heart. No joke, he helped save my life. When I was struggling with sobriety, he showed up at my door, looking for love.

Love Heals. The love I felt for him was one of the catalysts that helped me figure out how to love myself. So the cliché about rescuing animals is absolutely true in this case: I saved him just as much as he saved me.

Over the past few weeks, my little fur dude’s activity of choice has been scratching himself. If my suspicions were correct – that he had fleas – it would mean I’d have to apply flea medication, which, not surprisingly, was on his list of least favourite activities as well.

The coldness on his neck from the alcohol in the meds freaks him the fuck out, which breaks my heart because the little man already has PTSD (his previous owner died tragically.) That said I’m keen on locating some hard proof before I start the process.

Unfortunately for both of us, I found one crawling on his face the other day. I was bummed, to say the least. What we had to do (it takes two to apply it) came with the added bonus of being shamed and ostracized.

And no, I’m not talking about the Facebook comments section: this is what Jack the cat does to us humans when we apply the stuff.

We applied it anyway. The other option was him being uncomfortable and our home getting ransacked with fleas. Not happening.

True to form, he freaked out. He tried to outrun the feeling on his neck down the driveway, up the driveway, into the backyard, and into the neighbour’s yard.

Shortly after his run began, however, he stopped to sit in a pile of dirt. I watched from the window (’cause he needed his space) as he sat down and closed his eyes, looking like a tiny, furry little buddha. There he stayed for over an hour.

Somewhere amidst my intermittent window watching and dishwashing, something profound came to me:

Was he uncomfortable? Yes.

Did he realize that there was no way to outrun his discomfort? Yes.

Did he continue to try to outrun his discomfort? No.

To a cat, it’s logical to stop running. They don’t have a bunch of human conditioning, clogging up their minds.

But for a human, it takes courage to stop.

In the mind of a human, what Jack did was courageous. He could have kept trying to outrun the feeling, and ignored me and the hubby for days. But he knew that he’d just end up suffering more.

So he let himself sit in that dirt pile for a bit, and watching him do so got me thinking:

We need to get used to sitting in the dirt pile with our feelings, too.

Feeling shitty is temporary. So is feeling happy. Where we get ourselves into trouble is when we diagnose feeling terrible as permanent and shut ourselves off from the chance to feel better, by refusing to let ourselves feel how we feel for any length of time.

I remember when I used to immediately red flag any feeling that didn’t feel good. I’d either head straight to the doctor, thinking I needed to up my antidepressant dosage, or else I’d make myself feel even worse by maxing out my credit card on clothes I didn’t need and racking up a bar tab I couldn’t afford.

I would diagnose myself as seriously screwed up, all for being human and having an off day.

It’s not bad to feel unhappy, and it takes courage to stop trying to outrun our unhappiness.

In my case, investigating and sitting with my unhappiness has taught me how to be courageous.

I’ve come to know 3 phases of Courage:

The first phase – Noticing that you’ve normalized behavior that is unhealthy, like running from how you feel.

Just witnessing that you’re doing this, and how it might not be working for you, is Courageous.

The second phase – Doing things differently the next time you notice you’re ready to extend that same behaviour.

Courage is changing things up: If you’ve always done it one way, try another.

The third phase – Continuing to try to do things differently, in spite of failing to do so.

Courage is committing to doing things differently the next time around.

Acts of Courage, in whatever form or degree they come in, are powerful.

Any time you choose to do things differently than you’ve always done them, it’s a win, not only for you but for the people and the world around you, too.

No act of courage goes unnoticed by the world.

Despite the lack of a pat on the back or a “Way to go, babe!” there are heaps of people being positively affected by your efforts to be well.

You are setting an amazing example simply by trying to do things differently.

Don’t stop setting examples. Don’t stop being courageous, in whatever phase you can manage to at the moment.

Thanks for reading. You are loved,

Thoughts About Things Falling Apart

August 3, 2018 by Must Love Crows Leave a Comment

It’s Friday and it’s been one hell of a week. Maybe you feel the same?

Personal issues that have my heart feeling like a yo-yo? Check. Mercury retrograde getting me feeling a certain shade of yikes? Check. Sleep issues? Check.

I can’t help but feel like things are falling apart.

What do we do when things feel like they’re falling apart? I know what I used to do: Make a home in my pain. I felt the return of that act this morning. I was drafting a response to the awful response from the other party in a lawsuit I’m in the midst of when I felt a familiar sort of uncomfortable radiating from my stomach.

It felt constricting, and immediately took away my desire to eat or drink, and yet, I kinda liked it.

It made me feel shaky and sick like I wanted to throw up, yet still, I kinda liked it.

It was volatile, and wavered with intensity depending on the tone of the words I either typed or erased in the document I felt consumed with populating.

To be blunt, it felt fucking terrible, yet still, I kinda liked it.

So I asked myself the obvious: “Why do you like this? Why are you continuing to do this, even though it is causing you to suffer? What is happening here?”

I didn’t wait for an answer or try to diagnose it. I just stopped typing and the feeling went away. And when the idea came up that I should continue to type, the feeling returned.

“Not like this,” I said to myself, though the words didn’t seem to come from me.

I realized then that I was so very, very tired of trying so hard at things that caused me so much emotional turmoil. I was tired of digging my own emotional grave, and I wanted to continue my commitment to doing things differently.

Different to me means not causing myself harm; it means being unwaveringly kind to myself, no matter how other people might treat me. Choosing to take this path dictates that whatever brings me the opposite of that pit of dread responding to an essay of lies and personal attacks initiated is where I need to go.

So I erased the parts of the letter that were harsh, and replaced them with words that were lighter and more loving. And yes – I sent love to the person who tried to minimize me with misogyny.

This is a moment if there ever was a moment; This is profound; This Oprah “aha” worthy.

I am very, very proud of who I am and the strength I have uncovered through my research and my commitment to doing things differently. Every step I’ve taken has allowed me to witness my pain, instead of allowing pain to run my show.

I make the choices now – Not pain, and not other people who are in pain, either.

I am so very grateful for my capacity to forgive, even in the face of unwavering efforts to minimize me. And yes, this week has had some challenges – the last two weeks, really – but it’s all worth it because of this moment, and my capacity to sift the good from the unsavory.

That said, I truly care about all of you. I don’t need to know you personally to wish you well and remind you with my whole heart how important it is that no matter what you do this weekend, you be loving to yourself.

In the face of confusion or feeling like things are falling apart, self-kindness is the answer.

❤️

PS: I’d love to connect with you! I send out an email twice a month-ish with new content and resources.

Subscribers get access to my One Minute Meditation guide for free, so enter your name and email here.

Waiting For Bravery

July 26, 2018 by Must Love Crows Leave a Comment

The only reason we don’t open our hearts and minds to other people is that they trigger confusion in us that we don’t feel brave enough or sane enough to deal with.

– Pema Chodron

Bravery isn’t always with us. Its variable existence is often why we do one hell of a job dancing between keeping our hearts open and closed to one another.

Sometimes we’re not ready to see what’s happening below the surface of our drive to call someone an asshole. Sometimes we’re not ready to hit up the “What’s alive in you is alive in me as well” sweet spot.

To not want to open our heart to someone is the path to opening it. We have to feel how much doing the same thing we’ve always done feels. We have to wait it out in that prickly spot of feeling confused and uncomfortable until bravery comes to guide us in the direction of, “She’s super impatient and rude and thinks everyone else has a problem but her, and I did the same thing yesterday to the hubby.”

Noticing that you’re keeping your heart closed is a great substitute for self-shaming in the absence of bravery to open it. Are you choked at someone? How very OK and human of you. Is it possible you might not be ready to dig into what’s going on below the surface of your anger towards someone? Heck yes. Is there a chance the behavior you witnessed is triggering you ’cause it might be emulating your own? Give me a hell yeah (when you’re ready to give one.)

To summarize: Go easy on yourself while you wait.