Coaching with Gretchen

Spend Your Time on What You Value

I absolutely love entertaining. But all too often, I get to the end of the week, and I’m exhausted and don’t have the energy to clean up the house and make a meal worthy of having guests over to enjoy. Does this sound familiar?

Then at the end of the year, I have regrets as I look over pictures on my phone. I regret not reaching out and spending time with certain people. I regret not celebrating holidays the way I used to with a big get-together, including family and friends. I consistently long for more connection in our post-pandemic world, yet creating action around those feelings is harder than one might imagine.

Why? Because, like so many people, I am in the flow of work, raising kids, volunteering, basically living my day-to-day life, and entertaining folks is an extra lift that I tell myself that I don’t have in me. But that’s not actually the truth!

The real issue is that I see entertaining people in our home to look like this picture. And that is a picture of my actual home, but it’s unrealistic that every time I invite someone over for dinner, we will have beautiful place settings, candles lit, and an elaborate, healthy meal waiting to be enjoyed.

What I truly desire is to have more people around this table for connection and conversation. It doesn’t have to be a fancy meal; heck, it can be take out. I want more moments of laughter, pure joy, and deep conversations. But first, I need to change the perspective in my mind and let go of the concept of perfection. To dismiss the idea that there will be a picture worth posting on social media of the get-together.

My first step? Text my friends and send the invite. Set the stage for the event by telling them what type of dish to bring for a potluck dinner and how to dress- casual clothes are a must! I’ll wipe countertops, vacuum the floors, and clean the bathroom folks will use while visiting. But I won’t obsess about having a spotless home.

What about you? Think about how you would like to spend your energy in the coming month. What do you regret when you look over your calendar or pictures on your phone of the last few months? Is it entertaining or a connection with people you care about? If we thought of energy as currency in your personal energy bank, how would you spend it? And with whom? Now let’s stop depleting our energy banks with activities that don’t light us up and set the intention to make a change this month. I believe in you!

Leading the Way

Parenting

It wasn’t often that my Autistic son was able to be a leader, but when it happened, I rejoiced!

This article was originally featured in the College Park Patch, Thu, Aug 25, 2011, by Gretchen Schock and has been updated for this blog post.

The school had started, and we returned to early bedtimes and homework nightly. Spelling lists and classroom paperwork adorned our refrigerator.

My oldest has always thrived in this type of structured environment; my youngest would rather have a bit more room to wiggle.

This particular year, for the first time, both kids were going to the same school. Thankfully I was able to walk the kids to school each day, and we had a routine in place with morning drop-off.

On the second day of school, we walked into the building together, and I took the kids to the top of the hallway — our drop-off point — so they could get right in the habit of walking themselves to class. The staff didn’t like parents walking kids to their classrooms; most kids lined up outside and then went into the school by grade level.

It tended to be a bit of a madhouse.

My oldest kid is on the Autism Spectrum and would fight the urge to have a breakdown because the environment was over-stimulating. The noise and the number of people in a small space inadvertently bumping him and touching him was too much for the beginning of a school day. Because of his Individualized Education Plan, I had gotten approval to avoid the line, and I took the kids by the hands, and we headed into the school, bee-lining for our top of the hallway goodbye spot.

I would hug them, look them in the eye, and tell them, “You are going to be great!”
This was our little tradition. Every family needs those, I think — special sayings that only your family says to one another. I told my oldest, “You are going to be great,” when he began speech therapy at three years old. It’s one of the first words he could recite perfectly, and even now, if you ask him, “how are you today?” his reply, nine times out of ten, will be “great!”

As they were about to turn and head down the hallway, my youngest kid reached out for their brother’s hand and said to him, “I need to hold your hand for a few days … til I’m not nervous.”

My oldest simply replied, “Okay.”

And off they went, holding hands down the hall. I watched as they hugged and went their separate ways right at their classroom doors, which were across from each other.

These are the moments I have cherished and held close to my heart because my kids have now grown into young adults. We still have the same tradition of saying, “you are going to be great,” as they embark on a new experience. I know these will be my final words as I leave my younger child in her dorm room this coming fall. And though she doesn’t need her brother to hold her hand any longer when feeling nervous, it is reassuring that they will always be a text message away from each other.

Ease into Healthy Eating

Coaching, Habit Change, Wellness

From October until now, I have been nursing an appendix issue. I have not been able to exercise the way that I normally would. I want to be really honest with you. I have been eating my feelings: the worry, the anxiety, the stress. I knew what I was doing when I was doing it. All of my other vices are gone, and so I fell on the remaining and easy one- too much eating!

(PS- Those vices I’m referring to, for those that don’t know, I’ve been sober for ten years.) To get you up to speed on the appendix- check out this post. It ruptured, but surgery didn’t happen until five months later.

Weight gain is a tricky ride for me because I’m wearing legging most days, teaching yoga and fitness classes, so I can’t hide in my clothing. And I know that people look up to me as an example of healthy living. But rather than falling into my common response of self-deprecating behaviors due to my body dysmorphia over the weight gain. Or jumping into a new diet or cleanse. Instead, I bought a bigger size of clothing. Yes, I now own these same pants in two sizes.

This isn’t a plea for “you look great” comments. Because I know I look great. I also know that an additional fifteen pounds doesn’t define my worth. It doesn’t diminish my value to my relationships, community, or clients. This post is to remind YOU of that.

Life happens! People get sick, and something stressful takes place that throws you off your plan of eating healthy and working out. And rather than diving headfirst into a marketing gimmick that promises fast results, instead, fall into a surrender of reframing it in your mind.

It took me five months to put on fifteen pounds. It’s going to take five months to take it off! Magic wand results only happen with a scalpel. Remember that!

So buy the next size up in clothing.
Feel confident in the clothing that you are wearing on the body that you are toting around. Don’t wait until you reach some magic number on the scale. That number doesn’t represent who you are, nor is it truly motivating for lasting change.

So what am I doing? Well, per the doctor’s instructions, I’m still not allowed to do anything but walk. So I’m walking. I’m also eating more salads and vegetables and drinking water. Once I get the okay from the doctor, I’ll slowly increase my fitness regime. But the real work is happening internally. I’m giving myself grace. And I’m reminding myself to ease back in.

I hope this message reaches the person that needs to hear it. Give yourself grace! Eat more veggies, move your body more today than you did yesterday, and drink half of your weight in ounces of water. (If you weigh 150 lbs, drink 75 ounces of water a day) Ease into the changes that you know will make you healthier going forward. I believe in you!

Five Super Simple Minimalist Experiments to Try for 30 Days

Habit Change, Minimalism

Rather than feeling like you have to subscribe to a movement of minimalism. What about trying it on for size by conducting an experiment for yourself?

When people imagine minimalism, they often think of bare walls and lots of counter space, which isn’t necessarily true. Being a minimalist doesn’t mean your house looks like you live in a model home or you only own one cup, one plate, and one set of utensils. I look at those examples as the extremes, and yes, there are people that go to that extreme in how they live their lives, but let’s be honest, that’s not the reality that most of us live in! Those extremes are primarily for attention, to grab the spotlight, and profess how amazingly minimalist they are.

I believe that subscribing to a minimalist lifestyle is about being intentional. And that intention carries into all aspects of your life. Your home, how you spend your time, clothing, and collections.

Yes, you can still be a collector and be a minimalist. For example, say you love comics. Rather than collecting all the comics that you can get your hands on, what if you decided that what you truly loved is vintage Superman comics? Of course, you would read and enjoy other comics, but rather than putting them on the shelf in your home, you would pass them along to someone else. Whether to another fan, your local buy-nothing group, or a free little library in your neighborhood. You would adopt the mindset of minimalism within your collection of vintage Superman comics by intentionally filling your bookshelf with what you truly love. Not just what happens to be there or what you can get your hands on.

An easy way to try minimalism on for size is by conducting an experiment for a set amount of time and seeing what it feels like for you, how you respond to the challenge, and if it changes your habits in how you live your life.

Here are five ideas to get you started with living an intentional minimalist lifestyle.

Putting the idea into practice for 30 days is a good idea. You don’t have to wait till the beginning of the month to start, though! Begin tomorrow and try it on for size for the next 30 days.

Eat the same thing for breakfast every single day. Pick an item that fills you up and sustains you for the morning. Removing this one decision you tend to make first thing in the morning frees your mind to wander and play. Savor the daydreams and embrace the security of knowing how the day will begin.
Turn off the television as background noise. Watching a show or movie is okay, but having the TV on in the background trains your brain not to listen. Several of my clients who have done this experiment noticed that the word “huh?” was removed entirely from their kids’ vocabulary! If you find yourself frustrated that you constantly have to repeat the question to your kids or spouse when you ask them something, try this experiment! Observing the sounds of your house, the thoughts in your head, and the space to think creatively by simply turning off the television is mind-blowing!
No-Buy Month. For thirty days, try living with what you have by not purchasing clothes, makeup, shoes, or accessories. If something comes up that you need to purchase, write it down on a list for when your thirty days are over or take a screenshot of the item to save for later. Oftentimes the great deal we see on something that we think we have to have isn’t a real need in our lives. This pause on shopping gives us space to see and acknowledge what we already own and how we can use it more effectively.
Clear the clutter. Pick one table and chair and clear the clutter from them. You don’t have to do every surface in your house right now! Just pick one table and chair. Maybe it’s the side table and chair that no one ever sits in in your living room. Or maybe it’s the dining room table and accompanying chairs. Or even the nightstand next to your bed and then your side of the bed can count as a chair in this experiment. Remove all items from the surface of the table, wipe it clean, and then only place back the things you absolutely need to live, or the things you would pack if you were going to a hotel. What to do with the things you cleared off? Put them away where they belong or place them in a reusable tote bag in a closet to go through after the 30 days are over.
Pick a day to unplug from something. Maybe you aren’t ready yet to completely put down the phone and unplug from everything for an entire day. I’ll be honest, in my day-to-day life it’s nearly impossible for me to unplug because texting with my wife and kids is how our family functions effectively with four people’s work and school schedules in order to do pick-ups and drop-offs. But when we are on vacation, I always look forward to unplugging. I love the feeling of being untethered. So a way that I have incorporated unplugging into my everyday week is to choose an app to unplug from for a day. Maybe it’s Facebook or Instagram or a game you obsessively play? Pick one and don’t look at it for an entire day, and continue doing that on the same day for a month. One of my clients has referred to it as her day of sabbath from social media.

Conducting these small experiments is a way to try an aspect of minimalism on for size, so to speak. It may inspire you to make more significant changes in your life and reevaluate how you are living. It can also allow you the space to evaluate how you spend your time, what you fill your home with, and who you enjoy being around. Making massive changes all at once is not a sustainable habit change, instead, small changes for a set amount of time gives you the opportunity to lean into the change and turn it into an intentional lifestyle.

Let me know in the comments what you choose to do this month!

How to Practice Intentional Listening

Coaching, Habit Change, Mindfulness, Wellness, Yoga

A common theme I talk about in my yoga classes is using the time you are spending on your yoga mat to take an inventory of your body.

To intentionally listen to what the body is telling you in each pose. Rather than focusing on the loud, constantly judging voice in your head evaluating whether you are doing this pose “right,” instead listening to the deeper story that the body is trying to tell you.

Is there a tightness there in my hip? Or does the shoulder actually feel good when I do that movement even though I’ve never moved it like that before? Take in the data without an emotional attachment to it. Without an opinion or judgment, use the time on your yoga mat as a way to take in the information.

When we begin to train ourselves to listen to the body, we can hear the cues before the injury happens, and we can hear things in the body before it becomes a full-blown issue. When the sore wrist is just a sore wrist and before it becomes wearing a brace and having carpel tunnel. Or that slight pull in the shoulder every time you over-extend the arms, listening to that feeling before it becomes a full rotator cuff situation. Of course, injuries happen sporadically. But often, the body is telling us something subtly first, and we have chosen to ignore it.

Once we become masters of intentionally listening to the body, we can take that knowledge off the mat and use it to intentionally listen to our spouse, co-workers, and friends.

A very simple example that I have witnessed with several of my coaching couples is asking someone in your family to take out the trash. The response is often a, “I’ll get to it…I’ll get to it in a minute”. And then what happens next is that the person forgets. They aren’t being malicious. They genuinely have forgotten because they were preoccupied when asked and something in their lives has a higher priority. So then, what happens? I think you know the answer. The original asker has to ask again. Guess what? The response is the same, “I’ll get to it”…

By the third time that the original asker has to ask, the simple task of taking out the trash has turned into a fight. Voices have escalated to yelling in the middle of the kitchen, and suddenly it turns into all the other times that you didn’t support her, didn’t follow through, and didn’t answer an important question.

It has suddenly become this mountain of a problem. And maybe it’s here when you think to yourself, “If I just took out the trash the first time I was asked, I could have avoided that huge blow-up!”

And you are partially correct. The feelings the person is experiencing are real. I’m not saying that the issues that are brought up in the moment of the fight aren’t going to be addressed later because it’s clear that those topics and feelings need to be talked through. But it isn’t ideal to yell or getting to the point of escalated emotions fueled by the trash not being taken out. This conversation should happen over dinner or as you lay in bed. Ideally, in a tone of voice that is in neutral volume rather than that higher pitch of frustration or that deeper growl of resentment.

Listening to those small cues that the people we love express to us, when they tell us what is important to them, we must listen and not assume. For example, when they ask us to take out the trash, we need to both understand their desire and together come to a compromise on the timeline of when it will happen. The important part is that they know we will do it. We may not stop what we are doing right at that moment, but within the next few hours, we will take it out without being asked again. Something so simple, having a conversation about trash and tuning into those subtle cues of frustration from our spouse is the way that we can support and love the other person, showing that we value them.

Again, we can begin the journey of intentional listening by learning to listen to the body. When we become experts on our bodies, we can take that how-to knowledge off our mats and apply it to our lives.

Learning to listen in a world where there is a lot of noise takes time, so be gentle with yourself. The loud voices of the people on Tic-Tok or Instagram create clutter in our heads. It’s time to tune them out, put down the phone and have deeper conversations of connection with the people we love. It’s essential for our relationships to listen to the subtitles of the people we care about, those in our inner circle, and commit to being more mindful in our relationships.

You are MORE than your job!

Coaching, Mindfulness, Self-care

I’ve confronted this concept many times in my coaching practice. Sometimes it is from folks who recently retired. After the big trip, they planned to celebrate this huge milestone. They arrive home and are wondering- what now?

Or from middle-aged clients who are questioning whether their job is fulfilling enough for their soul. Now that they find themselves looking deeper and focusing more of their attention on the tasks at work, whereas previously, their attention was being spent on their children. Or from recent graduates who are now wondering if they made the wrong decision by getting a degree in a field that doesn’t have a lot of upward momentum.

Wherever you are, when you come to question your career choice, it’s important that you are not using the fuel of regret to make your next move. And instead, it’s time to evaluate your self-care. Are you unhappy in your job or questioning your life stage because you aren’t taking the time to care for yourself? Have you been looking for external validation of your worth?

The concept of having a career or job that fulfills us or that defines us is a relatively new way of thinking. My ancestors probably didn’t find complete joy in working the fields, and if you look back at your own history, I’m pretty sure you’ll find a similar storyline. As Toni Morrison so eloquently points out: “You are not the work you do; you are the person you are.” – Toni Morrison.

Toni Morrison quote, You are not the work you do, you are the person you are

The very first step to take is to do an internal observation of your own body and mind. Simply sit with your thoughts for a minute or two and allow yourself to feel all the emotions around this topic. Then quickly jot down a bullet point list of what appeared for you.

Now, rather than thinking of your next career move, I want you to think about moving towards yourself. How can you show up for yourself differently today? Maybe that means that you nourish your body with healthier food choices. Or perhaps you move your body more today than you did yesterday. Choose an activity that makes you feel good and benefits only you. Here are some ideas:

Read a magazine
Spend the extra time to style your hair differently
Plant some flowers
Search for a recipe that reminds you of a loved one’s signature dish
Visit a thrift or antique store
Take photos of the things you love in and around your house
Pull out your old journals and read a few pages from various years

Readjust your energy to focus on your food, movement, and mental and emotional self-care before you go down the rabbit hole of researching your next career leap! You deserve to be a priority in your life and are worthy of spending time on yourself.

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