Coaching with Gretchen

Tackling the Clutter in Your Life

As you look around the house, see the clutter, the mess, the disorganization…whatever we want to call it as a representation of our emotional state of being.

The clutter that is living on our countertops, and the piles of laundry, both clean and dirty, that have melded into each other that we now can’t tell the difference between the two. Or the drawers that hide all the things we don’t know what to do with but will get to organizing “someday.”

a picture of a messy desk that is unorganized

Some folks believe that the mess means that they are too busy living a fantastic life to care about what their house looks like. But I want to challenge that way of thinking. Let’s go back to the simple phrase; you must love yourself before you can love anyone else. You’ve heard it whisper off people’s lips at some point, and it’s repeated because it’s true. Loving ourselves is loving all aspects of our lives, including our homes. If we are neglecting cleaning, tidying up, and living in a functional space, it can mean that we are neglecting to feel emotions as well. Putting our heads in the sand, so to speak, so that we don’t have to deal with the realness of what we are feeling.

I’m not suggesting that you have to live in a white glove-clean type of house or that your home has to look showroom ready. But spending time each day to allow your home to work with you instead of against you. Beginning each day by living in a space that exudes feelings of happiness, calm, and peace allows you to go out into the world and interact with others by being in that emotional state. Imagine if you showed up to work or your kid’s swim team practice not in a frazzled, worried you forgot something state of being. But instead, feeling at ease both in your body and mind.

So before you get out the vacuum and break a sweat cleaning your whole house.

I want to offer you a real-life example from working with one of my life coaching clients to help you navigate and understand this work a bit better. The area of her home that would become disorganized was a part of her kitchen counter. It was where she would pile up the mail, receipts, and other important paper things that she would eventually get to when she found the time. It was an eyesore; everyone who came into her house would see it.

She had tried to put the things in a basket to hide or contain the paper, but eventually, that would become full and spill onto the counter. As we discussed this pile, it became clear that she didn’t want to deal with her feelings of shame because she had gone into credit card debt. She was highly educated, acquiring a Ph.D., and yet she couldn’t get a handle on her finances. As we continued to discuss the basket full of random bits of paper, she admitted that the whole thing made her feel stupid. And she was always labeled the “smart one” in the family among her siblings, so why couldn’t she get this under control?

So rather than buying yet another organizational system for her home. We needed to dive into the emotional work of understanding how she was feeling throughout her day. So for several days, she set a timer on her phone to go off at four different times throughout her day. Choosing times in which she’d be in various locations, first thing in the morning, midday at work, the time between eating dinner and going to bed, and right before her head hit the pillow. What we learned is that instead of scrolling and shopping, she began to take walks and do gentle stretches when the stress of work made her want to detach emotionally and buy buy buy.

Then, we needed to tackle how she dealt with her fiances. Together we created a system of how she would track her purchases so that she would feel more in control of her money.

After doing the emotional work and creating a solution to the problem area, it was only then that we could look at how to organize her mail better. Rather than dreading opening the mail, she began to feel proud of herself for moving in a better direction in her life.

I want you to look around your home and see where the clutter and disorganization tend to build up. If you are really honest with yourself, what does that clutter represent? And let’s not just point fingers at the other people we share a space with. Start with what you would say are your problem areas, and then we can tackle the kids’ backpacks and shoes.

Are you putting your head in the sand, so you don’t have to deal emotionally with the real problem? What do you think that clutter represents emotionally? Use the wheel below to identify the first feeling and work your way out or in, whichever is easiest for you. When I presented this to my client, the first emotion that she could identify with was “Stupid.” We worked our way backward, and she was surprised that that feeling stemmed from sadness. She wouldn’t identify herself as a sad person, per se. But after she gave it some thought, she could see the connection. But it wasn’t where she started, and that’s okay if we each use this tool differently.

The next step after identifying your emotions is to tackle the underlying issue. Going back to my client’s example, that is when we created a system to track her finances better and created an alternative of self-care rather than shopping. If you’d like to schedule a call to tackle this work, I would be happy to help you personally so that you can navigate this in two or three sessions.

This a reminder that the continual problem of disorganization isn’t about buying a better storage system but instead looking at the emotions of why it is continuing to happen. Be honest with yourself and write the answers down in a journal.

How do those emotions feed into this problem area of your home? What is it that you don’t want to see or feel? Find a way to focus on those emotions using self-care tools. You could incorporate simple activities that don’t cost money into your day. For example, reading a few pages of a book, drinking a cup of tea, or taking a walk. It’s when we feel that we are living in a place of abundance emotionally that we can then tackle that problem area of our home in an organized manner.

What self-care rituals will you put in place this week?

When You Feel Stuck in Life – Prioritize Yourself!

Habit Change, Mindfulness

We have all been through some version of feeling the blahs, whether about our job, the house we live in, or the person we are dating. It often begins with feelings of agitation or annoyance. A general state of dissatisfaction that we can’t quite put our finger on.

There are two very common directions that I see folks have gone in after they have come to me for life coaching because they still feel stuck. Guess what? Neither of these directions work!

The first path is to sweep in a different direction drastically. For example, quit the job, break off the relationship, or sell the house. The other approach is to become a zombie within your own life by not changing and keeping things exactly the same. When the underlining issues are not addressed people become angrier and resentful.

So how do we avoid going down either of those paths?

The concept is simple, but putting it into practice is harder than it appears. The answer is MEDITATION. Please don’t download an app. And I don’t want you to sign up for a meditation class or a 21-day challenge. I want you to try sitting with your eyes closed and notice your breathing for 2 minutes. Yes, two minutes, that’s it.

“But doesn’t meditating take longer than that?

No, it doesn’t have to. There are no rules about how to meditate or how long to do it. I believe in building things from the ground up so that you have a strong foundation for creating a new holistic habit in your life.

The hardest part of meditating is being with your own thoughts. What I like to call “sitting in the seat of observation” within yourself is an important step before making any changes in your life and is a wonderful way to prioritize your own self-care.

Begin with two minutes for week one.
Week 2, let’s double the time. Now we are at 4 minutes.
Week 3, let’s stay at 4 minutes.
Week 4, let’s double to 8 minutes.
Week 5, let’s stay at 8 minutes.
Week 6, let’s double it to 16 minutes.

We’ve reached our goal amount of time! Now let’s sustain it by continuing to sit for 16 minutes every day. Keep in mind that if any of the above time allotments seems challenging than stay at that time for another week. Creating this habit in your life may take longer than six weeks and that’s okay!

I find that if I schedule the time on my calendar, always around the same time, I am more successful in completing it. You don’t need a special chair or a cushion. You can sit in your car in the parking lot, on the edge of your bed after waking, or in your office chair with notifications silenced on your computer. The point is to be present in your body and with your thoughts. When we tune out the chaos and the distractions that are all around us when can focus on the underlining feelings that we are authentically having about the person or situation or the direction of our life.

Save the image below and print it out to keep a record of your success. Fill in a box for every day that you have meditated this month, whether it’s two minutes or sixteen. Remember, there is no “right way” to meditate. It truly is a simple practice yet one of the hardest things to put into action. But I believe in you! Keep me posted on your progress.

Setting Life Goals for 2023

Coaching, Habit Change, Sobriety

Move beyond the comparison mindset to step into your true worth!

Closing out the year is a time of reflection and acceptance. It’s a time when we can ask ourselves, as we look back over the year, what is working and what did we skip this year that maybe proved to be worthwhile for our mental and emotional health. So often, we judge ourselves for not doing what other people are doing or for not living up to this imaginary expectation that is set and created by the lens of viewing lives through social media.

Acknowledging that you need to change your thinking is difficult to swallow, but it’s important to create a new way of being.

Accepting ourselves is hard. For example, accepting that we aren’t the type of mom that puts a made-from-scratch meal on the table every night. Or that we don’t decorate the whole house for Christmas; heck, putting a tree up was hard enough!

In the AA world (Alcoholics Anonymous), this is step four; Make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. As a 10-year sober person, I’ve seen myself come upon this step many times, not just in relation to my addiction to alcohol. The process of acknowledging and accepting pulls me out of the downward spiral of comparison. The cycles of I’m not good enough, or I’m not doing enough, and in reality, the vision of my life has been set too far away from my truth.

Acknowledging and accepting is a way to take inventory of your life rather than continually making the same resolutions year after year, which results in you feeling like a failure. So let’s flip the switch and try things differently this year!

This is a simple prompt to get you focused on becoming a better version of you. You’ll notice that it doesn’t involve taking inventory of your finances or weight. Let’s move beyond that way of thinking and bring our attention to the mindset that matters in making change. Download the image below, print it out, and post it in an area of your house where you will see it often to remind you of your life goals.

Here is an example of the same prompts one of my clients and I created together to allow her room to step further into her authority of self.

Letting go of the outside expectations we put on ourselves is hard to do, but I’m proud of you for seeing your worth. If you’d like some additional help on this journey, I’d be happy to jump on a call and see if we are a good fit for working together.

Conversation Starters to Create Community in a Post-Pandemic World

Coaching, Mindfulness, Wellness

As we emerge from the pandemic, hosting and attending parties is even harder than before.

Gathering together is essential for our mental and emotional health. We are social beings, yes, even introverts! Gathering together provides a sense of belonging and social connectedness, which is important for our mood and energy levels. Whether we are the host or the guest this holiday season, building community is vital.

As we enter the month of December, our holiday calendars are beginning to fill up with work parties, neighborhood get-togethers, and family dinners. And we shouldn’t rely on the party’s host to do all the work. As guests, we can help set the stage and make others feel more at ease.

Some people are just now emerging into the world more comfortably. They are eating at restaurants again, going to indoor classes, and gathering with people outside the family and friends they have previously deemed “safe.” Their reasons for -why now- vary greatly, but honestly, the reasons aren’t necessary. Everyone has to move at their own pace. And as a society, in general, we need to be more empathic. So let’s dig deep to accept that some people need additional time to feel more at ease, whether post-pandemic or at a holiday party. And that’s okay!

Even if you tend to lean towards social anxiety, claim to be an introvert, or feel shy in social situations, there are ways that you can help to create a community without having to exert a lot of effort. For example, a small gesture like offering a smile to a person you notice who may feel the same way as you do goes a long way!

I like to rehearse questions I could ask people before going to the gathering. I bore of the “what do you do for work” type of conversations. I live in the Washington DC area; it seems like everyone is a contractor for the government or works for a non-profit and speaks in acronyms that I don’t understand.

When people aren’t talking about their work, they sometimes talk at great length about how amazing their kids are, another topic I find exhausting to listen to or pretend excitement about. It’s also an isolating topic for adults who don’t have children. Unfortunately, when people are at a loss on what to talk about, more times than I’d like to count, they will begin to complain about something, the weather, traffic, or God-forbid politics.

During the “what do you do for work” conversations, I have noticed that people’s physicality changes. They armor up, their arms cross over their chest, and their chin lifts; the voice becomes deeper, louder, or suddenly the tempo of their speech pattern becomes faster. The way the person talks about their job with this physicality shift is to make what they do sound impressive or important. But it doesn’t promote connectedness.

Instead, we are all posturing and trying to impress each other but doing this creates the opposite outcome we want to achieve. We need to do the reverse of armoring up. Instead, we need to peel back the layers a bit. That doesn’t mean the holiday party becomes a therapy session! But it does mean that we need to be more intentional about our conversations so that we can truly get to know the person better. You or I are not summed up by our jobs or the achievements of our children.

To avoid uncomfortable moments of silence with strangers, I like to come up with questions that move beyond work, or how awesome your kid is, or complaining conversations to dive deeper into getting to know the person. Questions that don’t make me or them feel like we have to pretend to be someone other than who we are. I’ve found that these starter questions level the playing field, so to speak, regardless of social economic factors.

Here are some of my favorites:

Have you picked up any new hobbies?
Have you always lived in this area?
How do you know (the host)?
What is your favorite place to visit?
What is bringing you joy this week?
What is your favorite holiday?
Most memorable vacation- go!

Bee Yoga Fusion

At my yoga studio, students who are regulars become accustomed to my somewhat random questions to get conversations started before class begins. Or my observations about duplicate names in the room or when people arrive wearing the same clothes color. In this picture, these two women arrived at class wearing the same shirt, and I exclaimed, “we have to take a picture on the bee wall- ya’ll match!” They both laughed and happily agreed. The best part of this moment was afterward when they introduced themselves to each other. You’d never know by the smiles on their faces that they are complete strangers!

Moments like these happen because I take the time to create community; it’s not about me or any of the instructors at the studio. It’s about the people who are here and sharing space. And the same holds true for your holiday party. It’s not about the house size, food, or decor. It’s how you make people feel who come into your home or sit next to you at the restaurant where the holiday gathering is taking place. Whether the host or the guest, we can do our part to create community by being intentional with our goal of getting to know the person we are experiencing in real life. We don’t need to commit to having a forever relationship with them, but we can make the most of the next hour together!

Ways to Reuse Packaging and Save MONEY!

Home Life, Minimalism

Are your Black Friday purchases beginning to arrive? Before throwing the packaging away, let’s reuse it once more. Mailer bags make great liners in small bathroom trash cans. And that paper invoice… fold it up and jot down your to-do list, grocery list, or a love note by the coffee machine.

With the random bits of paper that come into your life, it’s key to dedicate one area to house them. We have a drawer in our house, but a bin also works. Something in a prime location where you open mail to catch the paper that can be used again.

Let’s try to REUSE before we recycle.

Not only is this better for our planet, but it also can save you money and time. And I know I’d like more of both of those things (money and time) in 2023. How about you?

Changing Your Mind Isn’t Failure

Habit Change, Mindfulness, Minimalism, Wellness

I had every intention not to purchase any clothes in 2022, and I stated it publically.

The reasons why I wanted to do this were personal; no one was forcing me to do it, nor was it for financial reasons. I also wasn’t doing it to gain any attention. But I’m sure you already know that when you speak something out loud to other people, it gains momentum within yourself, and you are more inspired to continue for the simple reason that someone else knows what you are wanting to do.

I wouldn’t identify as someone who has a shopping problem. Each season, all of my clothes fit into a 4-foot wide by 2-foot depth closet. I haven’t spilled over into anyone else’s closets in our house, nor am I busting out of my own. I store two Rubbermaid bins in the attic and swap out seasonal items, but otherwise, I don’t feel like I have an excess.

I wanted to challenge myself to see how long I could go without purchasing clothes. Guess what? It wasn’t long before I caved and bought something.

I told myself many times throughout the year that I “needed” the item. And sometimes I did, whether because I gained weight or because I didn’t have something appropriate to wear to an event. But I didn’t “need” every item I purchased, and a few I regretted after the first time wearing it. What I learned along the way has been quite eye-opening, and I blogged about that here.

Other people’s reactions to the journey of my challenge has been even more interesting. People have asked me somewhat snarkily, “how does it feel to fail publically?” The thing is, I don’t consider it a failure because I learned so much this year about my spending habits but also, and most importantly, about my personal style. Learning what I like and don’t like, what colors look good with my skin tone, and the shapes of clothing and how it changes the perception of the actual shape of my body, etc. So yes, I spent money, and I didn’t complete what I had set out to do, but I’m okay with that. And you should be too!

Life happens! We may say that we are going to do one thing and have every intention to do that, but then something in our life changes, whether that be because our circumstances have changed or because we changed our minds. We didn’t know when making the goal how stress, sickness, or life changes were going to shift our radar. But it doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t set goals or challenge ourselves.

More importantly, I worry about how people latch on to the word- failure. Trying, pushing yourself out of your comfort zone, and learning is not a failure! When I was divorcing my ex-husband, I remember crying in a therapy appointment about feeling as though I failed at my marriage. My therapist clarified to me that divorce is not a failure. It’s two people moving in different directions. Similarly, when we set out to create a habit change at the beginning of the year, failure isn’t what we call trying, doing your best, and possibly changing your mind because what you thought would be a good idea turns out isn’t possible for you to complete this year. That’s okay! That is not failure.

Some may argue that the people who comment about your completion of a goal are just trying to hold you accountable. If you have someone in your life making you feel bad for not following through with what you said you would at the beginning of the year, that’s not accountability. That’s judgment! The best response is to be clear that you won’t tolerate that negativity, reminding them that you were doing this for yourself, maybe even for fun. And people judging your results is not motivating for anyone.

Maybe you are already thinking about a different goal for 2023. And I want to support you on that journey. Consider me your cheerleading squad! Share in the comments what you plan to focus on in 2023, and let’s hold each other up with love and support. And please join us in the virtual Refocus on Wellness group that meets on the first Monday of the month at 7 pm. We focus on living our best lives and supporting each other’s goals for a better future.

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