Everything you've ever wanted is on the other side of a hard conversation. 

More money. 

Better Health. 

Promotion. 

Raise. 

Better sex. 

Better relationships. 

Yet, you wait for it to be easier. 

It never gets easier. 

You are wired to avoid discomfort. 

You tell yourself you'll get to it later or when life settles down. 

There is never the “right” time. 

The beauty of looking backwards is you can remember how much relief you felt on the other side of these awkward, hard conversations. 

It took me falling off a ladder and injuring myself to tell my boyfriend I might be gay.  That was an uncomfortable and awkward conversation! And the relief I felt and the love I received after that hard conversation changed my life.

It can be a major life change or it can be as ordinary as avoiding an awkward conversation about how something landed wrong with you in a meeting.  

It could be the fear of the...

My new eyeglasses above contain the carving, "Share Your Stories". So here goes! The slow burn of my vulnerability hangover is sizzling through my every cell. If you've every felt disappointed that your achievements failed to bring the happiness you desired, I invite you to listen to my podcast interview with Dr. Mandy Lehto on ENOUGH.  

Here is the link:  

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/enough-the-podcast/id1573562560?i=1000602434923

Our culture puts a prize on speed and quickness.

In order to get more done, we are told: GO FASTER.

Work harder.

Do More.

You’ve all been there.

Who hasn’t believed in the giant myth that to get more done you simply must put in more hours?

Usually that means less sleep.

Less working out and eating crappy.

Less fun.  Less Play. Less Connection.

It never works.

Or rather, it never works for us. 

It’s obviously not sustainable but you are too busy to notice, right?

It is a recipe for burn out.

You might have been there too.

You might be headed there now.

The first time I was told to slow down to speed up, I was a 38 year old female competing with a bunch of 22-25 year old guys who were faster, taller, bigger, stronger and much younger.

My Lieutenant called me over during my firefighter training and told me that if I wanted to go faster, I would need to be smoother.  To be smoother I needed to slow down.

SLOW DOWN?!!!

Did I hear that right?

Speed is...

Learning courage from my teenager

For most of my life, I  thought of myself as courageous.  I became a litigation attorney and practiced in the heavily male dominated field of heavy construction litigation. 

 I became a professional firefighter at age 39 beating out guys in their early 20’s in intense physical training.

Twice.

This Halloween I learned far more about courage than any previous experience.

The courage to be seen as you. 

To show up exactly as you want.  Wearing what you want regardless of what others my say, think or do.

For Halloween, our son decided he wanted to dress as a French maid. 

Wearing pink.

In a dress.

With a special bodice making the skirt flare out just so.

He wanted to wear it first to a school party and then out in the world trick or treating on Halloween night.

Ugh.

Are you sure you want to wear that?

My stuff coming up loud and clear.

My fears of bullying.

 My fears of physical...

Please take me up on my Birthday gift to you!  Reach out to me at [email protected] and share with me what you might want to explore and some good times that can work for your schedule.

Wishing you the gift of Presence.  And, for a double love choose somebody to give this gift to anytime.  

Hugs,

Shannon

Your personal Glass Ceiling.

Everyone has one.  Social scientists and experts all say we have a "set point" or a level of happiness and success where we are comfortable. 

It doesn't have to do with our current reality. Our set point is developed early in life based on  stories about success and happiness we received and coded into our subconscious from childhood.  We then carry those stories into adulthood.

Often we are not aware of those stories we tell ourselves. 

Unexamined, those stories tend to stay with us as a default setting.   

Your default set point is your glass ceiling or the point where you are comfortable. When you rise  above it, you tend to do things to get back to "normal" or your default setting.  

Think:  self sabotage.

Have you ever had a big win at work, maybe a promotion or getting a big sale only to find yourself worrying about something totally unrelated like politics and feeling the happiness and joy...

When we are faced with a challenge we have two options:

1.  Go after the challenge

or

2. Give ourselves and others some Grace.

The photo above is an example of not stepping back into grace but literally pounding on the challenge.

Ever do that?

Resist what is?

Sometimes it is hard to tell whether we should go after a challenge full force or whether we should cut ourselves some slack - also known as grace.  Or, in parenting terms - take an adult time out!

How are you showing up when you hit a challenge?

I would love to hear a current challenge you are handling and what seems to be working and what seems to be not working.

To challenges!

Hugs,

Shannon 

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Challenging times.  

Scary even.

I am learning a new tool to help us in these challenging times.

Radical Gratitude.

The practice of Radical Gratitude or RAD GRAD will help you to feel better.

Life will always throw us challenges and some of those will be painful.

We cannot escape those.  It is part of our shared human experience.

But, suffering is optional.

Gratitude is the emotional state that is scientifically proven to lift your mood, to create feelings of happiness and life satisfaction.

Like life mastery, practicing radical gratitude is not a one and done.  

It is a practice.  

Here are the steps of Radical Gratitude:

1. Ground yourself in your current Reality.  Accept your current challenge for what it is no matter how painful. Recognizing this is not where we want to be in the future, it is our current reality.  
2.  Understanding that the world works "for" us not "to" us we know we are getting what we need to evolve to our...