Self-Care Or Self Absorbed?

by Karen Humphries | May 10, 2023 | Self Development

Do you know when it is time to nurture yourself?

With Mother’s Day around the corner, I find myself sitting peacefully and quietly, thinking of two things-

I think of my own mother who departed her earth-bound existence nearly a decade ago. My memories with her are fond and I often draw upon those experiences in my own parenting.
I think of how I mother myself. By this I mean how well I nurture and care for myself — for this is not taught in school and certainly isn’t openly discussed in Western culture.

Sure, there is a societal discussion about which self-care is all the rage within pop culture. However, when you’re in the throes of stress, the knowledge of where exactly to turn for guidance is substantially lacking.

Autumn is a season for reflection of the recently passed high vibe season that was summer. Let’s face it, since the peak of the pandemic we’ve experienced a lot of change in the world. We haven’t returned to normal, and we’re showing signs of feeling a little frayed around the edges — I call it the unspoken pandemic effect.

Reflection is unavoidable with the change of season. The energy associated with this activity is elevated due to the reduction of sunlight. We naturally slow down from the high vibe summer pace. This slowing down allows you to ponder all those special joy bubble moments.

Are your messages clear?

As you reflect on all your awesomeness from summer, is there a them arising from your experiences? Can I invite you to ask yourself the following?

What did you learn about yourself?
What lit up your heart?
What gave or took your energy?

When you reflect on the season, are the messages that you receive or interpret clear? Or are you stuck in the product of your stress response?

I’ve been asking those questions above in my professional clinic space, within my meditation and coaching circles, and amongst my friends and network.

There is a resounding and very shared collection of responses that sound a lot like this-

I wish I had the time to do …
I’m too tired to do that …
Lately, I’m screaming at the kids from a space of frustration, and I hate myself for it
I’m worried about money and job security
I’m feeling more anxious than usual
I’m having trouble getting to sleep because of my overthinking

Do you know what?

There’s a truckload of shame jammed into those responses, and most of the people I talk to are using phrases that sound like “I’m just so stressed …all the time“.

What I consider worse, is not only are people disassociated from their stress reactions, they are unable to measure its impact until there is a symptom experienced — like impact on quality sleep, capacity to remain focussed, ability to remain tolerant or patient.

Self Care is NOT being Self Absorbed

Implementing small actions and developing habits to regularly and consistently defuse stress and regulate a calm nervous system is vital for thriving in life. Otherwise, you are merely surviving it.

One of the key fundamentals of your reflective self-care practice is to learn how to acknowledge and then measure your stress response within your body.

Do you know how to observe how your nervous system responds to life experiences?

When you understand your own signals, you can make different choices. You can choose to invest your time and energy into an activity (or chore), or you can rest. It’s that simple and complicated.

For example:

do you wake up energetic or lethargic?
are your energy levels sustained throughout the day, or is there a slump?
do you find yourself over-analysing situations or feeling out of control?
has the fear of money or lack of money mindset kicked in with interest rates?
are you concerned about your budget with respect to rising food prices?

What activity could you explore to quieten this busy mind, or even soothe your frayed nerves?

There is no shortage of activities that you can undertake to feel calm. Everything from varied types of meditation, playing music and dancing, walking outside in nature or even just cooking can be calming.

Do anything that enables you to become mindful. By this I mean the sounds of the thoughts quieten. Perhaps purposeful breathing can reset your diaphragm reflexes and your back muscles relax accordingly. This releases stress on the dorsal root of the vagus nerve which drives a soothing action to the gut and enteric nervous system.

In other words, do whatever calms your farm. I’m not talking about meditating like a monk. I’m talking about understanding what small action will calm you in under three minutes.

Conclusion

I’m inviting you to immerse yourself quietly and gently back into a space of calmness. This is the space where you adult yourself and can feel nurtured. This is not a selfish act. Being calm enables you to maintain focus, relationships and your capacity to juggle all the balls of life.

Take charge of mothering yourself this May. Your future self will thank you! It’s not being selfish, it’s essential.

First published with Illumination, a Medium Publication. Click here this piece.

Listen to the podcast episode.

Want to read more like this?

This is My Roar – signed copies of my first published book can be purchased from this website.

Practice The Pause – click here

5 Ways to Boost Self – click here

About Karen

Change Facilitator

Karen Humphries is a Change Facilitator. She is a qualified Kinesiology Practitioner, Health & Business Coach, LEAP & NES Practitioner, Intuitive Meditation Facilitator, Clinical Hypnotherapist, and published author. She is a self-confessed laughaholic. She loves being of service to the world with her humorous and positive approach to life, encouraging people to ‘choose to change and bloom from within.’

The Best Method To Focus At Work

by Karen Humphries | May 9, 2023 | Business, Self Development

Become a Jedi Productivity Master every single day

As a self-employed fempreneur, I regularly get asked “How do you get it all done?”

The answer is easy and complicated — I do one thing at a time. The secret is to know how to be efficient and focus your time well.

As a former trained detective and auditor, I’ve had systems ingrained into my work ethic for decades. But here’s the thing, it’s so very easy to become a slave to the ‘to-do’ list.

Whilst it’s great to capture everything you need to do. But if you become overwhelmed with everything on the list, that to-do list can be the single source that constantly activates your anxiety. This is when your focus gets flushed down the toilet.

The other thing about me is I hate to faff about. I like to tick things off the list, that feels very satisfying. I’m a hard worker with a side dish of defiance — I don’t like to be held hostage to a list of things that I must do.

Where possible, I batch specific processes (especially admin) that can be rinsed and repeated.

And I do all of these things using the Pomodoro method.

Pomodoro is a proven productivity hack

The Pomodoro Technique is a methodical time management system. It encourages you to work with the time you have. I find this incredibly invaluable, as it forces me to be realistic about what I can achieve. The Pomodoro Technique also forces me to work on one thing at a time, rather than attempting the entire to-do list.

The Pomodoro Technique was developed Francesco Cirillo who struggled to focus on his university studies and complete assignments.

The technique supports you to limit your focus on the most important tasks to be completed on that day. The technique steps include:

**1. Start your day by identifying the most urgent or important item on your to-do list.**

By all means, have a list of ‘all’ the things. Be sure to reference the list in fact, add to it, and delete things. But accept this list may never be completed — and that’s ok. By assessing the list, you are creating a scope of work for the day.

2. Choose a single task to focus on.

Sometimes a task is multi-faceted. The key to the first work cycle is to identify all the micro components of the task to ensure nothing is missed. This is your planning component, and it’s critical to keep you laser focused for the remainder of the day.

3. Turn off all distractions.

I can’t emphasize the importance of this enough. Turn everything off. Don’t open social media browsers. Silence the notifications, pings and pop-ups. Don’t even open your email. And place your phone either on the other side of the room or on silent in your desk drawer.

Turn it all off.

4. Set a timer for 25 minutes.

Your first work cycle incorporates that minuscule component of planning and then deep diving into your priority task. Whilst you may be tempted to continue ploughing through the timer, I recommend capturing whatever thought is in your head, then pens down.

Treat this process like it’s your final high school exam and the buzzer went off. Stop right thereafter capturing the idea.

5. After 25 minutes take a five-minute break.

Get up and walk away, get a glass of water to hydrate the brain. Perhaps check the phone + emails (don’t deviate beyond five minutes). Don’t get sidetracked.

This is where your commitment will be tested!

It’s worth noting that the scientific research indicates that when we get up and walk away there’s a couple of things happening.

reactivating your peripheral visual field to take in new sensory data of the surrounding environment — if you had switched on your flight-fight response, a change of scenery will turn your brain back on
movement will pump oxygen to your brain
water will hydrate and lubricate those neural pathways to support you remaining focused

6. Repeat steps 1–3 four times

Return to your workstation after your break. The key here is to review the task you were working on. Assess your progress. This isn’t a shaming exercise, it is the key that enables you to keep yourself exactly on track and laser focused.

So back to work with the timer and commence cycle two.

7. Take a longer break of about 15 to 30 minutes.

After a couple of cycles, it’s time to refuel. Nutritious food is required by the brain to continue functioning into the afternoon. Some rest time also allows that creative mind to reboot!

Here’s why the Pomodoro technique works.

The timer creates a sense of urgency — because sometimes we actually do function better with positive stress! The technique of working in short work cycles, allows you to remain focused on just one thing — this removes distractions and allows your creative mind to power up.

I continue to utilise this technique even when on holidays because it drives purposeful planning first thing in the day. I get to set my intention of what I want to achieve, and then focus on exactly what needs to be done. Additionally, regularly reviewing your progress at the commencement of each work cycle ensures you remain on track.

Why does it feel weird when you start?

If you’re a millennial, you’re addicted to your device. So to sit without distraction you will likely experience a teeny tiny amount of withdrawal. Hence working in short intervals will be perfect for you.

If you’ve finished a traditional Western education, you’ve been programmed to work in 45-minute intervals, without a break. You are forced to use one learning style, with an enormous amount of distractions around you.

If this is your work style, you’re potentially experiencing brain fade in the focus department at the 35-minute mark — am I right?

If you have a side dish of oppositional defiance like me, you’re most likely to work through the first couple of timer alarms. But here’s what you don’t know. The longer you work beyond the 25-minute interval, the more drastic drop in creativity and focus occurs.

Your brain can only store so much data before it switches off.

Can I build in some flexibility?

The technique recommends being quite rigid with the timing of cycles. To consciously understand and recognise how this technique could benefit you, stick to the rules when you start.

Try it for a week and be really honest with what components worked and which felt limiting.

I highly recommend finding your sweet spot. For me, I don’t like the timer because some days I am flowing and other days I need the rigidity. But I always pay attention the moment my mind starts to drift.

Daydreaming (this is actually self-hypnosis) is a normal phenomenon. It’s a fabulous cue to acknowledge it’s time to pause and do something completely different. This almost instantly resets your capacity to refocus and have another crack.

If nothing else, the detachment from your phone, social media and other electronic devices will support your nervous system to settle. This can only increase your capacity to focus!

Who could benefit from the Pomodoro?

There’s a range of benefits from using this technique. But it’s especially great if you –

allow little distractions often derail your whole day (this is especially true if you’re on the autism spectrum or are neuro-divergent)
consistently work past the point of optimal productivity
overly optimistic about your capacity to complete things from your list (you pile too much on your plate)
have lots of open-ended work items that could take unlimited or unforeseen amounts of time (e.g. studying for an exam, learning new tech)

Conclusion

I’ve been successfully using this technique for nearly twenty years. It’s become the foundation of my productivity and ability to be focused and smash tasks off the to-do list. If you’re looking to create a work-life balance and achieve it all, this technique may be for you!

First published with Illumination, a Medium Publication. Click here this piece.

Listen to the podcast episode.

Want to read more like this?

This is My Roar – signed copies of my first published book can be purchased from this website.

Practice The Pause – click here

5 Ways to Boost Self – click here

About Karen

Change Facilitator

What is The Cost of Not Walking Away From Your To-Do List?

by Karen Humphries | May 9, 2023 | Business, Self Development

A Fresh Perspective On Your To-Do List

There will come a time when you will feel safe enough to pause, even though your to-do list isn’t finished. I promise, but it does take a little effort on your part in order to break the habit that you need to do it all — today.

Having a to-do list is fabulous. It captures all of the things you’re juggling in the air. But it can also strangle you and hold you captive to a subliminal shame program. “If I don’t get this done I am not good enough”.

How many times have you caught yourself pushing, over-committing yourself and then forcing yourself to achieve?

How many times have placed too many things on your list for the week ahead?

Do you perceive you failed on Friday when even one thing hasn’t been ticked off?

For many of my clients, this conversation pushes all of their buttons and activates their survival program called panic and overwhelm. You see they are overwhelmed by their to-do list, and they feel unable to walk away.

Ask yourself these coaching questions

What would life be like however, if you could envisage a time in the future when you gift yourself permission to slow down, pause, stop and self-soothe?

What could life be like if you could soothe a frayed nervous system often enough?

What might it feel like to be more relaxed?

Might your capacity to focus and remain clear-headed be improved?

Might this clarity enable you to be creative or perhaps more productive?

Might there be fun times to be had?

What might it feel like if you could simply breathe and let go?

**Having downtime can be productive — but this is only positive if you’re only viewing your to-do list, not thinking (read overthinking).**

If you’re attempting to smash out the entirety of that list, your heart and soul won’t sing. What actually happens is that you get trapped inside your head with all those thoughts. The overwhelm kicks in when you’re unable to tick anything off the list because you can no longer focus.

The issue here is much akin to having fifteen browsers open at once. There’s simply too much to process.

Driving yourself to finish the list will just burn you out — so let me ask you is the price worth it?

What might life be like if that day when you could self-soothe was today? And if you could gift yourself permission to take a break, and restore a sense of internal calm, would you remain focussed?

What might life be like if you knew you could feel good?

What might that look and feel like?

What might you be doing?

How could you approach ticking things off the list differently?

Be patient, your nervous system has been holding onto your old reactive pattern for so long. Like I said before your nervous system isn’t wired to have those mental browsers open at once.

With the influence of social media and technological devices like our mobile phones, you’ve trained your nervous system to seek validation from minuscule snippets of stimulus. Hence you’re subconsciously seeking the next dopamine hit — all the time.

When you apply that same behaviour to your to-list, you instantly experience overwhelm because, unlike the social media newsfeed whereby you can scroll, the to-do list bitch slaps you with tasks all at once.

Be patient, without pausing to identify what has triggered you, you’ve unearthed a need for survival from deep inside your subliminal programming.

Facing your reaction can feel awkward and even downright uncomfortable.

Be patient, you feel uncomfortable because the feelings of your reaction haven’t likely ever seen the light of day. You’ve probably just experienced symptoms like anxiety, but never dealt with why you react in the first place.

When you can take a slow deep breath, and just sit in those feelings, you may realise the discomfort was a misperception. Your survival reaction could simply have been a fear of history repeating itself (from a past unresolved experience) when in actual fact, your brain simply needs to be reminded of the reality that you can only perform one task at a time.

But here’s the thing — you’ve grown and matured since you first developed your survival reaction. This means you now have knowledge and resources to better equip you to navigate your healing.

My wish is for you in learning to soothe away that discomfort so that you can tackle life and feel safe doing it. But also so you can feel-

it’s safe to play
it’s safe to have fun
it’s safe to slow down
it’s safe to have needs
it’s safe to seek support
it’s safe to say no
it’s safe to surrender
it’s safe to know your best is enough
it’s safe to accept that the to-list will never end
it’s safe to choose one thing off that to-do list and do that well
it’s safe to be imperfect
it’s ok to do one thing at a time, (and do that well)

Conclusion

One day, my wish for you is that you begin and continue to nurture yourself. Gift yourself permission to practice the pause. Need some assistance with how to work on one thing at a time and read the best method to focus at work.

Hopefully, with practice and consistency, you will come to accept that you really can choose to change and bloom from within.

First published with Illumination, a Medium Publication. Click here this piece.

Want to read more like this?

This is My Roar – signed copies of my first published book can be purchased from this website.

Practice The Pause – click here

5 Ways to Boost Self – click here

About Karen

Change Facilitator

How Did A Mountain Lion Get Into My Fridge?

by Karen Humphries | May 7, 2023 | Self Development

Defining Your Trauma Tale

How would you react if you opened your fridge door and a mountain lion roared in your face, swiping its claws at your eyes?

Wait. What?

Just like the mountain lion, your subconscious survival reaction likely activates and you utter a gasp or shriek.

If you’re resilient, your grip on the fridge door handle tightens with the shock of the situation before you forcibly close the fridge door. Only then can you run for your life?

Right???

Would you even try to run away to escape? Perhaps you might freeze on the spot? Would you become terrified of returning to the fridge again?

On some level and scale, we all experience trauma in our lifetime.

Navigating your trauma tale is challenging because you aren’t born with resilience. This is a skill you develop throughout life. Resilience is gained as you explore your feelings associated with experiences — those challenges you faced. You reflect and assess all of the thoughts, feelings and emotions that come with your survival response.

In order to undertake this exploration, you need to feel safe.

Certain experiences can be so significant that your resources for coping and responding are insufficient. When this happens, you lack the ability to respond at that moment when you open the fridge to the mountain lion. There’s no conscious choice, there’s only survival reaction.

Your trauma tale is the collation of thoughts and feelings paired with sensory data that get reactivated from that past experience. Your trauma tale is your subconscious survival reaction, that you reactivate over and over and over again until you’ve built the resilience to feel safe once more.

This is a hard-wired neurological subconscious response.

I adopted the phrase, there’s a mountain lion in my fridge, from a post I
read in a social media group for breast cancer patients. It felt so relevant
to me when I was undergoing my own treatment.

Nowadays, everyone in the clinic understands the metaphor when I describe how your stress response works in relation to that mountain lion. You see we all have a mountain lion in our fridge.

A mountain lion can look and sound like a cancer diagnosis. It may look
like the experience of a miscarriage. The death of a parent. Being made
redundant at a job where the boss was bullying you and he got demoted
but they still got rid of you.

The sight of the mountain lion’s teeth, as it hisses, can feel like a handsy parish priest at youth camp. Claw marks from that mountain lion can feel like a friend who took their own life.

Scars from the mountain lion’s scratch can feel like being in a car that
rolls and crashes into a tree, leaving you bruised and concussed and your
friend was thrown out the windshield. The fear of opening the door to the
fridge again can feel like a partner who yells at you because he is in pain
with a spinal injury.

A mountain lion jumping out of your fridge can even feel like being trapped inside your home during a pandemic lockdown.

I had a mountain lion in my fridge.

This beast has matured and calmed as I navigated my own trauma tale. Through my personal and professional experiences, I now understand this creature. I recognise the mountain lion is wild and will never be tame, yet it is part of me.

My response to the mountain lion in my fridge represents how I learnt to respond rather than react to life. I have learnt through these experiences about how to tame the mountain lion.

You can’t change what has happened in the past, but you can change your subconscious stress reaction to it.

Your trauma tale is the accumulation of your reactions to stress from
either a very significant event or exposure to long-term stress. It is your
associated reactive stress response to the mountain lion.

Gaining knowledge of your trauma tale and why you perpetuate certain reactive behaviours opens the door to discovering ways to feel like you’re tethered to a safe place.

Only when you feel safe can you begin your healing journey? It’s common to only start delving into your trauma tale once you’ve reached an almost breaking point. It’s at this point that your motivation for change and feeling different is elevated.

First published with Illumination, a Medium Publication. Click here this piece.

Want to read more like this?

This is My Roar – signed copies of my first published book can be purchased from this website.

Practice The Pause – click here

5 Ways to Boost Self – click here

About Karen

Change Facilitator

5 Ways To Boost Belief In Self

by Karen Humphries | Mar 27, 2023 | Self Development

Pick yourself up when the doubt starts to lurk

Living our human experience, we are firstborn without the capacity for anything more sophisticated than the basics — eat, poop, sleep and scream for attention.

Sometimes we forget this — we didn’t learn to walk and talk straight away. All these new skills take time to explore, attempt, fail, and develop. We don’t master perfection of these small actions, we practice and fall over and pick ourselves up — over and over again.

Developing our beliefs (defined as “an acceptance that something exists or is true”) about ourselves is just like walking. Our self-belief is an evolution of thought, reflection and acceptance of who we are. This changes and evolves throughout our entire life.

Yet as we age and mature we are exposed to experiences that challenge us. Some of these challenges even trigger us, and we have to work hard to acknowledge the trigger and heal.

Sometimes just pausing and mindfully breathing is enough to bring you back into the present moment. This takes practice.

Fundamentally though, we need to believe that our abilities can be developed to overcome the hurdle we face. Without that belief we have no hope. Without hope, what’s the actual point?

When we don’t initially succeed, a seed of doubt can get sewn. When you keep fertilising that seed on the unconscious level, the doubt can smack you so quickly. It’s at this point we unknowingly sabotage ourselves.

To minimise your tendency to sabotage, you need to be proactive in managing your belief in self.

So how can you proactively boost ‘belief’ in yourself?

1. Practice positive self-talk

Gift yourself encouraging words. This is especially a healthy practice when you can catch yourself thinking or speaking something negative. When you can instantly acknowledge low vibration or negativity, and reframe with something positive you can instantly transform your emotional vibration.

Positive self-talk can also be boosted with the use of affirmations which create a positive and intentional mindset.

2. Set achievable goals

I’m a big advocate of trying to achieve good things in your life. Here’s the thing, I coach people to dream big and create tiny actions (that later become habits) that are super easy to achieve.

When you break down larger goals into a list of small actions, that are more achievable you quickly build confidence and belief in your abilities. You are more likely to achieve small wins on the board which will contribute to your motivation to continue when the actions get a little tougher and more challenging as you progress.

3. Celebrate every success

When we implement those tiny actions (mentioned above) and have tiny wins — celebrate it all. Celebrate everything. Be sure to make the time to acknowledge every single little accomplishment, no matter how small they may seem.

You’ll gift yourself a dopamine hit and be your own cheerleader. Play your favourite song. Tick the job off the list. Pump yourself up with the little things. Before you know it, you’re ticking off all the things from your ‘to-do’ list.

4. Surround yourself with positivity

When self-doubt kicks in, you can feel incredibly isolated. This can exacerbate your sensation of lowered self-worth.

I’ve learnt over the years to include positive people in my tribe. They build me up when my knees shake or the nervous agitation rises.

I choose to surround myself with people who support and encourage me. They enquire about and track my progress. We debrief with each other’s projects and dreams.

So be sure to seek out positive and uplifting people and environments.

5. Embrace failure as a learning opportunity

We learn to walk by first figuring out how to roll, then crawl, then rise and step forward. This process isn’t without falls, slips and trips and the odd face splat.

But should you quit attempting to walk because you fall? Repeat the steps advised above, and reframe the experience — what did I just learn? Where can I make small changes or implement small actions?

Instead of letting failure bring you down, view it as a chance to learn and grow, and use it to fuel your belief in yourself.

Conclusion

Enjoy playing with these small tips and tricks to pick yourself up when the doubt starts to lurk. Belief in self is one of the most powerful actions you can gift yourself to live your best life.

You really can choose to change and bloom from within.

First published with Illumination, a Medium Publication. Click here this piece.

Want to read more like this?

This is My Roar – signed copies of my first published book can be purchased from this website.

Self Reflection – A little Look Within – click here

8 Hot Tips How To Journal – click here

Can You Risk Not Stepping Up To Mother yourself? – Click here

About Karen

Change Facilitator

Karen Humphries is a Kinesiology Practitioner, Health & Business Coach, LEAP & NES Practitioner, Intuitive Meditation Facilitator, and published author. She is a self-confessed laughaholic. She loves being of service to the world with her humorous and positive approach to life, encouraging people to ‘choose to change and bloom from within.’

Is Your Container Too Small?

by Karen Humphries | Mar 27, 2023 | Self Development

Stop Limiting Yourself In Order To Fit In

When was the last time you squeezed yourself back into a container? I’m not talking about your skinny jeans, although that metaphor is useful.

What I’m talking about is when did you last limit yourself in order to fit in? Whether it be a social situation, a moment of awkward conversation or an experience of conflict.

When did you last dim your light so as not to shine too brightly? Because that kept you safe.

Or god forbid, when did you speak up and outshine the popular girl?

Or perhaps considered worse, when did you last draw attention to yourself?

Thanks to social media, we have become complacent about showing up in their lives.

We crave the tiny bit of dopamine received from the ‘likes’ and numbers on our Instagram accounts, yet we suffer anxiety from ignoring all the signals from our bodies.

It’s so easy to become trapped in the vortex of comparing yourself to others. It’s so easy to ignore that intuitive voice inside you, and simply do what everyone else is doing. It’s easy to make your container smaller.

So where do you limit yourself in order to fit in?

I read an amazing article by Loretta Hart on Linkedin the other day which resonated strongly. She shared a story of coaching a young woman to prepare for a podcast interview.

To encourage this person, Loretta asked the following question- “If you had loads of young women in a room and you could share with them one message what would it be?”.

The young person’s response without hesitation below my mind … “take up space”

These three words got me thinking about how we limit ourselves, and the associated psychology of why we do it.

Our human experience dictates we want to feel safe. We actively seek out love and acceptance within families, friendship circles and even at work. This psychology extends to the entrepreneur, who craves the likes and numbers growing on their business pages.

However, seeking validation outside of ourselves disconnects us from what actually lights us up. This uncoupling from what excites us reduces the size of our container — our heart space.

When we limit this container, we are limiting our capacity to express ourselves. When we don’t express what is felt in the heart, we migrate our energy into our head and become stuck. This is where a negative outlook begins to fester.

Additionally, when we don’t express our feelings, we reduce the energy we can feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of thoughts. This reduces our capacity to focus, concentrate and explore. This is how procrastination via mind-numbing activities begins — like social media or tv.

When we limit our exploration of life and new experiences, we develop an internal sense of agitation. We become anxious. This makes relationships challenging as we’ve reduced our capacity to articulate how we feel and negotiate on our own behalf.

So let me wrap up by asking where you limit yourself in order to fit in with a situation, or do you take up space and honour the magical unicorn you really are? And perhaps more importantly, what is diluted in your life when you reduce the size of your container through your limitation of yourself?

First published with Illumination, a Medium Publication. Click here this piece.

Want to read more like this?

This is My Roar – signed copies of my first published book can be purchased from this website.

Self Reflection – A little Look Within – click here

8 Hot Tips How To Journal – click here

Can You Risk Not Stepping Up To Mother yourself? – Click here

About Karen

Change Facilitator

« Older Entries

Self-Care Or Self Absorbed?

Do you know when it is time to nurture yourself?

Are your messages clear?

Self Care is NOT being Self Absorbed

What activity could you explore to quieten this busy mind, or even soothe your frayed nerves?

Conclusion

Listen to the podcast episode.

Want to read more like this?

About Karen

Change Facilitator

The Best Method To Focus At Work

Become a Jedi Productivity Master every single day

Pomodoro is a proven productivity hack

1. Start your day by identifying the most urgent or important item on your to-do list.

2. Choose a single task to focus on.

3. Turn off all distractions.

4. Set a timer for 25 minutes.

5. After 25 minutes take a five-minute break.

6. Repeat steps 1–3 four times

7. Take a longer break of about 15 to 30 minutes.

Here’s why the Pomodoro technique works.

Why does it feel weird when you start?

Can I build in some flexibility?

Who could benefit from the Pomodoro?

Conclusion

Listen to the podcast episode.

Want to read more like this?

About Karen

Change Facilitator

What is The Cost of Not Walking Away From Your To-Do List?

A Fresh Perspective On Your To-Do List

Ask yourself these coaching questions

Having downtime can be productive — but this is only positive if you’re only viewing your to-do list, not thinking (read overthinking).

How could you approach ticking things off the list differently?

Conclusion

Want to read more like this?

About Karen

Change Facilitator

How Did A Mountain Lion Get Into My Fridge?

Defining Your Trauma Tale

On some level and scale, we all experience trauma in our lifetime.

Want to read more like this?

About Karen

Change Facilitator

5 Ways To Boost Belief In Self

Pick yourself up when the doubt starts to lurk

So how can you proactively boost ‘belief’ in yourself?

1. Practice positive self-talk

2. Set achievable goals

3. Celebrate every success

4. Surround yourself with positivity

5. Embrace failure as a learning opportunity

Conclusion

Want to read more like this?

About Karen

Change Facilitator

Is Your Container Too Small?

Stop Limiting Yourself In Order To Fit In

So where do you limit yourself in order to fit in?

The young person’s response without hesitation below my mind … “take up space”

Want to read more like this?

About Karen

Change Facilitator

Recent Posts

Categories

**1. Start your day by identifying the most urgent or important item on your to-do list.**

**Having downtime can be productive — but this is only positive if you’re only viewing your to-do list, not thinking (read overthinking).**