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Want to stop running from your feelings? Start Here.

Photo taken by author

I recently completed a 2,200 mile road trip on the back of a Harley Davidson motorcycle, from California to Montana and back.

When my boyfriend first brought up the idea I was so excited!  We started planning it months ahead of time, and I took a week off of work so we could take our time and see the countryside.

When the day of our adventure finally arrived I packed all the things: sunscreen, water, bandanas to keep the sun off of my neck, my phone for pics, and snacks (plenty of snacks).

I took my place on the back of the bike and we started off. 

The first few hours took us through forests, sun and rain, and ultimately into the desert of Nevada. The scenery was beautiful.

But, as the day wore on, I became restless. I took out my phone to scroll social media (which is a bad idea when doing 80 mph on a freeway). I re-applied Chapstick and fidgeted with my helmet. I even started snacking, although I wasn’t hungry.

The ride was comfortable, but I wasn’t. I sensed a low buzzing in my arms and legs, like a bug zapper humming in the background.

I don’t usually get agitated while riding so I started looking for what was causing it. And it didn’t take long for me to realize – I was bored.

Between my corporate job, my writing business on the side, and gigs with my bands on the weekend, I’m almost never bored. Which is why I was becoming so anxious on the bike – scrolling, eating, fidgeting – my brain was looking for anything to avoid boredom.

I’ve coached women on feelings long enough to know I wasn’t anxious just because I was bored, it was my thought about feeling bored that was causing my anxiety.

My thoughts were: “I should be doing something productive”, “I shouldn’t be feeling this way”, “I don’t know what to do with myself”.

Having an uncomfortable feeling isn’t the actual problem, the problem comes when we feel like we have to solve for the uncomfortable feeling by shoving it down, or making it go away.

When we sense something uncomfortable looming – boredom, a hard conversation, anxiety – our brains interpret that as danger and immediately offer us a buffet of instant gratification to avoid it.

So we eat, scroll, binge tv and social media, drink, and shop, anything to avoid feeling uncomfortable. 

And when we repeat that behavior pattern over and over, we reward  the action of avoidance. In fact, our brains become so good at it, that they place the whole behavior loop on autopilot where it runs unchecked behind the scenes. We don’t even know it’s happening.

No one ever taught us how to just sit with an uncomfortable emotion and let ourselves experience it. 

When I realized I was falling into an emotion–avoidance loop I put away the phone and the food, and focused instead on my breathing.

I took deliberately longer, deeper breaths. I noticed the angle of my legs on the bike pegs. I stretched out one leg at a time. I noted how the cushion of the seat and arm rests felt under me. I paid attention to the desert, the rock formations, the mountains in the distance. The way the clouds on either side of us feathered towards the ground from the rain, and the rumble of the bike engine.

The urge to distract myself went away.

I just sat in the feeling, and acknowledged – in detail – everything going on around me. I recognized what a privilege it was to be on the trip, and that the opportunity may never come around again. 

Not every feeling demands an immediate reaction.

The next time you’re feeling bored, anxious, or unhappy, try sitting with it. Take a mental step back and view it with curiosity. 

Notice what thought is causing the unwanted feeling. Where do you the feel the emotion in your body: Is it in the back of your neck? Your chest? Your stomach?

Try to pinpoint where you feel it the most, then consciously breath through it. You can either let the feeling pass on its own, or think a new thought to replace it.

My thought about feeling bored was “I should be doing something more productive”.

I chose not to believe that thought. Instead, I told myself I was doing something I’d been wanting to do for months, my only job in that moment was to experience and enjoy all of it. 

Once I made that conscious decision, the negative thought – and the unease it generated – was easy to let go of it. 

Every feeling has a cycle: A beginning, a middle, and an end.

We can sit with it, we can feel it in our body, and we can let it pass on its own, or we can think an new thought that doesn’t create the negative feeling. 

Acknowledge your uncomfortable feeling with curiosity, for what it is, then let it go.

Discover What’s Possible.

(The Un-Sexy Truth No One Is Telling Us – And What We Can Do Instead)

None of us are lost. We never have been.

But we have spent the last few decades of our lives living for, and taking care of, everyone else.

So it’s no wonder we don’t know who we are or what we want once our caregiving role has ended.

Advertisers and social media spend billions trying to convince us that what we need lies outside ourselves – pretty pictures on Instagram, better clothes, expensive cars, vacations we can’t afford.

As if a perfectly curated life will relieve that sudden loss of connection we feel when we become empty nesters.

Here’s the unsexy truth – the loss of connection we’re grieving isn’t just from our kids no longer needing us every day, it’s from a loss of connection to ourselves. A connection we’re just now realizing we’ve neverhad.

When we were growing up our role was people–pleasing, and our measure of success was how happy we made the people around us.

Midlife is our chance to redirect the time and energy we used to spend pleasing others, into discovering who we are, and also designing the ‘who’ we want to become.

Why the “Woo – Woo” Doesn’t Work

I’m a believer that repeating mantras and thinking positive thoughts definitely have their place in helping us feel better. But if that’s all it took, our lives would already resemble an influencer’s Pinterest feed.

Unfortunately it takes much more effort than that to produce real change in our lives.

Trying to discover our identity after a lifetime of people–pleasing and pretending to be someone else requires intentional work.

Real results come from deciding “I am someone who”, and not “I want to be someone who”, or “I wish I was someone who, or (my least favorite) “I should be someone who.”

For example, I decided a few months ago that I no longer wanted to eat sugar or flour.

My reason for the decision was that I now had an intolerance to both and my body reacts negatively when I eat either one.

My decision statement was “I no longer eat flour or sugar”.

I wasn’t telling my brain that I would like to give it up some day, I was telling my brain that I already had. That statement hits very different.

I liked my reason for my decision. It felt valid in my body because it’s something I truly wanted to do for myself.

Once we decide on a new, intentional thought, we need to sit quietly with it for a minute until we actually feel the decision cause a shift inside our body. That feeling puts our brains on notice that something is different now, and our former actions (or re–actions) can no longer be on default.

It doesn’t mean I suddenly stopped craving sugar or baked goods, but when the temptation came up it was easier to say No, because I didn’t have to re-negotiate with myself each time.

The decision had already been made. I would simply recall the feeling of that decision in my body, and gently remind my brain that this is who we were now.

Repeating these thoughts and actions a few times, over a few days, causes us to become the “someone who” that we want to be.

Every intentional decision you honor is a vote for the person you’re becoming.

And once you start repeatedly honoring your decisions, you build the confidence to keep going.

New identities are formed through action, not insight

Even the most intentional of us lose our way sometimes.

Life gets busy, our default brain sneaks in, and the next thing we know we’re back to binging Netflix next to an open bag of M&M’s, telling ourselves we’ll try it again tomorrow.

But we didn’t come this far to keep putting ourselves off.

Once we’ve decided we want an intentional life, we need to keep re-deciding it. Every day. It has to be kept front–of–mind, so nothing else can undermine it.

The game changer for me, and I what I recommend, is keeping a journal and writing in it every day.

I spend 10 – 20 minutes every morning with my journal and a cup of coffee, and I write to remind myself of who I am becoming and what I want to achieve next.

I write about what I’m grateful for, not just in the present, but for what my future life will look like. I write like I’m already her, and I’ve already achieved my goals.

I imagine my ideal future in detail until I can feel it in my body: how it will feel to quit my corporate job (after 39 years) and become a writer and coach while traveling wherever I want, whenever I want.

Left alone, our brains will automatically default to what we’ve always thought and who we’ve always been because it’s comfortable, it’s easy, and there’s no risk in staying where we are.

And for some people that may not be a problem, there is no rule book to mid–life. None of us has to change if we don’t want to.

But whichever path you choose, let it be a conscious choice.

Don’t spend your second chapter letting life happen to you, like many of us did during the first.

Decide what you want your life to look like, and who you want to become within it.

Then be intentional. Do the work to make it happen, and become ‘who’ you want to be.

Discover What’s Possible.

How I’m rethinking the narrative.

Photo by Alan Bowman on Unsplash

I’ve written a few well performing posts about reinventing my life at 51…from becoming a drummer, to joining a roller–derby team, to growing my skills as a writer with the hopes of quitting my corporate job before aging out of it (a current work in progress).

But I’ve started to question the use of the word ‘reinvent’.

Is that really the right choice?

Reinvention is defined as a “deliberate act of remaking”, and I think that’s how most of us view the changes people start to seek out in their 50’s and beyond.

I know I did.

But I don’t think I ever intended to rebuild or remake my life when I sought out those experiences, at least not in the sense that I intended to burn down my old life to create a new one from the ashes. Nor am I choosing a new life to get away from my previous one.

What I used to call a ‘reinvention’ I’m beginning to see now as just a natural progression of the life I’ve already lived.

My goal in mid–life is to start acting on things I’ve always wanted to do, but never did. Desires I’d kept buried while taking care of everyone else.

Like playing drums in a band.

Hiking.

Reading.

Writing.

Lifting weights.

Continuing my education.

Choosing relationships where my role is no longer to ‘make’ someone else happy.

I feel the term ‘reinvention’ can feel intimidating for some, like there’s a pressure to become someone different than we’ve always been, build something different than what we had before. Throw out the old life and come up with something shiny, new, and somehow better.

But that’s not the case.

Reinvention doesn’t have to be heavy, scary, or even required. There are no rules for this stage of our life, and that’s what’s so beautiful about it.

We’ve spent the majority of our lives governed by have-to’s, and should’s, and now we get to prioritize the wants.

And in most cases what we want isn’t something new and shiny. What we want is to finally act on the desires that have been within us the whole time, lying quietly beneath the surface – the stories we’ve always wanted to write. The pictures we’ve always wanted to paint. The places we’ve always wanted to see.

There’s no pressure to perform here. No need to build anything new – although we could if we wanted to! We’re just letting our inner selves out into the light of day, where they’re finally free to roam about, explore and experiment. Without judgment.

And we get to bring all of our prior knowledge and understanding with us, forged from decades lived experiences, and funnel it into designing the life we want to live going forward.

So, reinvention? I’m not so sure.

A reawakening, maybe? But also the natural progression of a life already lived, and yet to be lived.

So don’t be afraid to reinvent, reawaken, or progress into someone you’ve always wanted to be. There’s never been a better time than now.

Discover What’s Possible.

(One simple shift you can make today)

Photo by Random Thinking on Unsplash

I couldn’t even pick out towels.

A year after my husband passed away, with my kids grown and living on their own, I found myself alone in an apartment that was entirely mine.

I could finally decorate it however I wanted.

Except I couldn’t.

I stood in the bath section at Target for thirty-five minutes staring at a wall of towels, completely stuck. Not because there weren’t enough choices — but because I honestly had no idea what I liked or wanted.

That’s when it hit me.

After years of caring – and making decisions for – a husband, children, and a family, I had no idea how to make a decision for myself.

I spent most of my life focused on others: what they liked, what they didn’t like, what made them comfortable, what made them happy.

But now, at 51years old, that was no longer my role.

It was like being a music conductor after the rest of the orchestra had left the building.

At first I felt disoriented. I didn’t really know who I was, or what I was supposed to do next.

But instead of hiding from that untethered feeling, I sat with it and let it happen. I spent time by myself going on walks, or out for coffee, and journaling. A lot.

And what I found was, even though I didn’t know what the next chapter of my life would look like, I knew that I wanted to be the director of it.

Fast forward a few years – I’m now the drummer in a couple of local cover bands, a writer, and a person who’s is always ready to say Yes to the next adventure.

And I know exactly what color of towels I like.

All it took was one simple shift.

From Obligation to Intention

Since I was no longer managing everyone else’s life, I decided to shift my focus towards myself.

To building my intentional life.

And the first step towards my intentional life was to stop doing things out of obligation.

If something came up that I knew I’d have to fake my way through, or didn’t fit my idea of an intentional life, I wouldn’t do it.

Going to an office party after work just because “everyone else is going”? –– No thank you.

A bridal shower for an acquaintance, especially if games I knew games would be involved? – Hard pass, but I’ll gladly send a thoughtful gift.

At this stage in the game, there’s no more room for “I should”.

Instead, base your decisions on “want”.

I started making decisions that would create the results I wanted for my life – more true friends, a hobby I’m passionate about, a strategic boost to my career – is empowering.

I’ve wanted to be a drummer my whole life, I finally decided to take the steps to make it happen.

I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was a kid. And, well, here we are.

Energy is generated from making intentional decisions.

One Decision at a Time

I won’t tell you that your intentional life will be created over night, it’s a progression, made one decision at a time.

But it’s never too late to start exercising your decision–making muscles.

You’ve raised your family. You’ve given most of your life over to your job, or your children, or other obligations, now is the time to turn your focus towards yourself, and start building your intentional life.

A life designed by you, for you.

One decision at a time.

There’s no better person than you, and there’s no better time than now.

Discover What’s Possible

P.S.: If you’ve decided to go after one of your life-long dreams, I’d love to hear about it! Or if there’s something you’re thinking about but not sure if you’re ready to make the decision I’d love to support you in that too.

Drop your comments below, I read every one