Thanks for being here, friend. Thanks for following along on this journey, for showing up each day and being you, and for bringing your curiosity to the table.
For persevering when things are rough, when you feel disheartened, when you’re ill or mistreated or facing systemic oppression.
For seeking joy when life presents potential stressors. For choosing love, and not fear.
As we kick off the busy holiday season, full of opportunities for both saving money and living out our values, I’m offering a few things you might be interested in:
BOGO 1:1 Coaching (New and returning clients!) $179
2 60-75 min coaching sessions w/ a pre-session worksheet & a follow-up summary (to be used before April 1, 2025) – $179 (buy 1 session, and I throw in one for free!)
This is for you if you’ve wanted to work with me (or work with me again) one-on-one but aren’t ready for a longer-term commitment
Last date to book is 12/23/2004
Together (Intro Pricing, all welcome!) $50
A new space for growth, self-exploration, and finding community!
Purchase two months of group coaching with me, one Sunday per month at 5 p.m. CT/6 p.m. ET/7 p.m. AT. 12/22 and 1/19.
For December, we’ll focus on celebrating, honoring, and letting go of the year that’s passed. For January, we’ll set intentions for 2025, consider our priorities, and explore the possibilities a new year holds for us.
Rate includes access to a Facebook group to connect between sessions. $50 reserves your spot for two months, AND you can continue at the intro pricing ($25/month) for at least six months if desired.
Book & Save
New customers who book their free saboteur assessment with me by Sunday, December 1st will receive a credit of $200 that can be used toward any regularly priced coaching package before the end of 2024.
Wishing you all the best, whatever you’re celebrating, or not celebrating, in this season. I wish you peace, joy, and love in abundance.
All the best,
Jamie P.S. You can find out more about my coaching here, and you can reach out to rossandjamieadventure @ gmail . com if you’d like to sign up for 1:1 coaching or Together.
One of my favorite reads this year has been The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture by Gabor Mate. It’s a long book, and I’m still working my way through it, but it’s the most comprehensive acknowledgement I’ve found of the complex factors that make our lives challenging as well as the varied ways, from individual to systemic, that healing is possible for us.
In the book, Mate refers to the concept of healing as a journey toward wholeness:
“It is a direction, not a destination; a line on a map, not a dot. Nor is healing synonymous with self-improvement. Closer to the mark would be to say it is self-retrieval.”
Self-retrieval.
What if we could find ourselves again? What if we could work through the suffering, make some changes, change our perspective, and ultimately return to ourselves?
To the beautiful self we were before the world hardened us, changed us, wounded us?
To the wise, sage being underneath all those layers of personality we put on as self-protection?
To the sweet, kind human obscured by our saboteurs and our sabotaging thoughts?
What would a journey of self-retrieval look like?
Conventional thoughts around healing might make us focus on the physical path toward healing: get some rest, take some medicine, eat some healthy food, get some exercise or movement into our day.
But if we’re on a journey of self-retrieval, that kind of healing would also include our mental and emotional needs. Maybe that’s therapy, spiritual development, coaching or yoga. Maybe it’s art-making or finding joy, fostering meaningful friendships and connections or joining support groups. Maybe it’s an afternoon with tea and a journal, or pounding a pillow, or grieving the loss of a loved one or an opportunity or a career that could have been.
One of my coaches emphasizes the importance of play – finding joy in the things we once did as children, or the things we wish we’d have had the opportunity to do as a kid. So for me, self-retrieval might mean cultivating play: purchasing a jump rope, swinging on a swing, coloring in a coloring book, or dancing around my living room or in a dance studio.
What does healing as self-retrieval mean to you?
My Enneagram teacher, Suzanne Stabile, has a book called The Journey Toward Wholeness. I recently re-read it with a cohort of other students of the Enneagram. The conversations have been revelatory. The Enneagram remains my favorite tool for self-retrieval or healing.
It’s so easy, amidst a busy day and week and life, to stick to the status quo and say no to new opportunities. But as Suzanne says in her book, “Even when there is much to do, we must first guard our souls.” I highly recommend joining an Enneagram cohort (my next one will start in the new year) or, if you know your number, a group like my Enneagram Book Club, to further your own work toward self-retrieval.
Do you agree with Gabor Mate, that healing can be seen as self-retrieval? Does this have any implications for you in your own journey?
If you’re feeling a lot of emotions or going through changes in your life, now might actually be the best time for you to seek a community as you navigate your healing journey. And wherever you are in the journey, I wish you all the best.
This has been a week here, friends, and perhaps it has been for you too. I’m grateful for most things being status quo. But I’ve been sick for nearly three weeks now (way better, but still dealing with fatigue and a voice that hasn’t fully returned), and the extra nuisance of all of it has combined to reduce my motivation to 0 most of the time.
If you can relate to this at all, I’m sorry. And here’s what I’m doing, or at least trying to do, when it’s an issue for me.
Consistency is Key
Just as I know building consistency in my business is key, even in the face of illness or a lack of motivation or feeling like the world is on the brink of collapse, I also know that consistency is key in my personal life. Maintaining whatever habits you can reaps mega benefits. Dishes washed today mean less dishes to wash tomorrow. Taking a shower and keeping my weekly family or friend check-in or getting out for a daily walk are habits you’ve probably worked hard to establish. If possible, resist the urge to cancel it all and crawl into a hole. And if you do cancel it once, do everything possible not to cancel a second time.
Find a Safe Space to Vent
Don’t keep the whirling and swirling emotions in the bottle that is your own mind, my friends. Whether a safe space looks like a journal or a chat with a like-minded family member or friend or a talk with a therapist or a group coaching or accountability session, we all need the opportunity to get our feelings out.
Use Your Creativity
This can actually qualify as a way to vent as well. Maybe the way to stop a panic spiral for you will be to paint a messy painting or dance around your living room or write a short story or poem. Maybe it’s coloring or taking out your Legos. Or maybe it’s whipping up a new concoction in the kitchen.
Get Into Your Body
One of the best antidotes for endless thoughts and feelings in your head is to get out of your head (and heart) and into your body. Find a yoga video, or take a local class. Do some polyvagal exercises or do some jumping jacks. Punch your pillow or chase a ball with your pet. Or practice mindfulness exercises to stay present.
Practice Gratitude
Name five things you’re grateful for before bed. Thank a loved one for a kindness, recent or in the past. Count your blessings like you could count sheep before bed. Even when things look bleak, I always have a lot of things I can be grateful for and present to, right now. I hope you do too.
Offer Yourself Grace
More than anything else, whether you do any of these or not, please offer yourself grace. You are doing the best you can right now. And if that comes easily, try offering grace to someone else too. But more than anything, know that you’re really doing the best you can today. And you can celebrate that.
Sending lots of love your way. Hang in there. And I’d love to hear your suggestions too!
P.S. One of the best tools I’ve found to offer grace to myself and others, with a bonus of providing opportunities for venting in tough times, has been my Enneagram work. I’m currently recruiting both Enneagram newbies, ready to learn more about themselves and why they do what they do, as well as those who already know their number who’d like to join my Enneagram Book Club. And if you don’t have a clue what the Enneagram is, I’m offering an intro workshop (free) soon that you can sign up for.
Where do you begin, when your worst fears seem to be coming true?
How do you process it? And what do you do?
Photo credit: Marek from Pixabay
Back in 2020, when it became clear we might be facing a second term of Trump, my husband and I were fearful for our future. We relied on affordable health insurance as self-employed people and people with pre-existing conditions. We had one plan available to us as we traveled the country in our RV. If that plan went away, or if, even worse, all affordable health care went away for those who were self-employed, we wouldn’t be able to do the work that we loved. Not to mention fears around bodily autonomy and the Supreme Court.
So while in 2016 we’d done a bit of research into moving to Canada, we got serious about it in 2020. Ultimately, for us, the path forward involved my husband going back to school.
We knew we might be overreacting, but we felt like we needed to prioritize our own survival (including mental health) first. So we went for it. We knew we were super privileged. But we felt we needed to put our own oxygen mask on first and avoid becoming a burden to our friends and family if we stuck around and weren’t able to make things work.
Unfortunately, there have been several times since we moved here that we’ve been reminded that some of our worst fears have come true. Reproductive rights being the stunning one. And of course, now, it feels like that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
My work isn’t political on the surface. I help people to create a life they love. Sometimes that’s career coaching, sometimes it’s life coaching. Sometimes it’s mental fitness work or exploring spirituality or many other topics. But I’ve always been passionate about human rights. The rights of everyone to make their own, empowered choices, regardless of what other people expect or advise or prefer. The rights of ALL of us, without judgment of our gender or if we’re trans, the rights of all of us under the 2SGLTQIA+ umbrella, whatever our skin color or country of origin or religion or abilities or neurodiversity…you get the idea.
I want everyone to be fully supported in becoming their full, authentic selves, bringing their own unique gifts and perspective to the world, because I believe that makes the world a better place. If we all had our needs met and could tap into what we do best, I truly think so much fear and anger and hate around the world would start to disappear.
Facing the news yesterday, I observed myself moving through a series of emotions. I’d feel mad, frustrated, fearful, sad, anxious about the future. I’d then catch myself in my emotions and do some grounding work to regulate myself. And then, soon enough, my thoughts would take over again. Maybe I’m ten minutes into a task and another idea occurs to me and I’m in tears or raging. Things like:
What if we have another pandemic in the next four years?
What if Canada kicks my husband and me out unexpectedly?
What if my friends and family aren’t safe? How can I support them if things get really bad?
How do I respect and forgive my friends who prioritized their own concerns over what seems most pressing to me – the humanity and bodily autonomy of a majority of US citizens?
How do I stay regulated and not rage over inconsequential things (otherwise known as, tell me you’re an Enneagram 1 without telling me you’re an Enneagram 1)
I love the warmth of this tea…or this blue sky….How do I avoid losing sight of those gifts in my own fears right now?
How much time before it gets scary?
What about everyone who can’t leave?
In all of this, I keep coming back to gratitude. Anchoring into that has been useful for me.
Gratitude that I’m here in Canada
Gratitude for the community of people here as well as the global community of friends and family who love and support us
Gratitude for beautiful days, for a warm drink, for an apartment we can afford, for work that lights us up
Gratitude that right now, today, my friends and family are okay
And on and on.
Please take the time you need to acknowledge and process your emotions. And when you’re ready, use your tools to self-regulate, to lock into gratitude, to truly care for yourself and your needs right now.
I hope that in the coming days, if you’re also in the United States and feeling fearful (or, honestly, even if you aren’t), I hope you’ll consider asking yourself a few questions. Before doing so, I encourage you to make sure you’re in as grounded, calm, and wise a mindset as possible, to make sure that you answer these questions not from fear, but from love, with the best wisdom your mind has to offer:
Is there anything I’ve been putting off that I should get to soon?
Are there any steps I should take to keep myself and my loved ones safe?
Are there any conversations I need to have with friends or family?
What are my worst fears – and is there anything I can do today to alleviate them?
If you aren’t sure how to calm yourself down or change your emotional state, there are some wonderful tools out there, including many I teach. You can also check out this article I wrote in 2021 on breaking out of a funk.
Please don’t judge yourself or your friends or neighbors for how they’re processing things right now. As much as it might be tempting to, try to view yourself, and others, and even this situation, with curiosity. If we can tap into the wisest part of ourselves, acting from love for ourselves and those we care about, we are much better equipped to work efficiently, feel empathy, and know what’s needed from us in this moment.
(And on a lighter note, my friend Dave Agans has an amazingly hilarious series, a trio of books, the last of which I finally read recently. If you’re into quirky sci-fi or speculative fiction and humor, you might love The Urban Legion as much as I do. Somehow I feel like these might both resonate/feel prescient and also be a great way to relax right now.)
Take care, friends.
P.S. I’m going to begin offering a fifteen minute pause each week for us to reset. There’s no cost. If you want to join me to do some mindfulness exercises, ground ourselves, feel a little joy, and release those negative emotions, you are most welcome. You can sign up here. Alternately, I periodically coach and share in my Facebook group, Crafting the Life You Want.
Crafting The Life You Want: A Practice in Living 