coach

Sometimes, All It Takes is a Nightstand

| jamiefeinberg

I was half asleep on Monday, January 24th when I reached over to grab my eye mask and realized it was soaking wet in my hands. All of a sudden, my brain went to work. It computed that, in fact, the whole nightstand was wet.

(The portable humidifier had been on it. In that moment, I realized that the humidifier had leaked water everywhere, soaking everything from tissues to eye masks in its path.)

I had a brief thought about beginning to clean it up, which I knew would wake me up completely and make it hard for me to get a good night’s sleep. But then, instead, I called out to Ross, calmly and with complete control.

“Hi Ross! Do you have the spoons to come help me with something?”

Previous to my Enneagram and mental fitness work, I would have asked that question as if it was an absolute emergency. In fact, it wouldn’t have been a question at all. “Ross, come here!” I would have yelled across the apartment. “There’s a mess, and I need help!” Cue flashbacks to”‘the time I knocked an entire bowl of Chex Mix on the floor” and “the time I realized my cat had fleas”, among other memorable moments.

But this time, I recognized that it wasn’t actually an emergency. This situation was relatively stable. There was no need to introduce more stress and drama into the equation.

Ross came in, cracking some cute joke or comment about spoons. I calmly explained to him what had happened, in a very matter-of-fact way. Instead of asking him to completely handle it, I asked him if he’d go get a garbage can. Then, in my half sleepy state, I took him through solving the situation, one step at a time. I did used my handy problem-solving skills, which I excel at, apparently even when half-awake, so that I could avoid Ross feeling overwhelmed, as I know he would have navigating it solo. (You can learn a lot after 13 years of dating or marriage!) I never got out of bed this entire time. I heard myself saying things like, “Can you please go hang this somewhere?” or “Can you please go get a towel?”.

I trusted him to take care of it. I let go of the need for it to be done a certain way. And somehow, when it was done, I just went to sleep. (Yes, I went to sleep! No panic, no racing thoughts, no getting out of bed to see where he hung things…I just went to sleep.)

A good friend and member of one of my Enneagram groups asked me what was different about this time, and I shared that it was a few things.

The main difference is that there was a space before doing. Old me would have IMMEDIATELY started handling the clean up, before I even stopped to think about how I wanted it done, or what should be done, or if it was mine to do or I could ask for help or if I should wait or gather some things first. As I did the cleanup, I would have felt feelings of frustration and anger, and I would have resented doing it solo…and by the time I would have asked Ross to help me, I would have been resentful that I had to ask or that he hadn’t helped me yet.

Ross would have come into the room with his guard up, and his stressful vibes would have fed on mine and caused a “saboteur contagion”, as we call it, with him struggling so much with my energy that he a) probably wouldn’t have finished helping me before giving up and leaving the room, upset and b) whether he finished it or not, he’d have ended up a complete wreck by the end, and then I’d be upset he was upset and I’d be unable to let it go (or sleep).

Instead, there was a space. A breath. A pause as I processed what happened and held off acting for a second. Instead of acting on autopilot, going to darker and depressing parts of my mind, I had the space to breathe and ask for help, calmly and without needing things to be done a particular way. It just became an “any old situation”, not an emergency. Even when I woke the next day, I didn’t get dazed when I walked into the bathroom with stuff hanging everywhere. Again, I just let it go.

My mental muscles are now so strong that I didn’t get triggered and have saboteurs react. There was a pause and then a move into my sage/wise mind/calmer self. And I stayed there the entire time.

Another friend shared with me that she was truly impressed because with all the work she has done on herself, she knows she still would have had to have control of that whole process. She couldn’t have stayed in bed to manage and would have had ways it had to be done. My first friend suggested the two of them should join my mental fitness program. My third friend has already, so I told the other two, join the club!

If you’d like to learn the science and get the practical tools to finally, once and for all, be able to be less reactive, more happy, less stressed or fearful, more efficient and effective, let’s connect. Mental fitness has been an absolute game-changer for me, and I want you to experience it too. Book a time here for an intro, with no obligation. You deserve to be happy. We all do.

P.S. If you’ve been doing your own work and already have rock-solid mental health practices, go you! Please consider sharing this with a friend or family member (or many) if it resonates with you and you want to share the benefits of a life you love and daily practices that support you.

Anxiety: a path forward

Woman in shades of pink walks forward into a canopy of trees
| jamiefeinberg

I keep changing and changing and changing this title, but in truth, I know exactly what I’m going to say. The conundrum, of course, is that while I have learned that anxiety, even lifelong, chronic anxiety struggles, can get better, I also don’t want to be one of those people promising you snake oil or making you feel invisible if your anxiety proves to be way more stubborn than my own challenges have been.

So, with that caveat, here’s an update on where I’m at, how I did it, and what I can suggest for other people who are struggling too.

The Recap

Last October, I started having panic attacks. Debilitating ones, that were really getting in the way of my work and my life. While I had experienced perhaps a half dozen panic attacks while living in an RV and traveling the US, I was otherwise completely new to them. And when I’d had them, they hadn’t gotten in the way of my work or my life – I knew what triggered them, and within a few hours, I’d been able to move on from them.

But last fall was different. My husband was really worried. I was really worried too; as the current primary breadwinner in our relationship, and with a husband who was a full-time student, what if I couldn’t pay our bills? So I was having panic attacks and I was spiraling further, getting anxious about having anxiety, which I’ve since read is a sign of an anxiety disorder rather than simply anxiety (which everyone has on some level, and which is 100% normal, to my totally not clinical but still very educated on anxiety understanding).

On one particularly bad day, after a series of particularly bad days, I wanted to go to the mental health clinic. But, of course, I was anxious to go. I didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t quite believe they’d let me in, especially because I hadn’t received my health card yet (which is your ticket to free health care as a Canadian resident).

My loving husband took me. He sat with me patiently in the car, and he came inside with me too. And the therapist I saw was so affirming, so understanding, and so encouraging as she got me on the list for free province-provided therapy. She even believed me and took notes when I told her I’d recently realized the ample supplies of nightshade vegetables I’d been filling my diet with were apparently a huge anxiety trigger (tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, and eggplant were filling my diet during this harvest season), based on my own Googled research.

This began more than six months of challenges as I waited, and waited, and waited to get that free therapy. Backing off the nightshade vegetables helped make the panic attacks less frequent (think 1-2 per week rather than daily), and I finally signed up online with my first therapist since college. She went from being okay for a few months, helping me to treat the anxiety, to being completely awful, around the same time I was seeing a very mediocre (at least for me) free therapist (finally) provided by the province.

Things Began Shifting

By the spring, a few things began shifting in my life:

  • I wrapped a contract with a client that had been having a negative effect on my mental health for a very long time, giving me space to begin healing from what I later realized was pretty intense burnout
  • The work I’d been doing on myself using the Enneagram was paying off, and I was seeing the benefits in my relationship with Ross, with my family and friends, and most importantly in my relationship with myself too
  • I found a new therapist who was NIGHT AND DAY from my previous experiences; she’s still supporting me, and I am grateful every day that I didn’t give up on finding the right person for me
  • The time I’d invested in finding community on PEI was bearing fruit; I had local friends and was doing meaningful work, collaborating in multiple music ensembles and enjoying the opportunity to lead one of them
  • I created an Enneagram group and had a really successful pilot program (my first group coaching program over several months)
  • I discovered the Positive Intelligence framework and became a major advocate for the benefits of mental fitness (and subsequently, I became a mental fitness trainer and incorporated the work into my coaching business)
  • I finally stepped outside of my comfort zone into an Anti-Anxiety program offered free to Islanders (called I CAN) and completed it successfully

According to my anxiety coach, my last panic attack was in late August. I know it was a combination of the techniques I had internalized by this point (learned in both I CAN and in my mental fitness studies) as well as some of the deeper personal development I had done. Having my therapist to cheer me on was especially helpful on the days I needed someone to vent to – whether you work with a therapist as well (always ideal) or just find a friend or hire a coach or accountability partner, that safe space was key.

I’ve now realized that I’ve been battling anxiety my entire life, or at least as far back as middle school. I also realize that if I had known then what I know now about mental fitness, I wouldn’t have needed to have the stress and overwhelm in my life. And I would have made healthier choices from a sage place rather than acting out of fear or to numb or distract myself.

What I Recommend

My own personal journey to get control of my anxiety was more long-winded than it needed to be, but there were also a lot of factors at stake. If I hadn’t been overwhelmed in my work, things might have played out differently, perhaps on a faster timetable. If I wasn’t so sensitive to nightshades, the panic attacks may have been less debilitating. But what I now realize is that the gift of my panic and anxiety struggles over the past year or more is that I now have direct experience I can use when coaching my clients. I can relate to them in ways I never could have five years back. What a gift!

Also, for those of you with access to some kind of free anxiety program, or one that’s very affordable for you, do consider it, if you’ve got the bandwidth for it. While I wasn’t learning many new things in mine, the daily practice and accountability (just like I use with my clients) helped me to finally finish integrating all the things people had taught me over the years. I CAN is a great option for Islanders. Find out what, if anything, is available for you.

If you want to sleep well at night, if you want a life with less stress and overwhelm, if you want the tools to find joy and peace and curiosity again, I’d love to introduce you to the mental fitness training we can do together. I have a few spots open in a small group program that will be starting up this January. I’m also developing a new program specifically with musicians in mind, and I’m planning future groups for a) for childfree people b) for men and c) for retirees.

If you’re intrigued, the easiest way for me to tell you more is for us to hop on a call so I can give you a tour of the program and a bit of coaching and some training to incorporate when you’re feeling anxious or fearful or angry or judgmental. I include a few of my favorite mindfulness techniques that you can actually use anywhere, at any time. It’s a free call, and if it intrigues you, I’m offering my programs on a sliding scale to make them as accessible as possible as we begin 2023.

I have such gratitude to be a coach and to be doing this life-changing work. Please reach out to learn more, and if you think this might resonate with a friend or a family member, please encourage them to do the same.

Take care, and be well.

In Defense of Tea

| jamiefeinberg

Are you a tea drinker? Is it a part of a daily habit or ritual for you?

Okay, so in light of everything going on in the US and around the world, there are certainly larger issues we could tackle this week. But I want to support you in your life journey, so I wanted to take a moment to celebrate an easy and delightful bit of self-care and ritual: tea!

Lots of cultures value tea highly, and drinking it is often a daily norm. But for many of us in the U.S., we come to tea later in life. Who knows – maybe it goes back to the tea party before the Revolutionary War, but for whatever reason, many of us do not grow up drinking tea.

My experience with tea was that it was a thing for “grown ups”. As a young Brownie (a Girl Scout), I attended my first tea party at age six and loved it, but we didn’t drink tea in my home growing up. In college, I had access to tea and housemates who drank it, so I would experiment with a cup of tea sometimes. But it really wasn’t until I was an adult seeking “afternoon tea”, aka a three course meal paired with tea, that I developed my passion for it.

With COVID-19, I found myself seeking additional ways to ground and center myself each day. I had a great morning routine, but I felt it might be getting stale. When Sarah Jenkins suggested adding tea or coffee to our morning routine or sacred start, I knew this was the perfect excuse to up my tea intake and feel like I was truly indulging.

Now, I carve out an extra 10-15 minutes each morning to steep and enjoy some tea. Some days it’s black, some days it’s herbal, some days it has milk or sugar in it. But it always delights. It forces me to pause, to savor. I pair it with a sacred or reflective book and enjoy a slow and beautiful start to my morning before the workday begins.

Tea comes in so many forms, and in so many flavors. You can keep it super healthy or sweeten it up. (This morning I made a candy cane latte…oh my goodness it was good!)

And if you don’t like any teas, you can enjoy a similar ritual, whether it’s coffee or another drink (something warm is ideal for the winter months).

I guess when I’m suggesting you make time for tea, what I’m really suggesting is that you make time for yourself. Finding a few minutes to pause is so therapeutic. You start your day centered instead of off balance, calm instead of rushed. Even if I had to wake up at 4:30 a.m. to do, I would make it happen. (In fact, I get up at 4:45 a.m. once a week, but that’s another story.)

Do you drink tea? Why or why not?

P.S. My “More Steps Challenge” continues in our Facebook group, and I’ve been going live and talking to people about their walking goals. Join us there, or grab your copy of The Four Steps To Your Dream Life Blueprint, if you found this helpful.

What if your success was inevitable?

| jamiefeinberg

Self-doubt is so, so common, and when you’re a business owner and/or a creator (or aspiring to be either), it’s common to find yourself plagued with doubts. What if this investment doesn’t pay off? What if I lose my clients? What if the economy goes south? What if I’m not as good at doing __ as I think I am?

It’s so easy to get on the doubt train, and when you get started, it can be so, so challenging to get off. And yet we know that those negative thoughts feed on themselves and sabotage our progress. What we focus on tends to be what we bring forth, or manifest.

So what if, instead, we make a conscious effort to change the conversation. When those worries and fears creep in, can we give ourselves a reset? Let’s try a mantra, or an affirmation – a phrase that you will repeat over and over again, in your mind and, if you dare and ideally, outlead.

Your success is inevitable.

Try it again.

Your success is inevitable.

So the big question: what would you do differently (in your business, in any area of your life) if your success were inevitable?

Ex. If you struggle with relationships, and you’ve been holding out on getting back in the dating game out of fear. What would you do if your success were inevitable? You’d keep trying, right? And maybe you wouldn’t put so much weight on a given date or interaction, laughing off the awkward coffee conversations knowing that sooner or later, you’d find the person of your dreams, and it would all work out.

Ex. If you knew investing $2,000 in your business now would translate to making $100,000 in your business next year, would you do it? I certainly hope you would! The cost/benefit analysis is clear.

So much of our success or failure, ultimately, stems from our confidence. If we believe with 100% confidence that we will be successful, that confidence is contagious. Our clients and potential clients see the way we ooze confidence and go yes, I want some of what she’s having! The people we date sense our charisma and our detachment from the outcome of a given moment and want to spend time with us. And while failure is really common, the sooner we show up and give it all, the sooner we take the next steps in our business and our life’s growth, the sooner we will get there. Instead of this do I or don’t I, will it work or will it not, we move on to the next step in our journey. If this particular venture is going to fail, wouldn’t you rather know now? I would!

I recently invested about $2,000 in a coaching mentorship. I’ve been loving coaching, feeling an incredible passion for helping people to achieve the life of their dreams, and I wanted some extra confidence to help me in building my business. I could have kept going it solo, but I knew that this calculated investment felt truly aligned for me – I was a little fearful, of course, as we often are before we commit to something or purchase something. But it was all I could think about, and I was super excited about it.

So I went for it. And I was so passionate about it, showing up with enthusiasm each week for my studying, my business and my clients. I know that investment will pay off in dividends as I’m now a more confident and skilled coach ready to work with more clients, create new offers and help people achieve their goals.

So I challenge you today: what would you do if your success were inevitable?

Leave me a comment, write about it in your journal or send me a message and share. Don’t let fear hold you back- there is so much you’re capable of. The world needs you.

______________________________

Supporting Our Blog

We are so thankful for your support of our blog and our careers! You can help by doing any or all of the following:

  • Purchase one of Ross’ albums!
  • Become a patron of our work!
  • Make purchases via our Amazon website links. There is no additional cost to you, and a portion of the proceeds can support our travels. Begin your Amazon search here.
  • Make other purchases using our affiliate links. Capital One 360 is one everyone can take advantage of to save money! Signing up with Dosh is a great way for everyone with a smartphone to support us, and we also have options for aspiring virtual assistants as well as occasional and full-time RVers to save money.
  • Listen to, subscribe and review our theater comedy podcast, Finishing The Season!
  • Subscribe to our blog, as well as perhaps InSearchOfAScoop.com, and recommend our work to your friends and family.
  • Take music or theater lessons (group or private) from us, either in person or via Skype at TinyVillageMusic.com.