Happy Halloween to You!
As the chill of Autumn arrives, we know that busy times are ahead -- complete with ghosts and goblins, turkey trots, Christmas, Hanukah, New Year's and other beautiful celebrations fast approaching.
Along with the bustle of excitement often come stress, worry, exhaustion, and over-load, especially for women and moms. We seem to take on a heavy load, usually from an intention of creating lovely, special, and lasting memories for our families and friends. No one sets out to be stressed during the holidays; it just happens. Or does it? I believe we can do something about this holiday-time stress...it doesn't always have to be this way.
So, what can we do to enjoy ourselves more, feel less frenetic and exhausted, yet still create beauty, celebration, and excitement in our lives, and the lives of our families?
Here are a few tips that have helped me and others get on--and stay on--a path of holiday joy without the hysteria. The overall theme is: Say Yes! to what matters most to you and your family, and Let Go of what isn't working or joyful.
Holiday De-Stressing Tips:
1. Forget about attaining holiday perfection - go for fun, joy with family and friends, and creating memories of laughter and love. Often we look at pictures in magazines or images on TV and film of holiday bliss, and believe we have to imitate the beauty and the magic portrayed there. Well, there's a reason that it's on TV or in magazines! These are shots that have been posed, set up, meticulously and artistically planned and constructed by a staff, etc. You don't have to replicate what the media portrays as holiday charm and beauty. Do and create what gives you and your family pleasure to do.
2. Focus on holiday traditions that you and your family love most, and let go of the rest. We truly don't have time in the day to do everything - we have to be selective and create lasting, fun traditions that define who we are uniquely as individuals and as a family. If baking holiday cookies simply does you in, then let it go! Buy the cookies from the store, and perhaps have your kids decorate them, on their own, with all the fun of messing it up and making a mess! But make sure they do their own clean up.
3. Remember, it's not your job alone to create your family's holiday experience. Get help, and lots of it, from friends, your spouse, relatives, significant others, your children. Moms tend to believe that they're in it alone in making the holidays wonderful. Not so. Empowering others in the family to pitch in and do, create, plan (and clean up!), is great for you, and even better for them.
4. Separate the "shoulds" from the wants. So often in life, we fail to differentiate between what we feel we "should" do versus what we want to do. This chronic adherence to "should," especially around the holidays, leaves us empty, resentful, angry, and exhausted. Our "shoulds" often emerge from our childhood experiences and relate to beliefs we've carried about what we need to do to keep our families and friends happy, based on what our mothers and fathers did. Now's the time to stop "shoulding" and start doing what you feel in your heart would be fun and meaningful. As we walk away from "should," we break through to a more authentic way of being. This allows us to break free of emulating a past picture that no longer resembles who we have become.
5. Finally, let go of what hasn't worked. A very wise man once said "Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome is the definition of insanity." If something hasn't worked in the past, don't repeat it. If going to your aunt and uncle's house for Christmas each year has always been a disaster, make new plans. If New Year's Eve in Jamaica would ring your bell, then make a plan and make it happen. Even if it is not possible to move completely away from the old experience that isn't working, a small but conscious shift in your intention can make the whole experience feel new and improved ("I intend to get along better with my brother and his wife this holiday season," for example). These empowered and intentional shifts can create miracles.
Don't wait. Take steps this year (now) to empower yourself and your family to jointly and collaboratively create fun and meaning-filled traditions and experiences for the holidays. It's never too late to have what you want, the way you truly want it.
Please let us know:
1) What specifically stresses you out during the holidays?
2) What have you done to de-stress? What works best for you?
Thanks for sharing your tips for having a beautiful and restorative holiday season.
All best wishes,
Kathy
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
Empathic Parenting: A Way of Relating that Fosters Self-Esteem in Our Children
Have you ever had difficulty determining when "enough is enough" with your child? Or questioned when you should draw the line, rather than be flexible and give in to his requests? I know I have.
These are issues that all parents face regarding discipline and how best to provide the guidance our children need along with the love, nurture, and empathy they most long for. In working with coaching and therapy clients, and as a parent myself, I've come to understand the deep complexities involved in being a loving parent while at the same time providing effective guidance and authority.
These are not simple, easy, or comfortable issues. But I've found that asking oneself the following five questions regularly can be beneficial in helping chart a course that is both loving and empowering for our children and ourselves.
1) When my child is acting up, what is he longing for on a deeper level?
Often, a child acts up or misbehaves for purposes that are not readily apparent on the surface. Misbehaving can in fact be a child's way of gaining your attention and direct engagement with him. He may be craving your attention and love, and unable to achieve these in a productive manner. Sometimes, acting out is a way to distract parents from their own conflicts so that the attention is again refocused on the child. It can be a form of "homeostasis," keeping the family intact and functioning.
So, the key question here is:
- What may my child's misbehavior be saying that I haven't yet fully understood?
2) Who is in control here? Do I need to set clearer, more consistent boundaries?
Often as parents, our own insecurities about our parenting skills lead us to doubt our ability to control and question whether we rightfully deserve a place in this "executive" role. When this occurs, we typically lose our ability to be effective and authoritative. In essence, we have allowed our children to climb up into the "executive" position and make decisions for us.
If you experience a sense of being out of control with your children and feel as if they are "running the show," it is helpful to stop and examine your beliefs and attitudes around setting and enforcing guidelines.
- Are you consistent, and firm?
- Do you provide natural consequences when your children do not behave as you need them to?
When we make an examination of our difficulties in acting authoritatively in our own lives, we often find beliefs and fears carried over from our childhood about ourselves, our parents, the nature of love, support, and self-assertion, that need to be re-examined.
3) Do I validate my child? Do I let her know that, while I may not agree with her position, it is a valid one to her and to me?
What we humans crave deeply and consistently is validation-experiencing others' support that our personal beliefs and actions make sense. Yet often when we struggle with our children, we invalidate them as we attempt to provide guidance about ways in which we wish them to change. We can discredit or undermine their behavior or thoughts, telling them they are "wrong," "silly," "immature," or crazy."
A different approach that builds self-esteem is to express and show that while we need some change in their behavior, we still understand and can relate to their position, and consider it valid.
4) Am I on the same page with my spouse so that the "parental unit" is strong and cohesive?
In my work with families, one of the most common patterns to emerge involves one spouse unwittingly using a child as a tool against the other spouse.
Why does this occur?
When we feel in some way powerless to affect a desired change in our marriage, we can find ourselves using a child to side with us, or to be pitted against our spouse. In this way, we become more powerful and feel less alone. Further, when a child is acting out and disregarding one parent, often there are ways in which the child is gaining support in his struggle from the other spouse.
The key questions at the heart of this dynamic is:
These are issues that all parents face regarding discipline and how best to provide the guidance our children need along with the love, nurture, and empathy they most long for. In working with coaching and therapy clients, and as a parent myself, I've come to understand the deep complexities involved in being a loving parent while at the same time providing effective guidance and authority.
These are not simple, easy, or comfortable issues. But I've found that asking oneself the following five questions regularly can be beneficial in helping chart a course that is both loving and empowering for our children and ourselves.
1) When my child is acting up, what is he longing for on a deeper level?
Often, a child acts up or misbehaves for purposes that are not readily apparent on the surface. Misbehaving can in fact be a child's way of gaining your attention and direct engagement with him. He may be craving your attention and love, and unable to achieve these in a productive manner. Sometimes, acting out is a way to distract parents from their own conflicts so that the attention is again refocused on the child. It can be a form of "homeostasis," keeping the family intact and functioning.
So, the key question here is:
- What may my child's misbehavior be saying that I haven't yet fully understood?
2) Who is in control here? Do I need to set clearer, more consistent boundaries?
Often as parents, our own insecurities about our parenting skills lead us to doubt our ability to control and question whether we rightfully deserve a place in this "executive" role. When this occurs, we typically lose our ability to be effective and authoritative. In essence, we have allowed our children to climb up into the "executive" position and make decisions for us.
If you experience a sense of being out of control with your children and feel as if they are "running the show," it is helpful to stop and examine your beliefs and attitudes around setting and enforcing guidelines.
- Are you consistent, and firm?
- Do you provide natural consequences when your children do not behave as you need them to?
When we make an examination of our difficulties in acting authoritatively in our own lives, we often find beliefs and fears carried over from our childhood about ourselves, our parents, the nature of love, support, and self-assertion, that need to be re-examined.
3) Do I validate my child? Do I let her know that, while I may not agree with her position, it is a valid one to her and to me?
What we humans crave deeply and consistently is validation-experiencing others' support that our personal beliefs and actions make sense. Yet often when we struggle with our children, we invalidate them as we attempt to provide guidance about ways in which we wish them to change. We can discredit or undermine their behavior or thoughts, telling them they are "wrong," "silly," "immature," or crazy."
A different approach that builds self-esteem is to express and show that while we need some change in their behavior, we still understand and can relate to their position, and consider it valid.
4) Am I on the same page with my spouse so that the "parental unit" is strong and cohesive?
In my work with families, one of the most common patterns to emerge involves one spouse unwittingly using a child as a tool against the other spouse.
Why does this occur?
When we feel in some way powerless to affect a desired change in our marriage, we can find ourselves using a child to side with us, or to be pitted against our spouse. In this way, we become more powerful and feel less alone. Further, when a child is acting out and disregarding one parent, often there are ways in which the child is gaining support in his struggle from the other spouse.
The key questions at the heart of this dynamic is:
- Am I on the same page with my spouse about parenting and about our own relationship?
- If not, am I involving my child in any way, through conflict or direct collusion, to get back at my spouse?
5) What are my parenting goals? Am I fostering my child's own unique path or am I trying to make it in the image of someone else's?
Finally, a very significant step in effective, empathic parenting is to ask ourselves the questions, and answer:
- What are my key goals in parenting?
- In the end, what am I hoping to achieve as a good parent?
Is your goal to provide love and support, offer guidelines for development, or to foster the growth of a happy, healthy, productive individual? Or perhaps it is to create a loving, safe, supportive environment for your child to become all s/he is meant to be in this world, based on his or her own dreams, passions, energies, and goals?
Whatever our answers are to these pivotal questions, the process of exploration is very helpful in charting our own authentic parenting course. Increasing our awareness will ultimately help us expand our choices as to how to react, communicate, and behave as parents. In the end, I believe that empathic parenting benefits and empowers not only our children, but ourselves, and future generations as well.
Friday, June 22, 2007
Are You Accessing Your Creative Well? Tips for Tapping Your Creativity
Today I’d like to explore the concept of creativity, and how it shapes and enriches our lives to access our own individual wells of creativity.
What is "creativity?" The typical colloquial definitions of creativity involve:
- Producing or bringing about something partly or wholly new
- Investing an existing object with new properties or characteristics
- Imagining new possibilities that were not conceived of before
- Seeing or performing something in a manner different from what was thought possible
To me, creativity represents expressiveness, originality, productivity, and possibility--in life and of the human spirit.
Personally, there are three forms of creative expression that I pushed underground for many years: singing, tennis, and writing. As a young adult, I was accomplished at each of these, but for the next 25 years I let these endeavors go unnourished and hidden as I was hacking my way through life, attempting to balance my professional wants with my desires and goals of nurturing my family.
What I've realized is that we cannot "find ourselves," or achieve a joyful, meaningful and fulfilling professional or personal life if we force these beautiful creative pieces of ourselves to go underground. These creative lifelines are wanting and needing to be integrated, recognized, and honored. Pushing them out of our view only prolongs our dissatisfaction with our lives, and keeps our unique contribution hidden from ourselves, others, and the world.
Recently, I've attended musical concerts, theatrical and dance performances, and art exhibits of my children, and have been astonished once again at the depth and breadth of creative genius that young children reveal. These little beings are completely filled with light, love, uniqueness, joy, and creativity, and they know it! They shine with unabashed self-love. In my observations as a therapist, coach and parent, I've seen this self-appreciation flow until children reach the pre-teen years when they begin to hear and incorporate messages that beat down their expressiveness and self-acceptance.
These societal and cultural messages insidiously imply that it is unseemly or worse to brag, shine, and express the wonder of ourselves.
Has your creative expression been allowed to flow? Are you supporting your creative talents as fully as possible?
To access your creative well more deeply, I'd like to offer some key questions to ask yourself:
- What are my creative passions?
- What creative endeavors give me great joy, make my heart sing, and allow me to feel in the flow, experiencing the passing of time as a blink?
- Am I focusing on my creative gifts? If not, what holds me back from doing so?"
Your creative gifts are not yours by accident. You were meant to have these gifts, and express these sparks of creativity for the betterment and enrichment of your life and others.
Now is the time to access your creative well again.
Here are a few tips to reaching within and bringing forth the creative flow that is waiting to be tapped:
1. Identify the creative talent that you wish to nurture in yourself, and begin today to make it a priority.
2. Make a list of all the reasons that have held you back from expressing your creative gift(s). Most of these reasons will most likely revolve around fear of exposing or embarrassing yourself, lack of time, and lack of energy and focus. Honor your fears, then move forward despite them.
3. Commit to finding a forum this month for beginning to express your creativity (a new class, clinic, support group, online course, etc.)
4. Find a mentor, friend, or coach who can help you gain even deeper access to your creativity. Ask him/her to assist you on your path to your goals and dreams of expression.
5. Come forward with your creative genius. Tell all your family, friends and colleagues what you intend to do. If they laugh or diminish your efforts, so be it. That's their diminishment coming through. Shine the light on your creative gifts, and don't allow them to be hidden any longer.
As for me, I am now singing, writing, and playing tennis again, and loving it! Accessing my expressiveness through these activities has been transformational, and reminded me again of what I intuitively knew was true when I was a child: each of us is special, unique, gifted, and wonderful, and sharing our creative gifts is what makes our lives wondrous.
Please write and tell us about your creative gifts, and how you have brought them forward this month.
Enjoy and honor your gifts!
Saturday, June 2, 2007
Do You Feel the Best During Your Birthday Month? Take this Survey...
Greetings!
I have a question for you, and I'd love to hear your answers. Can you help me answer this question?
Do you feel physically at your best and happiest during your birthday month each year? Yes or No
I ask this as June is my birthday month, and I have observed for years that I feel absolutely at my best physically and emotionally during this month, each year. I LOVE the weather, and so enjoy the coming of summer, the relaxation, restoration, fun, and all that June represents to me. My mood is definitely elevated during June, and I feel stronger, happier, and ready to take on anything.
I've been told by a wonderful astrologer I know that everyone feels most comfortable and at their best physically (with the weather and otherwise) during their birthday month, because that is time in which they emerged into physical form in this lifetime. It's no coincidence that we resonate most closely with that time of year.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on whether this is true for you or not. Do you feel best during your birthday month? Do you feel your mood improve? Do you love the weather that your birthday month brings?
Please let me know your thoughts, and if this is your birthday month (and even if not), hope you ENJOY it to the fullest!!
All best wishes,
Kathy
I have a question for you, and I'd love to hear your answers. Can you help me answer this question?
Do you feel physically at your best and happiest during your birthday month each year? Yes or No
I ask this as June is my birthday month, and I have observed for years that I feel absolutely at my best physically and emotionally during this month, each year. I LOVE the weather, and so enjoy the coming of summer, the relaxation, restoration, fun, and all that June represents to me. My mood is definitely elevated during June, and I feel stronger, happier, and ready to take on anything.
I've been told by a wonderful astrologer I know that everyone feels most comfortable and at their best physically (with the weather and otherwise) during their birthday month, because that is time in which they emerged into physical form in this lifetime. It's no coincidence that we resonate most closely with that time of year.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on whether this is true for you or not. Do you feel best during your birthday month? Do you feel your mood improve? Do you love the weather that your birthday month brings?
Please let me know your thoughts, and if this is your birthday month (and even if not), hope you ENJOY it to the fullest!!
All best wishes,
Kathy
Friday, May 25, 2007
Are You Empowered at Work: 12 Strategies to Gain Rock-Solid Strength and Confidence
From my view, professional women have made tremendous strides in terms of drawing on our strengths, abilities, and confidence in the workplace in recent years, but it’s clear that we have a long way to go before we are using our female power with self-assurance and ease.
Based on my national in-depth research study Women Overcoming Crisis: Finding New Meaning in Life and Work and work with hundreds of professional women each year, it is clear that even high-level, high-achieving professional women report battling insecurity and discomfort in using their voices to lead powerfully and say “no” or “yes” when necessary. Many professional women do not serve as their own advocate, nor do they experience feeling supported or mentored by other colleagues in the workplace. They also reveal a reluctance to embrace new opportunities that may lead to greater advancement and leadership, particularly if the change in responsibility or focus takes them out of their comfort zone.
Clearly, there is a palpable power differential experienced by women in the workplace, and the leadership styles of men and women remain widely divergent, contributing to gaps in understanding, acceptance, and trust. In the end, research participants report experiencing less than a rock-solid sense of empowerment and self-confidence in their work lives.
These empowerment gaps that professional women experience can lead to personal and professional crisis, and a deep desire to transition away from the current professional track to a radically different one. From this study, I've identified no fewer than 14 common crises professional women face today, and have developed strategies and approaches aimed at helping women overcome these crises and reclaim the direction of their lives.
How can women gain empowerment, and avoid professional crises altogether?
The following approaches, suggested by research participants who have successfully reinvented their professional lives, have proven very powerful:
1. Remember, you are a many-faceted individual. Your life is a mosaic. Your current job does not define who you are in this world. Let go of what isn’t working.
Over-identification with any role in your life can lead to emotional difficulty and limitation. You are more than your current job or professional identity. If you don’t like who you are at work or what you are focusing on, you need to either find ways to change your style or behavior to your liking, or find new work or a different workplace that allows you to be and to express who you truly are.
2.Stretch and grow at all times..say “yes” to new opportunities that excite you (even if they make you nervous)
Again, you are more than you think you are. You possess a broader array of skills, strengths and capabilities than you are aware of at the moment. If you are offered an opportunity that allows you to stretch in a new area, and this area feels exciting to you, go for it! The expansion you’ll experience will allow new preferences and strengths to emerge. Be committed to continually expanding your knowledge and skill base. Move away from needing to be an expert at all times. Have the courage to be a beginner again, and don’t shy away from trying new things.
3. Get out of denial when things aren’t working
Staying in the dark about what makes you unhappy only prolongs your suffering, and postpones the action that eventually must be taken. Get hip to what isn’t working in your life and work, and begin to create a meaningful action plan for addressing what needs to be changed, added, redirected, or released.
4. Don’t let your ego make decisions for you
Make sure your ego doesn’t lead you around by the nose. Ego-based decisions are those that lead you to actions that simply inflate your ego and your sense of outward domination, power, control, and recognition. Often these ego-based decisions point you in a direction that is not in line with what you are truly passionate about. Integrate your ego perspective with your intuition, your higher thinking skills, and your understanding of what you value and appreciate. Make decisions that reflect who you are and wish to be in life.
5. Let go of perfectionism and over-functioning
Many professional women in particular suffer from perfectionism and the need to over-function and over-control both their work lives and home lives. In order to avoid the crisis of “things falling apart,” we must move away from the need to be perfect and the need to do everything ourselves. Start empowering all others in your life (your spouse, children, friends, parents, colleagues, employees, and others) so that they may gain a greater sense of their own independence, self-reliance, self-confidence, achievement and productivity, and can oversee and execute appropriately what is theirs to handle. Let go of what isn’t yours to manage.
6. “Always go where the energy is.”
Start tuning into your energy level and energetic guidance. Expand your focus on all those projects, people, or endeavors in your work life (and personal life) that give you a lift in positive energy. On the other hand, activities, people, and roles that deplete your energy just thinking about them are to be avoided. Follow your energy.
7. Know your passions and talents, and find work that emphasizes them
So many professionals (women and men alike) haven’t taken time to understand what they are passionate about in life — those endeavors that bring joy and positive energy. This is an essential step to take to avoid professional crisis. Discover and identify specifically what stimulates you, know what you are uniquely talented at and excited about, and move toward these endeavors. Find new ways to bring them forth in your personal and professional life wherever possible.
8. Decide what your life outside of work needs to encompass
In order to achieve essential work/life balance and be confident and strong personally and professionally, you must know what balance means to you. Get as clear as possible about what your life outside of work needs to embody and express in order for you to live the life you desire. Once you know, then your priorities will become clearer, which in turn allows you greater conscious control over how you manage your work life.
9. Realize your value. Don’t underestimate yourself and be your own advocate. Believe in yourself and your potential.
According to many of the professional women studied, men seem to be more skilled overall in perceiving their own value and taking advantageous action based on an unwavering view of their current and potential contribution. Women are in an earlier stage of development in their ability to embrace and express their worth and value in the workplace and at home.
Start by understanding and appreciating your own value. Focus on speaking and acting from a rock-solid sense of self-worth. If this is difficult for you, reach out to friends, family, and colleagues that you respect, admire, and trust, and ask them to tell you all about the strengths and talents they admire in you. Believe in yourself and understand the enormous power you have to positively impact your own life and the world around you.
10. Elicit outside support; gain new, unbiased and expansive perspectives
How do you identify clearly what has to change and how to change it? Get some unbiased help, which can come in many forms including an outside mentor, coach, a Mastermind group, career counselor if needed, or someone who has done what you wish to do who can provide beneficial guidance. Helpful support is neutral, not biased, and aims to help you on your path (not someone else’s) by providing fresh insights and perspectives on how you can draw on your vast potential to achieve what you desire.
11. Develop short- and long-term goals for all areas of your life. Act on these, and review your progress, continually
If you haven’t already, it’s time to sit down with a pad and outline both short- and long-term goals for your life and work that reflect who you are at your core, and what you wish your life to mean and contribute going forward. Make your goals concrete, specific, behavioral and measurable, and don’t limit yourself only to what you think is possible. Develop goals that reflect your true potential, and what you dream you can do. Once you commit these goals to paper, break them down into bite-sized, doable mini-steps, and begin to take action. Revisit your steps and your goals regularly.
12. Be authentic to yourself. Take positive, courageous action and use your voice in empowered ways, always. Don’t be afraid to put yourself forward.
It’s time to step up. Trying to be someone else in the workplace simply doesn’t work. Do and say what is authentic and appropriate for you. Develop an integrated style that embodies your values around leadership, authority, power, delegation, execution, relationship, and communication – a style that allows you to express who you are and what is important to you. The more you act and speak authentically, the more it will become immediately apparent if and when you need to make a change in your professional life.
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Employing these strategies regularly will not only help you avoid professional crisis altogether, but also bring you forward on a life-long path of professional and personal fulfillment, empowerment, confidence, and joy.
For more information on the national research study Women Overcoming Professional Crisis: Finding New Meaning in Life and Work or Caprino’s Life and Career Path Assessments and coaching programs for professional women, please visit www.kathycaprino.com.
Based on my national in-depth research study Women Overcoming Crisis: Finding New Meaning in Life and Work and work with hundreds of professional women each year, it is clear that even high-level, high-achieving professional women report battling insecurity and discomfort in using their voices to lead powerfully and say “no” or “yes” when necessary. Many professional women do not serve as their own advocate, nor do they experience feeling supported or mentored by other colleagues in the workplace. They also reveal a reluctance to embrace new opportunities that may lead to greater advancement and leadership, particularly if the change in responsibility or focus takes them out of their comfort zone.
Clearly, there is a palpable power differential experienced by women in the workplace, and the leadership styles of men and women remain widely divergent, contributing to gaps in understanding, acceptance, and trust. In the end, research participants report experiencing less than a rock-solid sense of empowerment and self-confidence in their work lives.
These empowerment gaps that professional women experience can lead to personal and professional crisis, and a deep desire to transition away from the current professional track to a radically different one. From this study, I've identified no fewer than 14 common crises professional women face today, and have developed strategies and approaches aimed at helping women overcome these crises and reclaim the direction of their lives.
How can women gain empowerment, and avoid professional crises altogether?
The following approaches, suggested by research participants who have successfully reinvented their professional lives, have proven very powerful:
1. Remember, you are a many-faceted individual. Your life is a mosaic. Your current job does not define who you are in this world. Let go of what isn’t working.
Over-identification with any role in your life can lead to emotional difficulty and limitation. You are more than your current job or professional identity. If you don’t like who you are at work or what you are focusing on, you need to either find ways to change your style or behavior to your liking, or find new work or a different workplace that allows you to be and to express who you truly are.
2.Stretch and grow at all times..say “yes” to new opportunities that excite you (even if they make you nervous)
Again, you are more than you think you are. You possess a broader array of skills, strengths and capabilities than you are aware of at the moment. If you are offered an opportunity that allows you to stretch in a new area, and this area feels exciting to you, go for it! The expansion you’ll experience will allow new preferences and strengths to emerge. Be committed to continually expanding your knowledge and skill base. Move away from needing to be an expert at all times. Have the courage to be a beginner again, and don’t shy away from trying new things.
3. Get out of denial when things aren’t working
Staying in the dark about what makes you unhappy only prolongs your suffering, and postpones the action that eventually must be taken. Get hip to what isn’t working in your life and work, and begin to create a meaningful action plan for addressing what needs to be changed, added, redirected, or released.
4. Don’t let your ego make decisions for you
Make sure your ego doesn’t lead you around by the nose. Ego-based decisions are those that lead you to actions that simply inflate your ego and your sense of outward domination, power, control, and recognition. Often these ego-based decisions point you in a direction that is not in line with what you are truly passionate about. Integrate your ego perspective with your intuition, your higher thinking skills, and your understanding of what you value and appreciate. Make decisions that reflect who you are and wish to be in life.
5. Let go of perfectionism and over-functioning
Many professional women in particular suffer from perfectionism and the need to over-function and over-control both their work lives and home lives. In order to avoid the crisis of “things falling apart,” we must move away from the need to be perfect and the need to do everything ourselves. Start empowering all others in your life (your spouse, children, friends, parents, colleagues, employees, and others) so that they may gain a greater sense of their own independence, self-reliance, self-confidence, achievement and productivity, and can oversee and execute appropriately what is theirs to handle. Let go of what isn’t yours to manage.
6. “Always go where the energy is.”
Start tuning into your energy level and energetic guidance. Expand your focus on all those projects, people, or endeavors in your work life (and personal life) that give you a lift in positive energy. On the other hand, activities, people, and roles that deplete your energy just thinking about them are to be avoided. Follow your energy.
7. Know your passions and talents, and find work that emphasizes them
So many professionals (women and men alike) haven’t taken time to understand what they are passionate about in life — those endeavors that bring joy and positive energy. This is an essential step to take to avoid professional crisis. Discover and identify specifically what stimulates you, know what you are uniquely talented at and excited about, and move toward these endeavors. Find new ways to bring them forth in your personal and professional life wherever possible.
8. Decide what your life outside of work needs to encompass
In order to achieve essential work/life balance and be confident and strong personally and professionally, you must know what balance means to you. Get as clear as possible about what your life outside of work needs to embody and express in order for you to live the life you desire. Once you know, then your priorities will become clearer, which in turn allows you greater conscious control over how you manage your work life.
9. Realize your value. Don’t underestimate yourself and be your own advocate. Believe in yourself and your potential.
According to many of the professional women studied, men seem to be more skilled overall in perceiving their own value and taking advantageous action based on an unwavering view of their current and potential contribution. Women are in an earlier stage of development in their ability to embrace and express their worth and value in the workplace and at home.
Start by understanding and appreciating your own value. Focus on speaking and acting from a rock-solid sense of self-worth. If this is difficult for you, reach out to friends, family, and colleagues that you respect, admire, and trust, and ask them to tell you all about the strengths and talents they admire in you. Believe in yourself and understand the enormous power you have to positively impact your own life and the world around you.
10. Elicit outside support; gain new, unbiased and expansive perspectives
How do you identify clearly what has to change and how to change it? Get some unbiased help, which can come in many forms including an outside mentor, coach, a Mastermind group, career counselor if needed, or someone who has done what you wish to do who can provide beneficial guidance. Helpful support is neutral, not biased, and aims to help you on your path (not someone else’s) by providing fresh insights and perspectives on how you can draw on your vast potential to achieve what you desire.
11. Develop short- and long-term goals for all areas of your life. Act on these, and review your progress, continually
If you haven’t already, it’s time to sit down with a pad and outline both short- and long-term goals for your life and work that reflect who you are at your core, and what you wish your life to mean and contribute going forward. Make your goals concrete, specific, behavioral and measurable, and don’t limit yourself only to what you think is possible. Develop goals that reflect your true potential, and what you dream you can do. Once you commit these goals to paper, break them down into bite-sized, doable mini-steps, and begin to take action. Revisit your steps and your goals regularly.
12. Be authentic to yourself. Take positive, courageous action and use your voice in empowered ways, always. Don’t be afraid to put yourself forward.
It’s time to step up. Trying to be someone else in the workplace simply doesn’t work. Do and say what is authentic and appropriate for you. Develop an integrated style that embodies your values around leadership, authority, power, delegation, execution, relationship, and communication – a style that allows you to express who you are and what is important to you. The more you act and speak authentically, the more it will become immediately apparent if and when you need to make a change in your professional life.
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Employing these strategies regularly will not only help you avoid professional crisis altogether, but also bring you forward on a life-long path of professional and personal fulfillment, empowerment, confidence, and joy.
For more information on the national research study Women Overcoming Professional Crisis: Finding New Meaning in Life and Work or Caprino’s Life and Career Path Assessments and coaching programs for professional women, please visit www.kathycaprino.com.
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Honoring the Loving Mother in You
Happy Mother's Day to all!
Mother's Day is a time of honoring and appreciating our mothers and what they have done, given, and sacrificed for us. This weekend, I wonder if each of us could take time too to honor how we have mothered (and fathered) our own lives; how we have nurtured, cared for, guided, loved, and brought into being our own selves. So often we focus on what isn't going well, or how we are flawed, but we rarely hug ourselves and say "Job well done!" When we do allow in some praise, it's usually because others have given us recognition for something outward we've done.
I'd like to reverse this pattern, now and always, and encourage us all to start a new process this weekend of thanking and honoring ourselves as well as others, and saying to ourselves:
"I am a loving and nurturing mother/father to myself. I always do the best I can. I am aware of my gaps and dedicate myself to my continued growth. I am growing in my loving acceptance each day."
This is a great start, I think, to being on the continual path of caring for and nurturing the very essence of who you are. But try as we might, there are times we slip up. Not to worry. We can ask for assistance in helping us understand when we go astray and are not providing loving mothering to ourselves.
One way to do this is that we say the following each morning:
"I ask the Universe today to please give me a gentle nudge when I am not mothering myself in a loving way."
I have found that when I make a request of this nature, within the course of the next hour, day, or week, I am given an immediate nudge (in a thought or event) that shows me directly how I have strayed from caring for and honoring myself. Try it out! You'll be amazed. But remember to ask that the nudge be a gentle one!
As a therapist and coach, I spend a great deal of time with people in crisis, and am always thrilled at the rapid (often miraculous) growth the human spirit makes when in relationship with another who can love, understand, and empathize with them. We've been so conditioned to doubt ourselves and question our own motives and beliefs, and this self-doubt can be utterly demoralizing and paralyzing.
The most powerful approach I know in helping people overcome their crises successfully is facilitating their ability to gain a rock-solid belief in themselves, to trust their instincts, and to know that they have a right to (and an essential purpose in) following their own path, despite any and all objections from their "tribes."
If you are contemplating an important change in your life, now may be the perfect time to take action on it, and to "mother" it into being with confidence, trust, and love. Some key reasons for wanting to make significant change in life are:
Mother's Day is a time of honoring and appreciating our mothers and what they have done, given, and sacrificed for us. This weekend, I wonder if each of us could take time too to honor how we have mothered (and fathered) our own lives; how we have nurtured, cared for, guided, loved, and brought into being our own selves. So often we focus on what isn't going well, or how we are flawed, but we rarely hug ourselves and say "Job well done!" When we do allow in some praise, it's usually because others have given us recognition for something outward we've done.
I'd like to reverse this pattern, now and always, and encourage us all to start a new process this weekend of thanking and honoring ourselves as well as others, and saying to ourselves:
"I am a loving and nurturing mother/father to myself. I always do the best I can. I am aware of my gaps and dedicate myself to my continued growth. I am growing in my loving acceptance each day."
This is a great start, I think, to being on the continual path of caring for and nurturing the very essence of who you are. But try as we might, there are times we slip up. Not to worry. We can ask for assistance in helping us understand when we go astray and are not providing loving mothering to ourselves.
One way to do this is that we say the following each morning:
"I ask the Universe today to please give me a gentle nudge when I am not mothering myself in a loving way."
I have found that when I make a request of this nature, within the course of the next hour, day, or week, I am given an immediate nudge (in a thought or event) that shows me directly how I have strayed from caring for and honoring myself. Try it out! You'll be amazed. But remember to ask that the nudge be a gentle one!
As a therapist and coach, I spend a great deal of time with people in crisis, and am always thrilled at the rapid (often miraculous) growth the human spirit makes when in relationship with another who can love, understand, and empathize with them. We've been so conditioned to doubt ourselves and question our own motives and beliefs, and this self-doubt can be utterly demoralizing and paralyzing.
The most powerful approach I know in helping people overcome their crises successfully is facilitating their ability to gain a rock-solid belief in themselves, to trust their instincts, and to know that they have a right to (and an essential purpose in) following their own path, despite any and all objections from their "tribes."
If you are contemplating an important change in your life, now may be the perfect time to take action on it, and to "mother" it into being with confidence, trust, and love. Some key reasons for wanting to make significant change in life are:
- A wake-up call is received
- Necessity emerges (you feel you have no other choice)
- You desire to move way from suffering and move toward joy
- You wish to find more meaning and purpose in living
- You desire to pursue talents and abilities that have been underutilized
- You want more fun, relaxation, restoration, passion, and JOY
- You desire to make a difference
- Finally, you want to make your time on this earth count
Do any of these resonate with you?
If so, change is in the wind for you, and you can begin to mother it into being today. Act as if you are the most powerful agent for creative change in the world. To lovingly "mother" yourself and your life, you must:
- Give birth to your ideas
- Produce the changes you dream of
- Create positive movement for yourself
- Watch over your ideas and your endeavors with love
- Nourish yourself each day
- Protect yourself and your ideas and dreams from those who would keep you smaller than you wish to be
Let's take this opportunity today to honor and cherish not only our beloved mothers, but also ourselves and all of those individuals who helped "mother" our spirits and creative endeavors into being. These individuals have helped us be all we can be, and for that, and for the positive energy they've helped us release, we are most grateful.
If you would like to share your stories of individuals who have "mothered" you or your creative endeavors into being, please share them here on my blog, Reinventing Ourselves. We'd love to hear from you!
Thank you for reading and sharing.
Happy Mothering!
Kathy
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Decoding "The Secret"
I'm writing today to discuss the idea of manifesting what we want in life, as this has been a topic at the forefront of many talk shows and public conversations of late. In particular, I'd like to address some aspects of the book The Secret that I believe have been misinterpreted or misunderstood based on the "sensationalized" promotional and media coverage we've experienced around this work. If we can view this book as just one of many helpful tools in understanding our lives, but not consider this the answer to all of our problems, we'll be much more successful, I think, in understanding the principles it discusses. Unfortunately, many people I've encountered have experienced distress because they believe they are failures at creating the lives they wish for, and they blame themselves for this failure.
I do believe wholeheartedly in the concept of the Law of Attraction, and consider it a profoundly powerful principle at work in our world. By this I mean that human beings "resonate" and "vibrate" emotionally and energetically at certain levels, and the character of our energetic output will absolutely shape what is attracted to us in our lives. I remember even as a very young child being able to "feel" the energy of individuals and groups as a whole, and sensed when certain people emitted an energetic "frequency" that felt uncomfortable or discordant to me (I must say that this "sensing" ability made large gatherings and corporate meetings very challenging for me at times!"). I know now that this energetic vibration is indeed palpable, and provides useful information for us, if we'll heed it.
What does this concept of "energetic resonance" mean? I believe that when we are habitually engrossed in thoughts and actions of negativity, unkindness, judgment, cruelty, insecurity, and fear, and when we act from the belief that each of us is separate from all others, then there is virtually no way we can, with consistency and regularity, attract energetically to us that which resonates on a higher level (i.e., love, beauty, peace, harmony, compassion, oneness, fulfillment, joy, etc.). This is so because we are not in a place to be able to perceive or receive this higher level of experience--our "filters" will not allow it.
So what can we do about it? The first step is to become highly aware of your thoughts, and how your thoughts feel. We must be aware of our beliefs and thoughts, and how they impact us emotionally and energetically. From this awareness, we need to choose "better-feeling" thoughts when we are distressed, upset, fearful, etc. We must actively select and reach for thoughts that bring us even a little bit of relief, release, peace of mind, and a trusting that all will be well in the end, and that we are able to cope with what we're experiencing. This process expands and grows over time, and allows us to continue feeling relief, even in the face of upsetting events.
Contrary to public opinion and some messages in the book The Secret and others, my experience with hundreds of distressed individuals reveals that we simply cannot shift from feeling as if our knees are knocking together in fear and negativity, to a state of utter peace, joy, and happy expectancy, in one fell swoop. This type of emotional turn-around requires great inner work and an ongoing commitment to the belief that we do indeed affect what we attract into our lives-- in fact, we "co-create" it. Knowing that we can and do influence what occurs in our lives reminds us that we are not hapless victims, but life students and lifetime learners -- we realize that what emerges is there specifically for us to embrace and learn from.
From my vantage point, we are here to physically manifest and experience all of what life has to offer in order for us to hone our own deep and specific preferences for what we personally choose to bring forth into being. When we understand this concept, then feeling peaceful internally, despite what is occurring outside of us, is a natural and life-affirming way of being.
As a helpful tool, I'd like to recommend a wonderful and powerful book called Ask and It Is Given: Learning to Manifest Your Desires, by Esther and Jerry Hicks. This book, and the teachings of Abraham it offers, helps explain how "reaching for a better-feeling thought" is so powerful in manifesting what you dream of. Do check it out!
To assist those who wish to understand the Law of Attraction a bit more deeply, I'm holding a group coaching workshop that will explore this concept, and help you gain clarity about the messages and powerful lessons that your current life situation is revealing today (please contact kathy@kathycaprino.com for details).
I'd like to share with you too my belief that we are not here in this lifetime so that everything will be perfect, smooth, and carefree always, according to our individual plan. Our personal plans are always based on our own myopic and short-sighted views. I believe there is a higher and far more beautiful plan that incorporates all of us. We cannot see or know this plan, but trusting that it exists is very peace-inducing.
It is so helpful to realize that we are not in total control of life, nor would we really want to be at this time in our development. There are things that occur in our lives that happen for our highest benefit and growth, and for the highest good of all involved, but often these occurrences may not remotely resemble what we would actively and consciously want to attract to us, because our understanding of our own potential is limited.
How do we handle these "unattractive" events and situations then? We accept them for the lessons they offer, incorporate these insights and teachings as best we can, and then release the pain associated with them. And as we release the pain, disappointment, or trauma, wonderful new thoughts and beliefs bubble up to the surface that help us feel loved, supported, cared for, nourished, nurtured. In the end, we learn to trust that we are in good hands, always. The emotional pain is meant to be temporary, as a gentle (or not so gentle) nudge from the Universe to pay attention and continue to develop our preferences about these events or happenings. But holding onto the pain and projecting it into the future, as so many of us do, again misses the point completely.
The "secret" isn't about bringing to you everything you want. It's about loving and embracing yourself and your life right now. The more you embrace who you are and what you have already created, the more you will experience an expansion of the feelings of gratitude, peace, joy, love, and fulfillment, no matter what the outer circumstances in life provide.
When you achieve this type of internal acceptance and gratitude, and use your intuition and heart to guide you each day with each step, then life is inevitably filled with more and more to be grateful for each day.
************************************************************
Do you have any stories you'd like to share about how The Secret and its concepts have (or haven't) been of service to you? If so, please feel free to share your stories here. I'd love to hear from you.
Once again, thank you for reading and sharing.
I am wishing you a time of great positive attraction and feeling good always!
Kathy
I do believe wholeheartedly in the concept of the Law of Attraction, and consider it a profoundly powerful principle at work in our world. By this I mean that human beings "resonate" and "vibrate" emotionally and energetically at certain levels, and the character of our energetic output will absolutely shape what is attracted to us in our lives. I remember even as a very young child being able to "feel" the energy of individuals and groups as a whole, and sensed when certain people emitted an energetic "frequency" that felt uncomfortable or discordant to me (I must say that this "sensing" ability made large gatherings and corporate meetings very challenging for me at times!"). I know now that this energetic vibration is indeed palpable, and provides useful information for us, if we'll heed it.
What does this concept of "energetic resonance" mean? I believe that when we are habitually engrossed in thoughts and actions of negativity, unkindness, judgment, cruelty, insecurity, and fear, and when we act from the belief that each of us is separate from all others, then there is virtually no way we can, with consistency and regularity, attract energetically to us that which resonates on a higher level (i.e., love, beauty, peace, harmony, compassion, oneness, fulfillment, joy, etc.). This is so because we are not in a place to be able to perceive or receive this higher level of experience--our "filters" will not allow it.
So what can we do about it? The first step is to become highly aware of your thoughts, and how your thoughts feel. We must be aware of our beliefs and thoughts, and how they impact us emotionally and energetically. From this awareness, we need to choose "better-feeling" thoughts when we are distressed, upset, fearful, etc. We must actively select and reach for thoughts that bring us even a little bit of relief, release, peace of mind, and a trusting that all will be well in the end, and that we are able to cope with what we're experiencing. This process expands and grows over time, and allows us to continue feeling relief, even in the face of upsetting events.
Contrary to public opinion and some messages in the book The Secret and others, my experience with hundreds of distressed individuals reveals that we simply cannot shift from feeling as if our knees are knocking together in fear and negativity, to a state of utter peace, joy, and happy expectancy, in one fell swoop. This type of emotional turn-around requires great inner work and an ongoing commitment to the belief that we do indeed affect what we attract into our lives-- in fact, we "co-create" it. Knowing that we can and do influence what occurs in our lives reminds us that we are not hapless victims, but life students and lifetime learners -- we realize that what emerges is there specifically for us to embrace and learn from.
From my vantage point, we are here to physically manifest and experience all of what life has to offer in order for us to hone our own deep and specific preferences for what we personally choose to bring forth into being. When we understand this concept, then feeling peaceful internally, despite what is occurring outside of us, is a natural and life-affirming way of being.
As a helpful tool, I'd like to recommend a wonderful and powerful book called Ask and It Is Given: Learning to Manifest Your Desires, by Esther and Jerry Hicks. This book, and the teachings of Abraham it offers, helps explain how "reaching for a better-feeling thought" is so powerful in manifesting what you dream of. Do check it out!
To assist those who wish to understand the Law of Attraction a bit more deeply, I'm holding a group coaching workshop that will explore this concept, and help you gain clarity about the messages and powerful lessons that your current life situation is revealing today (please contact kathy@kathycaprino.com for details).
I'd like to share with you too my belief that we are not here in this lifetime so that everything will be perfect, smooth, and carefree always, according to our individual plan. Our personal plans are always based on our own myopic and short-sighted views. I believe there is a higher and far more beautiful plan that incorporates all of us. We cannot see or know this plan, but trusting that it exists is very peace-inducing.
It is so helpful to realize that we are not in total control of life, nor would we really want to be at this time in our development. There are things that occur in our lives that happen for our highest benefit and growth, and for the highest good of all involved, but often these occurrences may not remotely resemble what we would actively and consciously want to attract to us, because our understanding of our own potential is limited.
How do we handle these "unattractive" events and situations then? We accept them for the lessons they offer, incorporate these insights and teachings as best we can, and then release the pain associated with them. And as we release the pain, disappointment, or trauma, wonderful new thoughts and beliefs bubble up to the surface that help us feel loved, supported, cared for, nourished, nurtured. In the end, we learn to trust that we are in good hands, always. The emotional pain is meant to be temporary, as a gentle (or not so gentle) nudge from the Universe to pay attention and continue to develop our preferences about these events or happenings. But holding onto the pain and projecting it into the future, as so many of us do, again misses the point completely.
The "secret" isn't about bringing to you everything you want. It's about loving and embracing yourself and your life right now. The more you embrace who you are and what you have already created, the more you will experience an expansion of the feelings of gratitude, peace, joy, love, and fulfillment, no matter what the outer circumstances in life provide.
When you achieve this type of internal acceptance and gratitude, and use your intuition and heart to guide you each day with each step, then life is inevitably filled with more and more to be grateful for each day.
************************************************************
Do you have any stories you'd like to share about how The Secret and its concepts have (or haven't) been of service to you? If so, please feel free to share your stories here. I'd love to hear from you.
Once again, thank you for reading and sharing.
I am wishing you a time of great positive attraction and feeling good always!
Kathy
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