What I’ve Learned About Speaking Your Truth

Whenever a client tells me they feel like they are ‘walking on eggshells’ around someone, I suspect a case of emotional manipulation.

This is when another person can change your mental and emotional state by what they say or how they behave. Unfortunately, partners, family, friends, children, and even some people in positions of power can emotionally manipulate. They use words, emotions, and behaviour to intimidate a person to behave in a way they want them to.

Sadly, this is a form of power and control, which is often rooted in the person feeling insecure about themselves and their abilities. If this is not nipped in the bud then this situation may progress and get worse.

It is important to build your own sense of self-respect. No one has a right to make personal attacks on you and your abilities.

Here are some steps to help you –

Keep a diary of what happens and how you feel. It is important to have a record of specific examples so you can express how you felt at the time. This may make no difference to them, but it will give you validation that you are not imagining things.

Think about how you would like the relationship to be. Is there any way in which you behave whih creates the dynamics?

Think about having an honest conversation with the positive intent of resolving the challenges that will help the situation improve. Even if you don’t get the solution you seek, you will know you had the courage to try to resolve it.

If you feel you cannot approach the person, as you are afraid, then this is where you need to believe that you have a right to be treated with respect by anyone. Read ‘Feel the Fear & Do It Anyway® by Dr. Susan Jeffers to help overcome your fears. If it is a work situation, you also may need to refer the matter to a member of your Human Resources team.

This situation is about you finding the courage to take responsibility to resolve it, otherwise, it will probably continue. No one has a right to make you feel scared. Repeat ‘I have a right to be in a safe and respectful environment’.

Take little steps to become more assertive. Remember you have a right to express how you feel. Google ‘Assertiveness’ and read ‘The Personal Bill of Rights’ which you will find on the Internet. These are excellent for helping you see you have a right to express how you feel.

Journal Prompts

Who do I walk on eggshells around?
Why do I do this?
What would be an improved way to handle this situation?
How can I become more assertive and meet my needs?
How can I communicate how I feel to the other person?

The Spiritual path is a great way to become more assertive, why not explore it today. Contact me.

Welcome

What I’ve Learned About Managing Stress

It is quite common to suffer from stress. Stress can creep up on us all, and if not caught early enough can lead to more severe symptoms such as anxiety, depression, and even panic attacks.

Common physical symptoms of stress are low energy, headaches, and other bodily aches including upset stomach, chest pains, and insomnia. Emotional symptoms include constant worrying, over-analysing, and an inability to rest and relax. Feeling overwhelmed and coming to tears easily are also signs.

I’m actually a fan of feeling stress, as when I am stressed I know it is simply a call from my body. It is asking me to pause — a reminder to ‘stop’. Am I expecting too much of myself?

I need to ask, why am I trying to be superhuman and overload myself with tasks and responsibilities, worrying that I don’t have time to do it all?

Stress makes me stop and ask ‘What is the worst that can happen if I stop right now?

My preferred definition of a stress is …..the perceived demands being placed upon me versus my perceived ability to handle these demands.

As you can see, like most things in life, it is our perception which causes our stress.

You may also feel over-burdened, which is causing you stress.

Write on a piece of paper

I feel responsible for…..

Explore what comes next. Keep going until you have run out of answers.

Are you taking more than your fair share of responsibility for another’s life?

Who can you turn to for help? It takes courage to ask for help.

It is easy to turn to alcohol, tobacco, or drugs to ease the stress, however, this can make our symptoms worse as we are not looking at the root cause of what’s causing the stress. We have to be courageous enough to get to the root cause of the problem.

We can become stressed by:

1) Others in our life who make continual demands of us.

2) A change in our life, which has been forced upon us.

3) Changes, which we have put ourselves through.

4) Trying to cope with the challenges of life.

Here is a suggestion to help you reduce your mental stress:

List everything you are worried about or feel overwhelmed with.

From this list, identify whom you or what you have no control over, and you personally cannot affect or change the situation. Then write next to each one, ‘I let these worries go’. Remember you are not God; let other adults take responsibility for their own life.

Next, make one action point for each worry which you do have control over. This action point should be a positive step forward to eliminate the worry – maybe you need to seek outside support or simply commit to sorting it by taking baby steps.

It is often helpful to get a fresh unbiased perspective on the situation –even asking a friend for their advice can be helpful or seeking coaching or counselling support.

Have some ‘You’ time – even taking a walk outside will make a difference or download an app, which will help you relax. https://glennharrold.com/ visualisations at are very effective.

Journal Prompts

Who or what is stressing me out?
Why do I feel so stressed?
How can I stop taking on too much?
Why do I take on too much?
On a scale of 0-10, how much do I allow myself to rest?

If you would like help managing your stress, please contact me for spiritual growth mentoring.

Welcome

What I’ve Learned About Being A Working Parent

Can you have both – a passion for your work and raising children?

I spiritually mentor both men and women who feel guilty as they love their job, or running a business, but feel like they are not being a ‘good enough’ parent.

Susan Jeffers in her wonderful book – ‘Freeing Ourselves From the Mad Myths of Parenthood’, discusses how some people absolutely love the process of being a parent and all that it brings, and some people don’t take to it as naturally and therefore don’t love it so much.

Susan makes the valid point that both ways to feel are okay. Thank goodness as I came in the latter category and over the years, as a single parent, learned to compromise my ambition with committing to my son’s needs. I saw the role of being a mum precious, knowing one day he would fly the nest.

Here are my top 5 ways to let go of the guilt and make both roles work.

1) Look at your week and commit time to different roles.

Break your week into time chunks and commit to your different roles – committing to ‘parent’ role, committing to ‘job’ role but also committing to ‘rest’ role. The latter is important to re-fuel you as a parent. When you are child and work free it is important to prioritise time for you. The hovering, bathroom/car cleaning, answering emails or attending a networking event don’t have to be prioritised downtime. Remember no ‘YOU’ and there is no job/business and the kids will certainly suffer. It is important to rest and self-care.

2) Bring in an expert to help

I used to spend hours doing my accounts – it would take me a full day and I would dread it. Accounting is not my strong point. I then decided to task a bookkeeper with this. It would take her 2 hours to upload all the information into the spreadsheets. This meant I had a full day to see clients or even take the afternoon off so this was a much more beneficial use of my time. Who can you bring in to help you? Cleaner, coach, ironer, dog walker for example. Failing that, asking children or partners to help is important, it allows them to learn to take responsibility.

3) It’s okay to leave the housework.

I used to factor in a full house clean in my week. One week I thought, I wonder what will happen if I don’t do a full clean this week so I didn’t do it. Nothing happened, other than I had more time for myself! After that little experiment, I went from cleaning weekly to fortnightly. Do you really need to clean up or change the bed sheets as often as you do?

4) Stop being a martyr.

I realised I needed a medal for the amount of times I was being a martyr. Family and friends would offer to help me, and I would decline. Boy, would I then tell everyone how busy I had been in the week and how I had done everything on my own! This was until someone pointed out; “Well I did offer to help!” Check in if you are wearing your medal of martyrdom and take it off. It’s okay to accept help!

5) Ask the kids

If you are wondering if you are being a ‘good enough’ parent then ask the people who know. I often used to ask my son, how can I be a better mum? Be prepared to act on the answers though. One time he told me that I get angry over nothing which upset him. It really made me think and taught me to stay calmer. Remember to ask them what you are doing well though, they will tell you, from their perspective of course.

Journal Prompts

How am I being an awesome parent?
How could I be a better parent?
How can I be awesome parent to myself?
How can I balance my priorites better?
How can I rest more?

I am sure you are doing an awesome job of balancing your priorities, however if you need support, please reach out for details of my mentoring packages. https://rachael-alexander.com/

What I’ve Learned About Waiting for Another to Change

Have you ever had one of those days — when you realise that your life will never be the same again?

The days when someone just happens to say something to you, or something happens, and you say, “That’s it, I’m done.”

What I like to call — lightbulb moments.

Reading chapter four in the amazing book – Feel the Fear & Do It Anyway® by Dr. Susan Jeffers was one of my ‘lightbulb’ moments. The chapter discusses, how we hope someone will change, believing our life will then be happier.

It may be a colleague, a partner, our children, our boss.

We may hope they will be less grumpy, more loving, more helpful, more sincere, less sulky – I’m sure you get the idea!

However in reality, as this chapter points out, we have to be the one to take responsibility to change the situation.

We cannot and should not spend our life hoping and wishing that this person is going to change, because ‘newsflash’ – they may never change, and that means you are stuck.

If this is ringing a few bells with you, then please believe me when I say:

• You can be the one to change.
• You can be the one who says I have had enough of accepting this situation.
• You can be the one to remove yourself from the person or frustrating situation.
• You can be the one to change the way you perceive the situation if you think you cannot walk away
• You can be the one to explore how to remove yourself permanently from the situation.

One thing I have learned in my life is ‘You can do the thing you think you cannot handle’.

If you want to change and need help in taking your first step. Get in touch. I love helping people change.

What I’ve Learned About Taking Action

How good are you at taking responsibility for your life?

Many people desire things to be different in their life, yet how much action do they take?

I want to lose weight but I eat chocolate biscuits
I want my relationship to be better but I am avoiding honest conversations
I want to be fitter but I don’t exercise
I want to get a new job, but I’m not looking for one

We can all want things to be different, but if we are not taking responsibility to make it happen, then not much is going to change. It’s as though we wait for Glenda the Good Witch to rock up, wave her sparkly wand and make change magically appear!

Asking yourself — how can I take responsibility is a very powerful question indeed:

If I take responsibility for losing weight, what action will I take?

If I take responsibility for improving my relationship, what action will I take?

If I take responsibility to look for another job, what action will I take?

Once you understand your power to change a situation lies within, life begins to change.

Now for the important part — taking action!

After all, life is about the choices we make. It really is as simple as that.

When you take responsibility to change your life, your confidence skyrockets, as you realise you are in control of making your life, the best it can be.

Think of an area that is frustrating you at the moment, and ask yourself, how I can take responsibility to change this situation.

If you want help in taking responsibility for your life, get in touch.

What I’ve Learned About Burnout

Last year, something happened to me which caused me to pack away the laptop, turn off my iPhone notifications and screen my calls.

I got burnout! Yes me, the person who helps other people to prevent burnout got burned out!

Now, the bonkers thing about burnout is that when you are in the ‘burning out’ period you fail to recognise what it is.

So here is my gentle reminder of how to recognise burn out, what causes it, and more importantly what to do about it.

How to recognise burnout

You feel close to tears at all times – the slightest thing sets you off
You get easily angered and are irritable at colleagues and clients
You are tired but never seem to get enough sleep no matter how early you go to bed
You wonder what the point of ‘it’ all is
You start to resent your job
You want to be left alone
You feel overwhelmed by the smallest tasks, such as cooking tea or doing the shopping
When others offer to help, you refuse and become martyr like

So what causes burnout?

Not allowing yourself to rest, caught in the trap of thinking you don’t have enough time to do everything
Trying to get everything 100% ‘right’ all the time – perfectionism
Working towards a goal, dream or vision which may not be as realistic as what you think it is
Refusal to delegate or ask for help
Feeling guilty about receiving help or support from others
Not telling others how you are feeling as you feel silly
Deep subconscious belief that you are not ‘good enough’ and have to prove yourself by overworking
Putting yourself at the bottom of a very long list of being there for others
Not saying ‘No’ to people

So what can you do if you resonate with the above?

Repeat the mantra – I am safe, there is plenty of time to do the things I want to do and I can say No.
Book some time off now to rest – not to redecorate, not to spring clean but to REST
Self-nurture – massage, reiki, counselling, or simply duvet days allowing yourself to cry
Ignore the voice inside screaming ‘you haven’t got time to rest!’

(Talk to the voice inside and tell it calmly that you are important enough to rest and resting will benefit you as it will give you more energy to do all the things you want to do in the future)

Ask others for help – allow yourself to receive
When your brain starts thinking about work, inform it ‘The office is closed and you will think about work when you return to work, whenever that is’.
Reflect if your expectations are realistic or are they causing you harm
Break your vision down into more realistic smaller goals
Reflect on whose approval you are trying to get by completing the following:

The approval I really want is from my………….

Then ask yourself if this person is able to give you the approval you seek – Probably not as sadly they probably don’t approve of themselves.

You are important enough to allow yourself some downtime so do it now!

You have a right to rest and take some time out. If you are not very good at this and need help, please contact me for support at https://rachael-alexander.com/

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