Tag Archives: fear

May 26 2017
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Health Coaching, Inspiration, love, Meditation, wellness

Just. Keep. Growing.

I corrected myself last week when I told my friend “I quit my job at the gym.” Because I didn’t quit. The position ran its course and I felt I had outgrown it. It was also a choice I had to make out of integrity and self-respect.

 

It was a difficult choice because the position was so easy, familiar, and comfortable. I was constantly surrounded by students who I had gotten to know over my 3 years teaching there. And when it came time to say goodbye … Hello feelings! I sobbed in front of a room full of students.

 

In this life we are given choice: what to eat for lunch, who we enter into relationship with, what career path we’d like to follow. But do we always make the choice that serves us best? How do we even KNOW what choice serves us?

 

When we make a choice out of fear, the answer (in my humble opinion) is no.

 

When we make a choice out of love, the answer is yes.

 

Even if the choice is painful and means we cry in front of a room full of students. Even if we are afraid we’ve made some terrible mistake because leaving something so comfortable is scary.

 

So I didn’t quit my job. I grew. I grew to become a person with more self-respect than I did, say, this time last year. I grew to trust that it’s OK to let go.

 

And it is my intention to just keep growing.

 

May you find opportunity for growth in every choice you make.

 

With Love,

Maggie

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Feb 11 2017
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Body Image, mindfulness, recovery

Noticing my negative thoughts

One of my recovery students asked me recently what do I do with my negative thoughts?

I define these negative thoughts as any thoughts based in fear, doubt, or judgment.

Thoughts like:

“I’m bad for eating too much dessert” 

“I better burn this off”

“I’ll never look the way I should”

“I’m not worthy/deserving of love or respect.”

Even this one… “I’ve gotta lose weight.”

It’s fine to have a healthy awareness of the benefits of certain food and exercise, but ask yourself this: what is my intention? Are you choosing to eliminate dessert from a place of self-love or is it more punitive like you’re keeping yourself in line?

Shifting our negative thoughts is not an overnight process. It’s a multi-layer, multi-step, non-linear process that beings with one simple step: NOTICE.

Here’s what i told my student:

I first have to notice and acknowledge I’m having negative thoughts.

And then I kind of stop myself in my tracks. I pause long enough to not only notice the thoughts but to feel them – how are they feeling in my body and where? Well, usually tense. And how are they feeling emotionally? Usually they are accompanied by immense anxiety, nervousness, frustration, and sometimes depression.

I pause, I get quiet, I notice.

I’ve trained myself NOT to rush and immediately “fix” the thoughts. I must allow the thoughts and the subsequent feelings they trigger to move through my body. Or else they’ll build up in the basement and years later I’ll uncover them in dusty boxes and guess what… by that time they’ve grown tenfold! By that time the negative thoughts have become the most nasty, diminishing stories about myself I could possibly come up with. So believe me, if you try to quickly stuff the negative thoughts away, they are only going to grow bigger.

The next time you find yourself in the cycle of self-loathing thoughts, all I want you to do is really make space to notice. Notice what you are feeling. Acknowledge the feelings, physical and emotional, and then make space for these feelings to flow through you.

Loosen your grip on the thoughts, soften a little, and notice what happens.

Stay tuned for next steps in the process in Part 2!

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Oct 20 2014
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Health & Wellness, Health Coaching, Inspiration, Ironman, Writing

What are you afraid of?

What is one thing in your life right now that you are afraid of?

Is it the fear of losing someone you love? What about making a decision that would lead to a major life change? There is also the fear of not completing a task you poured your heart and soul into. We experience fear in pursuing our dreams, because we think we might fail. On top of that we experience (or at least I do) the fear of certain (mostly negative) emotions. We fear falling in love because we might get hurt; and also fear losing that person we love because we know damn well that it’s always going to hurt.

Across the board, fear can be incredibly paralyzing. But I hope this post will give you some insight on how to move beyond fear.

The other night I was out to dinner with some friends when the topic of Ironman came up. Beyond lots of hours of training, we were questioning what does it take to complete an Ironman? We concluded that it requires a great deal of mental agility and toughness and my friend Milly (runner and triathlete extraordinaire!) and I both discovered that we each wrote down lists of our greatest fears before race day. Especially in that final month.

I was instructed to do this by my life coach and found it to be incredibly resourceful in learning to let go of some of the fear I was holding onto so tightly. Fear that then resulted in anxiety and unwanted stress. Once everything was down on paper though I was able to take on more of an “OK, so what?” attitude about my fear of failure. It didn’t seem so bad after all.

I also discovered that my greatest fear pertaining to Ironman was far more than simply not finishing the event, failing, or not getting injured. No, my greatest fear was what will people think if I don’t finish… what will people think if I fail? And, who am I going to disappoint if I don’t finish?

It took several discussions, lots of writing, and a solid amount of introspection to start to believe … So What? If I didn’t finish, I would be upset, but I knew that I would eventually get back on the horse and try again. If I disappointed people then perhaps they aren’t the people I want to hold close in my life. Most of you know that I DID finish Ironman but having written down that list of fears took a huge burden off my shoulders on race day.

I recognized that I am human and I am far from perfect. I acknowledged the fact that if I did not finish Ironman, there was still so much for me to gain and to learn from the experience.

I know that if I ever do sign up for another Ironman, these fears will cross my mind again. But I’m ready to confront them.

So, what are you afraid of? We all have fear – especially when we are confronting something that is meaningful and important to us. Why not write it all down and go through each fear, one at a time – you will discover what is at the root of this fear and that maybe it’s not so terrifying after all. This could lead to new opportunity, a major life change, or experiencing your life’s journey a little bit deeper.

If you’re still feeling stuck, send me an email at maggie.converse@gmail.com and we can set up a free coaching consult.

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