mental-health – Self Discoverly

How to Find Personal Freedom & Create the Life You Want

January 6, 2024January 6, 2024 selfdiscoverly

Did you know that the average family generating $200K per year is broke? How can this be? With the cost of living skyrocketing and basic needs like college education savings, emergency and retirement funding taking so much of our monthly incomes, it’s no wonder more and more people in our society are becoming mentally ill. The average financial advisor will advise its clients to put $1K into savings, save 3-6 months of one year’s salary, invest 10% of annual income into retirement and 5% of annual income into college savings for our children. When groceries are now costing more than mortgage payments and the mortgage interest rates are at 7% for first time home buyers, $200K is simply NOT enough cash flow to make ends meet! (And this is assuming you have no financial aid or credit card debt!) The average family is turning to “side hustles” just to make ends meet. What is more, they are trading their personal freedom, self-care and presence with loved ones to do all of this working and side hustling. Stick around and I’ll show you an example budget of a two parent/one child household, uncover the contradiction between our current mental health healing model and current economy model and finally illuminate an alternative solution that enables you to create your life by design and take back your personal freedom.

The $201K Household Budget

Meet the Parkers. Jim and Eleanor live in Connecticut with their 12 year old daughter, Lucy and her two dogs, Theory and Einstein. Jim is a veteran high school teacher earning a cap salary of $102K. Eleanor is a pediatric nurse earning a cap salary of $99K. Lucy attends public middle school and is a competitive dog agility handler. One day Lucy hopes to become a dog behaviorist and make it onto the world team for agility. Her parents have decided that Lucy’s dog agility and dog training is essential for her future.

The Parker Annual Expenses:

$201K-$40K (tax free for both retirement funds, family healthcare and Lucy’s college fund)

Leaving them $161K

After 15% taxes as joint filers they will have $136,850 plus the $40K tax free money to pay the following:

Mortgage $15K
Electricity $2400
Heat/gas $2500
Water/sewer $500
Groceries/home needs $16K
Car payment $4800
Car insurance $2300
Car taxes $600
Car registration $100
Car emissions $40
Home insurance $1200
Home taxes $5K
Dog food $1800
Dog treats $500
Dog chews $400
Dog supplements $500
Dog agility training $8K
Vet $3K
Clothing $2K
Holidays $5K
Financial aid $4K
Eleanor retirement $10K (pre-tax)
Jim retirement $10K (pre-tax)
Savings $10K
Emergency fund $8K
Home maintenance and repairs $8K
Car repairs and maintenance $3500
Healthcare $10K (pre-tax)
Cell phones $1800
Cable/internet $1800
College savings for Lucy $10K (pre-tax)
iCloud $110
Misc. subscriptions $250
Eating out $3600
Dog agility trials $10K
Lucy summer camp $4K
Tech support $500
Dog grooming essentials $300
Dog misc. (flea collars, etc.) $450
Socialization/entertainment $2K

Leaving them with $6,900 for unforeseen and miscellaneous expenses. And as someone with their child in dog agility, I figured very low on above expenses. There are so many additional expenses that I did not even list here like travel expenses to competitions, dog chiropractics and seminars and other education and educational resources.

What is so important about the above expenses is that both Jim and Eleanor have reached the highest salaries they can earn. What is more, both of them work over 40 hours per week leaving them little time to add a side hustle. Jim could add a side hustle in the summer, but to save money, he does most of the home repairs and maintenance himself and chooses to do these projects over the summer.

A LOOK at the CURRENT MENTAL HEALTH HEALING MODEL & OUR CURRENT ECONOMY MODEL

In 1943, Abraham Maslow proposed a theory called The Hierarchy of Needs which was basically a pyramid listing in order human needs with safety and security anchoring the pyramid at the bottom and self-actualization at its peak. It was his belief that first we must get our physiological needs of water, shelter, clothing, etc. met followed by personal security, employment, healthcare, resources and then move up the ladder to love and belonging, esteem (respect, status, freedom) and finally self-actualization (or becoming the most that one can become). Our mental health system still uses this model today as its most valued form of human guidance. Our economy beliefs and system pretty much support this perspective as saving for a child’s education continues to be among the top advice given for future planning. And so, when we use Maslow’s hierarchy as a gauge, we can see very quickly that the majority of people in our society (including college graduates and professional people) are stuck in the bottom two tiers of this hierarchy. Rare is it to find people (and certainly young people) with status, esteem, and self-actualization. We often see those ready to retire finally reaching the “millionaire” mark and excited to finally “live freely” which is absolutely crazy to me because our current economic, education and mental health model is essentially encouraging people to plan for one’s future freedom by trading one’s current freedom for this system. And so it is that as society’s people attempt to climb the hierarchy while working 40+ hours and then tending to a home that they’ve mortgaged and caring for the children they are raising to follow this same path, it is no wonder that products like caffeine and aimless scrolling are among the top sellers and best business models. And because everyone is exhausted, there is no time to question the model or seek after another. Once the financial aid has been spent and the houses have been purchased and the debt is here, one becomes trapped in the 9-5 cycle to pay if off. But what if there was another way?

Healing has more ideas than just Maslow. Carl Jung believed in the theory of unconditional acceptance. He felt that only once we reached a level of unconditional acceptance of others and ourselves could we truly heal. While he, like many other psychologists before him believed in trauma and emotional injuries being a real thing, he felt that like Viktor Frankl that we could create meaning in suffering and create our own reality. We did not have to be plagued by the past and entrapped by circumstance. We could always see our free will and no matter the circumstance choose how we were going to respond. If, for example, we believe in the Maslow Hierarchy theory, then we could choose to ask ourselves if the current economic model of attending college and signing on for a 9-5 for 40 years with a capped salary was the best fit for us. While those of us on the other side of college graduation and financial aid debt cannot question this now, we can use these choices as reflection and take note of the fact that taking out $80K in financial aid debt to earn a teaching degree with a $102K cap salary with high interest rates on the financial aid debt is not a good deal. We can also see that today there are online teaching platforms where we can begin teaching and earn more than the current teaching salary without any credentials. We can see that the single path guidance of college/career path is not the only path to success. And if we can see this, then we can also see that the current mental health healing model and the current economy model are in contradiction. Allow me to illuminate.

Our current mental health healing model states that when we are out of alignment emotionally/physically/spiritually (mind/body/spirit) that our top priority is to self-care–to do what we need to do to get ourselves back into alignment. Similar to cancer treatment, once plagued by depression, burnout, severe mental illness, treatment becomes priority to bring ourselves back to pre-sickness status. When cancer treatments cause new symptoms and working becomes too difficult, the government steps in and institutes social security payment similar to disability, yet when it comes to mental illness, so rare is the case that this transpires. Instead, the expectation is to push through, to radically accept circumstances and to place the economic model ahead of the mental health model. In other words, when the mental health healing model interferes with the economic model, it is best to disregard the mental health healing model and return to Maslow’s Hierarchy which ironically is probably where the term “rock bottom” comes from. And so it is that so many of us are again and again right back at the bottom of the pyramid–at rock bottom–ever trying to meet our basic needs so we can at least transition into the second tier. Hmm.

WAKING UP TO REALITY & RADICALLY ACCEPTING THE MESS & OUR OWN HEALING

SO very much of what these early psychological pioneers discovered and taught IS true and valid. Maslow was a genius in his own time and not wrong with his discoveries. Carl Jung and Viktor Frankl shined light on the reality of our personal power and inspired us to never give it away. What the consciousness movement is doing today is looking beyond one single model such as the psychology or mental health model and pulling in multiple models like the economy model, the education model, etc. to gauge how effective each works with the other. What is being found is that using the current economy model of college/career for so many is that the time and energy factor involved in the 9-5 is making it near impossible for people to simultaneously self-care, pursue passions, be present parents, have conscious relationships and ultimately maintain consciousness, mental health and balance at the same time as meet basic needs. Sacrifices are being made that are too big to be made. Nobody should have to choose between their child’s mental health and their child’s physical needs. Nobody should have to choose between their child’s basic needs and their own basic needs. Nobody should have to choose between cash flow or a family. And yet, here we are in 2024 with more and more young people opting out of having children all together because the cost of living is just too high and the current economic model simply does not have much wiggle room for alternative living. With college already behind millennials and financial aid debt piling up, adding the expense of children is simply too high. Unless…

AN ALTERNATIVE SOLUTION: LIFESTYLE BY DESIGN

While many of us cannot go back and rewrite our past, we can learn from things like the Parker family’s budget above. We can see that while it appears they are able to keep their ship afloat, one sickness can tug one of these adults out of their cash flow position and their entire lifestyle comes crashing down. Saving $10-$15K annually might seem like a lot, but one big medical crisis can quickly wipe that out, even if invested. Absent multiple streams of income today, we are playing Russian roulette with our lives. Knowing this, we can at least conclude that spending all of our time and energy at a 9-5 with capped wages that leaves us no time or energy to add other streams of income is not an ideal situation if we want to climb the ladder and reach self-actualization before we die (and in time to actually enjoy self-actualization!). If we’ve already dedicated 20+ years to this feat and we continue to experience the same reality, if the hopes we have for ourselves like pursuing passions, providing more opportunities and experiences for our children, traveling more, etc., then it is time to radically accept that there may be other options to consider.

REVERSE BUDGETING

What if we use the Parker budget as a reflection of the lifestyle they desire to live? Let’s say you are not the Parkers. Let’s say that you currently earn $45K annually but aspire to have the things the Parker’s have. You now can see how much you need to generate in order to have this lifestyle. Then, you can consider your own skills and determine what you’ll have to do to change your reality. When we can reflect on the skills we have, the skills we need in order to transition into the career that is in alignment with our interests and cash flow desire, we can create a path for ourselves to slowly shift into this reality. Instead of following the current economy model which guides teens to choose a college major that is of interest to them and take out financial aid to pay for the degree without reflecting at all on what the college major’s jobs will pay, its time and energy commitment, etc., we can pretend that we are back at square one. We have not signed on the financial aid dotted line, we have not declared our major, we have not committed ourselves to become a nurse or a teacher and instead we are focusing on what our ideal lifestyle looks like. We are thinking about how much free time we need and want each day, how we want to wake up in the morning,–do we want to be awakened by an alarm clock or let our natural clock awaken us?–do we want to have a family? and if so, how present do we want to be as a parent? Do we want to connect with our kids and get to know them and their innate needs so that we can then meet those needs? Do we want to have the disposable income to travel, to support our kid’s passions, to pursue our own passions? Do we want to take our own self-discovery journey and have the freedom and flexibility to actually do the things our psychologist recommends for us to do to heal? When we were twenty, we lacked the perception and awareness to think about any of these things. Our brains were not even done developing and we had parents absent this education so there was no way we could have gotten the guidance. We need to let all that go and just focus on the NOW. We have this knowledge now and we can answer all of these questions and we can decide what we need, what we want, what our kids need and want and we can determine how much money we need for this lifestyle. Once we have the number as well as the answers to the other questions such as how do we want to spend our time and energy, we are ready to begin to design our lives. With a designed lifestyle, we will not be bound by the economy mindset. Instead we will be solely bound by our own decision to create meaning in our own lives. It does not matter how slowly we go, the point is to have that direction and purpose and know where we are going and how we are going to get there.

WHAT IS PERSONAL FREEDOM WORTH TO YOU?

I once chose a career for the wrong reasons. I chose a career that had “good benefits,” hours in alignment with my child’s school hours, something that would make my parents proud, something that was “noble” and could “give back” in some way. These were the things I was focused on when I decided to get a degree in teaching. I believed my university when they told me that I would be able to write off my financial aid, that I could retire in 20 years, that I’d have benefits for life. And I believed that my child would follow the same path as every other kid in society and all would be well. I was so blinded by societal beliefs that I was not seeing what was actually real and that was that my child was really struggling in school, that the writing was already on the wall that she’d be needing homeschooling within the same year I was scheduled to student teach, that my parent’s retirement depended on my dad making to 65 in his job, not getting cancer at 55 and having to take an early retirement, then drain a lot of those funds to keep his house! It was during this time of my life that I realized that everything that I had learned was not good for everyone. This trajectory may be great for some people. It may even work out for the Parkers, but we are not all the same and so it was that I began my own self-discovery journey to figure out what was best for me and my child and then radically accepted that I would have to return to rock bottom again, only this time would be the last time. And ever since, my focus has been on multiple streams of income, living a life of purpose and meaning, being a present, conscious parent who has the energy and time to meet my kid’s needs and who is connected with myself so that I can actually do my own healing and have the time and energy to rebuild my life. I now know the exact amount of cash flow I need to live our ideal life. I know how to fool proof my and my daughter’s future by having passive income in place so God forbid my health takes a turn, money does not stop flowing like it did for my dad. My self-discovery taught me all of these things. What is more, it taught me that when we look back on our lives and reflect on our young intuitions and the desires we have, the vision we have for our lives that nine out of ten times, it is the right path for us that we simply rejected in order to gain the respect and acceptance of society and our loved ones who guided us into economy’s path unknowingly themselves.

FREEDOM NOW, NOT LATER

I want freedom right now. I do not want to have to wait until I am 60-65 when I have no idea what my health will be like, when I do not know if I will have the eye sight to do the things I want to do now, when I do not know if I will have the energy to do the things that I am doing right now. What is more, I want to live now, not later. While teaching continues to be something that I am very passionate about, while at my core, I will always be a teacher, I have come to discover that there are infinite ways to teach and so much teaching can happen outside of the classroom. To teach is to show and it is my desire to use my personal story, my personal experiences, my wisdom, my knowledge and my own self-discovery journey to inspire others to realize their potential right now and start their journeys today toward creating their best lives.

What is your idea lifestyle? How much will it cost? Are you brave enough to begin a journey to chase after it today?

I believe in you, Discoverlies!

Much Love!

Needs, Skills and the Emotional Tool Box

January 5, 2024 selfdiscoverly

When I first began my spiritual journey–what I would eventually rename my self-discovery journey–there was a LOT of knowledge and wisdom that I gained that I didn’t previously possess. Things like understanding that needs are different than wants, unconditional love is not codependency love, masking is not authenticity, there are laws that govern our world that we can gain insight into, tap into and use for our own personal growth and probably the biggest insights are the ones I’ll discuss today. I discovered that it is our met needs, skill set and Emotional Tool Box that truly define whether we survive or thrive. The less needs, skills and tools we have in our Emotional Tool Box, the more we will struggle to cope, manage stress and have healthy relationships with ourselves and others.

NEEDS

What if I told you that every time we react, snap, lose our patience, feel resentment, become angry, worry, panic, or otherwise lose our ability to manage our emotions it is because one or more of our needs is not or has not been met? What if I told you whether we are neurodivergent or neurotypical, disabled or not disabled that unmet needs are the cause of all suffering. If a neurodivergent person melts down, it my be because their need for sensory balance was not met and their meltdown is the effect of not having sensory balance and not having sensory balance before the meltdown is the result of both the neurodivergent AND their environment not having this understanding or ability to accommodate it. It is often our beliefs about our involvement in the support needs of others that also causes us to react. Instead of admitting that we are the wrong person for the job, we repeatedly attempt to meet needs we cannot meet. And in our defense, we live in a society where we do not have a paradigm in place that enables people to pick up the phone and say that they are the wrong person for the job and need assistance.

Needs are things that we cannot live without. The more needs we have met, the more we thrive. The less needs we have met, the more we become trapped in survival mode. Period. Needs are the defining factor in the degree of thriving we experience. It is my belief that the only way to shift our society’s current state is to acknowledge the necessity of meeting everyone’s needs. And this includes restructuring our entire social paradigm including family structures.

Oftentimes, a family member is not capable of meeting child or partner’s need. Many needs require an outsider meeting the need. I’ve taught dance for over 30 years and can tell you that my ability to meet the needs of my students was something that their parents could not do. It was because of me and my passion for dance and dance education that my students not only got their needs met, but FELT their need being met from my LOVE of meeting that need! Needs are so much more than healthy drinking water, nutrition, hygiene, medical care, sleep and shelter. Unmet needs can be seen in any behavioral struggle, social degradation, relationship implosion and many mental illnesses. Where there is pain, there is an unmet need.

Our current social paradigm illustrates its belief in what human needs are. These beliefs can be seen in our education system, in our capitalistically driven paradigm, in our corporate and financial systems and even in our judicial system. Our society holds a belief that best learning takes place in a curriculum-based classroom, that “go to school, get good grades, attend university and acquire a stamp of approval career with a 401K program” is the most acceptable path to follow and an eye for an eye continues to be the only way of justice. In one hundred years, we have not evolved at all in any of these areas. In spite of all the research and knowledge available to the contrary of wellness in these areas, these practices continue to rule our society. And simultaneously mental illness continues to increase. Furthermore, we continue to assume that in the home is where children will receive their emotional and social educations. We have no long term proven program in place to mediate any obvious absence observed in children. Instead, we simply label these children and set them on behavior management path or special education course instead of seeing that the child is simply presenting with the symptoms of unmet needs–that if someone capable of seeing the child clearly were to come in and perceive the child and propose an entirely different programming that after implementation, the child’s “symptoms” would disappear and an entirely new presentation would surface. We tend to categorize people while promoting inclusion and then deny that the very programming we have in place is contradictory.

NEEDS REQUIRED TO THRIVE

Here is a list of examples of needs. Our needs should be NON-NEGOTIABLE in our society. We have enough understanding now to KNOW with high certainty that when needs are not met that destruction in some way is the result. Our current educational models are NOT capable of meeting everyone’s needs. Individual households are NOT capable of meeting everyone’s needs. (Most parents have yet to get their own needs met, let alone meet their children’s needs). The result of unmet needs can be seen in our crime, in wars, in corruption in high places, in pain and suffering, in skyrocketing poverty and more. Here is a starting point list to give you an idea of the scope and sequence of our needs.

Fresh air
Hygiene
Warmth
Clean drinking water
Connection
Companionship
Belonging
Exercise
Safety (Shelter and protection from harm)
Financial security (cash flow sufficient to meet basic needs)
Holistic education (emotional, social, cognitive, physical, spiritual, financial) this includes character development, emotional and social intelligence development, self-connection and self-care development, self-discovery and personal empowerment development, coping & stress management skills, critical thinking & higher ordering thinking skills & logic, etc.
Wellness, nutrition & healthcare
Progress, growth & development
Functioning levels matching support needs (and individuals with the perception to see those functioning levels and support needs)
To be seen, heard, accepted, wanted, loved, known
Self-expression, voice, advocacy
Opportunity & experiences (specifically in areas of interest and natural talent to develop skills and tools which can be used to self-care and mature in one’s ability to transition to meeting own needs)
Nurturance
Healthy role models and guidance
Purpose, direction & fulfillment
Agency & freedom of choice as well as education in informed decision making
Interest, curiosity, desire & motivation (self-initiated learning is the only TRUE learning there is)
Healthy mindset
Integrity & authenticity (freedom and safety to be one’s self)
Healing
Healthy, safe living environment with emotional stability (including non-traumatic intervention)
Aspirations, goals, objectives
Faith & hope in something bigger than oneself
Life skills & life management skills
Joy

Suffering is often found in the absence of joy, hope or faith–in the doubt of security.

SKILLS

Skills are defined in our society as the things we acquire along the way through a process of intention, repetition and application. There are basic skills that the majority of us possess (and too often take for granted) such as walking, talking, grasping with fingers, breathing, digesting, etc.) and then there are skills that get developped over time such as cleaning, cooking, mechanics, reading, computation, patience, tolerance, etc. The more skills we possess, the more opportunities we will have access to while the less skills we possess, the more limited we will be in opportunities. Our personal skills are the sum total of our aptitudes, abilities, knowledge, passion driven knowledge, special interest expertise, expertise, education, experiences, talents, gifts, developed talents & gifts, strengths, wisdom, vocational and professional training, life skills, character development, emotional intelligence, social intelligence, maturity, strength of character, and more.

If I am a company seeking after digital marketing assistance, I am not looking at someone’s educational background or their list of past companies worked. Instead, what I am most interested in is their skills and success using that skill set. For example, how many other platforms have they built applying digital marketing and what was their success rate. It is skills that open doors for us, not education or human right.

Society decides what skills are valuable. The sheer innocence and presence of an individual categorized as “severely disabled” is its own skill. To the person seeking to gain presence and free oneself of the constant thinking and worrying can benefit from spending time with someone seen in our society as “severely disabled.” Unfortunately, currently, our society does not value presence or innocence as much as productivity, commerce and materialism. This can be seen in the compensatory system of disability payment.

The truth is, skills are the sum total of abilities we use to tell our stories. The most valuable skill we possess is our personal story–the raw and authentic experience we’ve had on this earth–the point of view only we possess. It is through this point of view that we can weigh programming to determine the effectiveness of it. Only once we can create programming that supports the needs of the all can we deem a system effective. And TRUE accommodations involve implementing the support need for all where they are at, providing a means to activate that voice and tell that person’s story and share that unique point of view as best we can. Therefore, the greatest skill a person can possess is the skill of consciousness and awareness–the ability to see clearly and witness the equal value in all living things and understand how each is interconnected, on how we need everyone and everything to truly understand the most important things like love, holistic wellness and individualized programming that wholly meets the needs of all. Only once everyone is moving forward can we all move forward.

EMOTIONAL TOOL BOX

Not all of us are capable of understanding things like emotions and socialization. For those of us who are capable of understanding these things, it is us who need the Emotional Tool Box most. When we are unconscious of truth, we tend to suffer from disappointment, discouragement, doubt, fear, stress, overwhelm, regret, resentment, envy, etc. Truth would tell us that we are different than everyone around us including our parents and children. What we need is different to what they need which means that while they may need to have more educational opportunity and experiences, we may need more nurturance and emotional support. As we tune in to ourselves and our feelings we begin to discover what things we need and what absence of these things is causing in our lives. We gain insight into the necessity to prioritize meeting these needs. As we understand these things, we grow our Emotional Tool Box. With each struggle and challenge, we come out the other side with more knowledge, wisdom and understanding which simultaneously gives us better coping skills, stress management skills and emotional regulation. It is through the process of living that we increase our Emotional Tool Box and become aware of the importance of it. Here is a list of tools that should be in everyone’s Emotional Tool Box or in the Emotional Tool Box of those supporting someone who cannot meet these needs for themselves.

EMOTIONAL TOOL BOX EXAMPLES

Emotional identification
Emotional management
Emotional processing
Social identification
Social management
Social processing
Coping skills
Stress management skills
Anger management skills
Self-reflection skills
Self-monitoring skills
Emotional regulation
Emotional independence
Inner security
Confidence
Self-worth
Self-value
Courage
Strength of character (temperance, patience, resilience, tolerance, understanding, acceptance, non-judgment, kindness, empathy, compassion, etc.)
Self-management
Self-governance
Self-initiation & self-propelling
Self-advocacy
Intuition & perception
Mindfulness
Consciousness
Self-awareness
Other awareness
Healthy boundaries

HOLISTIC WELLNESS

Holistic wellness is the result of development and progression of all the parts that make up our whole. The more developed and progressed these parts of ourselves are, the more emotional stability, wellness and thriving we will experience. The less developed and progressed these parts of ourselves are, the more emotional instability, mental illness and survival mode living we will experience. As we begin to recognize this and observe these patterns in our own lives, we gain personal power to slowly gain new education and implement changes that if kept consistent will contribute to radical growth and progress eventually shifting our life experience to one of emotional stability, wellness and thriving.

We cannot go zero to one hundred though. We must be willing to accept where we are and begin our journey from where we are. What is more, we must come to understand that we only have the power to implement these choices and changes in our own lives and influence those through our example. In the current societal paradigm we are experiencing, a lot more self-teaching and personal efforts is required, but the more of us that make this courageous choice, the easier it will become for future generations and for those that are unable to engage in this work. We are the pioneers of this movement we call consciousness and the choices we make today will shape the world our children and grandchildren live in tomorrow.

What needs, skills or tools do you have that are met and unmet? How do your unmet needs contribute to the things that you struggle with?

Much Love!

What is the Difference Between Emotional Management & Emotional Processing?

December 5, 2023 selfdiscoverly

If you’ve ever heard the phrase, “This too shall pass,” then you may be able to grasp emotional processing. When we process our emotions, we let them flow through us without resistance so that we can release them. When we manage our emotions, we see them as something unruly in need of being tamed or as something too big to truly experience in the moment. From a simple definition perspective, this is the difference between emotional management and emotional processing. Emotional management is taming the big emotions so that they do not become out of hand and lead to projection, defensiveness, offensiveness, self-harm or self-destruction. Emotional processing is accepting and allowing our emotional experiences and emotions to flow through us and releasing the cause leading to the emotional experience. When we process our emotions, we find the cause and uproot it never to be triggered by it again. Emotional management is what we reach for when we are unable to process our emotions.

UNDERSTANDING EMOTIONAL MANAGEMENT

Emotional management has many names. Coping, stress management, behavior management, riding out the storm, surviving… When we manage our emotions, we seek to get through whatever challenge we might be having. In the moment, we do not have a belief that we can process our emotions and free ourselves of the cause behind the emotion, so we simply seek to manage the situation. It’s kind of like when we have young toddlers running around our house. That is not the time to tidy our home and stage it for a viewing. Instead, we simply manage the situation. We keep the toddlers alive, we keep potential dangers out of reach, we give them toys and things to occupy them and accept the mess in exchange for happy toddlers. When we are on active toddler duty, we are likely not focusing all our attention on work, on household tasks, etc. And so it is with emotional management. If I get really bad news from work, but I’m about to pick up my two kids from school, melting down or losing it has to wait. And so, I manage my emotions by distracting myself, grabbing a coffee, or just thinking about something else. I suppress the emotions in that moment. Emotional management is what we use when we do not believe that we can experience our emotions fully in that moment and let them flow and release the cause behind the emotion or emotional experience. When we temporarily suppress our emotions, then feel and release them when the time is right, this is healthy emotional management. When we suppress our emotions and refuse to feel or release the causes and instead let the unfelt emotions and emotional experiences build, this is unhealthy emotional management.

UNDERSTANDING EMOTIONAL SUPPRESSION

Sometimes we suppress our emotions only temporarily while we get to safe place to feel them and other times we suppress them for years and years! The problem with doing this is that over time emotional suppression causes emotional sickness. Every emotional suppression causes another layer over a previous emotional suppression. What we must understand about emotional layering is that the only emotion we can process is the one on top. This means if we put off feeling and releasing an emotion and choose to suppress it and then a new emotional experience comes along that we too choose to suppress, before we can process the first emotional experience, we have to process the new one. Emotional layers build and to access lower layers, we have to peel away top layers. If we have a chronic habit of suppression, you can see right away that the clean up job of this is going to be massive when we finally decide to feel and process our emotions! Liken it to a leaf clean up on an acre property surrounded by trees. If we wait four autumns to do that leaf clean up, it’s going to be significantly more involved than if we just did an annual leaf clean up. Our emotions are no different! Suppressing our emotions is not avoiding them. We may be able to deny them and temporarily forget about them, but every time we are triggered and experience a trigger response, that triggering is because of an emotional experience or emotion that we chose to suppress!

Unconscious emotional suppression is the worst kind of emotional suppression because we do not even know we are doing it. As children, we learn emotional management and processing skills and unconsciously we adopt these skills and for many of us never realize that we are engaged in these behaviors so never wake up to become aware that they are learned behaviors. So for most of us, when we begin the process of self-discovery, awakening and emotional processing, we are faced with a really, REALLY big clean up job. When we look at it this way, we can understand why we reach for emotional management or coping mechanisms instead!

COPING MECHANISM EXTREMES

Depending on the level of emotion, different emotional management tactics come into play. For the average person who may have had some life disappointment and hurt may manage their emotions by reaching for sugar when they are stressed or getting busy when faced with big emotions, but for the person who has a lot of trauma, the pain that is experienced may be more severe and so after exhausting all the average emotional management tactics sadly seen as normal–caffeine, sugar, salt, avoidance, denial, etc.–we may see some turning to addictions like drugs, alcohol, sex, gambling, excessive spending, etc. If we can understand that ALL emotional management is an attempt to distance oneself from emotions, we can understand that nobody wants the addiction. What people want is RELIEF from feeling! It is the seeking of relief that sometimes leads to addiction. But addiction itself is sought by no-one. Until we understand this as a society, we will not change how we look at addiction and therefore change how we treat it. If people knew how to process their emotions and that there was a light at the end of the tunnel FROM doing it, there would be a LOT less addiction in our world. Addiction continues to exist because people do not know and therefore when faced between pain and relief, they reach for relief. Furthermore, because we live in a society where suppression, denial, self-deception, avoidance and resistance is the norm with work and 95% of the population is in survival mode, we simply view emotional management as how we regulate our emotions. On top of that, the level of survival mode that we are in as a whole sadly leaves very little opportunity to choose emotional processing over emotional management.

THE TRUTH ABOUT EMOTIONAL REGULATION

When we regulate our emotions, we step out of fight, flight, freeze mode. We pull ourselves back to neutral before triggering. Emotional regulation is not emotional processing. When we process our emotions, we gain understanding about what the cause of our emotions and can then with understanding believe in our ability to allow the emotion to flow until it passes through us. The reason that it feels like there is no end to emotional processing when we give this a try is because we have layers upon layers of unprocessed emotions within us and so, similar to emptying a 24 foot swimming pool, it will feel like the process is never going to end! This is why emotional management and emotional regulation are even a thing. If we were all taught about emotional processing from birth and our society was built in a manner where everyone just felt their emotions in the moment and let them flow, there would be no addiction, no coping, no managing stress, no stress at all! The truth is that we are faced with regulating our emotions and managing them because we live in a society that demands our emotional suppression and shut down in order to accommodate its needs and wishes. What we are most coping with is the expectation to engage in things like emotional management and emotional regulation–which of course expect us to suppress and shut down our emotional experiences to make another feel safe and comfortable. The expectation of emotional management is ALWAYS about accommodating another!

UNCONSCIOUS IMPRISONMENT

We are living in an age where we believe that slavery has ended. We believe that concentration camps will never be a thing again in “democratic” countries. We believe that democratic countries actually have freedoms. This could not be further from the truth! True freedom–EMOTIONAL FREEDOM–is when we have complete autonomy over our time, energy, and choices. That means that when we are truly free, we awaken each day to abundant access to nutritious food, clean water, a safe shelter, ideal temperature control, every other basic need as well as opportunity. We also awaken to complete choice over how we spend our time and energy. This means that we are not bound by a schedule, having to rush around to get kids to school and ourselves to work. We can pursue passions and interests, explore, and basically follow after our own curiosity and feelings. Rare is it to have a human being having this lifestyle and experience. This is because an individual would have to be raised with this mindset and conditioned to the skills, tools, and knowledge to align one’s life in this way. For the majority, we were sent to school and conditioned to become workers for the 1%. Rockefeller himself once said that he was creating school so the 1% could have workers. And so, step one of this massive undertaking of emotional processing is to awaken to the reality of the world we are living in. Until we can see our reality clearly, we can not possibly see our options.

THE OPTIONS

Option one is to stay asleep and radically accept your own reality whatever that is including the ebbing and flowing of emotional regulation and emotional management. Option two is to awaken to reality, accept the self-discovery journey and choose emotional processing over emotional regulation and emotional management. We cannot choose to awaken without also choosing the self-discovery journey though. Once our eyes are opened, they can never be closed again!

PART OF THE JOURNEY

Something that I learned on my own road of self-discovery has been that love capacity and emotional management and emotional processing abilities go hand in hand. If we do not know what true love or real love or unconditional love or authentic love or whatever term we want to use to capture this kind of freely given love without conditions, then we will not grasp the benefit of choosing a self-discovery or emotional processing journey. The difference between emotional management and emotional processing is also to do with perception. If I believe that there is no benefit to processing my emotions–that love will be at the end of the tunnel, for example–I will not feel enough motivation to engage in this feat.

TWO KINDS OF LOVE

When we feel loved and love without conditions we understand the concept of needs. We come to realize that no human can survive without their needs being met. Furthermore, we understand that when another human being engages in unloving behaviors, addictions or unhealthy emotional management, they do so because they are attempting to meet their needs, not to deliberately harm me. And, the behaviors they are engaging in are the only things that they have belief in. When we have perception of unconditional love or real love or authentic love, we have agency. We have free will or personal choice. We can choose between engaging in unloving behaviors, addictions or unhealthy emotional management or we can choose love. Until we have the perception of two polars of love, we lack autonomy, free will or personal choice. We only have true agency when we have perception of unconditional love. This means that it is an impossibility to change behaviors without first becoming aware of and educated on what unconditional love actually IS.

WHAT IS LOVE?

For the person in need of receiving love, love is to be seen, heard, and understood by another. Our needs are seen, our behaviors are understood and our voice is heard. We are known by the loving person and therefore no longer alone in our experience. From our current level of consciousness, we are unable to love ourselves and therefore need to be loved by another. This love may come from authors, content creators, doctors, therapists, friends, or other individuals with the ability to meet our needs. As we humble ourselves to the receiving of this love, we acquire skills and tools which enable us to eventually meet our own needs. Once we can receive unconditional love from others, we can begin to connect with ourselves and discover ourselves and our inner-being (what some call an inner-child) and over time discover the needs of this inner-being and meet his/her/their needs ourselves. This is what self-love is known as–the nurturing and loving of our inner-child. Once most of our needs are met, we can then freely give unconditional love to others because we have the capacity to do so. Prior to this experience, we are bound by conditional love or ebbing and flowing love because when triggered, when unable to process our emotions, when overwhelmed, we will step into unhealthy emotional management patterns and the receiver of our “love” will not feel it as love. It is because our emotional regulation, management and processing is linked to our capacity to receive and give love that makes it the greatest call to action.

PRESENCE AND AUTHENTIC LOVE

Authentic love (or what some refer to as unconditional love, but what I refer to as a more realistic form of human love) is nothing more than accepting another’s free will. When we love authentically, we understand that the only thing we have power and control over is our own feelings, thoughts and actions. And truly the only love that we have control and power over is the love we let in and the love we freely give away regardless of whether others let it in or not. We cannot force love into another human being. Even if we love them with all our might, only they can choose to let it in, but first, they have to believe in it and perceive it as love. We are human. We live in an imperfect world. The vast majority of us are plagued by this triggering/survival emotional experience that requires us to regulate our emotions and manage our emotions over processing them. The BEST love that we can give from this place is well-intentioned love where our intention is to love authentically or unconditionally, but we may become triggered and react as we learn—the commitment to learn and change being the bridge from intention to realizing unconditional love capacity. And so, lifting the pressure from ourselves that we do have our priorities in the right place, we are seeking to love unconditionally and we are accountable when we fall short.

ONLY ONE WAY TO ELIMINATE PAIN

While addictions and coping mechanisms feel good in the moment, they require constant hits to maintain the “feeling good” effect. There’s only ONE way to eliminate pain for good and that is as Robert Frost once said, “through.” Only one way out and that is through. It’s in. We have to accept turning inward. We can’t put off one more day where we let our emotions pile up. For some of us, the emotions reach the top and there’s no more piling that can happen. And once the piling reaches the top, the pain of pressure from so many layers ends up forcing us to respond. I think this is why many sages say that those with the most trauma and pain have an advantage? I have never seen it this way. I only see all emotional management and pain as a call to action to change and rebuild our societal structure to create an emotionally free society where everyone can thrive. As we are learning, we will be at the whim of emotional regulation and emotional management. There’s no way around it. Setting our goal to eliminate our own pain of the past and to learn how to process our emotions gives our lives direction and the hope that as we learn and develop these skills, we can experience a different reality.

WHEN FACED WITH THE CHOICE

When faced with the choice between reaching for long term emotional management or emotional processing, consider this: There is an absolute time to reach for emotional management. One of this times is when we are first learning emotional things and we have yet to reach a place in our development to understand how to process our emotions or before we even gain intellectual understanding of emotional management and emotional processing. During this time, the best course of action will be to manage our emotions. But as we grow and the longer we are on the journey, we come to find ourselves faced with the conscious choice to choose between emotional management and emotional processing. When we reach this place in our development, here is something that can help you to decide. When faced with the choice, look at emotional management and emotional processing like this: Authenticity desires you to win. Propaganda wants to win. Authenticity desires you to process your emotions and gain true emotional freedom. Propaganda desire you to manage your emotions so you stay dependent on the system. When we choose emotional management long term, we choose the same system failing billions of people every day. When we choose emotional processing, we take steps toward creating a new earth–a new world filled with conscious people with their own agency–where we are all emotionally free!

This is my hope for you, Discoverlies!

MUCH LOVE!!

Turn your New Year’s Resolution into a Lifetime Resolution

December 3, 2023 selfdiscoverly

Ugh! New Year’s! Why does everyone make such a big deal about resolutions and why do we all start off so motivated and excited, but by Valentine’s Day, we all seem to be buying those damn big boxes of candy? I’ll tell you a secret! Our emotions are in the driver’s seat of ALL resolutions. Doesn’t matter how strong our will is, in the end, absent emotional understanding of ourselves, our emotions are the trump card.

SO HOW DO WE TAKE CHARGE OF OUR EMOTIONS?

9 out of 10 times, when we are reaching for something that is not good for us, we are doing so because we have been conditioned to seek that behavior pattern to calm our nerves and manage our emotions. Maybe our dad would come home from work grumpy and our mom taught us early on to stay in our rooms and play quietly to give him space and quiet when he came home. Now, in our adult life, anytime anything mirrors this dynamic we find ourselves “playing quietly” in our room when we want to be working on our goals! It is not enough to tell ourselves that we are not eight years old anymore. Our eight year old self cannot hear us. There’s a disconnect and when times of stress arise, all she wants to do is run to her room for comfort and safety–her fear makes her deaf. So, before we can inform her that she no longer needs to hide in her room, we need to gain understanding of her so we know how to communicate with her so she can hear us! The only way to connect with her and communicate with her is through self-connection.

HOW DO WE BECOME IN TUNED WITH OURSELVES?

STEP ONE: BECOME THE WATCHER

The first step is to learn how to see our inner-selves. Until we are able to identify the behaviors, feelings and thoughts associated with our inner-selves, we will not be able to know what to do next. Observe yourself retreating to your room, take note of the feelings arising within you, pay attention to the thoughts running through your mind. If you feel inspired, begin to write down your observations so that later you can process your experiences. Once we gain insight into our own thought and behavior patterns and can connect feelings with past experiences, we can transition into step two.

STEP TWO: BE KIND TO YOURSELF

Our inclination is often to judge ourselves once we identify behaviors and thought patterns. “Uck! What is wrong with me?” Please do not do this. There is NOTHING wrong with you! None of these things are your fault whatsoever! You were a teeny tiny child when you absorbed these thought and behavior patterns! It’s an eye-opening experience to come face to face with the unconscious. Believe me, I get it! But it’s also a miraculous experience because beyond the UCK is your dreams, goals, and perfect vision for your life! And that is why it is so very important that we are kind to ourselves! Absent kindness and gentleness, we create another obstacle to overcome! As an observer, there is no judgment. All we are doing is taking note of what IS.

STEP THREE: BEGIN TO PROCESS AND MAKE CONNECTIONS

If your childhood experience involved your mom taking out a pint of ice cream anytime she was stressed and now you are watching yourself doing the same, take note of the behavior pattern. You now know why you are doing what you are doing! You LEARNED this coping mechanism! FEEL that! Embrace the a-ha moment! You now know why you are constantly at the table with a pint of ice cream every time you are stressed! The pint of ice cream is simply a coping mechanism you LEARNED! And this coping mechanism is so engrained that now, when you are stressed, the only way you know how to manage the anxiety is to eat the ice cream! It’s the only tool you have in your stress management tool box! If your New Year’s resolution is to lose weight, can you see how understanding this dichotomy is so very essential to achieving your goal? We can increase the tools in our stress management tool box and with the added tools comes added choices and options!

STEP FOUR: DON’T EAT THE ICE CREAM

If you can allow yourself to be overwhelmed only a little, there is much wisdom to be gained. When we make a conscious choice to resist our urges to unconsciously self-soothe and we choose to instead see what our feelings are all about, we take a step closer to being able to clear the block standing in the way of our emotions freely flowing. If you’ve read past blogs of mine, you remember that emotions are just energy flowing. It is our emotional blocks that keep them from flowing. Absent blocks emotions just flow. We were taught to shut down the emotion with the ice cream, with quiet, etc. We were taught to shut down our needs so that our dad could have quiet when he came home, for example. As a result, we learned that emotions should be shut down rather than felt. As a result, a lot of our emotions became stuck and the shutting down behavior became the block keeping the emotions from flowing. That means that the only way to get our emotions to flow is to remove the behavior associated with the emotional shut down. And once we do that, the emotions should automatically flow.

STEP FIVE: BECOME THE WATCHER OF THE EMOTIONS ABSENT THE COPING MECHANISM

What feelings are arising when you do not engage in the coping mechanism? What sensations are you feeling? Is your heart pounding? Are you shaking? Have you lost all ability to think? Or maybe your thoughts are racing a million miles a minute? Is all you can think about getting back into that safe place? Are you able to breathe? If so, try to take a deep breath from your nose and inhale to your belly. Try to hold onto the breath for a minute before exhaling. When you exhale, exhale hard to release all the air. Try doing this for as long as you can to stay present. After the breathing, see how you feel. Do you feel any calmer? Any safer? Any better? Or are you just as anxious and desirous to reach for that coping mechanism? If you are finding it challenging to do this work, reach out to a mental health professional who can support you so you don’t have to go it alone!

STEP SIX: PROCESS OUT THIS EXPERIENCE

What did this experience teach you about yourself? At the very least, are you now able to see the connection between your past and your coping mechanism? If the answer is yes, then you’ve opened a window into your consciousness! Congratulations! Now you understand how the process of self-discovery works! The more that we allow ourselves to experience our emotions instead of shutting them down, the closer we get to self-connection. Once we process out enough of these experiences, we become so confident with the process that we really do not need to read blogs like this one. We will just understand and best of all, DESIRE to do the work. We will see the benefit. We will see our lighthouse (our New Year’s resolution) at the end of the tunnel waiting for us and we will feel our stuck emotions and want to move the blocks so they can flow knowing once they do, we win. Emotional processing is not really as complicated as people make it out to be. The MOST complicated part of emotional processing is our resistance. FEAR stands in the way of so much growth. What we do not know or understand (or believe in) causes us to resist. We believe in our pint of ice cream because it’s familiar and it eases the anxiety in the moment–it works immediately. But afterward, that extra 50 pounds we are carrying around remains the same. We appreciate the self-soothing in the moment, but then fight with our negative thought patterns after when we gaze at ourselves in the mirror, when we struggle climbing the stairs without getting out of breath. This is because we believe MORE in the pint of ice cream than we do in the natural process of self-connection, feeling our emotions and letting them flow. Our environment taught us that the right thing to do was shut down our emotions, so now letting our emotions flow feels awkward because we are so used to shutting down our emotions. Before we can believe in something new, we must SEE these truths and FEEL them for ourselves. Only after we see and feel will we be able to decide for ourselves the cost/benefit of both options.

STEP SEVEN: TAKE YOUR OWN SELF-DISCOVERY JOURNEY

Now that you’ve done a test run, consider taking your own self-discovery journey. Instead of setting a New Year’s resolution that you likely are not going to keep, why not set a Lifetime Resolution to become conscious? As a conscious person, you’ll have complete dominion over your emotions, thought patterns and behaviors and setting and achieving goals and objectives will become a lot easier. You’ll never have to set another New Year’s resolution again because instead you’ll be working toward your best life every day!

FIND YOURSELF, FIND YOUR ANSWERS

Once we discover ourselves, we discover our younger selves and we become able to connect with her/him/they. Connection enables us to nurture and meet our younger self’s needs for ourselves rather than waiting on someone else to do it for us. It enables us to understand our past and present selves. It enables us to have clarity on our thoughts, behaviors and emotions and as such enables us to simultaneously have clarity on best solutions. We are all different so googling “how to self-care” or “how to achieve my goals,” is likely not going to bring us the answers that will best help us. ONLY turning inward and finding ourselves can yield us the BEST answers. EVERYTHING you want to and need to know can be find within you. There is nothing that I can say or do that will be more helpful than what your inner-self can say to you! I am only here to assist you with the work TO unite you with your inner-self. Once you become connected with your inner-self, you will not need somebody like me! And that is my hope for you, Discoverlies! I created this platform because I knew my early struggles trying to find information, trying to find knowledge and wisdom to assist me to calm the war going on inside of me, to ease my anxiety, to change my dysfunctional behavior patterns…to achieve my own New Year’s resolutions. And in the end, that entire journey brought me full circle to myself.

THREE MOST IMPORTANT QUESTIONS TO ASK YOURSELF

I no longer set New Year’s resolutions. My resolutions are integrated with my life goals now. Here are the three questions that I concluded are THE most important if you choose to kick New Year’s resolutions to the curb and instead make a Lifetime Resolution.

WHO ARE YOU?

Do you know who you are? Like REALLY know? I am talking deep down knowing. Do you know what your true desires are? Do you know what your personal values and beliefs are separate from conditioning? Do you know your integrity? Do you know your worth and value? Can you FEEL this worth and value? How about your life purpose? Have you reached a place in your life where you have a sense of knowing that there’s a reason that you are here and that nobody can do or give what you can? When we know who we are intimately, we develop an inner-confidence and self-assurance that cannot be shaken by even the darkest critic or fiercest hater. Once we truly know ourselves, we desire our authenticity more than we desire acceptance or approval.

2. WHERE ARE YOU GOING?

Do you know your direction? What path are you on? Do you know the reason you are on that path? Do you know where that path leads and the ends to that path? Is your lighthouse at the end of the tunnel about you are is it about someone else? When we know where we are going, we feel confident and clear on that destination and with that confidence, we trust the destination we’ve set for ourselves and believe in our ability to reach it. While we may be miles from where we are heading, we trust fully in the charted path. And the simple act of having the destination carries us for years and years as we ebb ever closer to arriving at our desired destination.

3. HOW ARE YOU GOING TO GET THERE?

When I determined where I was going–self-discovery and authenticity–I already knew how I was going to get there. Having been on the path for over a decade, I learned the formula of emotional identification, emotional management and emotional processing. I came to understand relationship management and processing. I gained insight into the importance of priorities and boundaries and the power in slow and steady consistency. Most of all, I learned the power of faith and trust in the universe and its assistance program that is powered by my and other’s personal requests. I need only ask for help and help comes. All I had to do was learn to ask the right questions and develop patience for when those questions would be answered. Sometimes, I have to gain more knowledge and understanding on something before the thing I am requesting gets granted. For example, if I want to eat nutritiously, I first need to understand how my body works, what it needs and how to decipher between what is nutritious and what is not. Furthermore, I need to learn what is nutritious for my body versus someone else’s. It’s a process. And for me, after being on the journey long enough, I simply discovered that setting my goal of achieving something like paying off a debt was not as inspiring as setting a goal of self-discovery. For me, I learned that the more that I know and understand about myself, the more conscious I will become and with that consciousness the more likely I will know what the next best step is. I discovered along the way that I can influence my outcomes through conscious perception. When I can see the next best step, I do not have to engage guess work. And I found that the only way to have such perception is with self-discovery. Self-truth precedes universal-truth, so the more I know myself, the more I will know everything else.

Lifetime Resolutions give us focus. They give us direction. They also give us a lot more grace and mercy. Learning is infinite and only possible with mistakes. We learn through trial and error. And many times, it is from our errors that we see the answer. In my opinion, New Year’s resolutions are a lot of pressure. They require a lot of will power and tend to come with a lot of misery. I remember diets I’ve been on in the past that involved my will power. I despised the kale and spinach and eventually became rebellious and said, “Fuck it! I am having the brownie!” which of course led to more than one brownie and a vicious cycle of self-loathing. Been there done that and never found any self-confidence or self-worth. I found things like self-love, self-compassion, self-understanding, self-care, self-confidence, self-assurance, meaning, hope, faith, and love on my self-discovery journey. And during this journey, I have found that lasting achievement is possible once we are achieving things for the right reasons.

DO IT FOR THE RIGHT REASON

FAR too many of us are chasing goals to be liked, to be approved of, to be accepted, to belong, to be loved…

“If I win this title, everyone will have to love me.”

“If I make this much money, everyone will approve of me.”

“If I rise to the top, nobody will hate me.”

These are the types of thoughts that often propel people’s New Year’s resolutions and goal setting. They are not about self-care at all. And we wonder why so few can achieve their New Year’s resolutions. Long ago I adopted a self-belief that I would rather be alone and myself than with people. The pain and stress involved in being liked and accepted by others was too great. At one point in my life I accepted that nobody was going to like me. I was unlikable. I of course, later discovered that I was likable to the right people, but before I could discover this, I had to be where I was and so, I accepted that I was unlikable. This simple acceptance freed me because it enabled me to drop all the approval seeking, acceptance seeking, people pleasing behaviors that I was engaging in that were draining all of my time and energy. With those behaviors no longer weighing me down, I could use all that time and energy toward pursuits that actually mattered to me! Along the way, I discovered a liking for myself and with this self-confidence, I quickly found others who liked me too! And what a difference it is to be in relationships with people where I can leave the mask at the door! How much easier it is to just be myself than to pretend! I learned that it was better to be myself and have a handful of people who liked me and accepted me than having to wear around a heavy mask and seek after goals that only drained me and left no lasting joy. Instead I decided to figure out what made me happy and what the ideal life was for me. What this taught me is that Lifetime Resolutions give our lives direction and purpose and with them, there is no need for New Year’s resolutions!

EMBRACE YOURSELF

You ARE lovable, Discoverlies! You ARE worthy! You deserve EVERYTHING that you desire and this New Year’s, I want to learn that you are believing in these truths for yourself and taking action to not let another day go by where you are trapped in old behavior patterns! Embrace who you are right now and believe in who you TRULY are! Believe in your worth to discover who you truly are! Once you believe it, all that’s left to do is take the first step.

I believe in you, Discoverlies!

Much Love!!