I had to take a break from my newsletter last week.
I felt I had nothing clear to share and the only thing that I needed was silence.
After the silence, here me back in music meanwhile I’m writing to you…
If you’ve been reading me before, you should find the sense I have about imperfections. Or not.
I believe since I started the Jay Shetty Certification School to get my coaching certification, I look more intentionally at myself. Not that it was the first time. But the first time with new tools and doing only that.
I started the school a few months after I had moved to Hawai’i. I had moved with my husband who I had met a year before. I thought getting myself into a 6-month program would be a great idea to help me process the grief of my life in NYC and start a new adventure.
Jay’s teaching happened at the perfect time. I was ready to look into myself with curiosity, care and love and finally get over being hard and mean toward myself. Being surrounded by other people who wanted to become coaches to help themselves and others grow and make the world a better place was amazing.
Imagine a place where everyone is open to being vulnerable, who’s not judging, asks powerful questions, shares about their own struggles. And you share that experience for 6 months.
And I think coaching people helped me too, seeing that I’m not the only one who uses a lot of harsh self-talk. “I’m not good at…”, “I’m not enough”, “Why can’t I do what others do…” Add your favorite one.
How we talk to ourselves isn’t something we have in us when we’re born. It’s something that’s been taught by others. Starting with our parents who show the example of how they talk about themselves and how they talk about each other and then how they talk to us. And very fast, through the years it becomes a habit. We see others doing it too and we believe it’s a normal pattern.
Are you aware of how you talk to yourself? Is it with kindness and encouragement or is it with criticism and judgment? Are you gaslighting yourself?
Do you know that the only power and control you have in this world is your mind? Your mindset. Not only how you think, or your belief system but most importantly how you talk to yourself.
If you want to find peace within, you have to start to be your best friend. Especially if you feel that tightness in your stomach. Especially if it feels hard. Like everything that is new, it’s not easy when you start. But it will be eventually. And when you feel better at it, a lot of things will unlock around you. Like how you won’t let anyone talk to you with disrespect. How you find detachment from situations that before felt overwhelming. By checking if your self-talk is based on fact or someone else’s judgment…
So, I started a list of what I believe I’m good at. Because it’s time to empower positivity, self-derision and accept our imperfect imperfections. Let go of the expectations we have of ourselves so we can let go of the ones we have of others.
Here’s what I’m actually good at:
Cooking & improvising dishes.
Learning new languages - Spanish right now.
Photography.
Observing people.
Being curious about anything and everything.
Technology (I learned HTML at 13 in 1996 💾).
Having a weird sense of humor.
Not answering people’s messages (email, text, carrier pigeon).
Being on a phone call (apparently it’s a Millennial thing so it makes me feel better).
Learning new jobs from scratch (I learned the job of executive assistant in finance).
Herbal remedies and natural healing.
Making good friends.
Forgetting birthdays.
Floating on my back in the sea.
Two hour naps.
Understanding people even if I never had the same experience.
Finding treasures in thrift shops.
People pleasing (working on it).
Cutting hair.
Being patient with challenging people...
Your turn. What are the things you’re good at? Make a list.
